Chapter 27
Z achary pulled into Artane’s car park an hour before sunset. He turned his car off, then sat back and looked at the sea in front of him. It should have been soothing, but somehow it wasn’t. He couldn’t blame the ocean for that. Pretending to work while waiting for a phone call from a particular woman wasn’t exactly conducive to a stress-free afternoon.
He hadn’t dared call Mary himself yet, so he’d tried to keep occupied with his own business. He’d popped by Wyckham to make sure his workers were still unhaunted, then continued on to Artane. At least he could crash in comfortable surroundings while he nursed his bruises and wished he had somehow managed to handle things a bit better. Though he wasn’t sure what he could have done differently. For better or worse he was again meddling in things he shouldn’t have been, and he couldn’t go back and change what was done.
Damn it, he was really going to have to be done with all things paranormal. And sooner rather than later.
He started toward the castle, then stopped and looked behind him. There was a white van parked on the other side of the car park. He stared at it, watching as a man opened the back doors and pulled out a professional-looking video camera. Wonderful. That was all he needed, to have to wade through someone making some sort of documentary about well-preserved medieval castles while he was trying to just get in and out of the gates.
He ignored the cameraman and walked up to the gates. He flipped the granny at the ticket window a twenty-pound note, then continued on his way only to find himself chased down and hugged.
“It wasn’t much,” he said, narrowly avoiding being impaled by one of the knitting needles she obviously didn’t remember she’d tucked into her granny bun. “Mrs....”
“Gladstone,” she said, giving him a sweet smile. She put a guidebook into his hands. “You’d best have one of these, dearie, before they’re all gone.”
Zachary smiled faintly. “Having a run on them, Mrs. Gladstone?”
“Some annoying bloke’s been trying to have a discount on me stock,” she said, beginning to frown. “Franbury, or some such high-sounding name. And him not even willing to pay His Lordship’s very reasonable entrance fee!”
“Shocking,” Zachary said seriously.
Franbury again? Would he never manage to get rid of the man? Zachary thanked Mrs. Gladstone again for her generosity, wished her a good evening, then continued on his way.
He wondered if he might get inside the keep as easily. He had the feeling Gideon and Kendrick knew each other far better than they’d let on. It wouldn’t have surprised him to have found the door barred and his pink slip pinned to the outside.
Instead, he found Gideon’s wife, Megan, sitting on the stairs enjoying a little peace and quiet. He stopped a handful of steps below her and attempted a smile.
“Lady Blythwood.”
“You’ve been busy today.”
“Kendrick called.”
“Nope, Genevieve.”
“I imagine the result was the same.”
Megan only moved over so he could sit next to her. He set his backpack down and did just that. He rubbed his hands over his face for good measure, but it didn’t help him find clarity.
“Do you want my take on this?” Megan asked.
He smiled at her wearily. “I’m all ears.”
“Then I’ll fill them full of things you won’t get anywhere else. Don’t blame yourself for any of it. You just took him by surprise. If he showed any sort of unmanly emotion—which, given how much he loved his sister, I imagine he did—then he had to go a pretty long way the other direction to make up for it.”
Zachary pointed to his eye, which he could fortunately still see out of, but which would be sporting a very serious bruise come morning.
“See?” Megan said pointedly. “He wouldn’t have done that in the course of a normal day. He’s actually remarkably laid back considering who he is. Give him some time. He’ll cool off and see reason eventually.”
“I wish I shared your optimism,” he said with a sigh. “He doesn’t even think I can support her.”
“Then he has no idea how much you’re making with the Trust.”
“Too much?” he asked, wincing.
“Oh, definitely not. Robert Cameron thinks you’re a bargain. I think you’ll be getting a ridiculous raise next year, so brace yourself.” She reached over and patted his arm. “Cam thinks the world of you. Just so you know, he said if you weren’t in charge of our little restoration trust, he and his checkbook didn’t come out to play.”
Zachary considered. “I don’t suppose a letter of recommendation or two would soften Kendrick’s heart.”
“No,” Megan said with a laugh, “I don’t imagine so, but time will. And I put in a good word for you with Gen, which I’m sure she’ll pass on at the appropriate moment.” She put her hands on her knees and rose. “I think there’s chocolate truffle cake in the fridge, if you’re interested. It’ll make you feel better.”
“It won’t solve things, but it might be a good start.”
“Then go put your stuff away, then meet me in the kitchen.”
Zachary picked up his backpack and started to follow her. He stopped, then reached down to pick up the guidebook he’d left sitting next to him. On the cover was Artane in all its glory, still perched on the edge of the sea like a dragon from some fantasy illustrator’s imagination. The keep was a magnificent place, full of enormous amounts of history, home to generations of remarkable people.
He could attest to that personally.
He ran upstairs to dump his backpack in the guest room, then checked his phone. There were no calls, but he hadn’t expected any. Mary either had her hands full with her brother or was thinking up ways to inflict on Kendrick a little payback for the pain and suffering she’d experienced. Either way, he wasn’t ready to interrupt.
He stood in the middle of the room—Mary’s room—and wondered if he hadn’t made a terrible mistake. Well, several of them. Maybe Kendrick was right and money didn’t matter, but a title did. Maybe Mary deserved things he couldn’t give her. Maybe he should have walked away the moment he first realized that he loved her.
Not the Lamborghini kind of love. This was let-me-look-at-you-over-the-breakfast-table-for-the-rest-of-my-life-and-that- won‘t-be-long-enough kind of love. It was let’s-have-ten-kids-and-a-dog-and-you’ ll-still-be-the-love-of-my-life kind of love.
It was an I-can’t-catch-my-breath-when-I-look-at-you kind of love.
It was the kind of love that not even chocolate—even chocolate truffle cake from Artane’s spectacular chef—was going to ever come close to being a substitute for.
An hour later he found himself pacing the length and breadth of Artane’s great hall. He’d left his phone upstairs so he wouldn’t be tempted to either call Mary or torment himself with the fact that she hadn’t called him. She was probably having a fabulous afternoon spent catching up with a brother she obviously loved very much. He envisioned her indulging in happy conversation in front of the fire, surrounded by her family.
He supposed he might have had the same thing by joining Gideon and Megan in Gideon’s father’s solar, but he couldn’t bring himself to. He was restless for many reasons he just didn’t have the stomach to think about. If Mary hadn’t called by the time he was ready to call it a day, he would just call her. The worst she could do was hang up on him.
He stopped in front of the lord’s table, leaned back against it, then looked out over the great hall. He could remember quite vividly dancing with one Mary de Piaget in that hall on several occasions. He wondered, absently, if there might be grooves in the stone from where other dancers over the years had done the same thing.
He sighed and looked down the length of the lord’s table. Perhaps there were just as many marks there from generations of diners. He reached for the guidebook he’d forgotten he’d left behind and thumbed through it idly. There were the obligatory pictures of Artane through the ages, first in artists’
sketches, then in grainy photographs. Some enterprising soul had then begun to discuss the more notable lords of Artane, beginning with Rhys, and his son, Robin—
Zachary froze.
There, reproduced in lovely sepia tones, were the plans for the kennels he’d done for Robin.
He almost dropped the book in surprise. He hadn’t thought twice about it, hadn’t even considered that a simple drawing of kennels might survive the ages and wind up in a book that Artane’s current lord sold to tourists.
He turned the page to see if there were any details provided along with the drawing only to come face-to-face with Maryanne de Piaget herself.
He did drop the book then. He picked it back up with shaking hands and struggled to find the particular page he’d been looking at. Yes, that was most definitely her face. Not only was it her face, she was identified in a little italicized caption on the facing page.
The daughter of Robin de Piaget, Maryanne, who died tragically at the age of twenty-seven.
His mouth felt very dry all of a sudden. It was entirely possible that she could escape notice. It wasn’t unheard of for descendants to have not only the same name but bear a startling likeness to their ancestors. She could easily explain away any untoward comparisons that someone might make. He could help her. Hell, any number of his in-laws could do that for her.
He tossed the guidebook back onto the table and began to pace around the great hall, feeling slightly frantic. Something else occurred to him and he strode over to the table and snatched up the guidebook. He flipped to the appropriate page and felt dread settle into the pit of his stomach. There in the corner of each drawing was something he hadn’t given a second’s thought to in 1258.
Zachary William Smith, AIA, RIBA.
Something Franbury would have easily been able to match to any number of plans—and their revisions—that Zachary had made for him during the whole of January and February.
I’ll see you ruined.
Franbury’s words were like a sharp pain in his head that rapidly became relentless pounding. It wasn’t possible that Franbury had made the connection ... but it wasn’t impossible, either.
He leaned back against the table again and studied the ceiling of the great hall. Franbury had called Cameron to make trouble. He’d tracked Kendrick down and was obviously trying to stir up something there.
But surely not even Franbury could wrap his mind around such a ridiculous thought that Zachary could have drawn something that pertained to a woman who should have died hundreds of years ago.
At least he wouldn’t have until he’d seen Mary standing in Kendrick of Seakirk’s hall. No wonder he looked at her with such astonishment.
“Zach, old man, what is it?”
Zachary looked at Gideon, who was standing five feet away, watching him with alarm. He said nothing, he merely shoved the guidebook at Gideon. Gideon looked, studied, then paled.
“A bit dodgy, that.”
“You haven’t heard from Franbury, have you?”
“Endlessly,” Gideon said, still looking slightly green. “I only took his call once, though. He’s an absolute nutter.”
“What did he want?”
“He wanted particulars about you,” Gideon said slowly. “And he was curious about any sort of paranormal activity here at Artane. Oh, and he wanted to know when you might be lodging here next.”
Zachary was happy to be leaning against the table. “What do you know about the white van in the car park?”
Gideon shook his head slowly. “Nothing, but I suppose we could go find out, if you like.”
Zachary nodded, though he wasn’t at all eager to see what was going on outside the gates. But since he couldn’t fight what he didn’t know, he had no choice. He left the guidebook behind on the table and walked with Gideon across the hall and out the front door. He experienced a brief feeling of the past layering itself over the future, but the cars in the courtyard staved that off well enough.
Mrs. Gladstone had obviously left her post for the night, leaving them free to continue on their way down into the car park. Zachary felt more unsettled with every step he took in that direction, as if something unseen were dogging his footsteps.
Or as if he’d walked those same steps in some other time.
He swore, but it didn’t help him any. He strode across the gravel with Gideon, then stopped next to the passenger side of the van. He peered inside, but there was no one there. There were, however, copious amounts of recording equipment.
Gideon handed him a flashlight. Zachary turned it on then shined the light inside the front of the van, looking for anything useful. He was somehow not at all surprised to see a folder there with Franbury’s name scribbled prominently on the front.
And next to it was a guidebook.
Artane’s guidebook.
“What are you going to do?” Gideon asked grimly.
“I’m working on it.”
“Might we work on it inside?”
Zachary nodded. He backed away from the van, clicked off the flashlight, then handed it to Gideon. He started back toward the keep with Gideon at his side. The moon was out, fortunately, and the sky happily devoid of anything that might have gotten in its way. Zachary walked past the ticket booth, then paused at the gate for Gideon to open it. He waited until Gideon had locked the gate behind him before he continued on along the cobblestone road that led up to the castle itself. It was only once he’d reached the stairs leading to the great hall that he trusted himself to speak.
“Got a spare key?” he asked.
“For the hall or for the gate?”
“The gate. Actually, if you’ll just give me ten minutes, I won’t need to borrow one.”
Gideon’s mouth fell open. “What are you going to do?”
“Don’t ask.”
Gideon caught him by the arm before he could start up the steps. “And if your, er, girlfriend calls?”
“I won’t be gone long.”
“And if she arrives and wants to know where you won’t be gone long to?”
Zachary looked at him seriously. “Show her the guidebook. She’ll understand.”
Gideon released him slowly. He said nothing else, but Zachary supposed there was nothing else to be said. He ran up the steps and went inside the hall. He was very grateful he’d brought his medieval gear along with him. He’d done so on a whim, thinking that it might make Mary more comfortable somehow if they could dress up and pretend seven and a half centuries hadn’t passed since the last time she’d seen her home.
He’d never thought he would need it for a more critical bit of business.
Chapter 28
M ary dragged her sleeve across her face, set her pitchfork aside, and rebraided her hair. She was tempted to sit down on a strangely fashioned squared bale of hay, but that would have perhaps given the appearance of weakness. Never mind that she’d sat often enough over the past few hours. She’d found an added reserve of strength—and anger—and she knew exactly how to make best use of both.
Kendrick’s stables were spectacular, which earned him a positive mark or two in her book. He, however, was a horse’s arse, which removed those marks before anyone could have noticed that they’d been there in the first place.
She had already finished with one side of the aisle, so she turned to the other. She removed one of his mounts, tied it up out in the aisle, then set to cleaning the stall with a vengeance. She was furious, but even after almost three hours of having the peace to decide, she wasn’t sure with whom.
She had first thought Zachary should be the recipient of all her anger. He had known, the bloody lout had known that her brother was alive and he hadn’t called her immediately to let her know. Instead, he had allowed her to languish in the rain in bloody Scotland before he’d managed to drag her sorry self back to the right side of the border where he could present her to an actual relative who might have wanted to see her a bit sooner.
She cursed as she narrowly missed stabbing he
rself in the foot with the pitchfork.
She paused and blew stray strands of hair out of her eyes. She had already taken off her sweater but she now stripped off another layer, tossed it onto the hay with her sweater, then set to work in jeans and a T-shirt.
Jeans and a T-shirt that she had listened to Zachary insist that Elizabeth take his gold for.
In time, she returned the gelding to his home, then began work on another stall. By the time that was finished and yet another begun, she felt some of the fog of anger recede.
The truth was, Zachary couldn’t have given her the tidings over the phone. She was quite sure learning who Kendrick was had come as an equal shock to him. Indeed, she wasn’t certain she wasn’t still in a like state. She hadn’t had the entire tale, but she’d readily seen that her brother was now the father of six. He’d bellowed something at her about curses and shades and centuries, but she’d honestly been too distracted to pay any of it any heed. There was a tale there, and one she would have at her earliest opportunity—after she’d rid herself of the desire to kill him.
Nay, Zachary couldn’t have told her any of that over the phone.
And the truth of it was, he’d needed to be about his labors. Hadn’t he returned to Scotland far more quickly than he’d intended to? And hadn’t he then brought her immediately to England? And hadn’t he insisted that she not decide if she wanted him or not until she’d had the chance to meet someone in particular?
She’d just never imagined that someone would be her brother.
She put the steed back in his stall and stood there for a moment, cursing under her breath. Nay, she wasn’t going to kill Zachary, she was going to kill Kendrick. ’Twas difficult to believe she had actually forgotten just how autocratic he could be. He was stubborn, and overbearing, and far too much like their father for her taste. She snorted. Ridding her of her mobile phone. Telling her that her jeans were too tight. Commenting on the cut of her jib.
She wasn’t quite sure what that last one meant, but the criticism had been implied easily enough.