“Oh, don’t,” Pippa protested immediately, then clapped her hand over her mouth as Cinderella sat up and looked around blearily.
She frowned, then leaned her head back against the hard wood of the chair and drifted immediately back into slumber. Pippa waited for a moment or two before she spoke again.
“Don’t stop,” she said quietly. “It was lovely.”
He pursed his lips. “Do you enjoy seeing me so discomfited?”
She smiled. “As entertaining as that is, I was actually just enjoying your music.”
He supposed she wasn’t teasing him, so he started his song over again, but quietly. There was no sense in waking sleeping royalty before he had to. Once he’d finished with that, he simply played for a bit, snatches of things he’d heard on his travels and other things he’d taken a fancy to at court.
“You’re very good, you know.”
He shrugged. “My brother John is—was—much better, but he is gone so ’tis left to me to carry on the tradition, I suppose.” He set his lute aside and rose silently. “How long will she sleep?”
“Hopefully all afternoon.”
He walked over to her and pulled her up to her feet. “Let’s ride.”
She looked up at him. “Do you need to think?”
“Aye,” he said seriously.
And have you to myself
would have been the next thing out of his mouth if he hadn’t had such self-control. He looked at his squire. “Play something if she begins to stir. She won’t know ’tis you if you sit behind her.”
“Phillip plays as well?” Pippa asked as they left the solar.
“My grandmother, who has attained a truly alarming age, requires it of all her grandchildren and their children. I think she was sorely vexed when my father took her daughter to live so far in the north, and this is her way of making certain we aren’t a pack of savage hounds.” He walked across the hall with her and out toward the stables. “I apologize. I didn’t ask you if you cared to ride.”
“I still can’t walk from yesterday,” she said with an uncomfortable half laugh, “but I’ll go along if you like.” She paused. “I’m ready to be free of the walls for a bit.”
He nodded, then silently saddled her horse for her. He likely should have put her up on a docile mare the day before, but the truth was he’d wanted her on something speedy should trouble arrive. He had very vivid if brief memories of killing a man who’d tried to make off with her soon after her arrival in his time. That lad had been nothing more than a fool obviously quite desperate for a way to extort a bit of money for Pippa’s safe return. But another man with more skill, or more desperation . . . Montgomery shook his head. There were so many dangers in his world that she was unprepared for.
Not that it mattered, in truth. She wouldn’t remain with him forever, so his dangers would not forever be hers. He wasn’t sure why the gate hadn’t worked for her that night Cinderella had pushed her into the moat, though he supposed he bore some of the blame for that given that he’d startled Pippa before she’d been able to make a proper go of things.
He hadn’t been able to do anything else. He’d been following them, then noticed something that bespoke too clearly of someone else lurking outside who perhaps shouldn’t have been. He hadn’t had the chance to investigate, though he hoped he didn’t come to regret that at some point. For all he knew, it had been Everard, looking for something else to add to his already overlarge store of murky tales about the de Piaget family.
He shook aside his unproductive thoughts, but remained silent until they were away from the keep. He finally turned to look at Pippa. “We should discuss your plans for returning home. I fear your sister’s wits will not last much longer.”
She studied him for a moment or two in silence. “Then you believe me?”
“I have no reason not to.”
“I was afraid you would think I was a witch and burn me at the stake,” she said with a weary smile.
“No burnings here,” Montgomery said lightly, though he supposed that might not have been the case in another keep. He attempted a smile. “You will want to return soon, no doubt.”
“Of course,” she said firmly.
Montgomery would have liked to have believed she sounded less sure of that than she had earlier, but he had, over the past se’nnight, found himself entertaining many more romantic notions than usual. It had obviously had a detrimental effect on not only his common sense, but his hearing.
“I’m just not sure what to do,” she continued quietly. “I don’t think that spot on your bridge works anymore—and it’s not as if I have a map of other portals through time.” She laughed, but there was no humor in it. “I imagine I don’t dare run around and ask a bunch of other people if they’ve seen refugees from the Future.”
He cleared his throat. “Nay, I don’t think I would, were I you.”
She studied him for so long, he thought about squirming—if he’d been one prone to squirming, which he most definitely was not. He just hoped his thoughts didn’t show on his face.
Aye, he knew where other portals were.
He would likely be damned for not being terribly fond of the thought of taking her to one.
“You haven’t seen anyone else like me come through your front gates, have you?”
“Never,” he said honestly. And he hadn’t. He had never seen any woman from the Future come through his front gates.
He studiously avoided mentioning what he had seen come through his
father’s
front gates.
The thought occurred to him suddenly that perhaps Pippa’s and Cinderella’s ability to travel through time wasn’t necessarily limited to the gate in front of his hall that he’d never suspected might be there. Indeed, hadn’t he seen Pippa standing in the midst of that gate near Artane ten years earlier? He was tempted to ask her if she’d seen him as well, but that might make it sound as if he knew more about paranormal happenings than he should have.
Nay, ’twas best he not tell her that he did indeed know where there were a few more spots in the grass she might try. For all he knew, she was required to go back to her time through the gate she’d come to his, so perhaps she would just have to stay with him until her gate was willing to take her back. That might take days, or it might take weeks.
The thought wasn’t nearly as displeasing as it likely should have been.
Or it wasn’t until he realized that it wasn’t just Pippa he would have in his hall; it would be her sister as well.
“Let’s try trotting,” he said suddenly.
She blinked. “What?”
“If you ever needed to travel, you would want to know how to trot,” he said, knowing he sounded every bit as daft as he suspected he sounded. “It seems prudent.”
“Um,” she began hesitantly.
“I’ll fetch rope from the lads for a lunge line.”
“If you’re sure.”
If it meant he could spent half an hour with her riding circles around him, then aye, he was sure. He collected rope from one of his lads, turned his horse over to Phillip, then walked over to where Steud stood waiting. The horse looked at Montgomery, sighed as only a horse could sigh, and prepared to be the means of schooling a green rider. Montgomery smiled, promised the beast an extra measure of oats, then fixed the rope to Pippa’s saddle. She looked at it in alarm, then turned that same look on Montgomery.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking control.”
“Why do I suspect that’s how you’re most comfortable?”
“You might be surprised,” he said dryly. “I am by far the most tractable of my brothers.”
“Unless you’re practicing with your sword.”
“Well, I do have a reputation to maintain,” he agreed. “But I have been known to be deferential to whomever of the gentler sex might be within earshot.”
“So, you’ll let me get down right now because I’m nervous.”
He met her eyes. “Nay.”
“And if I told you I was terrified beyond reason and couldn’t face the thought of being on a horse another moment?”
He put his hand on her foot. It was a far less personal touch than he was interested in, so he supposed there was no harm in it. He looked up at her.
“I would tell you that I had perfect confidence in your ability to do difficult things, then ask you to trust me.”
“That’s a lousy answer.”
He smiled. “Trust me, Pippa. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
She took a deep breath. “Are you always so kind to unexpected guests?”
“I usually run them through with my sword. I made an exception for you.”
Pippa laughed uneasily. “All right, I’ll trust you. I want it noted, however, that Lord Tractable is suddenly nowhere to be found.”
“He has disappeared in favor of Master Sensible,” Montgomery said. “The truth is, I will be more successful at keeping you safe if you can ride. Unless you’d rather me drag you off your horse and pull you behind me as we ride furiously away from the first sign of danger.”
“I’ll trot.”
“I thought you might.”
He showed her how to hold the reins properly, tried without much success to ignore how truly lovely she was when viewed by pale sunshine and not the glaring light of her sister’s unsettling perfection, then backed away and clicked at Steud. He taught her the most rudimentary of skills, then simply watched her as she practiced.
In time, he realized she’d stopped only because he heard her say his name. He looked at her, feeling as if he’d just woken.
“Aye?”
“How am I doing?”
“Brilliantly.”
“You weren’t paying attention.”
The truth was, he wasn’t paying attention to her riding, but he’d been most definitely paying attention to her.
“I think you need a nap,” she added.
“Do you think your sister has vacated my solar yet?” he asked, not daring to hope that might be the case so he could retire there with Pippa and ply her with another ballad or two.
To what purpose he couldn’t have said and didn’t care to answer. She was in his care for the foreseeable future and ’twas only chivalrous to make certain she was content.
Surely.
“We could go see if she’s gone upstairs,” Pippa said. “If you like.”
He did. He coiled the rope as he walked toward her, then unfastened the end of it. He put his hand briefly on her knee, then stepped back. “You did well.”
“You’re a good teacher.”
He didn’t particularly want to be that for her, he realized, but he couldn’t offer her anything else even if she were interested in it. He nodded, accepting the compliment, then returned the rope to his guardsman, mounted his own horse, and turned with Pippa back to the keep.
He rode into the courtyard to find something of a standoff there before the great hall. Gunnild was flanked by her children, the garrison was huddled in a clump, and a new contingent of souls was standing in the courtyard, the leader of which was looking about himself with an assessing gaze that bespoke serious business indeed.
Montgomery dismounted and shot Phillip a look. Phillip moved his mount closer to Pippa and put his hand on his sword. Montgomery walked over to the man standing in the middle of his courtyard and clasped his hands behind his back.
“Good e’en to you, sir,” Montgomery said politely. “May I be of service?”
The man looked him over, then made him a low bow adorned with a handful of flourishes. “You are, quite obviously, Lord Montgomery.”
“I am,” Montgomery agreed.
“I am,” the man said, putting his hand over his heart, “François.”
Montgomery felt his ears perk up. “Are you, indeed?”
“I am, indeed. I am a gift from your brother Nicholas, who keeps an excellent cellar and an enviable larder.” He lifted an eyebrow in a doubtful arch. “I don’t suppose I can hope for the same here.”
“You cannot,” Montgomery said, with genuine regret, “but dare I hope that won’t stop you from creating things to delight and astonish?”
François looked at him calculatingly. “Your brother promised me you would appreciate my efforts.”
“My brother is always right.”
“Then I will repair to the kitchens and see what is available.” He looked with distaste at the occupants of the great hall. “I will not be cooking for the garrison, will I?”
Montgomery didn’t imagine that was a question, and more important, he suspected he would do well to respond correctly.
“Nay, just for me and my guests.”
François clapped his hands together and a trio of imminently helpful-looking helpers leapt immediately to his side.
“We will investigate,” François announced. “Then we will forage. Fortunately, I brought my own supplies.”
“That was fortunate,” Montgomery agreed, feeling rather more relieved than he likely should have for the possibility of something edible on his table. He hoped he looked appropriately grateful as he watched François venture off to points unknown and no doubt unsuitable. He let out his breath slowly, then went to help Pippa down from her horse.
“Who’s that?” she asked.
“A culinary gift from my second-eldest brother, Nicholas,” he said. “He has a keep in France.”
“And exquisite taste in truffles,” came floating back on the breeze left by François’s attendants.
Pippa smiled. “You look relieved.”
“I am,” he said, “and so are you—as in relieved from any duties you’ve taken on in the kitchen. You’ll retire to my solar and rest from your afternoon’s labors.”
“Lord Tractable, back in the saddle.”
He smiled. “Very well. You may briefly see to your sister, but you will no longer be serving her or helping in the kitchen.”
“But—”
“I am not accustomed to being gainsaid.”
Her mouth fell open. “You bully.”
He leaned closer so he could whisper in her ear. It put him much too close to her for his peace of mind, but he had already spent an afternoon doing things that were ill-advised, looking where he wasn’t allowed, wanting things he couldn’t have. Whispering in her ear didn’t seem any worse than those things.