Parsival paused at Robin’s solar door, then opened it without knocking. There was a sternly voiced complaint from inside, but Parsival begged sincere pardon, then looked at Zachary.
“’Tis up to you now, mon ami,” he said quietly.
“Keep my secret,” Zachary asked, just as quietly.
“But of course.”
Zachary pushed past him and walked into Robin’s solar, then shut the door behind him. He supposed the only reason Robin didn’t release the dagger he had in his hand was that he realized into whose chest he was about to fling it.
Robin’s knees buckled and he sat abruptly. “Don’t tell me—”
Zachary shoved his hood back off his head. “She is well, my lord.”
Robin put his hand over his mouth and closed his eyes for a moment or two before he cleared his throat roughly.
“She survived, then.”
“It was difficult for her, but aye, my lord, she did.”
“Then what in the bloody hell are you doing here?” Robin asked weakly.
Zachary started to sit, then hesitated. “May I?”
Robin waved him on to a chair. “By all means.”
Zachary took off his cloak, sat down, and enjoyed his first decent breath of the night. “I had to come, my lord, because of something I did here.”
“Difficult to believe,” Robin said with apparently as much of a snort as he could muster, “considering how little trouble you were.”
Zachary smiled briefly. “I apologize for continuing the tradition. This has to do with the plans I drew for your kennels and the portrait of Mary. I signed them without thinking and someone in my time has, I fear, seen them and connected me to them.” He paused. “I fear he has less-than-pleasant intentions.”
“Afraid he’ll ruin your reputation?” Robin asked lightly.
“I honestly couldn’t care less about myself. But it isn’t only the drawings of your kennels he’s seen. If he somehow realizes who Mary is and—”
Robin apparently didn’t need to hear any more conjecture. He cursed, then fetched sheaves of parchment from his trunk. He laid them on his table, then sat heavily.
“I’ll be sorry to lose them, but I can see the danger in keeping them. Will you cast them into the fire, or shall I?”
Zachary shook his head. “I think merely removing my mark will be enough. If you don’t mind?”
“If you’re certain,” Robin said slowly.
Zachary smiled briefly. “This will be sufficient.”
“Then be about it, lad.”
Zachary pulled a charcoal pencil and a paper stump out of his boot and set to work. He would have preferred to simply erase his name and the qualifications after it, but he didn’t dare attempt it considering what he’d used to draw with in the first place. It would just leave a smudge that would look even more out of place than his very modern signature.
Instead, he took each sheaf and carefully drew flora, fauna, or other vegetation to obscure his name. Mary’s portrait was more difficult, but there he only had to conceal his initials. He stuck his tools back into his boot—Robin’s boot, actually—then looked over the drawings again to make certain he’d done a thorough job.
He slid the drawings across Robin’s table. “Enough, do you think?”
Robin studied them carefully, then sat back and nodded. “Unpleasant lads you have in that 2006 of yours, apparently.”
“Some things are constant through the years, my lord. The soul in question is nothing more than a man of no character making up for it with a very big mouth.”
“Aye, well, we have those in my day as well. I suppose we could spend the evening discussing—”
A knock sounded suddenly and a man entered before Zachary managed to do anything but turn his back to the door.
“Ah, Rob, you’re not alone. Sorry.”
“Stay,” Robin said, rising and walking over to shut the door. “Come have a seat with us, brother, and meet the man who completely humiliated your eldest with his bare hands alone.”
Zachary rose and turned, then felt his mouth fall open as he came face-to-face with none other than Jake Kilchurn. If Robin’s words hadn’t already told him as much, the fact that Jake looked exactly like his son would have.
“My lord,” he stammered.
“My sister’s husband, Jackson Alexander Kilchurn the Fourth,” Robin said mildly. “If you want to know where Jackson the Fifth comes by his arrogance, witness this man. A larger pain in the arse I do not know.”
Jake walked over to a chair in front of the fire and collapsed into it. “That is the thanks I have for taking your sister off your hands all those years ago.” He looked up with a smile. “So, this is the lad who made off with your daughter.”
“So it would seem,” Robin agreed.
“I know his brother,” Jake said.
In perfect English.
“Somehow,” Robin said, in the same tongue, “that just doesn’t surprise me.”
Zachary choked. He was grateful for the chair pushed his way so he could sit and the cup shoved into his hands so he could drink. He finally regained his breath without any help from either of the other two there. He actually couldn’t see either of them until he could breathe and his eyes stopped watering. He gaped first at Robin, then at Jake.
“I need a drink,” he managed.
“You have one,” Jake said with a smirk, “so drink it down, Zachary, then tell me who’s won the World Series for the past couple of years.”
“You’re an American,” Zachary managed.
“Married to a Brit,” Jake agreed. “Thanks to Jamie’s coin dealer and that big red X you’ve been using. I’m surprised Alex didn’t tell you as much.”
Zachary found himself with his head between his knees, mostly because Robin’s hand was holding it there. He finally waved his love’s father off and managed to straighten. He looked at Robin.
“Then you did know.”
“Of course I knew,” he said with a snort, reverting back to his mother tongue. “Who do you think burned your clothes so you didn’t burn at the stake?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it sounds daft,” Robin said promptly. “And because of what I told you before: irony.” He shot Jake a look before he continued. “I had of course been privy to the impossible romances of my brother Nicholas and my sister Amanda with their respective spouses and I was fully convinced I had thereby endured all a man might reasonably be expected to suffer, leaving me thereafter free from any such brushes with travelers not from my own time.”
“Your first mistake,” Jake said mildly. “You didn’t suffer nearly as much as you think you did.”
Robin shot his brother-in-law a look, then turned back to Zachary. “I shepherded my eldest son through a tempestuous but perfectly reasonable courtship with the lass over the border and had my youngest provide for his own happiness without my having to do anything at all. I had given up on my second son mending his womanizing ways, but assumed he would eventually find a very patient woman to wed and do so without undue fuss.”
“Leaving Mary only for you to provide with marital bliss,” Jake said with a smile.
“Only to then watch her pull a Future lad out of my dungeon and stand over him like an avenging angel.” Robin scowled. “And, damn me if she didn’t then go and fall in love with him!”
“Ironic,” Jake agreed.
“As I said.” Robin looked at Zachary. “Take my advice: keep your head down, make my gel happy, and don’t make any rash statements of the sort that Fate might take note of. You’ll regret it if you do otherwise.”
Zachary nodded and decided to keep his lists to himself.
“I’m assuming Mary will have you,” Robin said.
Zachary wasn’t quite sure where to even begin to talk about any of that.
Apparently Robin saw something in his face that gave away things he hadn’t intended. Mary’s father began to frown.
“Have you run
afoul of a few nit-picking relations who don’t know you as well as I do?” he demanded.
Zachary supposed it would be best to just follow Robin’s advice and keep his mouth shut. He settled for a solemn nod.
Robin finished his wine, considered something for a moment or two, then rose and went to sit at his table. He wrote something down, then affixed his seal to the bottom of the page. He resumed his seat in front of the fire and handed Zachary the sheet of parchment.
I, Robin of Artane, do hereby grant my wholehearted permission for my daughter to marry Zachary Smith, a man worthy of her in every respect. Such is my will concerning my daughter and is not to be gainsaid.
Zachary looked at Robin. “Wholehearted?”
Robin shrugged with a half smile. “I’m not holding the date of your birth against you.”
Zachary had to clear his throat a time or two before he could say anything else. “Thank you, my lord. This is more than I hoped for.”
“You’d best see to her well,” Robin said sternly. “I imagine I’ll come haunt you otherwise.”
Given the quite likely possibility of that, Zachary thought it best to agree right off. “I will do my best to never do anything that will necessitate any nighttime hauntings from you, my lord.”
“I imagine you won’t.” Robin took an unsteady breath. “If I didn’t feel as if my guts were being ripped out right now, my lad, I might be able to enjoy the fact that she’ll be running roughshod over someone else besides me for a change.”
“I’m sorry, my lord,” Zachary said quietly. “I can’t imagine it.”
“You’ll have a daughter someday, Zachary, and then you’ll understand. I give you my permission to make any potential suitors muck out your stables right off—just to see which ones are too proud to humor you.”
Zachary smiled in spite of himself. “Was that your test?”
“Aye, and you were the only one to pass it.”
“If I’d known what the prize was, I would have shoveled harder.”
Robin laughed a little more easily that time. “I daresay.” He pushed himself to his feet and walked to his door. “I’m going to go fetch my Anne. She’ll want to see you.”
Zachary stood and waited for Robin to leave before he resumed his seat and looked at Jake. “I have to admit I’m a little surprised we didn’t meet before.”
“I think you were working in Devon while I was stumbling through Jamie’s medieval survival course. I’m not sure where you were when Alex was getting me out of a few nasty legal snarls.”
Zachary studied Jake thoughtfully. “Do your children know?”
“I haven’t said anything to them,” Jake said with a half smile, “but I’m one for thinking that there are some secrets that should remain secrets.”
“Even from your children.”
Jake shrugged. “What would it serve them to know? For better or worse, this is their time. It’s best they just be satisfied with it. Of course, I’m deeply suspicious of those bloody twins of Nick’s. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn they know all sorts of things they shouldn’t. I’d be even less surprised to find they’ve talked to my kids about those very things. So, to answer your first question, yes. I imagine some of my children know. I’m just waiting for the day they catch me napping and trot off to use one of Jamie’s gates.”
“I’ve often wondered if it would be better to try to destroy all the gates. Or at least wall off that big one I just used.”
Jake shook his head. “You might as well spray paint a big X on the ground. Trust me, those monstrous boys of Nick’s would make a beeline for it. I’m not sure they won’t anyway.”
“Heaven help us all,” Zachary said with feeling.
“It’s a terrifying thought,” Jake agreed. He studied Zachary for a moment or two. “I’m assuming you’ve shown Mary what lurks at Seakirk.”
Zachary pointed to his no-doubt rapidly blackening eye.
Jake grinned wickedly. “He’s been a terror since the moment he was born.”
“Why do I get the feeling part of that is your fault?”
“I owed him. He put me through hell in the future, which left me no choice but to repay him handsomely in the past.”
“I sense a vicious circle in there somewhere.”
Jake only laughed. “I imagine so. Did Mary let him push her around?”
“I’m not entirely sure. I heard quite a bit of shouting after I rolled down his front stairs, but I didn’t stick around to find out who was saying what.” He sipped his wine and gathered a few more thoughts together. “I’m assuming you haven’t said anything to anyone here about what happened to him?”
“No, but I will tell Robin after the fact. Kendrick said Genevieve was worth seven hundred and fifty years of haunting and I believe him. I’m afraid, though, that my being here has already changed things. Kendrick told me that all of his family was at Artane when he was killed, but I’m fairly sure Nicholas and his family will be in France that time of year thanks to his having wed Jennifer. I had actually planned to take Amanda and our younger ones to Italy just to be away from the madness and I’m pretty sure that isn’t how Kendrick remembers things. I suppose we’ll just see how it all turns out in the end.” He smiled. “Jamie would have quite a bit to say about it, wouldn’t he?”
“I could give you his don’t-change-the-past lectures verbatim.”
“I imagine you could,” Jake agreed, “and I imagine you could give me an equal number of instances when he’s ignored his own rules.”
“He never likes to stand in the way of true love,” Zachary agreed.
“Naturally.” He studied Zachary for a moment in silence. “Will it bother you to give it up?”
“The time traveling?” Zachary asked in surprise. He shook his head. “Not when my alternative is staying at home with that tomboy who’s sent me in circles since the moment I met her.”
Jake laughed. “How many pairs of jeans does she already own?”
“I’m not sure, but I’m sure I should be afraid.”
“I imagine you should,” Jake agreed. “And here comes my own tomboy who would probably be very jealous of your lady’s wardrobe.”
Zachary stood as Robin ushered in his wife and another dark-haired beauty who Zachary assumed was Robin’s sister, Amanda. She gave him an assessing look before she walked over and sat on her husband’s lap. Zachary turned to Anne and made her a low bow.
“My lady.”
She took his hands and squeezed them. “How fares my Maryanne?” she asked, her green eyes very bloodshot.
“She is well, my lady.”
She nodded, took a deep breath, then turned and took a bundle from her husband. She laid it on the table, then unwrapped it and shook out a green dress covered with exquisite embroidery.
“I made this for her over the past few days.” She looked at Zachary quickly. “I thought it was only foolishness, for I didn’t expect to see you again, but now I’m pleased to find it was useful after all.” She paused. “’Tis a wedding gown.”
“It’s lovely,” Zachary said honestly.
“There is a tunic to match,” Anne added. “For you.”
Zachary could only hope he’d have the chance to wear it. He had to clear his throat several times before he thought he could speak without his voice breaking. “Thank you, my lady.”
She folded the dress back up very carefully, smoothed her hand over it a final time, then went to sit in the chair her husband held for her.
Zachary waited until Robin was seated in front of the fire, then took his own seat and had another cup of wine. He was tired, but there were times when weariness had to be ignored. He had tales and discussions to commit to memory so he could repeat them for Mary.
He briefly considered his own memories of gates going awry, then pushed the thoughts aside. The gate would work because he would give it no choice. And he would studiously avoid asking Jake if he’d ever tried it and found it unresponsive.
There were just
some things that were better not to know ahead of time.
He walked to the stables well before dawn, because Robin had insisted he take Mary’s horses to her. Robin and Jake had discussed the merits of adding equine bloodlines where they didn’t belong, but Zachary hadn’t had the heart to refuse the request. He left Robin to guard the entrance, then continued on silently, hoping he wouldn’t wake the stable lads. He realized, as he saw the cluster of souls in front of Rex’s stall, that the exercise had been futile.
He was somehow very unsurprised to find that the whole crew was there: Connor, Thaddeus, Parsival, and the little twins. Well, and Jackson the Fifth as well, standing to one side, glaring.
And all was right with the world, apparently.
He opened his mouth to attempt a dodge of some kind, but saw immediately that there was no point. They were all looking at him knowingly. Parsival shrugged with a rueful smile. Jackson, however, didn’t join in that smiling.
“For someone who reportedly died unexpectedly almost a fortnight ago,” he said shortly, “you’re looking very well.”
“Ah,” Zachary began slowly.
“Don’t bother with excuses, mon ami,” Parsival said pleasantly. “We know it all already.”
“Aye,” Connor said with a yawn. “Strange happenings in this part of the world.”
“Not to mention in our own families,” Thaddeus said with a grin that was very reminiscent of his father’s.
“Do any of your parents know you know?” Zachary asked politely. “Or your siblings?”
Theo’s eyes were very wide. “Do you think we would tell them?”
“Do you think we would tell you?” Samuel added. “Of course, seeing the business of this sort of traveling with our own eyes adds a certain je ne sais quoi to our secret knowledge—”
“Oh, shut up, Sam,” Connor said shortly. He looked at Zachary. “You see now what I must endure.”