One Magic Moment

  She folded the letter up and counted herself well-escaped from a slew of questions she wasn’t about to answer. She looked at him with mock disgust. “I’m not going anywhere with you if you don’t knock that off.”

  He laughed a little, which was almost enough to do in what was left of her last vestiges of sanity, then took her hand. “Let’s go. We’ll just pay like regular rabble, and I won’t poke at you about it.”

  Tess let him pull her across the solar, then shoved the letter at Peaches on her way by. “Read that.” She shot her sister a very brief look of warning she was sure Peaches didn’t miss.

  There was silence as they walked the great hall, then a gasp.

  “I’m not trading places with you anymore!” Peaches hollered.

  “I wouldn’t blame you,” Tess threw over her shoulder, though she hoped Peaches wasn’t serious. Having a double came in handy now and again. She looked up at John. “I don’t want to think about this.” Hopefully, he wouldn’t want to, either.

  “Perhaps today we could both put aside things that trouble us,” he said gravely.

  “Are there things that trouble you, John?” she asked, happy to turn the scrutiny away from herself.

  “Besides you?” he asked with a grave smile. “Yes. A thing or two.”

  “Going to tell me about them?”

  “Not yet.” He nodded toward the door. “Let’s be off on our escape before the thought overwhelms us both.”

  She had already left the hall in Peaches’s care, so she concentrated on doing her best to not think about the complete improbability of walking through the courtyard of her keep with a man related to one of the early lords of Sedgwick. And now she found herself wearing the female version of that title.

  She was definitely going to get in touch with Lord Roland and find out just what he’d been up to while sunning himself on some beach.

  She settled herself in the absolute luxury of John’s car and watched him as he got in, started it up, and backed out of her car park without thought. She continued to watch him as he drove away from the keep and turned onto the main road leading through the village. If he slowed down to eye his shop on the way by, she couldn’t blame him. He frowned thoughtfully and continued on without saying anything.

  Something was definitely up.

  She didn’t imagine she would have any answers about it, though, so she simply watched him and wondered how he felt about having left his own nobility card eight hundred years in the past. She imagined that somehow he just didn’t care. Then again, he was driving a pretty nice car, so maybe he did care about a bit of status more than he wanted to let on.

  He glanced at her, then did a double take when he realized she was studying him, apparently intently enough to make him nervous.

  “What is it?”

  “Just thinking.”

  “That, my lady, is a very dangerous activity.”

  “I thought you weren’t going to poke at me about this,” she said. “This thing that I’m not at all sure is legal or binding.”

  “The crown apparently thinks differently,” he said mildly, “else Bess wouldn’t have had one of her flunkies send you a letter. Best accustom yourself to the deference, I imagine.”

  “Are you going to be deferential to me?” she asked.

  He only lifted an eyebrow and watched the road. “I thought I already was.”

  A noise of disbelief escaped her before she could stop it. He laughed a little, but said nothing. She settled into her seat more comfortably still and watched him, because she knew he knew she was doing it, and she knew it made him slightly nervous.

  “You, woman, are about to earn an afternoon of my ladys,” he warned.

  She smiled. “Why is it, do you think, that we just can’t seem to keep ourselves from annoying each other?”

  He shot her a look. “You don’t annoy me.”

  “I bother you.”

  “Entirely different things, my lady.”

  She watched him a bit longer, wondering how it was he had such perfect teeth—then again, so had Montgomery, so at least Pippa wouldn’t be regretting the lack of orthodontics in the thirteenth century—and had accustomed himself so well to the current day. She wondered how it was he decided which part of his past to allow anyone to see, and what his past had been like, and if he missed it. She wondered how he’d found himself in the future, if he’d known what to expect, if he’d been completely freaked out for as long as it had taken him to get a grip on things.

  And she wondered why he hadn’t tried to get back home.

  For all she knew, he had, though Montgomery certainly hadn’t said anything about it, nor had any of the usual suspects like Kendrick or Gideon. Did he miss his family, or wonder about them, or look them up in history books to see what had happened to them?

  She wondered if, as Peaches had suggested, he was lonely.

  “You’re thinking entirely too hard,” he said mildly, at one point.

  “I’m curious about you.”

  “The saints preserve me,” he said with feeling.

  “French again, John.”

  He blew out his breath gustily. “My family spoke it,” he said briskly.

  She didn’t bother to point out that his version of French wasn’t exactly what she would have heard while slumming in Versailles. She also decided to refrain from further pointing out that it actually sounded a good bit like the medieval Norman French she’d studied at University. She shifted so she could watch him more closely.

  “What do you do?”

  He shot her a quick look. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, what do you do? You own a garage, yet you don’t seem to work in it.”

  “I work,” he protested. “Occasionally. I restore old things.”

  “At the peril of hands that make money playing heavenly music,” she mused. “What are you restoring now?”

  “A ’67 Jag and an old MG.”

  “Even if you sell them, that’s hardly enough to afford this, is it?”

  “I’m not going to make you pay for lunch, if that’s what’s worrying you.”

  She smiled. “I wasn’t worried.”

  He shifted and concentrated more fully on the road. Tess watched him draw stillness around him like a cloak, but since she’d watched him do that half a dozen times before, she wasn’t offended. She was prying, which likely wouldn’t have bothered anyone else, but she understood why it bothered him. She was only surprised that he hadn’t pulled over and shoved her out the door to avoid any further discomfort.

  She wasn’t going to let the possibility of that stop her from posing a few more pointed questions while she had him at her mercy.

  “And?” she prodded.

  He didn’t look at her. “And what?”

  “I’m prying into your finances, which are none of my business.”

  “May I pry as fully into yours?” he asked pleasantly.

  “I’m an open book, my friend. But let’s read your chapter first.”

  He blew his hair out of his eyes. “I had a small inheritance from my father.”

  “Small?”

  He paused at a traffic light at a roundabout and looked at her crossly. “Are you doing this on purpose?”

  “To unbalance you?”

  “Aye.”

  She had to admit, she was becoming altogether too enamored of the way he slipped into the native tongue when he was flustered. She had the feeling she might pay for that enjoyment someday, but since that day was probably safely in the future, she thought she would enjoy it while she could.

  “I’m curious by nature.”

  “It is no doubt what makes you a good scholar,” he said sourly as he pulled out into traffic.

  “No doubt.”

  He passed a pair of cars, swore at them instead of doing what he no doubt wanted to do which was swear at her, then dragged his free hand through his hair. “Very well, it wasn’t a small inheritance and when I converted—I mean, invested it, it tur
ned into a staggering amount of sterling that I’ve stashed cunningly in Switzerland.”

  “I love Switzerland,” she said with a happy sigh.

  “So does my banker.”

  She smiled. “I imagine so.” She paused. “Are you parents gone, then?”

  He took a deep breath, then nodded.

  She reached out and covered his hand on the gearshift briefly. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I won’t go there.”

  He brought her hand to his mouth, kissed it just long enough to make her wonder if she would get over it anytime soon, then put her hand back in her lap.

  “Let’s talk about you and your title instead,” he said, sounding a little hoarse, truth be told.

  “Let’s talk about you and your lute,” she countered.

  “Woman, you are relentless—and aye, I know. It comes with the territory.” He shot her a quick scowl. “Curiosity is dangerous, you know.”

  “What’s the worst that happens?” she asked with a faint smile. “You wouldn’t drop me off on the side of the road, I don’t think.”

  “I might,” he muttered.

  “You wouldn’t. You could, I suppose, refuse to talk to me, but I’ve already enjoyed that on that trip back from London. I’d survive it again.”

  He was silent for a moment or two, then he reached for her hand. He put it palm down on his leg, then covered it with his own. “I was uncomfortable.”

  “With me?”

  “Yes.” He looked at her briefly. “I apologize for being impolite.”

  “You’ve made up for it since.”

  “Aye, by herding you and bossing you and forcing you to let me lock your doors,” he said with a half smile. “Chivalry at its finest.”

  “Actually, yes,” she agreed, “it was, and you’re very good at avoiding questions you don’t want to answer.”

  “I don’t want to answer your questions.”

  “They aren’t hard questions, John.”

  He frowned at the car in front of him, then managed to make a production of passing a few cars and a few motorway exits. Tess would have pulled her hand back while he was otherwise occupied with shifting, but he captured it before she could.

  She was, she could safely say, in the very deepest of trouble.

  “And?” she prodded after the silence had gone on a little too long for her comfort.

  He sighed gustily. “My grandmother insisted that I learn the lute. I had lessons. There is all the answer you’re going to have.”

  She wondered who his grandmother had been and from just whom he’d had lessons. For all she knew, it had been someone famous. He certainly played well enough for that to be the case.

  “Will you play for me again?” she asked.

  “The guitar?”

  She shook her head. “No, the lute.”

  “For your guests tonight?” he asked.

  “No,” she said quietly, “some other night. Just for me.”

  He swore as he came near to rear-ending someone in front of him. He said nothing more until they had driven up the very small road to the car park and he had managed to get them safely stopped. He turned off his car, then took her hand in both his own and looked down at it for a moment or two in silence. Then he looked at her.

  “If you like,” he said.

  “I like.”

  “I can play modern music as well, if you’d rather.”

  She considered. “I don’t mind the occasional art song, or perhaps even the odd madrigal.” She smiled. “I like medieval music best.”

  He leaned back against the door. “With all the music that came afterward, you settle for that?”

  “Surprisingly enough, yes, but I’ll happily enjoy whatever inspires you. Next week, when we see each other again.”

  “I’m not sure we’ll make it to next week.”

  “It would be more prudent that way.”

  “Prudence be damned.”

  She fanned herself with her other hand. “A little warm in here, isn’t it?”

  He smiled a little, released her hand, then put his hand on the door. “I’ll get your door for you.”

  “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

  “As a countess, you shouldn’t.”

  “That does it—”

  He caught her hand before she could get it on the handle. “I’ll get your door, Tess. Wait for me.”

  She knew she was crazy to, but apparently she’d left her good sense back there in her castle along with the letter telling her about her newly acquired title. She only nodded and watched him crawl out of his car, a perfectly modern man dressed in jeans and a sweater. She wondered if Montgomery missed him. She wished there were a way to get word to his parents that he was alive and apparently not unhappy in the future.

  She wished she’d known him for longer than just a pair of weeks.

  He opened her door for her, helped her out of the car, then looked at her in surprise.

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing,” she managed.

  He considered, then shut the door, locked the car, and pocketed the keys. Then he drew her into his arms, as if she were the one who needed comfort. She put her arms around his waist again and stood there in his embrace until she thought she would either tell him she thought she might just be crazy about him or burst into tears. She took a deep breath, then stepped back.

  “Not prudent,” she managed.

  He looked at her gravely. “Likely not.” He reached out and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “And just so you know, that’s the last of the embraces you’ll wring out of me today.”

  She couldn’t help a smile. “You are an awful man.”

  “Yet there you are.”

  “Here I am,” she agreed.

  He put his arm around her shoulders and turned her with him toward the entrance. “Let’s go distract ourselves with some sixteenth-century grandeur. Just keep in mind I absolutely refuse to snog with you. I’m not even sure I can be prevailed upon to hold hands. We’ll see.”

  “I was just going to say the same thing.”

  He laughed a little and tugged her along with him.

  It was madness, absolute madness.

  She understood, however, just how it was that Pippa had done the unthinkable and fallen for John’s brother in such a short time.

  She was very much afraid she was about to do the same thing.

  Chapter 12

  John wondered how it was that a man of medieval birth went about wooing a woman from the Future.

  He had, over the years, wished he could have had a few minutes of conversation with his brothers, but he’d never wished for it more than he did at present. He’d watched Robin fall in love with his wife, but she’d been of their time and she’d had Robin’s heart for years. Miles had wed himself a gel of unusual heritage, as had his brother Nicholas, but he’d been too stupid at the time to think he might hope for the same for himself. He supposed his father had foisted some wench of noble birth off on Montgomery who had no doubt already sired himself a handful of brats to be tormented by.

  The thought was, John found to his surprise, a bit more painful than he’d anticipated.

  He looked at his Future gel and wondered how it was he would go about winning her. She was currently trying to lean over a rope that separated her from Queen Elizabeth I’s reputedly favorite bed without looking as if she were leaning over the rope that separated her from QEI’s favorite napping spot. John smiled politely at the National Truster who was frowning severely in their direction, then did Tess the favor of hooking a finger through the belt loop of her jeans so if she pitched forward, she wouldn’t bloody her nose.

  “Thanks,” she whispered conspiratorially.

  “My pleasure, believe me.”

  She pursed her lips at his tone. “Scoundrel.”

  If she only knew. He released her trousers and reached for her hand when she’d finished her investigations, but he doubted she’d noticed. She was far too busy maki
ng mental notes of things she’d no doubt seen before. Why she was so interested in it all at present, he couldn’t have said.

  “Haven’t you been here before?” he asked after the third chamber in which he’d had to cover for her nosiness.

  “With Peaches, who doesn’t have the patience for this sort of thing,” she said, looking at him apologetically. “She would rather stand in the middle of the room, close her eyes, and take a reading on the feng-shui quotient of what she’s seeing. I’m not entirely sure she doesn’t have a paranormal meter running as well.”

  “Ghosts?” he said with a snort. “What rubbish.”

  She only lifted her eyebrows briefly and turned to focus on yet another bit of weaving.

  He surrendered and resigned himself to holding on to her trousers.

  It was a long morning.

  “Lunch?” he suggested hopefully, when it seemed they had examined at least half the bedchambers and most of the common rooms.

  “Briefly.”

  “I wonder what would happen if you studied me as intently as you have the tapestries?” he asked politely.

  “If I subjected you to the same sort of scrutiny I have QEI’s bedclothes,” she said with a smile, “you would bolt the other way.”

  “I would not,” he protested.

  “Shall we test that?”

  “Nay,” he said, shifting uncomfortably.

  She turned to look at him fully, which left him longing rather more than he would have suspected for those moments when she’d been studying tapestries and carvings.

  “I thought you didn’t want this thing moving too quickly,” she said seriously.

  He started to pull her into his arms, but he was interrupted by the pointed throat clearing of yet another National Trust do-gooder. He looked at Tess. “Never sell your hall to the government.”

  “I won’t.”

  “At least there I can maul you without being harrumphed at.”

  She smiled and took his arm. “I think you need to be fed. You’re starting to get a little cranky. And we don’t have to look at all the rest today if you don’t want to.”

  “The saints be praised,” he said, though he wasn’t entirely serious about it. He had to admit he enjoyed a good historical sight as well as the next Englishman, though if he were to be entirely honest with himself, he enjoyed the sight of Tess more. Traipsing through the past in jeans and boots was simply a decent excuse to have more of that last part.