“Pippa,” he said in surprise, catching her by the arm.
She realized he’d had to do that because she’d almost gone down to her knees. She managed to avoid that, but somehow she didn’t manage to keep from bursting into trembles like another might have burst into tears.
It was PMS. That and the stress of just thinking about having to work under the burden of immense success for the rest of her life. It was no wonder she was beginning to crack under the pressure of just the thought of all the glory. It certainly had nothing to do with the fact that she’d just been wrapped in the arms of a rugged, chivalrous medieval lord who wasn’t going to see the far side of thirty.
“Pippa, what ails you?” he asked softly.
She shook her head and shook a bit more. She didn’t protest when he took her face in his hands and kissed her cheeks.
And her mouth.
That was enough to snap her smartly back to reality. “Miss Mousey would definitely not approve of that,” she said in surprise.
He looked particularly unrepentant. In fact, he was still looking at her mouth. He bent his head and brushed her lips again with his, very softly. “We must talk.”
She supposed they must, and the sooner the better. She didn’t protest when he took her hand and strode back toward the keep. She trotted along with him wherever he wanted to go partly because she was still floored by that unexpected kiss and partly because it had just become a bad habit. She was really going to have to get back in touch with her inner diva or the man was going to run roughshod over her for the rest of however long she knew him.
“Might we find water first?” he asked as he burst into the great hall, towing her along after him. “I don’t much care for the bubbling business for it tastes like dust, but I do like whatever tart thing that was you squeezed into my water last night at the restaurant.”
“Lemon,” she managed.
“Aye, lemon. Does your sister have one, do you suppose? I brought gold along—”
“Tess can spare a lemon or two to keep you happy,” she said, quite happy herself that he’d finally slowed down a little bit. “I’ll make you an entire pitcher of it if you like.”
He apparently liked because ten minutes later, he had gulped down a pitcher of unsweetened lemonade and was looking around surreptitiously for more. Pippa allowed Peaches to make the second batch because her hands were shaking too badly to do it. If Peaches noticed—which Pippa was quite certain she had—she at least had the good sense not to say anything.
Montgomery, however, was not so discreet. Pippa found him watching her with a very grave expression on his face. She scowled at him, but his expression didn’t change. He still watched her as if he had something terrible on his mind that he wasn’t quite sure he should talk to her about.
She had to look away. Maybe he regretted coming to the future; maybe he regretted having kissed her. She didn’t know and she wasn’t sure she cared. She wasn’t irritated with him; she was irritated with herself for having fallen, she realized, quite fully in love with him, she was annoyed that he’d come all the way to her time just to eat his way through Tess’s pantry, and she was furious that instead of punching him, what she wanted to do was find a corner, curl up in it, and bawl her eyes out.
Montgomery turned to Peaches. “If you’ll excuse us, sister, we’re off for a walk. I promise to drink all you’ve so skillfully prepared later, however, and relish every sip.”
Peaches simpered under the compliment like the bamboozled feng shui-er she was, but Pippa was unmoved. She jammed her hands in her jeans because that’s where they were most comfortable, ignored the arm Montgomery offered her, then limited herself to a bit of mild stomping as he led her out of the kitchen. He walked around the courtyard for a few minutes, simply looking around himself as if he strove to memorize what he saw.
Pippa almost felt sorry for him then. His version of Sedgwick was such a wreck. It had to have been difficult to look at it in all its twenty-first-century glory, with running water and flush toilets and stables that had obviously been built by a man with lots of money and a great affection for those going on four legs. Apparently Montgomery agreed with the last because he walked with her over to those stables and down the aisle. He stopped at an empty stall and leaned his forearms against it.
“We could leave now for Artane,” he said, finally. “If I could borrow Stephen’s automobile.”
“Over his dead body, probably.”
Montgomery shot her a quick smile. “Aye, that was what he said earlier when I suggested the like.”
She took a deep breath, then blurted out what she really hadn’t intended to say. “I can’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“This,” she said, waving helplessly between them.
He frowned. “This what?”
Could he really be that dense? Pippa was just sure he couldn’t, but then again, she wondered about herself sometimes, too. “I can’t do this thing where we pretend that we’re just friends,” she said, through gritted teeth. “Where we pretend that your stupid fiancée doesn’t exist, and where I continue to pretend the fact that you’re engaged to someone else doesn’t bother the hell out of me.”
There, she’d said it. He could do with it what he wanted, but it was out there in the air between them. Foolishly, unadvisedly, hopelessly perhaps, but out there where he could examine it for himself and hopefully fill in the blanks that it wasn’t just driving her crazy, it was breaking what was left of her heart. The craziest thing of all was how hard she’d fallen for him. He was out of her league and she was out of his time. It was the worst case of star-crossed non-lovers she had ever—
“I never lie.”
It took her a moment to have what he’d said register in her poor overworked brain. She blinked. “What did you say?”
“I do not lie,” he said. “Ever.”
“And what in the world does that have to do with any of this?” she asked incredulously.
He shrugged. “I thought you might find it interesting.”
Well, why not? She had spilled her guts, and he was changing the subject. She waved him on because if she’d opened her mouth again, she would have chewed his head off.
“I have,” he continued, “actually prided myself on and made my mother quite happy by never telling a falsehood. But I told one on the night your sister tried to drag me into that full- blown farce of a marriage.”
She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what it was—
“I am not betrothed.”
That took another moment or two to sink in. When it did, she felt her mouth fall open. “What?”
He turned to lean his hip against the stall door. “I am not betrothed.”
“Then why did you say you were?” she asked in surprise.
“Because, apart from the fact that I did not wish to wed your sister, the truth is I love someone else.”
Pippa wasn’t sure what was worse, that he had been fake engaged, or that she’d wasted days and days being jealous of a fiancée who didn’t exist only to now find out that that mousey nonexistent wench didn’t matter because he was in love with yet another girl who wasn’t her.
She shouldn’t have been surprised. If she managed to survive the length of time it took to find that time gate and shove him through it so she didn’t have to look at him any longer and have her heart break with every glance, she was never, ever going to read another fairy tale for as long as she lived. She looked away, because she just couldn’t look at him anymore.
“Why aren’t you taking her to Artane?” she asked, before she thought better of it.
“I’m trying to.”
Pippa could hardly believe her ears. Not only could the lout stand there, bold as brass, and spend all that time with her when what he really wanted to be doing was taking the woman he loved . . .
Her silent rant slowed to an awkward halt.
Realization started to bloom, tentatively, a bit like a rose that wasn’t quite sure spring
had arrived. It took a minute, but what he’d said finally sank in.
He was trying to?
She looked over her shoulder just to be sure, but no, she was the only one in the stable. She looked back at Montgomery, who was watching her solemnly and a bit hesitantly. She pointed to herself and raised her eyebrows questioningly.
He nodded.
She swallowed, hard. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I just did.”
She suppressed the renewed urge to punch him. He must have seen the thought cross her face because he laughed a little, then pulled her into his arms.
“ ’Tis madness, Persephone,” he said, holding her close, “and I am likely damned for having said anything at all. I just know what my life was like that se’nnight when you were gone.”
“That’s not encouraging, Montgomery, considering you were unconscious for most of that week.”
He buried his face in her hair. “Come to Artane with me,” he whispered. “I’m not asking for an answer now on anything else. I’m not sure I could bear to hear it even if you were inclined to give it, lest it be something less than I hope for.” He lifted his head and looked down at her seriously. “Please come with me.”
“I’m pretty sure Stephen won’t let you drive,” she said breathlessly.
“Then you drive. That will give me ample opportunity to lust after you.”
“Stop that,” she said, feeling her cheeks grow rather hot.
He smiled and took her hand. “Let us take it day by day. I may like it so much here in the future that I’ll wish to remain. Surely your sister could use a good stable lad.”
She shook her head. “You need your hall.”
“I need you more.”
She felt her mouth fall open, watched him laugh at her, then found herself trotting along obediently after him when he pulled her toward the great hall, as if she’d never had an independent thought in her head.
“We could take your sisters with us to the past,” he said as he opened the door for her.
“I don’t know if Peaches could give up chocolate-covered doughnuts.”
“Doughnuts?” he asked, looking intensely interested.
“We’ll grab some at the store on the way north.”
He looked absolutely thrilled by the idea. Apparently Montgomery de Piaget was on vacation and he had no plans to stick to his diet. She could only hope he wouldn’t fast food himself to death.
He asked Peaches to give him a take-away version of her lemonade, instructed Pippa to pack quickly, then headed off to make use of Stephen’s en suite facilities.
She tossed a few things in her backpack, took a deep breath, then went downstairs to wait for the man she wasn’t entirely sure wasn’t going to poach the keys to Stephen’s very expensive sports car and refuse to give them back.
Stephen was loitering near the lord’s table with Tess and Peaches, looking slightly unsettled. Pippa set her backpack down on the table.
“I think we’re going on a little trip.”
“So I understand,” Stephen said faintly.
“What’s wrong, Stephen?” she asked lightly. “Too much swordplay this morning?”
“Though I have been shown the depths of my deficiencies,” he said, taking a deep breath, “what worries me more is the deficiencies that will be left in the fenders of my car if I let my uncle anywhere near it.”
“Pippa hasn’t wrecked anything lately but her scooter,” Peaches offered, “but the totaling of that wasn’t her fault.”
Stephen looked pained. “Couldn’t you two take the train—no, don’t answer that. I think you might be safer in the car.” He looked at Pippa. “I phoned my father this morning and told him to expect you. He was happy to host you and who I told him was a long-lost cousin. I’m sure our good Montgomery will soften the blow when he arrives.”
“You like him,” Pippa said with a smile.
“Who wouldn’t?” Stephen asked. “Of course, that assumes that he doesn’t distract you so thoroughly that you plow my car into a tree.”
“Stephen, I can’t drive your car.”
“You’re more qualified than he is,” Stephen said with a snort, “and given that I’m quite sure my uncle will not want me along as any sort of chauffeur, despite my edifying conversation and the potential for hacking at me with his sword, I think I’ll make sure—” He looked over her head, then scowled. “There he is with my keys, damn him to hell.”
Pippa laughed as she turned around, then she stopped laughing abruptly when she got an eyeful of Montgomery in his preferred future uniform. The truth was, the man had been made to wear jeans. She wasn’t sure where Stephen had gotten those lovingly broken-in button-fly Levi’s, but it had been a great acquisition. Montgomery was wearing the hell out of them, along with a T-shirt with medieval geopolitical warfare expert written on it—obviously something else of Stephen’s—and a jacket and backpack slung over his shoulder. If she hadn’t known better, she would have sworn he had been born in her time. What she did know was that she would have turned backflips to have had him look at her twice.
As he was doing presently.
“That doesn’t look like a man in love with someone else,” Tess murmured.
“He just told me he was never engaged,” Pippa murmured back. “It was self-defense to get out of marrying Cindi.”
“I could have told you that much,” Peaches said with a snort. “And don’t look now, but I think he has plans for you, sis.”
Pippa agreed. She blushed furiously as Montgomery walked over to her, took her hand, then bent over it and kissed it. Her sisters were making strangled noises of appreciation, which Pippa understood completely.
She was in big trouble. She was beginning to seriously consider the thought of medieval fashion world domination and, frankly, that was really rather frightening. What would she do without Peaches and Tess and big brown trucks delivering vintage goods right to her doorstep? For all she knew, she would be the vintage goods.
Montgomery leaned close and whispered in her ear. “One day at a time, Persephone.” He pulled back far enough to look at her seriously. “Nothing is fixed.”
“Are you telling me you’re fickle?” she asked breathlessly.
“I wasn’t talking about my affections. I was speaking of the location of their consummation.”
Stephen cleared his throat. “I hate to interrupt, but, Montgomery, old man, you’re going to leave her unable to drive if you don’t cease with that.”
Montgomery straightened and patted his pocket. “My ultimate plan.”
“You are not driving my Mercedes,” Stephen said firmly.
“You have no license, and no, you may not claim mine, no matter how much we resemble each other.”
Pippa watched Montgomery consider, then sigh heavily.
“Very well,” he conceded reluctantly. “The reins are hers.”
Pippa looked at a suddenly much-less-stressed Stephen. “Any advice from you?”
“Be ginger on the clutch, don’t speed, and call me if you need more funds. I left you a few quid under the seat.”
“I have gold,” Montgomery said stiffly.
Stephen shot him a look. “When I come to visit your hall, my lord, you can fête me all you like. When you’re in my world, I will see to your expenses.”
Montgomery looked at Pippa. “I will leave him gold.”
“I imagined you would.”
Montgomery walked around the table to shake hands with his nephew, then took Pippa’s gear from her. She looked over her shoulder to see Stephen, Tess, and Peaches watching her with smiles. She waved, then followed Montgomery out of the castle to where Stephen’s car was parked. Montgomery opened the trunk as if he’d been doing it his entire life, then shut it and lovingly stroked the silver-gray metal.
“Ah, what a beauty,” he said with a manly sigh.
“Gimme the keys,” she said, holding out her hand.
He took that hand, then pulled her into his
arms. “If I kissed you long enough, do you suppose you might forget my nephew’s instructions?”
“I wouldn’t. He’ll kill us both if we wreck his car. I think he’s very fond of it.”
He sighed lightly, then bent his head and kissed her very chastely on the cheek. “I’ll wear you down.”
“Oh, please don’t try,” she said with an uneasy laugh. “I’m not sure I can get us out of the car park as it is now.”
“You will surrender to me eventually, Persephone. Eventually.”
She had to clutch his arms to stay on her feet. “Are we still talking about the car?”
He kissed the end of her nose, then put the keys into her hand. “You’ll see.”
Pippa managed to get herself into the car without incident, though she was the first to admit she wasn’t all that steady and took a deep breath before she attempted anything more serious. She reached for the gearshift to put the car in neutral only to find the gearshift was on the wrong side of her. The pedals were in the right place, but the rearview mirror was angled the wrong way, the wipers and blinkers were opposite, and she dropped the keys three times before she managed to get them in the ignition. Then Montgomery slid into his seat, shut the door, and began to purr.
“The car?” she asked.
“Nay, you.” He paused. “Mostly.”
She laughed in spite of herself. He was honest, at least. And he wanted to take her to a place his father had built from scratch so she could see what his own keep could look like in time.
“We’ll take our time, Persephone.”
She assumed he was talking about more than getting to Artane, took a deep breath, then concentrated on getting out of the car park without clipping Stephen’s side-view mirror on Tess’s car. She did take one last look at Montgomery before she really got going. She could hardly believe he was sitting there, but there he sat, watching her with a small smile.