He didn’t dare hope that she might not
want
to return to that time.
He looked up at the sky, almost dreading the waning of the afternoon. One more day behind him, which meant one more day closer to sending Pippa back to her time. He had no doubt he would manage it. If nothing else, he supposed he could send them home through that gate near Artane. The irony of that was almost more than he could stand—
“My lord?”
Montgomery turned to look at his squire, frowning as he did so. There was a note in the lad’s voice he didn’t particularly care for. “Aye, lad?”
“I haven’t noticed Sir Ranulf returning recently. I think surely an hour has passed since—”
“Damnation,” Montgomery said, because that was the least of the things he could have said. Nay, his captain hadn’t returned to deliver scouting tidings in at least a pair of hours, and he should have noticed sooner. He would have, if he hadn’t spent all his time worrying that Cinderella would lure every ruffian in England away from their comfortable fires to see who the banshee was shrieking out curses. “Hell,” he added, because that seemed fitting, given it was where he had likely plunged his entire company.
“Actually,” a voice drawled from behind him, “I would say you were leaving Hell and moving on to more interesting parts of our blessed isle, but perhaps I’m not the most unbiased one to ask.”
Montgomery looked at Pippa, who had turned in her saddle to look behind her. All the color had drained from her face. He would have reassured her that all was well, but he supposed he shouldn’t until he’d assured himself that such was the case. He had no doubt he wouldn’t be free of what had caught him up without some sort of penalty to be paid. He looked at Phillip.
“Guard her.”
“Of course, my lord uncle.”
Montgomery turned his horse to face a sight he was sure he wouldn’t enjoy and a bit of censure he would most certainly deserve.
Nicholas de Piaget, lord of Wyckham, Count of Beauvois, and possessor of copious amounts of sword skill learned at his peerless father’s knee, sat twenty paces from him, surrounded by a small army of guardsmen. Montgomery knew they were only a fraction of the lads Nicholas laid claim to, but that was because his brother wouldn’t have left his family unprotected by anything less than a mighty force.
Montgomery realized just how far he was from having a garrison he would have trusted to protect anyone he might have loved.
The only bright spot in the gloom was realizing he’d traveled farther that day than he’d hoped. Judging by the landscape, Wyckham was but another half day’s ride ahead. He supposed it might be premature to hope he would enjoy something edible at his brother’s supper table before Nicholas killed him.
Nicholas only lifted an eyebrow in challenge.
Montgomery suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. “Am I to fight you for my freedom,” he asked briskly, “or will you simply take a ransom for it?”
“As it happens,” Nicholas said thoughtfully, leaning on the pommel of his saddle, “I’ve had ample time to think on just that given that I’ve been following you for at least an hour.” He nodded to his captain. “William, if you would be so good as to keep watch over my lord Sedgwick’s company whilst we speak of our business in private?”
To his credit, Nicholas’s captain didn’t give in to so much as a ghost of a smile. He merely nodded solemnly, then nodded to the men surrounding his lord. Montgomery sighed, then backed his horse up until he was where he could look at Pippa.
“All is well.”
“Who
is
that?” she asked faintly.
“My second-eldest brother, Nicholas.”
“He of the useful imagination?”
“Aye,” Montgomery agreed darkly. “An imagination I’m quite certain he’ll use exhaustively in divising ways to humiliate me for daydreaming whilst I should have been watching over our company. He’s likely holding Ranulf for ransom. We can be relieved, I suppose, that ’tis Nicholas here and not Robin, else I couldn’t afford to free us.”
“I must agree,” Phillip ventured. “My sire would have demanded either acceptable swordplay or all your gold. Perhaps both, plus a shining of his boots.” He looked at Pippa. “My father is—”
“Impossible,” Montgomery finished for him. “Impossible and irritating and a whole host of other things I’ll list for you later.” He paused and looked at Cinderella who had taken a good look at Nicholas and his guardsmen and begun to scream. He looked back at Pippa. “Can you silence her?”
“Absolutely.”
“Do you require aid?”
She smiled briefly, then shook her head. “Go chat with your brother. I’ll be fine.”
She dismounted before he could help her, then walked over to speak urgently to her sister. Phillip jumped off his horse and trotted off after her when it looked as if Cinderella might be fancying another go at Pippa’s eye. Montgomery turned away with a curse, dismounted, then walked over to look up at his brother.
“I am in haste,” he said. “Be about your criticism of my care of these two gels without delay so I might see to what I must.”
Nicholas dismounted with a grunt. “I’m not about to give you a lecture on your knightly duties. I believe I gave you one or two during your youth and that fulfilled my obligation completely.”
Montgomery dragged his hand through his hair. “I’m distracted.”
“By the woman in the wagon or the woman riding next to you, pretending to be a lad?”
“Both, for different reasons.”
Nicholas looked at Cinderella. “Brother, you must talk sense into that one. The noises she makes—”
“What am I to do?” Montgomery asked shortly. “Gag her?”
“After having listened to her for the past hour, I would say aye. You would be doing her and the one I suppose by the look of her is her sister a favor. I have lads enough with me, but not for an extended battle if we’re set upon fiercely.”
Montgomery hesitated. “I don’t care for this treatment of even a daft wench.”
“Shall I do it for you?”
“Would you?” Montgomery asked wearily.
Nicholas only smiled. “Of course not. You’ve been able to fight your own battles for years now, Montgomery.” He fished about in his saddlebag for a moment or two, then came up with a strip of cloth. “ ’Tis clean, though I don’t suppose it will taste very nice just the same.”
Montgomery suspected the taste of her gag was the last thing Cinderella was going to notice. He had a moment’s hesitation about what he planned to do, then set that aside when Cinderella crawled out of the wagon and started toward Pippa. He leapt forward and caught her by the arms before she could touch her younger sister. He looked at Pippa.
“Gag her,” he said quietly.
Pippa didn’t hesitate. She also didn’t manage to accomplish the task before Cinderella had sunk her teeth into his wrist. Montgomery wouldn’t have let her go if she hadn’t elbowed him so hard in the belly that he doubled over with a gasp. He missed catching her before she threw herself at Pippa, her claws unsheathed, but he supposed his aid had been unnecessary.
Pippa had caught her sister under the chin with her fist.
Cinderella slid gracefully to the ground like a fine, long length of silk, smacked her lips a time or two, then began to drool. Montgomery looked at Pippa, openmouthed.
“Well,” he managed.
“I had to,” she said defensively.
He held up his hands. “I wasn’t condemning you. Just admiring your technique. Perhaps you’d care to supplant Ranulf as captain of my guard.”
She rubbed the knuckles of her right hand gingerly. “I’m not sure you’d want me. I think I might burst into tears soon.”
She looked as if she were ready to do just that. He took her hand on the pretext of examining it when what he wanted to do was take her hands and use them to pull her into his arms. When he felt her trembling, he cast caution to the wind and did just that. He put his arms around her and held her whilst she shook.
“You spared us unwanted company,” he said quietly. “Something had to be done.”
“I’ve never hit anyone before.”
He looked over her head to find his brother standing there, watching with a small smile on his face. Nicholas shook his head wryly, then turned to have his lads see to securing their unhappy traveling companion. Montgomery left him to it and concentrated instead on the woman in his arms.
For not nearly as long as he would have liked, as it happened.
She took a deep breath, then pulled away. “Right. So, what now?”
“Food,” Nicholas said, turning away from the wagon where Cinderella had been made as comfortable as possible, “then a continuation of our separate journeys.” He held out his hand for Pippa’s, then favored her with a courtly bow. “Nicholas de Piaget, at your service.”
Pippa smiled. “I can see where Montgomery learned his chivalry.”
“I will admit,” Nicholas admitted modestly, “that I taught him most all of what he knows. About chivalry, dancing, singing, the playing of the lute—”
“Enough,” Montgomery said, rolling his eyes. “Don’t encourage the braggart, Pippa, else he’ll go on all day about the mighty virtues he managed to instill in me.” He looked at Nicholas. “We would appreciate a meal, but before that, I must speak with you.”
Nicholas winked at Pippa. “He’s trying to squeak out of a hefty ransom. I’m not entirely sure why he was so distracted—”
“The premonition that I would have to listen to you babble on for the whole of the afternoon,” Montgomery said shortly. He nodded to Phillip. “Keep your hand on your sword, Phillip, and please tell Ranulf I will apologize to him for sending him into a trap after I’m finished here.” He looked at Pippa. “Phillip will watch over you until I return.”
Pippa nodded, then walked with Phillip over to a fallen log away from the main road. Montgomery watched them go, then turned to his brother.
“Well?”
Nicholas only smiled. “Interesting company you keep.”
Montgomery grunted, then rubbed his hands. It had been a very long journey with an end in sight he didn’t particularly care to reach. He sighed, then looked at his brother. “When they first arrived on my threshold, I thought, if you can believe this, that they were the Faery Queen and her servant.”
Nicholas laughed, then he stopped abruptly. “You can’t be serious. Well,” he amended, “I know you fully believed such things in your youth—”
“With good reason, I might add, given the mysterious circumstances surrounding a trio of my siblings’ spouses,” Montgomery said pointedly.
“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” Nicholas said promptly.
Montgomery shot him a look he hoped fully revealed his disgust.
Nicholas shifted uncomfortably, then laughed, also uncomfortably. “I don’t know what you want from me.”
“I want a look at a particular map you reportedly keep hidden in your strongest trunk,” Montgomery said. “John found it, if you’re interested.”
Nicholas shut his mouth that had fallen open. “He didn’t.”
“He did.”
“Did you look at it with him?”
“I didn’t, but Kendrick did.”
Nicholas’s mouth fell back open. “Why, that little wretch. And damn that John for no doubt leading the way to things he shouldn’t have been toying with.”
“A terrible habit of his,” Montgomery said in a tone he hoped said he didn’t care to discuss the subject any further. “And to clear up the other for you, of course I knew Pippa and her sister weren’t from Faery. The only thing I don’t know is how to get them back to where they do belong.”
“And why would you think I would have any . . . er . . .” He paused, then sighed. “Very well, you needn’t look at me that way any longer.” He nodded toward his left. “We’ll speak of it further in private.”
Montgomery was happy to oblige him. He walked with his brother for a few minutes, then waited whilst Nicholas looked about him, then frowned.
“I’m not admitting to having seen anything . . . unusual.”
“Nick, I am no longer a child,” Montgomery said with what he thought an admirable amount of patience. “In fact, not only am I no longer a child, I am responsible for the care of two women who are, by their own admission, hundreds of years out of their time. If you cannot be frank with me now, when will you be?”
“I knew this day would come,” Nicholas said with a sigh.
“Consider me practice for your wee ones. You can’t imagine you won’t be answering their questions at some point in the future.”
“The saints preserve me,” Nicholas said faintly. He took a deep breath. “Very well, I will be frank—and brief. There are, from what I understand, gates scattered over the whole of Scotland and much of England. Jennifer has a cousin—a distant cousin, of course—who was in a former lifetime a Scottish laird. He wed himself a gel from the Future, traveled to the Future himself, then began an investigation of all things paranormal.”
“Robin would loathe him.”
Nicholas smiled. “I daresay he would. This cousin, as it happens, is a very keen maker of maps. He made one for Jennifer as part of her dowry, one that contains all the gates in England and as much of Scotland as he thought we might be able to reach. So, aye, I can aid you in getting your lady and her sister back to their proper time.”
“She isn’t my lady.”
Nicholas only lifted an eyebrow. “If you say that often enough, you might begin to believe it.”
Montgomery dragged his hand through his hair. “I told her I was betrothed to another.”
“You fool,” Nicholas said, with a shocked laugh. “What were you thinking?”
“To escape a marriage to her sister, who is under the impression that she truly is the Faery Queen, which I believe I mentioned before, and who had determined I would make an excellent bridegroom.”
“Well, you
are
an attractive lad.”
Montgomery scowled at his brother. “I had to have some excuse to say the wench nay. Pippa and Cinderella have their lives back in their time, and I have holes in my walls and cousins who want me dead.”