One Magic Moment (47 page)
Chapter 25
T
ess
decided that there was one place she could certainly cross off her list of future vacation destinations and that was medieval England.
ess
decided that there was one place she could certainly cross off her list of future vacation destinations and that was medieval England.
It had been that sort of day. She’d had a little lesson in swordplay that morning from Miles de Piaget to the shock and dismay of the pair of medieval misses who had apparently come to look John over, and then a riding lesson from John’s eldest brother, Robin. He was Kendrick the adult, only more intense, if possible. She had struggled to divide her time between trying to carry on a conversation with Robin about politics and war while learning useful medieval skills and trying to commit everything about Robin to memory for relating later to Kendrick.
Though she supposed there was no point in that. Kendrick was still a child and likely would have his own memories to draw on.
Supper had been no less of an adventure than it had been over the past three days. Potential medieval brides preened, parents attempted to look nonchalant, and Robin smirked. Tess might have enjoyed the joke as much as he apparently did, but she couldn’t. It was one thing to think that John likely wanted to stay with his family in the past; it was another thing entirely to think he might marry one of those girls, or someone very much like them.
She’d been actually quite glad to escape to Nicholas’s solar, though she couldn’t say she felt any more comfortable now that she was there. She was the only soul there who wasn’t a part of the family, which she felt in a particularly keen way. She looked around her, noting the Future ex-pats, and began to think that time was less a strange thing than it was a cruel thing. It tore families apart, took loved ones away—
She realized that she was breathing raggedly only because Miles, John’s next older brother, handed her a cup of something she didn’t bother to identify. She drank it thankfully, then tried to get herself back together. She didn’t dare look at John.
She couldn’t make his life decisions for him. He would either, like Pippa, choose to go to a time not his own or he wouldn’t. For all she knew, he would go back to the future, thank her for a few great dates, then be off on another adventure. He was easily as desirable a catch in her day as he was in the current day.
And those medieval misses were determined, she would give them that. After having spent two nights in the same room with them, even accompanied as she had been by Amanda’s knife, she’d been grateful each morning to see the sun coming through the shutters. If it hadn’t been for Jennifer having sent for her each morning, she was quite sure she would have been the last to use the washing water, leaving her feeling very grungy indeed. That was something she didn’t need help with.
She studied the in-laws who seem to be perfectly happy in the Middle Ages and wondered if she could be that as well. She would have been near Pippa, though she wasn’t sure as what. John had no keep of his own and all his money was tied up eight hundred years away. She wasn’t a snob by any means, but the thought of scraping by as a medieval peasant was not a pleasant one.
But if it meant having John . . .
She looked up and found him watching her with that very small smile she loved so much on his face, and she thought she might not make it through the evening. How in the world would she get on a horse and ride off, leaving him behind? Worse still, how could she possibly ask him to leave his family behind now that he had them again?
He leaned back suddenly, scribbled something on a piece of paper, folded it up, and passed it to his sister sitting on his right. She watched as it was passed, unopened, from sibling to sibling, until it reached her. She looked at John, who was only watching her still with that very small smile.
She took a deep breath and unfolded the note.
I think you left white sauce on the Aga. You’ll need help rescuing it before it burns.
She looked at him quickly. He only lifted one eyebrow. She closed her eyes briefly, leaned over and tossed the note into the fire, then looked at him again. Of course, she couldn’t see him very well, but that probably had to do with the tears in her eyes.
“Nicky, vacate your chair,” Jennifer said, “before John sticks you with something sharp.”
“I just want it noted,” Nicholas said, rising with a sigh, “that I tried to keep him under control. No one values the services of a decent chaperon these days.”
Siblings changed seats without complaint. Tess smiled faintly at Nicholas as she passed him, then blushed at the look John gave her as she sat down next to him. He took her hand, kissed it briefly, then leaned close and put his mouth against her ear.
“Skiing in the Alps,” he whispered. “A wee trip to Sicily during August to sample the local cuisine and the strand both. I’ll even dig out my passport and brave crossing the Pond to see your Colonial treasures if you like.”
“Do you have one?” she asked, looking into his beautiful gray eyes. “A passport, I mean.”
“Absolutely,” he said. “And I fully intend to use it for many years to come.”
“I couldn’t ask—”
“You aren’t. I’m insisting.” He considered. “Have you been thinking otherwise?”
“Yes,” she said simply.
He looked at his brother briefly, then leaned forward and kissed her, long enough to leave Nicholas making noises of mock horror. He pulled back and looked at her seriously. “But in return, there is something I want you to do for me.”
She suppressed the urge to fan herself. “What?”
“Love me,” he said very quietly.
She took a deep breath. No sense in not ripping the plaster off right away. “For how long?”
“For forever.”
She looked at his fingers laced with hers. “In a casual sort of arrangement?”
She felt him put his finger under her chin and lift her face up. “I am a knight of the realm,” he said seriously, “and we do not indulge in
casual sorts of arrangements
.”
casual sorts of arrangements
.”
“Then what do you indulge in?”
“Formal proposals sanctioned by parents, which means we’re going to France to see mine before we go home and then to Seattle later to see yours, if they’re still loitering there.”
She had no intention of crying. She wasn’t a crier. The wet stuff leaking out of her eyes was just, well, excess something.
John rose and pulled her to her feet.
“And just where do you think you’re going?” Nicholas asked lazily.
“To find a darkened corner,” John said, “so I can make decent inroads into the wooing of my lady.”
Nicholas stretched his feet out and crossed them at the ankles, directly in John’s way. “I think . . . not.”
Tess looked at Nicholas, who was looking very paternal, then at Robin, who was only watching with his eyes twinkling and his finger rubbing over his mouth as if he hoped it might keep those lips from smirking unduly.
“I am,” John said distinctly, “a score and eight. Old enough to—”
“Know better,” Nicholas finished for him placidly. “Haven’t we had this conversation before?”
“Aye, and I’ve no less desire to stick you for it now than I had before.”
“You may not take an unchaperoned lady of breeding and kiss her senseless in my hall,” Nicholas said sharply. “For reasons you can divine using your own wee brain if you stretch yourself.”
“And if she were a lady of breeding who was betrothed to a lord’s son?”
“A quick peck on the cheek,” Nicholas conceded. “In plain sight.”
John glared at him. “Father said just that same thing to you, didn’t he?”
“Aye, and I was a score and eight as well,” Nicholas said, reaching for Jennifer’s hand. “And not too stupid to listen. Though we might be having a slightly different conversation if you were to now make certain this wasn’t a casual sort of arrangement.”
Tess watched John kick his brother’s feet out of his way, then turn to her purposefully. He took both her hands.
What are you doing?” she managed.
He tugged her closer. “Making headway, I hope.”
“You aren’t going to kiss me here,” she blurted out in English. “In front of everyone?”
“Isabelle and Montgomery are missing.”
“John!”
He looked at her in silence for several long moments, then took a step backward.
And then he sank to one knee.
The room was absolutely silent. The fire cracked and popped in the hearth, which Tess supposed had been happening all evening though she only noticed it at the moment. She felt her face flaming as well, but perhaps that was to be expected.
John looked up at her seriously. “I had hoped to do this in a more private setting”—he shot Nicholas a pointed look, then turned back to her—“but at least we’ll have witnesses.”
She supposed that was true, but she wasn’t going to say as much. All she could do was concentrate on keeping her mouth from hanging open.
Jake leaned forward and tapped John on the shoulder. “You’ll need this.”
Tess watched John accept a ring, then look at his brother-in-law in surprise.
“You’re prepared.”
“I was a Boy Scout,” Jake said dryly. “And to answer what you haven’t had the chance to ask, I was thinking about you a while ago for some odd reason. It occurred to me that you might need a ring for a woman charitable enough to rescue your sorry self from eternal bachelorhood. I thought it was a ridiculous idea at the time, but apparently it wasn’t.”
Tess looked down at the ring. Emeralds, rubies, sapphires—she lost track of the colors of stones set into the band. The only thing she knew was it looked absolutely medieval.
“I’ll pay you for this,” John said hoarsely.
“Yes, you will,” Jake agreed cheerfully.
John looked at the ring in his hand for a moment or two, then up at her. She tried to drag her sleeve across her eyes, but he wouldn’t let go of her hands. She was already shaking, so maybe the tears running down her cheeks wouldn’t be as noticeable as they might have been otherwise.
John took a deep breath. “Tess,” he began slowly, sounding a little more nervous than she’d ever heard him sound, “I have little to offer you—”
“Besides a Vanquish,” Jake put in, sounding disgusted, “and no doubt numerous Swiss safe-deposit boxes overflowing with cash.”
John shot his brother-in-law a warning look, then turned back to her. “I have a few quid,” he conceded, “which means nothing in either century except that I’ll be able to provide for you as you deserve. I vow I will shield you with my name, protect you with my sword, and sheepdog you until you beg me to stop.” He paused, then looked at her seriously. “I want forever, Tess.”
She blinked rapidly, because she had to. “John—”
He shook his head quickly. “I’m sure,” he said. “The question is, are you?”
She couldn’t see him any longer. She also couldn’t deny the fact that the thought of leaving him behind, or even being in the same time with him and not having him be a part of her life, the most important part of her life, was devastating. She also knew what it would mean to his siblings if she said yes.
She had a level of sympathy for Montgomery de Piaget she’d never imagined she might.
She didn’t dare look at his family, so she looked just at him. “I’m sure,” she said quietly, “and I want forever, too.”
He slipped that lovely ring onto her finger, then rose to his feet and pulled her into his arms. “I’ll take that as a yes,” he whispered against her ear.
She threw her arms around his neck and held on tightly. “It absolutely is a yes,” she said. “Forever yes.” She pulled back, then looked at Nicholas. “Have you an opinion on my kissing him?” she asked.
He put his hands behind his head. “We’ll judge how well you do it, if you like.”
John unhooked her arms from behind his neck, then pulled her behind him. She was somehow unsurprised, so she went. She rested her cheek against his back and looked at Jennifer, who was smiling through her tears. She returned the smile, because she knew Jennifer understood that her yes was about more than just a proposal of marriage. She took a deep breath, then wrapped her arms around John’s waist, just to keep him from doing something he might regret later.
“You, Nick,” John said distinctly, “are three words from finding yourself sporting my blade in your chest.”
“And what three words would those be?” Nicholas asked politely. “Go to hell? Keep your hands to yourself—nay, that’s more than three, so I’ll try another trio. You ridiculous boy?”
Tess kept John from starting forward only because she supposed when it came right down to it, he had some hesitation at the thought of killing his brother.
“I will see you in the lists,” John said curtly, “at dawn. Arrive prepared to depart speedily into the next life.”
“Will you rob my children of their father?” Nicholas asked plaintively. “My lady wife of her husband? How hard-hearted you’ve become in that future of yours.”
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