“I would tell you, but then you might tell my brothers and I would never be able to show my sweet visage at their halls again without raucous and unrelenting laughter greeting me.”
“Phillip told me you have a continual stream of women throwing themselves at you, in and out of your bedchamber.”
He felt his mouth fall open. “When did you speak to him about
that
sort of thing?”
“He thought I should know.”
“The little wretch,” Montgomery muttered. “I should say I hope he’s safe, but after that I think he deserves what happens to him.” He paused. “I told Ranulf to take him and the rest of the lads to Segrave.”
“I never asked you the details of your abrupt departure,” she said, glancing at him briefly. “Was it the usual thing?”
“Cousins wanting to kill me?” he asked. “Of course. I couldn’t be so fortunate as to have them fight amongst themselves until none remains.”
She watched the road for a bit, then cleared her throat. “This isn’t any of my business, of course, but I wonder if your father gave you Sedgwick because he thought you had the negotiating skills to bring warring factions together?”
“I would like to believe that,” he said wryly, “but I think he intended to give the keep to my twin brother, John. When John disappeared, he was left with me.”
She looked at him in surprise. “You’re a twin?”
“Didn’t I tell you?”
“You most certainly didn’t,” she said. She watched the road for another moment or two, then spoke quietly. “Where did your brother go?” she asked. “If you don’t mind my asking.”
“I don’t mind, though I will admit that I haven’t spoken freely of it to anyone else.” He had to take a deep breath or two before he could go on. Even though he was certain his audience would understand, actually talking about the events surrounding John’s disappearance was still difficult.
“Montgomery, you don’t have to tell me anything,” she said quietly.
He shook his head. “You should know, I think.” He shot her a quick smile, then plunged into his tale before he thought better of it. “Several years ago—eight, to be exact—John and my father argued, though I’m not sure over what. John demanded his inheritance, left the keep, then disappeared. We searched, of course, but ’twas all to no avail. My parents grieved for almost a year, then took themselves off to France for a distraction.” He shrugged. “They return now and again to Artane, but my father has essentially turned over his title to Robin.”
“Can he do that?” Pippa asked in surprise. “Does the king allow it?”
“When you are Rhys de Piaget, you find you can do quite a few things,” Montgomery said dryly. “And my father flatters Henry by sending him lavish gifts now and again, so His Majesty is pleased to allow my father his little oddities.”
“You de Piagets use that word a lot.”
“I would like to say ’tis without justification, but I cannot.” He leaned his head back against the seat. “So, my brother is no more, and I have been given a castle I cannot easily claim.”
“But it sounds like your father has confidence in you,” she said. “I also understand that you are quite a favorite of the king because he values you for the many languages you speak and your ability to sway everyone in the room to your point of view without their having realized what you were doing.” She shot him a look. “Phillip says it’s your delicious wit and lovely eyes that do it.”
“He talks too much.”
“He loves you,” she said with a smile, turning back to the road. “You should know, however, that he grilled me on my accomplishments, though I can’t imagine why. Does he audition all the women you date?”
Montgomery turned in his seat to look at her. “I never said I wanted to date you, Pippa.”
She blinked. “You don’t?”
He frowned. She looked a little taken aback and he couldn’t fathom why until it occurred to him that he hadn’t made himself clear. It also occurred to him that she was thinking too much about things they hadn’t even begun to discuss. “Stop the car, Persephone.”
“You are the bossiest man I’ve ever had the misfortune—”
He put his hand over hers on the gearshift. “Pull over, love.”
She shot him a dark look, then found a place where she could pull the car off the road. “I need to stretch my legs,” she muttered as she turned the car off and opened the door. “And get some air.”
He knew what she needed, and it wasn’t air. He pulled the keys out of the ignition, then crawled out of the car, pocketing the keys before he had to run rather fast to catch his escaping chauffeur. He caught her by the hand, then pulled her around and into his arms.
“You’re weary,” he said quietly. “You have done all the labor of getting us here and I have given you no rest from it. We should have taken more time.”
“I’m fine.”
He kept her close with one hand and stroked her hair with the other. “I do not want to date you, Persephone. I want far more from you than that.” He paused. “I’m not unaware of the difficulties that presents for both of us.”
“Montgomery,” she said with a sigh.
He took her face in his hands, tipped it up, then bent his head and kissed her very gently.
She trembled. Or that might have been him. He honestly couldn’t have said. He just knew they were both in trouble. He might have been something of a novice at bedding women, but he’d certainly kissed more than his share of them. He took Pippa’s hands and put them up around his neck.
“Heaven help me,” she breathed.
He smiled against her mouth, then made serious inroads into proving that he was most definitely not just interested in a casual alliance with her.
By the time he lifted his head and looked down at her, he wasn’t sure he would be walking well—or at all—any time in the near future. He rested his forehead on her shoulder.
“Are you carrying me back to the car, or am I carrying you?” he asked weakly.
“I’m completely unaffected.”
She looked a little cross-eyed, but since that was how he felt, he couldn’t fault her for it. He swept her up into his arms, narrowly missing her elbow in his nose as she threw her arms around his neck.
“I’ll drive,” he said confidently.
“You will not.”
“I believe, lady, that you forget who is lord in this relationship.”
“This is the twenty-first century, bucko. I’m emancipated.”
He walked back to the car, set her on her feet, backed her up against the Mercedes’s lovely silver side, and kissed her again. Repeatedly. Until he felt some small bit of ground had been gained. When he lifted his head and looked down at her, she looked thoroughly kissed, not completely unhappy, and almost compliant.
“No,” she said languidly.
“How hard can it be?” he asked, slipping his hand under her hair. “I have the keys.”
“Yeah, but you don’t know how to use the clutch—” Several minutes later, he looked at her again. She didn’t open her eyes.
“You know,” she remarked, “you can’t just kiss me every time you want to get your way.”
“Why not? It works for my brothers.”
“No.”
“Persephone, you are a stubborn case.”
“Divas often are.”
He marched forward into the fray, as it were, with enthusiasm and no small bit of determination. And he had to admit, as the morning began to wear on, that if he didn’t regain some sort of control over himself, they were going to be finding a priest that afternoon.
He retreated and examined the battlefield. Pippa was collapsed against the car, looking as if she’d been chocolate left out in the sun too long.
“Well?” he asked pointedly.
She managed to squint at him. “You’re going to get me in big trouble.”
“I have a sword. Stephen will respect that.”
She pursed her lips. “All right. Drive up and down this very long stretch of very straight road twenty times without creaming his car, and I’ll think about letting you drive through town.”
He grunted. “You forget—”
“That you don’t have a license and that this thing’s packing about four hundred horsepower,” she said pointedly.
He considered the absolute improbability of that for a moment or two, then conceded the battle. He swept her up in his arms and carried her around to the passenger side whilst he still could. He saw her inside, leaned over to buckle her in, then found her fist curled into his shirt.
“What?” he asked.
He wasn’t quite sure how it happened, but he wound up sitting on her lap long enough for her to kiss him quite thoroughly before she begged him to move.
“I’m not going to be able to drive properly if you don’t stop that,” he warned.
She gave him a friendly shove. “Get out of here and go cool off. I’ll wait.”
“It might take a while.”
She laughed and shut herself inside the car. Montgomery walked around it a score of times until he thought he could think of something besides things he couldn’t engage in that afternoon, then slid in under the wheel.
He was growing unfortunately fond of the twenty-first century.
“Clutch,” Pippa advised.
“I know,” he said. “I’ve been watching.”
She put her hand on his leg. “Be careful.”
He took her hand, kissed it, then put it back in her lap. “Stop touching me.”
“You started this,” she pointed out.
“Aye, and I’m paying a steep price for it, believe me.” He started up the car, then had to take a deep breath. And he wasn’t sure what had overwhelmed him more, kissing Pippa or putting the powerful beast in gear and actually driving down the road.
“I’ve been replaced,” she said, sounding rather amused.
“Only until we get to the keep, then you’ll need to run continually to escape me.”
She laughed a little, then fell silent. Montgomery looked at her after a moment. She was simply watching him, affectionately and without worry.
“Are you frightened?”
She shook her head. “You’ll keep me safe.”
“There aren’t any trees near the road.”
“Well, I didn’t want to say as much,” she admitted, “but yes.”
He drove, turned about, then drove a bit more until he’d completed a score of trips up and down that road that was indeed very straight. He pulled over, then looked at her.
“Now might I go very fast?”
“No,” she said immediately. “Just get us through town. Stephen says there’s a spot to park the car right next to the castle. We’re supposed to tell the lady at the ticket booth that you’re a guest of Stephen’s, or she’ll make us pay to get in.”
“Pay?” he asked in disbelief. “To get into my own home?”
“Welcome to the Future, cupcake.”
Montgomery shook his head, then looked behind him before he pulled back onto the road.
The journey through the small bit of town was substantially more difficult than the travels down the road, but he managed it, found the car park, then put Stephen’s car there. He turned the car off, then looked to his left.
And he felt a shiver go down his spine.
He glanced at Pippa to find her gaping at the keep, so perhaps he wasn’t the only one overwhelmed.
“You grew up here?” she squeaked.
He found it in him to smile. “Aye. ’Tis impressive, isn’t it?”
“It’s enormous.”
He looked past her. “It doesn’t seem to have changed too much.” He unbuckled and removed the key. “Wait for me.”
“Of course.”
He looked at her quickly to find her watching him with what he supposed he might dare to call affection. He leaned over, kissed her once, firmly, then pulled away and got out of the car. He shoved the key in his pocket as if he’d had pockets and car keys the whole of his life, then went around to fetch Pippa whilst he could still think straight. He hesitated, then gladly turned when she pulled him around and put her arms about his waist.
He held her close and, to his shame, had to close his eyes for a minute to block out the sight in front of him. His father, at that moment, was eight centuries deceased, as were all his siblings, their spouses, and their children. It was, he had to admit with all candor, a terrible realization.
“Montgomery?” she said softly. “Do you want to try the beach first?”
“Nay,” he managed, but he didn’t open his eyes and he didn’t release her, “I am well. I simply feel as if I’m walking over my parents’ graves. I didn’t expect this.”
“You can go home again,” she said quietly. “I’m positive of it.”
He was, too, though that didn’t make the present feel any easier. He sighed deeply, then lifted his head and looked down at her. “I believe there are several time gates in England,” he said slowly. “There was one near Artane, once.”
She didn’t look terribly surprised. “I think I’ve been near it.” She managed a faint smile. “I had come to England with my parents one summer and we were doing a little medieval faire near here. I was watching the sunrise over the beach, then turned around and saw a guy standing behind me in chainmail. He was, I will admit impartially, the most gorgeous young man I’d ever seen.”
He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “And you were easily the loveliest faery
I
had ever seen.”
Her mouth fell open. “Did you see me?”
“I did. Perhaps you can imagine my surprise when that same ethereal creature came walking out of my bedchamber the morning after I pulled her from my cesspit.”
“You didn’t pull me, buster. I crawled.”
He laughed and hugged her tightly. “That I carried you upstairs should count for something. And that I didn’t faint when I realized your wings were not attached should also count for something.”
She began to blush. “I don’t think I want to carry on any more of this conversation. I’m fairly sure I know where it’s going given that I woke up that next morning missing a bit more than my wings.”
“I didn’t look.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”