One Magic Moment

  He decided abruptly that that was something he could certainly think about later.

  He walked out into the passageway, had to think for a moment or two about where he was in Nicholas’s keep, then headed toward Tess’s bedchamber. He supposed he could have found it easily enough by the sight of the guardsman standing just outside it. He paused and waited for the man to acknowledge him.

  “Lord John,” the man said, inclining his head immediately. “Sir Ranulf, at your service. And your lady’s.”

  John almost smiled at the title, but supposed there was no reason in giving Nicholas’s guardsmen more reason than they already had to speculate about him. He nodded toward the door. “Is Lady Tess still inside, then?”

  “She hasn’t left the chamber, my lord, and I’ve been here since the second watch.”

  “ ’Twas a difficult journey here,” John conceded, “and I’m sure she’s very weary. I appreciate your attending her. I’ll happily relieve you now.”

  Sir Ranulf hesitated. “As you will, of course, my lord, but my lord Wyckham thought you might prefer to break your fast with him below and perhaps seek the lists. I’ve assigned a rotation of lads to keep watch here and escort your lady to you when she wakes.”

  John thought about balking, then relented. The truth was Tess needed a fortnight’s sleep, which she wouldn’t have if he poked his nose inside her door every quarter hour. She would be safe enough with his brother’s guardsmen watching over her.

  He nodded to Sir Ranulf, then thanked him again for his service before he continued down the passageway. He would have felt better if he’d known Tess’s door was locked from the inside, but he knew it wasn’t because he’d been the one to put her to bed the morning before—under the watchful eye of his brother, who was far too impressed with his own levels of propriety. He’d hardly been able to take off Tess’s shoes without Nicholas harrumphing importantly. He’d had to leave Jennifer to help his very groggy love into a nightgown and tuck her into bed.

  He jogged down the circular stairs, shaking his head a little as he did so. It was hard to believe any time had passed at all from his youth to his present, though he couldn’t deny it had. The last time he’d been at Wyckham, he’d been a brash lad of eighteen, his spurs newly won and his ego colossal. He’d held his own against Nicholas in the lists—a feat he seriously doubted he would be repeating anytime soon—and strode across the world’s stage sure in his ability to conquer anything that dared face him.

  He sighed to himself as he walked across the floor and followed his nose to the kitchens. Obviously, he’d arisen too late to manage anything at the lord’s table, but that didn’t bother him. He was perfectly happy to attract as little attention as possible.

  He walked into the kitchens and found Nicholas sitting at the worktable there, surrounded by his four sons. The boys looked up at him with varying degrees of astonishment, even though he’d been privileged to meet all his nephews the day before. Nicholas was only watching him, a faint smile on his face. John set his sword aside and pulled up his chair next to Nicholas’s eldest, James.

  “Well met, nephew,” he said politely. “Again.”

  “Bloody hell,” James blurted out. “You look just like Montgomery. Still.”

  “James,” Nicholas said sternly, “we don’t swear at table.”

  “But, Papa, this is just the worktable,” said second son John, “not the proper table.”

  John was fairly certain the boy, who looked to be about seven, had been named after Jennifer’s father, but he was happy to flatter himself that he could claim a bit of the boy for himself. The boy couldn’t have looked any more like Nicholas. ’Twas obvious he had his father’s ability to argue.

  “Aye, it is, son,” Nicholas said with a long-suffering sigh, “but we still don’t swear at table.”

  “Well,” John the younger said philosophically, “I suppose we should be for the lists then.” He looked up at John. “We can say what we please there.”

  “I’m certain you can,” John said, suppressing a smile.

  “Are you coming along, Uncle John?” James asked, eyeing John critically. “Father said you’d been wallowing in unwholesome luxury for the last few years and might have forgotten how to wield your sword.”

  John shot Nicholas a look. “Did he, now?”

  “He did,” James said without hesitation. “He said he suspected even we could humiliate you without effort.”

  John smiled in spite of himself. He’d known James, of course, because Jennifer had fallen pregnant ten minutes after Nick had wed her, and he’d held the boy as a wee babe. He could only assume the others were approximately two years and ten minutes apart, which left young Connor a wee thing of about two summers. Thomas, who was apparently about four years old, looked to be canny enough that John thought he might indeed have a bit of trouble with him.

  “Well,” John said thoughtfully, “perhaps after I’ve eaten what your father’s superior cook has masterfully prepared, you might lead me out to the lists and show me how ’tis done. Gently, of course, lest the humiliation be too much to bear.”

  “Swords, lads!” James cried, leaping up from the table and dashing for the door. “We’ll await him in the hall.”

  John helped Connor off his stool, then found himself with the lad on his lap instead. He looked into bright blue eyes that saw already far too much.

  “Uncle John,” the lad said distinctly, “you home?”

  “Ah,” John said, utterly blindsided. “Well, aye, lad, I am. For the moment. I’ve been living very far away. I’m sorry to have missed your birth.”

  Connor looked at him again, turned and rested back against him, and popped his thumb in his mouth. John looked at Nicholas, who was only watching with a small smile.

  “Well,” John managed.

  Nicholas shook his head slowly. “That one there,” he said with a look at his son, “frightens us. He’s been blurting out unsettling things for as long as he could put words together. Which hasn’t been all that long, truth be told.”

  “Unnerving,” John agreed fervently.

  Nicholas looked around him, apparently to see if privacy might be had, then eyed John purposefully. “You know, I haven’t begun to question you about your activities. You yawned too much yesterday for a proper grilling. I will want a particular set of answers about your past—and you know which ones I’m speaking of—before we carry on much further.”

  “Are you entitled to those answers, I wonder,” John said grimly.

  A muscle twitched in Nicholas’s jaw. “I wonder why you would think I wasn’t.”

  “Because the rub was between me and Father. It had nothing to do with you.”

  Nicholas cursed succinctly, apparently not finding the sanctity of the current table to be an impediment. “Do you have any idea, you bloody idiot, just how much your actions grieved us? We thought you were dead!”

  John blinked. “But why? I left a missive for you—you, because I thought you might manage to blurt out what I’d done before Father killed you.”

  “A missive?” Nicholas echoed in surprise. “But I received nothing.”

  “But I entrusted it to Everard of Chev—” John’s thoughts and words ground to a halt. “Everard of Chevington,” he finished “I left the missive with him to give to you.”

  “And why in the hell would you trust him?”

  “He wasn’t my first choice, obviously,” John said evenly. “But since he came upon me whilst I was preparing to step on a particular patch of ground—if you take my meaning, which I’m certain you do—I thought it best to give him something to do so I could leave without his noticing the manner.”

  Nicholas shook his head. “I never received anything.”

  “The bloody whoreson,” John said tightly. “The saints only know what he did when he read what I’d written.”

  “You give him too much credit, for he could scarce scratch out his own name.” Nicholas studied John for a moment or two. “I wonder
why it was you intended to attempt such a foolish thing, no matter what sort of pretty note you intended to leave behind.”

  John didn’t suppose servants were far away, so he didn’t indulge in anything but generalities. “Haven’t you considered the same thing?”

  “Never.”

  John pursed his lips. “Honorable knights don’t lie.”

  Nicholas glared at him. “Very well, I’ve thought about it endlessly, but I would never leave my family behind to indulge myself thus.”

  John suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. “I hadn’t intended that it be a permanent thing, Nick. I simply planned a year of adventure, to see things I . . . well, to see things. I fully intended to come home afterward to regale you all with my tales of glory and leave you impossibly jealous.”

  “That sounds like something you would do,” Nicholas said with a grunt. “And nay, I suppose I can’t blame you. I might have done the same thing in your shoes.” He frowned. “Why didn’t you return?”

  John had to take a deep breath. “I tried. The gate was—shall we say—uninterested in my wishes and refused to carry me home.”

  Nicholas closed his eyes briefly. “You poor lad.”

  John shrugged aside the memory of trying that particular patch of ground near Artane and finding it absolutely unresponsive to his pleas. He’d then gone to the second place he knew of only to find himself in what he now knew had been Victorian England. He’d been gang-pressed into service on one of Her Majesty’s finest ships and only managed to escape because the terrain near Artane had remained familiar enough for him to know when to run. He’d thrown himself back into the depths of the time gate he’d come from and hadn’t argued when it had carried him back to the Future.

  “How did you know where to launch yourself from, as it were?”

  John lifted an eyebrow. “Your map, though why a Scotsman should be making those kinds of . . .”

  He wondered when his thoughts would cease grinding to uncomfortable halts. The mapmaker had been a certain James MacLeod. James MacLeod? It wasn’t possible that he was related to Ian MacLeod, he of the discreet and exclusive sword school.

  Surely.

  “What is it?”

  “Who is James MacLeod?” John asked, because he apparently couldn’t stop his damnable curiosity.

  “He’s Jennifer’s cousin, in a roundabout way,” Nicholas said with a shrug. He shot John an amused glance. “Know him?”

  “I don’t, but I imagine that’s my loss.”

  Nicholas laughed a little. “I imagine he would agree. He’s been laird of the clan MacLeod in a pair of different centuries and, from what I understand, an incorrigible traveler through, ah, well, you can use your wee noggin to divine the rest. He is a compulsive mapmaker, it would seem, forever marking the spots he’s investigated and found to be . . . unusual.”

  “And you would know.”

  “Apparently, so would you if you’ve seen one of his maps—in my private trunk, no doubt.”

  John couldn’t help an uncomfortable smile. “My apologies.”

  “I need a better lock.”

  “Or less determined relations,” John said. “I fear I did indeed have a quick peek at your map, but I only memorized two particular spots because I was stupid enough to think I wouldn’t need more. I took my sword and my courage in hand, then decided that a journey might give Father time to cool his head.”

  Nicholas toyed with his mug of ale. “And what was the rub, John?”

  John supposed there was no reason to put off telling Nicholas things he’d doubtless considered already. “Chevington,” he said with a sigh, “as I’m sure you’ve guessed by now. I was fool enough to take Everard’s side in his fight with his brother over the title. Father didn’t appreciate my inserting my always nosey nose into business that wasn’t mine.”

  “Is that all it was?” Nicholas asked with a pained smile.

  “Isn’t that enough? I was hotheaded and Father stubborn. I had no intention of bowing to his commands, and he was determined to bend me to his will.”

  “You’re going to have a son just like yourself, you know.”

  “The saints preserve me.”

  Nicholas laughed. “Aye, I daresay that won’t be the last time you say that. Perhaps you’ll be wiser as a father than you have been as a son.” His smile faded. “They grieved terribly. Father himself searched for months.”

  John let out his breath slowly. “I never meant for that to happen. Surely you know that.”

  “I do—and I did.” Nicholas shook his head. “I tried to convince Father that you had likely gone off and done something particularly foolish—and he knew exactly what I meant by that—but he didn’t dare hope it had been just that. He felt terribly responsible.”

  “He would,” John said with a sigh, “but he shouldn’t have. I had been considering the journey for several months. He simply spurred me on sooner than I had planned.” He finished his ale, then looked at his brother. “They’re in France?”

  “In the cottage on Grandmère’s abbey grounds—though you know ’tis hardly a cottage. They needed a change, I suppose, and Father was happy enough to turn Artane over to Robin. There is a well-worn path between Calais and both Artane and Segrave, as you might imagine.” He paused. “Joanna is fighting, but she’s fading.”

  John had to simply sit and hold Nicholas’s youngest son for a moment as the tidings sank in. He had thought about his grandmothers, of course, but never supposed he might see either of them again. “And the others?”

  “Robin and Anne have four children, if that’s what you’re asking, though you know Phillip and Kendrick already. Mandy has three living of hers and Isabelle has two lads and a pair of gels. And Miles?” Nicholas laughed. “I can’t bring to mind how many terrors he and Abigail have produced so far. They multiply in my eyes based on the mischief they combine whenever they come to visit.”

  John shook his head. “How much I’ve missed.”

  “And your younger brother’s wedding, as well,” Nicholas said pointedly. “He grieved most of all over your loss.”

  “As I would have his,” John said. He looked at Nicholas. “And you? Did you shed no tear?”

  Nicholas smiled. “Nary a one.”

  John laughed a little, knowing his brother was lying.

  Nicholas pushed away from the table and rose. “I would send your charge there to his mother, but she needs her feet up for the morning. Let’s bring him along to the lists with us, if you have the courage to face my three lads there before I grind you into the dust.”

  “I’ll do my best,” John said, rising with Connor in his arms. He turned him around and tried not to flinch at the feel of sweet small arms coming around his neck.

  He’d thought time in the past might do him in. He just hadn’t anticipated how quickly.

  He spent an hour with his nephews, training with them until they were satisfied, then walked off the field to have a drink before turning to his brother, whom he was certain would be satisfied less easily. It would show him where he was lacking, though, and he couldn’t be certain that that sort of preparation might serve him in some tight spot later on.

  He drank, then glanced at Nicholas, who looked just as casually lethal as he always did. John had spent more time in his youth than he likely should have trying to decide which of his two eldest brothers was the more dangerous. Robin was, as Robin would have told anyone within earshot, simply the best swordsman England had ever produced. John had to concede there was a great bit of truth in that. Robin absolutely had the skill to back up his arrogance. But over the years, John had come to the conclusion that Nick was easily as skilled as Robin, he was just quieter about it.

  In the end, all John knew was that he would have been greatly relieved to have had either of them guarding his back.

  Nicholas set his cup down. “I’ll be interested to see if there’s anything left of your skill.”

  “Not having swordsmen of your mettle to train with has
been a trial,” John conceded. “Well, not having any swordsmen of any stripe, actually, has been something of a problem. You will no doubt have little sport from me today.”

  “You should have sought out James MacLeod or another of his family.”

  “So I’m beginning to think.” John shook his head. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that surname, though I knew nothing of James himself. I was beginning to think the clan was stalking me.”

  “Fate was, more likely,” Nicholas said with a smile. “Well, you’re here now and we’ll do what we can with what you have left.” He paused. “We should discuss Everard of Chevington further at some point, I daresay.”

  John sighed deeply. It wasn’t possible that Everard had gone to the Future, though perhaps it was less impossible than he feared. In his missive he’d only told Nicholas that he’d intended to see where Jennifer had come from, knowing his brother would understand exactly what he was referring to. Surely Everard hadn’t been canny enough to understand the meaning behind the words.

  Though there was no guaranteeing that Everard hadn’t watched him disappear through that time gate near Artane.

  “Perhaps you should go to Chevington and call Everard a few names when you see him.”

  “I’ll do worse than call him names,” John promised.

  Nicholas smiled, looking slightly satisfied. “I’m happy to see all that soft living of yours in the Future hasn’t blunted your sense of vengeance.” He paused, then leaned forward. “Do you have a car?”

  “Four.”

  Nicholas scowled. “Gluttony, even with automobiles, is a sin, brother.”

  “So is speeding in a four-hundred-fifty-horsepower Aston Martin Vanquish,” John said placidly. “I’ll describe the sensation for you, if you like.”

  “If I ever come to the Future, you’ll do more than describe it. I’ll want the keys.”