A medieval historian who could, it seemed, do more than just hand out Chaucerian reading assignments.
“What are you telling that guy?” she asked finally.
“That you’re a wizard,” Stephen threw over his shoulder. “Alchemize something, would you?”
“Like what?” she asked in surprise.
“I don’t know, make something up! Something medieval.”
“I already thought about that,” she said defensively, “and having neither tie-dye nor organic compost to hand, I decided that I would have to rely on the old standby of being a fairy.”
He shot her a dark look over his shoulder. “Well, then be the queen of the fairies, would you? You’ve the face for it.”
She blinked. “Was that a compliment?”
“I think so,” Stephen said, dredging up more skill from some well that Ian MacLeod had no doubt helped him dig.
Peaches found herself suddenly with her arms full of Stephen’s coat that he’d shrugged out of.
“Put that on,” was his only comment.
Well, she wasn’t going to argue with that. She wrapped it around herself, tried not to enjoy too much the faint smell of whatever woodsy sort of cologne he had at some point worn while wearing it, and wished for shoes. She did the best she could with a pile of rotting leaves and suppressed a yawn as she waited for Stephen to finish up.
It occurred to her as time wore on that she could understand quite a bit of the conversation being carried on along with the sword fight.
“You’re one of Artane’s bastards, aren’t you?” the lord of Kenneworth snarled.
Stephen didn’t bother to respond.
“Why don’t you answer?” the other man said in exasperation.
“Because you’re not worth the breath,” Stephen said calmly. “Whoever you are.”
Well, that didn’t go over well. Peaches wished she’d had pen and paper to write down a few of the things she’d heard. Tess would have wanted them for her collection of medieval slurs.
“Who am I?” Stephen’s opponent said, dropping his sword for a moment. “You mean, you don’t know?”
“Don’t know, don’t care,” Stephen said with a shrug.
“I am Hubert of Kenneworth!” Hubert of Kenneworth shouted. “And my hall is every bit as fine as Robin of Artane’s—”
Stephen laughed. “You can’t be serious.”
The current lord of Kenneworth was apparently very serious. He attacked with a renewed vigor that actually had Stephen backing up a pace or two.
And the unthinkable happened.
His sword broke off at the hilt.
Hubert of Kenneworth laughed. “That shows you—”
He stopped talking, and he stopped talking because he’d been treated to Stephen’s fist in his mouth.
It didn’t take long after that for him to be folding up like a cheap lawn chair. He smacked his head against a rock as he landed, and the sound was very loud in the stillness of the morning. Peaches would have asked Stephen if he was going to check to see if the first lord of Kenneworth was okay, but Stephen was apparently not interested in finding that out. He turned, took her by the hand, and pulled.
“Wait,” she said, wincing as she stumbled after him. “I lost my shoe.”
He blew his hair out of his eyes. “Where?”
“Well, if I knew where, it wouldn’t be lost, would it?”
He looked at her, blinked, then smiled.
And the sun came out from wherever it had been hiding for the past twenty-eight years of her life.
She would have paused to admire all the things she had grudgingly admired about the perfection of his face and form, but she was too busy being pulled into his arms.
She didn’t burst into tears because she wasn’t a weeper. But she did gulp quite a bit as she clutched the back of his riding jacket. And she let herself enjoy a glorious, impossible, perfect moment in the arms of a man who was trembling slightly with something.
“Are you afraid?” she whispered.
“Freezing, rather.”
“You can take back—”
“No,” he said, rubbing her back with one hand, “I shan’t. I brought the coat for you anyway.”
She took a shaky breath. “You came for me?”
“Of course.”
“How did you know where to come find me?”
“I’ll tell you when we’re safely away from wherever we are. And I believe your shoe is over there, though you might prefer the bedroom slippers I shoved into the pockets of that coat. Fortunately we don’t have far to go.” He released her far enough to look at her. “There’s a gate in David’s garden.”
“I gathered as much.”
“We’ll talk about that later, too. Among other things,” he added.
She wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but she was thoroughly unnerved by the look he sent along with the words. It was a very serious look that she wasn’t sure she liked the looks of.
“Will we?” she asked with an attempt at lightness as he released her completely to go fetch her shoe. “It was such a glorious night I’m not sure I’m equal to discussing it.”
He shot her another look she couldn’t quite decipher, so she didn’t try. Perhaps he thought she wasn’t good enough for David Preston. Maybe he thought she shouldn’t be hobnobbing at any society parties.
Or maybe he was kneeling down to put slippers that were too big on her feet that were too frozen to care, and she just couldn’t focus on whatever it was he had to say to her. If he would just stop touching her, she would be able to think clearly.
He rose, handed her the slightly worse-for-wear pump she’d managed to bring to medieval England with her, then looked around them and frowned at the damage he’d done to the locals. At least they were all still breathing, which she thought was a good thing. Stephen picked up the two halves of his broken sword, then looked at her.
“I could carry you back.”
“It isn’t far.”
He nodded, then looked at the glorified lean-to that was Kenneworth House and frowned. “I think we should run, so we aren’t seen. I would try to wait until tonight, but—”
“No, let’s just go,” she said with a shiver. She could last another fifteen minutes, but the thought of spending the entire day in medieval England was just a little more than she could take.
He took the hilt and the blade—which even she could see was as dull as a round rock—in one hand, then took her hand in his other. She ignored how pleasant that was and concentrated on keeping her almost useless feet going in the right direction. She glanced at the hut that was a bit closer than she was comfortable with and frowned.
“I didn’t realize I’d gotten so far away from the house,” she said slowly.
“The lord’s helpers were trying to toss you back in the forest so the fairies would come claim you. Apparently you made quite an impression on them.”
“What a great bunch of guys,” she said happily.
He looked at her and smiled again, faintly. She decided right then that getting mixed up with the future Earl of Artane in any century would be extremely hazardous to her mental health. He looked remarkably like John de Piaget, but he was older, more serious, and somehow almost more gorgeous, if that were possible. When he smiled that little smile, she wanted to sit down—
“The first lord of Kenneworth, whom we just had the pleasure of encountering,” he said, interrupting her thoughts, “thought you were certainly lovely enough to be a fairy, but he used his superior intellect to determine that you were merely a woman who was lost. He was offering quite politely to take you home and warm you up.”
“I can only imagine,” Peaches said faintly.
“I suggest you don’t.”
She continued on with him for another twenty paces before she cleared her throat. “It must run in the family.”
“Lecherous tendencies?” Stephen asked politely.
“Yes.”
He didn’t answer. He
only squeezed her hand slightly and continued along a path she couldn’t see. She could tell, however, when they’d reached the appropriate patch of ground—and not just because the snow had been trampled quite thoroughly there.
Stephen stopped, glanced at the house, then looked down at the ground. He kept hold of her, dug around a bit with his toe, then swore. While he was doing that, she thought she might as well keep watch. She looked over at Kenneworth Hovel, then swore.
A lone horseman was galloping toward them.
Stephen cursed, but it was in French, so it added a certain cachet to the moment. He threw the hilt of the sword with surprising velocity right at the man’s nose, then pulled the man off the horse as he reached down to strike at him with a pole. He caught the horse and swung up onto its back, then turned around and made straight for her. Peaches ripped more of her skirts as she made a grab for his arm and pulled herself up behind him. It was messy and undignified, but she supposed it was for the best.
“This might be their only horse,” she pointed out as they galloped off.
“It might be,” he agreed.
“You don’t mind changing history?” she asked.
“Not when I don’t like the alternative.”
Which she supposed was her ending up being warmed up by the current lord of Kenneworth and Stephen meeting his end on any number of rustic blades. She thanked Stephen for his pains, had a grunt in return, and decided the best thing to do was just hold on and see what the rest of the day brought. She could only hope it included a return to a hot fire and something decent to eat.
Because landing in the past and having to stay there was just not for her. She didn’t want to do the Cinderella thing with soot and ashes and unidentifiable meat products under sauce. She wanted to get back home where she could complain about British packaged food and American chocolate. She was cold, tired, and finding herself in the alarming position of having kind thoughts about the Viscount Haulton. Seeing him out of his school uniform had allowed her to see him in an entirely different light.
An entirely more favorable light.
She wondered absently if he were changing himself to suit the times, or if the man currently on display was who he was all the time. Maybe he was forced to hide everything he really was under tweed and proper manners.
“Warm enough for the moment?” he asked over his shoulder.
“Yes, thank you.”
He patted her arm that was around his waist, then concentrated on getting them wherever it was he was taking them. She didn’t dare ask.
She was simply glad it had been Stephen to come rescue her.
Chapter 14
Stephen watched a lad trot off into the distance on the horse he himself had pilfered the day before. It wasn’t that he particularly wanted to walk any farther, it was that he thought it best to leave that lord of Kenneworth no reason to pursue them any longer. If nothing else, perhaps the return of the horse would distract those with less than altruistic thoughts of murder and mayhem.
Because the unfortunate truth was, they were only a dozen miles from Kenneworth House as it stood in either century and that was certainly close enough to be overtaken. Stephen hadn’t minded exercising a few of his hard-won sword skills, but he hadn’t had to kill anyone and preferred to keep it that way.
Though if it came down to the choice between the life of a medieval inhabitant of any station and Peaches, he knew the choice he would make.
That had surprised him, that rush that went through him at the thought of anyone harming her. He had to admit that he had watched the medieval expats in his family on the occasions that presented themselves, just to see how they were dealing with the modern world. In all the men, he had sensed an undercurrent that he hadn’t understood at the time, but he most definitely understood now. Even though the skirmish that morning had lasted only half an hour at best, he knew he would never be the same again.
“Where now?”
He looked at Peaches standing in front of him, swathed in his coat, and wearing his slippers, shivering as if she were standing there in short sleeves. He honestly wasn’t sure she wouldn’t find herself with pneumonia in the end once they returned home.
If they could return home.
He realized as he stood there under a tree and shivered right along with her that he had gravely miscalculated the simple perils of the time period. He had intended, in spite of Zachary’s warnings to the contrary, to simply go back, fetch Peaches, and be home within the hour. He’d shoved apples in his pockets, but nothing more substantial, and he hadn’t prepared either of them for the weather. That didn’t begin to address the fact that she looked like a princess and he looked like a Regency gentleman, which wasn’t precisely current-day dress.
He was, he had to admit to himself, rather an idiot.
And the only other thing that he would tell anyone who would listen was never to have anything to do with Kenneworth or its environs. The gate had been stubborn when he’d tried to come through it and completely unresponsive when he’d tried to get himself and Peaches back to their proper time and place. Add that to the ridiculous lack of proper weaponry inside the hall itself, and it was no wonder none of the de Piagets had wanted anything to do with anyone of their ilk. The sheer frustration of navigating all of the craziness to be found there was enough to keep him away in the future.
He wondered if Peaches possibly felt the same way.
“Stephen?”
He smiled reflexively at the sound of his name from her before he managed to school his features into something less delighted-looking. “Yes?”
“You were saying?”
He pulled himself back to their present dilemma. The gate at Kenneworth hadn’t worked, and the other rather close but reputedly fickle portal—again, close enough to Kenneworth that their influence was obviously being felt—had been likewise unresponsive to their pleas. That had left Stephen with no choice but to look farther afield, which was why he was where he hoped he was, namely within a quarter mile of a third possibility. Finding an inn in the area had been nothing short of a miracle.
“I believe there’s an inn over there,” he said, nodding in that direction. “I think we should take our chances with supper, then spend a few minutes in front of the fire before we make another attempt.”
She nodded numbly, which he couldn’t blame her for. He took her hand without thinking, then realized he didn’t particularly want to let her go. She didn’t seem completely opposed to the action, though, so he didn’t make any mention of it. They were both under a fair bit of duress, so perhaps it was just the situation throwing them together that resulted in closeness.
Or it could have been that he was ruthlessly and without remorse taking advantage of the fact that she was too distracted to realize what he was doing. He was more than happy to hold her hand while she was otherwise distracted.
It was only as he was standing in front of the bar, getting ready to get them a meal, that he realized there was something standing in the way of feeding his lady and that something happened to be the fact that he had no funds.
He was, he would readily admit, not exactly at his best at the moment.
He was just putting his brain in gear to try to come up with some way to actually pay for food—and not curse himself for not having thought to bring anything to use in bartering—when his elbow was bumped.
“No need to pay,” said a lad who was quite suddenly at his side. “Them young lords by the fire gave me coin for ’im and ’is lady. Meals and drinks.”
Stephen wasn’t sure what current-day protocol demanded, but he supposed a very brief thanks wasn’t out of order. He could only hope he could manage it intelligently.
He nodded to the innkeeper, then walked over to where two men were sitting at a table closest to the fire. Stephen studied them as he walked, wishing he had spent a bit more time ignoring his professors during college and more time listening to the damned ghosts in his father’s hall to determine what an authen
tic medieval Norman French accent should sound like.
He decided as he paused and inclined his head slightly that he was going to have to take Kendrick de Piaget out for a very expensive dinner the first chance he had. That he had even a slim hope of not sounding like a complete foreigner was only thanks to his uncle’s mocking him endlessly in the garden about his French.
One of the men rose and held out a chair for Peaches, who hesitated, then shuffled over to sit in it. Stephen sat as well and tried to initiate a bit of polite conversation.
Their new friends didn’t seem inclined to do anything but attend to their suppers.
Stephen examined his meal in a purely academic way, then decided that was unwise. He wasn’t sure what they were about to eat, and he could only hope what they would wash it down with wouldn’t kill them both. Their companions seemed to find nothing amiss with their suppers. They ate with enthusiasm, though they seemed to be careful to keep their faces hidden by the hoods of their cloaks. Stephen looked at Peaches, who only shrugged at him helplessly.
He cleared his throat, gearing up to broach some sort of innocuous topic, when one of the men banged his cup down on the table and whispered something to his companion. With a good e’en to you both, the two stood up and beat a hasty retreat through what Stephen could only assume were the kitchens. He might have been curious enough at another time to ask one of the other patrons what all the fuss had been about, but given his current time and place, he supposed it was just best to keep his mouth shut. He moved wooden trenchers and cups aside, wondering absently if anyone would notice if he simply poached a pair for his office, then took the seat next to Peaches.
“That was interesting,” he murmured.
“I don’t think we’re through with interesting,” Peaches managed. She slid a sheaf of paper toward him. “They left this behind. On purpose, I think.”
He took it, unfolded it, then came close to dropping it in his surprise.
It was a map.