Chapter 25
Z
achary rubbed the place between his eyes that had begun to pound and wished he’d spent just a little more time on his medieval Norman French. It would have made the past eighteen hours slightly more enjoyable. He had the same sort of headache he’d had for the first few days in Mary’s time, a headache brought on not by sword hilts against his skull but by all the unrelenting, rapid-fire medieval Norman French being spoken without pause.
It had been worth it, though, to see Mary happy and relaxed. They had caught up with his brother Alex and his wife in a discreet little bed-and-breakfast in Edinburgh so Alex could then tap his appropriately nefarious contacts to get Mary grounded firmly in the twenty-first century. Zachary hadn’t asked any questions and his brother hadn’t volunteered any answers. Actually, Zachary hadn’t been able to do much besides simply watch Mary and marvel at the changes in her.
Modern life suited her. It had nothing to do with seeing her in jeans and a sweater, or listening to her talk animatedly about this Future marvel or that one. It was just that even with only a small bit of time and space, she had settled more fully into herself somehow. Perhaps that time alone at Moraig’s had been good for her in ways he hadn’t anticipated.
He watched Mary and Margaret walk ahead of him now, exchanging promises for future meetings where they could discuss the improbabilities of the future and the absolute perfection of Margaret’s first biological child. His brother Alex was walking with them and participating in the Norman French conversation with the ease of a man who had been married to a medieval woman for eight years and was raising three adopted children of that same vintage.
Zachary had hoped that Mary would be eased by a morning spent with someone who had grown up in the past, yet had now made a very pleasant life with a modern sort of guy. Well, Margaret was stuck with his brother so maybe she deserved more pity than congratulations, but he’d thought it was impolite to point that out, so he’d kept his mouth shut.
Alex looked over his shoulder at him and lifted one eyebrow in a look that said very clearly that Mary was crazy to lower herself to have anything to do with a man who still preferred Ho Hos to hummus. Zachary had seen the look before so he ignored it.
He couldn’t imagine that Mary didn’t know exactly how he felt about her. And he supposed he wouldn’t have been foolish to believe she felt the same way. He just had the feeling that Kendrick of Seakirk wasn’t going to be nearly as happy about the state of affairs of their hearts as his sisters-in-law had been. And he suspected, by the look of him, that Kendrick hadn’t slacked off on his swordplay over the years.
Alex dropped back to walk alongside him. “Where will you be?” he asked quietly. “Artane?”
“For the next couple of days, at least.”
“I’ll get her passport and birth certificate to you there, then.” He studied Zachary for a moment, then he took a deep breath and put on his pontificating blowhard attorney expression.
Zachary steeled himself for the worst. His brother, preparing to wax poetic about things he was sure he wouldn’t like. It couldn’t be good.
“You haven’t said as much,” Alex said slowly, “but I can’t help but assume you’re going to Seakirk first.”
Zachary felt something someone else might have called dread toy with settling in his stomach. “Why would you think that?”
Alex looked at him blandly. “Because I know who lives there.”
Zachary stopped still. “You do?”
“I’ve done the occasional bit of work for him.” Alex laced his fingers together and stretched them out in front of him before he smiled in a particularly enigmatic fashion. “I helped a friend of his out of a legal tangle a couple of years ago. I saw a painting of the earl’s family—or his parents and siblings, rather—while I was there.”
Zachary choked. He didn’t even protest when his brother slapped him several times rather forcefully on the back. “You’re kidding.”
“I never kid about legal tangles or family portraits.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?” Zachary wheezed.
“Tell you what, when?” Alex asked pointedly. “Were we supposed to chat before you hopped back to medieval Artane to then fall hard for a certain medieval miss?”
Zachary looked at his brother narrowly. “Who was the friend with the tangle?”
Alex smirked. “Jake Kilchurn.”
Zachary knew he shouldn’t have been surprised, but he found he was just the same.
“I helped Jake convert his vast assets into the right tender to buy Robin’s sister, Amanda,” Alex continued relentlessly, “because you know they don’t give away their precious treasures to untitled losers who don’t even have a full-time job.”
“I had a job before,” Zachary growled, “and I have one now.” He shook his head in disbelief. “Why do I talk to you?”
“Because I’m family and you have to. As for the other, I didn’t tell you because I had no idea you would go and fall for Amanda’s niece. I will tell you, though, that those Artane men are mighty reluctant to part with their women to untitled yahoos who don’t have a bed of their own.”
“You already said that.”
“I like to hear myself talk.”
Zachary cursed his brother, but it was without the level of venom he would have liked to have used. He was too winded. Alex only laughed—rather more robustly than necessary—as if he were enjoying a particularly delicious joke.
Zachary thought he might have to lean over soon until the stars stopped swirling around his head. “Think Robin knows about any of this? About the time traveling?”
“Of course he knows. Jake told him where—sorry, when—he was from before he used that great big X near Artane to come back here and get the goods.”
“Then he knew what I was from the very beginning.”
“Unless he’d had a recent blow to the head and lost all his long-term memories, then yes, I would imagine so.”
Zachary rubbed his hands over his face. “I need a drink.”
“You don’t drink. At least not now, though Jamie has a very interesting story about you and a cache of Barbados rum.”
“I know that story, though I’m surprised Jamie does because he was the one who spent the night with his head in a fern!” Zachary had to take a deep breath. “My first and only serious brush with demon liquor, thank you very much. Though I’m tempted to have another one very soon.”
“I wouldn’t until I’d figured out a way to tell Kendrick de Piaget why it is you’ve been snogging with his sister pretty much constantly for the past week.”
“It hasn’t been the past week. It’s only been the past couple of days.”
“I’m sure he’ll appreciate the distinction.”
Zachary felt a little queasy. “It’s the twenty-first century.”
“Not at Seakirk it isn’t.” Alex shook his head slowly. “You’re in way over your head, little brother. Call me if you want me to come scrape up the bloody pulp that’s left after he finishes with you.”
“He’s that good?”
Alex only looked at him for a minute in silence, then laughed and walked away. He was still chuckling when he gathered up his wife and baby, bid Mary a fond good-bye, then walked back to the bed-and-breakfast where they’d all been staying. Zachary continued on because he had comfortable leather seats inside his car, and he very much needed a place to sit down.
He was slightly sidetracked by the sight of Maryanne de Piaget waiting for him there by that car. He pulled her into his arms and thought there was no reason not to kiss her a bit while he was at it, just so she would remember that he had adored her before her brother had beaten the absolute crap out of him.
She pulled away, laughing. “I thought your head pained you.”
“I’m tougher than I look.”
She put her hands on his face and leaned up on her toes to kiss him. “Thank you for this morning. It was a very great gift.”
“It was a very great pleasure to watch you natter on in your native tongue.”
“You speak it very well.”
He could only hope he would have the chance to improve. He opened the door for her and waited for her get in. She stopped him before he started to close the door.
“How does the seat belt work again?”
He leaned over and buckled her in, then stopped when he realized she’d taken hold of the front of his shirt. He perched on the edge of the seat when she moved over to make room for him. He found himself smiling.
“Need help with anything else?”
“Come a little closer and I’ll tell you.”
Heaven help him, he was in trouble. “What other languages can you say that in?”
“Will I have a kiss for each?”
He took a deep breath and cast caution to the wind. Well, they’d cast caution to the wind already, but there was no point in not continuing on with what was apparently working so well. “A kiss for each?” he managed. “Absolutely.”
She smiled. “Then let me see what I know.”
It was quite a while later that he pulled away, because she did indeed know quite a few languages. She looked thoroughly kissed and he wasn’t sure he was going to be walking very well anytime soon. He looked into her very lovely, very green eyes, then kissed her one last time.
“A walk on the beach?” he suggested.
She smiled. “It sounds lovely.”
“I’ll keep my hands in my pockets.”
“I won’t.”
He laughed, then forced himself to pull away and shut the door.
It was the beginning of a charmed day. He walked with her along the beach, kissed her almost as often as he dared, and took as many pictures of her as she was willing to sit for. And he suppressed a dozen times the urge to ask her to marry him.
While she was still potentially willing.
He imagined that his stress over possibly destroying that willingness had begun to show by the time they were driving through the village at Seakirk. Mary was very quiet until they drove up to the outer gates.
“Zachary?”
He took a deep breath and looked at her. “What?”
“Why are we here at Seakirk?”
He squeezed her hand that was resting on his leg. “There’s just someone I want you to see before you make any serious decisions about your future.”
“Zachary,” she said quietly, “the decisions are made.”
“I mean about marriage.”
“I was referring to marriage.”
He paused in front of the outer gates, leaned over, and kissed her softly. “No matter what happens here, I just want you to know that I’ve made my decision, too, and I’m not going to change my mind. I’ll understand, though, if you want to.”
She blinked. “You will?”
He pulled away. “Of course not. It’ll kill me. I’m just trying to be polite.”
“Zachary Smith, you’re daft.”
“I’m beginning to think so, too.” He watched the portcullis be raised, then sighed. “Here goes nothing.”
More gates opened as if by magic—or paranormal means, which wouldn’t have surprised him—and he drove up the way.
“Ever been here?” he asked, because he had to say something to keep from shouting.
“Seakirk?” she asked in surprise. “Saints, nay. Matilda Bu chanan is—was—a witch. And even if that could be doubted, it was a well-known fact that her lover Richard was a warlock. Ask anyone who knew either of them.”
Zachary thought he just might have that chance very soon, especially considering he’d pried out of Megan de Piaget the details that Kendrick of Artane had been slain by Richard of York, cursed by Matilda of Seakirk, then lived as a ghost in the very keep in front of them for almost eight hundred years.
“Zachary, you’re very nervous.”
“I’m not nervous.” And he wasn’t. He was thirty-one, for pity’s sake, far too old to feel like a seventh grader being hauled into the principal’s office. He looked for a few quick excuses as to why he’d been doing things the principal might have disapproved of, but he wasn’t sure those excuses would fly in his current circumstances.
In his defense, he hadn’t known Kendrick was Mary’s brother when he’d brought her back from the Middle Ages. Of course, he hadn’t said anything when he’d figured it out, which was definitely a point against him. He also hadn’t gone to get her right away and delivered her to Kendrick’s door right away, nor had he avoided kissing her senseless until he’d delivered her to Kendrick’s door and asked the man if he could. His conversation with his brother came back to him suddenly with unwholesome clarity.
It’s the twenty-first century.
Not at Seakirk it isn’t.
Zachary had the feeling that truer words had never been spoken.
He pulled to a stop in the courtyard, then got out of the car before he was tempted to kiss Mary again. He walked around to her side and opened the door. He reached in and unbuckled her, then stopped and looked at her.
“I love you,” he said gravely.
She put her hand behind his head and leaned forward to kiss him. “Don’t leave me.”
“I don’t think I should even touch you here.”
She blanched. “Zachary—”
He kissed her again very quickly, then stepped back. He helped her out of the car, then released her hand. She took hold of the back of his jacket and held on. When he balked, she stuck her chin out and silently dared him to say aught. He shut her door, then sighed deeply. He held out his hand and waited for her to put hers in it. His doom was probably already sealed; there was no sense in not putting all the nails into his coffin.
He walked up the stairs with her, then knocked on the door. Mary was trembling. He looked at her in surprise.
“What is it?”
“You’re frightening me.”
He put his arm around her and pulled her close. “I’m not sure how to tell you this—”
“Ah, nay, not that sort of business,” she warned.
“There is someone inside whom you will know.”
“From the Future?” she whispered.
“Nay, love, from the past.” He took a deep breath and started to elaborate, but the door opened before he could.
“Oh, Master Smith,” Worthington said in his perfectly cultured butler’s voice.
Then he did a double take.
Zachary understood completely. He smiled politely. “Is His Lordship in?”
Worthington only nodded silently, his eyes absolutely enormous. He looked at Mary for another moment or two, then shut the door in their faces.
Zachary shot Mary a smile. “He’s usually better than that. I think you overwhelmed him.”
She scowled. “We’re here to meet some titled fool?”
“Well—”
The door was wrenched open suddenly. “What the hell’d you do to my ... butler ...”
Zachary wished he’d had the whole thing on video; it would have made it much easier to see everything he wanted to. He supposed he could have watched Kendrick gape and listened to Mary gasp and he would have known all he needed to. He did manage to glance at Mary briefly. She looked as if she’d seen a ghost.
Appropriate, actually.
Kendrick stumbled backward, then leaned over for a moment or two, taking deep, even breaths.
“Kendrick, what is ... it ...”
Zachary watched Genevieve wind down in much the same way her husband had. She stared at Mary in astonishment, then turned that same look on him.
“Who ... ?”
Zachary only smiled very faintly. He stepped away from Mary and waited for her to make the first move.
She didn’t have to. Kendrick straightened, reached out, then yanked his sister into his hall and into his arms. And then he lost it. Zachary looked away politely as the good lord of Seakirk fell apart. Until he realized Mary wasn’t weeping, that is. He found that she was looking at him over her shoulder, her expression full of confusion and dismay. He attempted a smile.
He imagined he had failed.
Mary turned back and held on to her brother, who was completely undone.
“There’s a story here,” Genevieve said faintly.
Zachary nodded, but he didn’t offer any details. He wasn’t sure that Kendrick could handle any details at the moment.
But it took the good lord of Seakirk less time than Zachary expected to pull himself together. He sucked in a deep breath, then held his sister away from him.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” he said in disbelief.
“’Tis complicated.”
“Explain it now, then.”
Zachary watched her wave in his general direction. He suppressed the urge to duck behind Worthington for protection.
“I met Zachary in the past,” she said faintly. “Styrr poisoned me and Zachary saved me by bringing me to the Future.”
Zachary wondered absently if every medieval expat would say the word so it sounded capitalized, or if he was just used to thinking of it that way for them.
“He brought you to the future,” Kendrick repeated incredulously. “When?”
“Well over a se’nnight ago, perhaps,” Mary said. She looked over her shoulder then. “When was it, Zachary?”
“About then,” Zachary said carefully.
The change in Kendrick’s mood was expected, but unsettling nonetheless. He set his sister aside and folded his arms over his chest.
“You’ve had her that long and you didn’t tell me,” he said flatly.
“I didn’t know about you, my lord,” Zachary said reasonably. “Not until last week.”
“You should have told me last week then!”
Zachary nodded slowly. “I could have—”
“You should have!” Kendrick bellowed.
“My lord—”
“And you,” Kendrick said, whirling on Mary. His voice was quavering badly. “Why didn’t you call? I assume you had access to a telephone, or did he keep you captive in some hovel?”
Mary looked at him in surprise. “What are you talking about?”
Zachary cleared his throat. “I didn’t tell her, my lord, because I thought—”
“You thought,” Kendrick echoed incredulously.
“I thought,” Zachary continued pointedly, “that since she had been very ill, another shock to her system might be one thing too many.”
“Merde,” Kendrick snarled.
“Kendrick,” Genevieve ventured, “perhaps we should—”
“How dare you keep my sister from me,” Kendrick continued on furiously. “And don’t try to convince me that it was for your lofty, altruistic reasons!”
Zachary took a deep breath. He couldn’t look at Mary, because he wasn’t sure he could bear to witness her expression. On the off chance that she shared her brother’s fury.
“My reasons were altruistic,” he said evenly. “For the most part. And for the rest, yes, you’re right. I didn’t bring her back to England the moment I knew who you were and what she was to you because I had this nagging suspicion that once you saw her, you were going to remind her that she’s an earl’s sister and I’m a peasant and then we would be back where we were almost eight hundred years ago.”
“You’re bloody well right about that last bit,” Kendrick said hotly. “My sister is a woman of rank and station and she will not date an untitled, barely-squeaking-along working sod, much less do anything else with you.”
“I’m not barely squeaking along—”
“My sister will not work down at the local Tesco so you can make ends meet!”
“I make half a million bloody pounds a year for the Trust—”
“A job you have yet to start!”
Zachary was very happy Kendrick didn’t have a sword, though he wasn’t sure why. He had the feeling that Kendrick could do an equal amount of damage with his bare hands. He took another deep breath. “I make enough to provide for her. And no, I don’t have a title, but this, Your Lordship, is the twenty-first century. I didn’t have what was required in the thirteenth, but things have changed here.”
“Of course they haven’t!”
“When I brought her home, I had no idea you were alive,” Zachary continued, struggling to keep his tone even. “And I thought that I just might stand the chance of having that Lamborghini.”
Kendrick blinked. “That what?”
“Something so far out of my reach that I could only stare at it stupidly,” Zachary said grimly, “and wonder what it might feel like under my hands.”
Kendrick gaped at him for a moment, then he did what Zachary knew he should have expected from the first.
He punched him full in the face.
Zachary stumbled backward, tripped over the threshold, then did what he always did when in those sorts of situations: he admired a set of very well-preserved stairs as he rolled down them. He decided he would find something especially nice to give Patrick MacLeod for Christmas that year in gratitude for all the injuries he’d avoided by having taken his brother-in-law’s Roll Your Way to No Broken Bones survival course.
He landed flat on his back in the courtyard, winded. It took him a moment before he dared open his eyes, and when he did, he wished he hadn’t.
Michael Smythe-Gordon was standing over him, smirking.
Perfect.
“Yet another triumph to add to your résumé,” Viscount Franbury sneered.
Zachary crawled to his feet. He had to lean against his car, though, which didn’t make him happy. “Michael,” he said as calmly as he could manage. “What a surprise.”
“It shouldn’t come as one,” Franbury said. “I believe I made mention of my plan to ruin you.”
“I thought you were bluffing.”
Franbury drew around himself centuries of fine breeding. “You’ll find, my naive friend, that I never bluff. But by all means, continue on with your peaceful existence. It won’t last long.” He looked up the stairs. “It won’t last much longer at all.”
Zachary watched Franbury ascend Seakirk’s fine stairs and knock briskly on the front door. He could imagine a few reasons why Franbury would want to have a little tête-à-tête with Kendrick de Piaget and none of them were good. He wasn’t above hoping that Kendrick would treat Michael to the same sort of send-off he had just experienced himself, so he decided he would stick around long enough to see the show.
Kendrick jerked open the door and looked out, then scowled. “And who are you?”
“Michael Smythe-Gordon. Viscount Franbury, if you’d rather. I believe we have an appointment?”
“Viscount,” Kendrick said, shooting Zachary a glare. “Well, that’s the type of lad I’m interested in, always. One with a title.”
Zachary could have sworn he heard swearing going on inside before Kendrick managed to get Michael in and the door shut, but he wasn’t sure if it was that or he was hallucinating. He walked around to the back of his car and pulled out Mary’s bag. He took it with him and braved the stairs again.
He was ready for Kendrick’s fist and managed to duck out of the way.
“I have your sister’s things!” he managed before Kendrick took a second swing.
Kendrick ripped the bag out of his hands, then gave him another shove. Zachary managed to spin and make it down the stairs without rolling and without killing himself. He landed rather heavily on one leg, then turned and looked back up at the door. Kendrick was glaring at him.
“Don’t come back.”
“That’s for Mary to decide.”
“I will decide for her!” Kendrick bellowed just before he slammed the door shut a final time.
Zachary went to lean against the side of his car. He stood there for several minutes, just watching the front door. He realized quite a crowd was gathering in the direction of what had been a garden minutes before but now looked quite a bit like medieval lists—some impressive paranormal activity, truly. He realized with equal certainty that the souls he was looking at were most definitely not mortal. He paid them no heed, not even when one of them, a burly brute dressed all in black, ran at him and plunged a sword into his chest.
Zachary only yawned. “You missed.”
The ghost drew himself up. “I most certainly did not!”
“Nay, he didn’t,” offered another ghost who hastened over. “Colin of Berkhamshire never misses.”
Zachary looked at the small gaggle of medieval knights who had suddenly gathered around their offended leader. “Look, I appreciate the effort you’re making on my behalf, but I’ve got too much on my mind to really give you the attention you deserve.”
Colin of Berkhamshire withdrew his sword from Zachary’s chest and resheathed it. He folded his massive arms over his equally beefy chest. “We’ve heard about you.”
“I imagine you have,” Zachary said wearily. He couldn’t bring himself to ask if the rumors had been good ones or bad ones. He considered asking the shades if they’d done any haunting in a southerly direction in the past week, but decided against that as well. It had probably been Franbury, carrying on with his quest to be as big a pain in the arse as possible. He looked up at the very shut door for another moment or two, cocked an ear to listen for continuing shouting, then sighed and turned away.
Mary had a phone and she knew how to use it. There was nothing else to be done.
Of course he wasn’t going to give up that easily, but he was certainly going to give her some room to spend enough time with her brother to at least put her heart at ease.
He climbed into his car and turned toward the gates.