One Magic Moment (12 page)
“Is that a guitar?” she asked finally.
He took a deep breath. “A lute, actually.”
She closed her eyes briefly. “I’m not quite sure how to thank you.”
He bit his tongue around an offhand remark about rescues and their limited number where she was concerned and instead settled for a nod. He walked over and took his lute out of its case, just to give himself something to do. He finally turned to look at her, because he couldn’t put it off any longer. She was watching him guardedly, as if she thought he might just turn and bolt if she weren’t careful.
A wise woman, that one.
“Is there a chair by the fire?” he asked.
“I’ll find one.”
“I’ll fetch it,” he said. “You hold this.”
“I’m not sure I dare.”
The truth was, he wasn’t sure he wanted her to dare. She looked almost as unsettled as he felt. If she were going to drop something, ’twas better that she drop a chair. He looked at the stove a last time to make certain everything was off the fire, then nodded toward the passageway.
“I need something without arms,” he said. “I’ll just provide atmosphere, unless you’ve something else in mind.”
“Would you sing?” she asked faintly.
“Only if your diners have been excessively courteous to you so far.”
“Background music it is, then.” She shot him a look. “Please be polite.”
“Why would you think I would be anything else?” he grumbled, but she had already started for the passageway and perhaps hadn’t heard him.
He caught up to her in a pair of strides, then contented himself with walking alongside her up the way to the great hall. In the end, he fetched his own chair, then set it next to the fire. He rolled down his sleeves, sat, then shrugged aside the unease he felt over playing things that spoke too loudly about what he was. Rich, spoiled Londoners were annoyances, not dangers. They likely wouldn’t remember him or his music, so there was no reason not to simply play what he liked. With that in mind, he started at the beginning of his repertoire and worked his way through it to the last.
And whilst he did, he watched the goings-on in the hall. He didn’t want to, but he unfortunately had a very good memory and didn’t have to concentrate on what he was playing.
Tess’s guests were miserable louts, every last one of them. The women were the worst, looking down their noses at their meals and rolling their eyes at their surroundings, which even John had to admit were spectacular. Whoever had restored Sedgwick had done a smashing job. The men were less conceited than the ladies, but just as critical. John would have thought his contributions to the evening to be of no worth at all if he hadn’t caught out of the corner of his eye the looks he was having from a pair of the trio of women.
He suppressed the urge to send back looks of disdain. After all, he’d promised he would behave.
Tess endured it all with absolutely no taking of the bait being offered. He had to admit he was impressed. He wouldn’t have managed it for ten minutes, much less three hours.
He played for most of that time, partly because he wasn’t unaccustomed to practicing for longer than that, but mostly because it seemed to distract the would-be royals who seemed to think themselves very important indeed. He was quite happy to see the last of them.
He continued to toy with a tune until Tess finally collapsed in the chair opposite him. He looked up to find her watching him. He only lifted an eyebrow in question.
She let out a deep breath. “I’m not sure how to thank you,” she said, with feeling. “I will pay you—”
“No.”
She hesitated, then nodded slowly.
He played for a bit longer, then looked at her again. “Will the girls clean up?”
“They already have. They’re gone. As are our guests, thankfully.”
He considered her for a moment or two. “Why do you tolerate this sort of thing?”
“Because they’re very rich,” she said with a sigh, “and minor nobility. I needed to make a good impression.” She lifted an eyebrow. “Didn’t you recognize them?”
“I couldn’t be bothered.”
She smiled faintly. “I wish I could say the same, but I like to at least maintain some façade of graciousness, not having the luxury of telling them to take a flying leap. It keeps the lights on.”
He imagined it did. He stood and put his lute into her hands. “Hold that.”
“Where are you going?” she asked in surprise.
“To lock up.”
“There are lots of doors.”
“I imagine there are,” he said dryly. “I think I can find the important ones.”
He had to admit, as he started in the kitchens and worked his way up and back to the rear guard tower, that it was very strange to think of her all alone in such a place. On those very rare occasions when his father had left his mother at home alone, she had been protected by no less than two dozen very grim warriors with exceptionally sharp swords. She could have easily slept with her door unbolted and not spared a thought for her safety.
It bothered him that Tess didn’t have that same sort of security system.
It bothered him even more that he now knew enough about her to have that even cross his mind.
He returned to the fire to find her plucking thoughtfully at his lute. She looked up and smiled wearily.
“It’s a lovely instrument.”
“It is,” he agreed, sitting down across from her. “Do you play?”
“Very poorly,” she admitted. She handed it back to him. “I would never play in front of you.”
“I’m no critic.”
“Still, no.”
He shrugged, toyed with a melody or two for a moment or two, then looked at her. “I don’t like it that you’re alone here.”
“I’m used to it.”
He pursed his lips, then decided the very least he could do was sing for her. One song. It couldn’t hurt.
He didn’t watch her whilst he was about it, though he could feel her watching him. And he decided at that moment that the whole evening had been a very bad idea indeed. It had been useful to her, hopefully, but it had done nothing for him but convince him that what he should do was get away from her as quickly as possible.
He finished his song, then packed up his gear without delay. She walked him to the door without comment.
He walked outside, then turned on the top step and looked at her. “You bother me,” he said bluntly.
She only watched him, silent and grave.
“I don’t think we should see each other again,” he added.
“I think you’re right.”
He chewed on his words for a moment or two, a novel enough occurrence that it should have given him pause. “You might still bring your car to my shop, if you like,” he conceded.
“I’ll come when you’re not there.”
He nodded. “Wise.”
“I think so, too.”
He shot her a look. “Lock the door, Tess.”
“I will.”
“Good night.”
“Thank you, John,” she said, very quietly.
He shrugged aside her thanks, because he could do nothing else. He nodded briskly, then turned and walked down the steps. He heard the hall door close and supposed she must have bolted it. He wasn’t about to go check.
He put his head down and walked across the courtyard and out the front gates before his chivalry hung itself about his neck like a millstone and kept him from going on with the most sensible course of action. He ignored the fact that if Tess Alexander had been his, he would have lowered every damned portcullis the keep boasted and posted two dozen guardsmen with sharp swords and sour dispositions outside her door to keep her safe.
But as she wasn’t his, he couldn’t do any of that. He also couldn’t bloody well camp in his car in her car park, either.
He cursed his way to his car, cursed some more as he backed out, then continued to accompany himself with foul words as he headed down the road back to the village.
He wasn’t going to spend the night worrying about her, or pace until dawn because he was losing sleep over her, or think any more about how many times he’d fought the urge to pull her into his arms and hold her securely against him. She was not for him and he was not for her.
The sooner he accepted that indisputable fact, the happier he would be.
He would go home and make a list of all the reasons he didn’t like her. Hell, he didn’t know her well enough to dislike her, but he was certain that a list of that sort could be made with enough diligence.
And once he had done that, he would return to his very sensible, monotonous existence of being a mediocre studio musician, a modestly skilled restorer of expensive cars, and a compulsive watcher of stocks on his damned phone.
He honestly couldn’t imagine anything more interesting.
Not at all.
Chapter 7
T
ess
leaned against a wall in an alcove leading into a courtyard in the oldest part of the second oldest university in England and shivered. She wasn’t one for leaning, but she was just stretched too thin at the moment to do anything else but try to keep herself upright.
ess
leaned against a wall in an alcove leading into a courtyard in the oldest part of the second oldest university in England and shivered. She wasn’t one for leaning, but she was just stretched too thin at the moment to do anything else but try to keep herself upright.
She’d been in Cambridge for less than two days and to her utter surprise, she found she was ready to be finished and go home. It was odd, that sensation, given that she’d worked the whole of her life to get to where she was standing. From the time she’d understood in what sort of unstable situation she’d found herself in with her parents, she’d vowed that she would make something different for herself. Her chance had come at fifteen, when her parents had dumped her and her five sisters onto their aunt Edna and vanished without a backward glance.
Her older sisters, Moonbeam and Cinderella, had been already on their way out the door by that point and hadn’t been subjected to the full brunt of the Victorian-era-inspired living conditions. Her younger sisters, Pippa and Valerie, had had to endure it longer than she and Peaches had, but she hadn’t minded it at all. She’d had her sights set on Cambridge from the beginning and Aunt Edna’s Victorian Institute of Arduous Study by Candlelight had suited her. She’d graduated from high school two years early, then blown through her undergrad and graduate degrees in just under six years. She’d just begun to work her way up the academic ladder when the offer of a castle had come her way and completely changed her life.
She looked out into the courtyard steeped in history and wondered why it was she wasn’t still feeling that almost feverish urge to climb over everyone in her way to get to the top.
She put her hand briefly to her head. No fever. Maybe she was having a midlife crisis. She was tempted to call Peaches and see if that sounded reasonable, but she suppressed the urge. Losing a sibling was probably pretty high up on that Life Change list, so maybe she just needed to take it easy and roll with things for a bit.
She didn’t particularly care for rolling, truth be told.
She was going to have to make a few life decisions very shortly, whether she wanted to or not. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be teaching full-time, but she also wasn’t sure she wanted to own a castle and simply host parties, either. The truth was, she missed the smell of old libraries and the visions of medieval glory she found safely lurking only inside them. She missed teaching bright-eyed students who were as nuts about the Middle Ages as she was. She missed spirited discussions with other academics who were as passionate about their opinions as she was about hers.
She was also getting a little tired of catering to spoiled rich people who talked through an evening of the most amazing medieval music she had ever listened to, played in the appropriate setting by a man who knew a thing or two about what he was doing.
She pulled her coat closer around herself. She wanted to go home, but home had become a place that didn’t feel all that comfortable anymore. If it had been just continually wondering about Pippa and her life, she might have been able to put that behind her eventually. But now putting that behind her was impossible because ten miles away was a man who had moved into her village, a man she didn’t want to see again—and not just because he’d suggested it would be best that they not run into each other. No, it was more than that.
It was that he was her damned brother-in-law’s twin.
She wondered if it might be time to call Lord Roland’s lawyer and get his number. Roland had told her that she could, if she liked, call him any time she felt overwhelmed. At the moment, she was tempted to ask him if he wanted the castle back so she could move back into a minuscule flat near Cambridge and hide herself away in the library where she wouldn’t be troubled by shades of her sister, reenactment whackos, or the real deal driving a pricey black sports car.
She hadn’t seen the real deal in four days, a fact for which she was enormously grateful. Truly. He’d played for the party on Friday, then disappeared. She’d holed up in her castle for the weekend, only opening her door on Saturday to the decorators who’d come to turn it into a Yuletide fantasyland for the next round of parties on the following weekend. She’d exchanged greetings with Peaches on Sunday afternoon as she’d picked her up at the train station, then sent her home while she took the train north. Crashing on a friend’s couch had been a diversion, true, but only in that she’d had two days to try to work out the kink in her neck.
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