Tess felt one of John’s hands come to rest over hers.
“And if you were me and had a stunningly beautiful and frighteningly clever woman who wanted to pull you into a darkened corner and kiss you senseless, what would you do to the brother who stood in your way?”
“After I thanked him for the concern, I would have clipped him under the jaw and stepped over his insensible body to follow after my lady wherever she led.”
“Thank you,” John said pointedly.
“Five minutes,” Nicholas said pointedly in return. “Find a corner, thank her properly for agreeing to take your disagreeable self in the bargain, then hurry back before we come looking for you.”
Tess found her hand taken and brotherly feet removed from the path. John stopped and looked back over his shoulder at Robin.
“Nothing to add?”
Robin held up his hands. “I wouldn’t presume.”
Tess found herself shepherded out of the solar without delay. She stopped John before he pulled her too much farther along the passageway, because despite everything, she had to know for certain that he knew what he was getting into.
“Are you really sure?” she asked. “Your family—”
“Is thrilled I finally met someone who’ll endure me,” he finished. “Why would you think anything else?”
“You know why.” She had to take a very deep breath. “I was caught up in the moment inside there, but now I’m not sure—”
“About me?”
“Of course not,” she said without hesitation. “But I don’t know that I can take you away from your life here.”
He wrapped his arms around her and looked down at her seriously. “Tess, you can’t imagine I want to remain in the past.”
“Well, of course I can
imagine
,” she blurted out. “Your family is here.”
He looked over his shoulder and apparently found the hallway empty enough to suit him. He held her close with one hand, slipped the other under her hair, and proceeded to kiss her until she thought he might have made inroads into convincing her he meant what he said.
“My family, my love,” he said against her mouth, “is wherever you are, which family you just agreed to be since you accepted my proposal of marriage.” He lifted his head and smiled faintly. “Though I think I’ve gotten slightly ahead of my wooing here.”
“You and your medieval sensibilities,” she said, feeling a little breathless.
“You can expect nothing else.” He gathered her close and sighed deeply. “Unfortunately, those medieval sensibilities tell me I shouldn’t maul you in public until you’re properly wedded and bedded else our reputations will suffer. But I think a brief foray into some secluded spot wouldn’t be beyond the question. Then I’ll tell you what I find most appealing about your time period.”
“If you tell me it’s the Vanquish, I’ll punch you,” she warned.
He laughed a little. “Of course not. I meant you.”
“Who are you kidding? You wouldn’t last two weeks without bangers and mash. And jazz. And your mobile phone.”
“Nay, just you, and thankfully you are portable. But,” he added, “that doesn’t mean that I want to carry you off to the past.” He paused and looked at her seriously. “I think you would rather teach medieval niceties, not live them. Or am I wrong?”
She smiled and it came more easily that time. “Honestly, the only medieval nicety I’m interested in is you. And if you want the whole truth, I don’t care what century I have you in.”
He looked slightly winded. “You just earned yourself a quarter hour in my brother’s darkest corner.”
“He’ll come after us.”
“Let him try.” He took her hand and pulled her back the way they’d come. “Let’s go before he comes trotting along after—”
She realized he wasn’t saying anything else because he’d run bodily into his brother. She looked around his shoulder to find Nicholas standing there, lute in hand.
“I have other things in mind besides playing for her,” John said pointedly.
“I’m playing for
you
,” Nicholas said cheerfully. “We decided that perhaps an impromptu bit of dancing might save you from yourself.”
Tess watched John sigh, then found herself with his arm around her shoulders.
“I suppose it isn’t ideal,” he said heavily, “but I’ll endure your generosity. Then I will escort my lady to your solar where she will take her ease without the twin horrors of unwanted maidens and their mothers.”
“I’ll consider it,” Nicholas conceded.
John waved him off. “Tess needs better shoes. We’ll follow posthaste.”
Nicholas turned and walked away, shaking his head. Tess didn’t have a chance to ask John what he meant—she was wearing the only pair of shoes she had that weren’t gifts from Jennifer—but she realized quite quickly she needn’t have bothered. She found herself pulled into a very light-free alcove and drawn into familiar arms.
“A brief kiss,” John announced, “lest I not be able to dance.”
“A peck,” she agreed.
By the time he let her up for air, she wasn’t sure either of them would be dancing. She put her arms around his waist and rested her head on his shoulder.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“Are
you
sure?” he returned. “A lifetime of being herded, bossed about, drawn into darkened corners, and thoroughly kissed?”
She leaned up and kissed him softly. “I’m sure.”
“Thank you,” he whispered against her ear.
She laughed a little. “No, thank you.”
He pulled away and took her hand. “Let’s go argue about who is more grateful: me, that you said me aye; or my family, that you’re ridding them of me.”
She stopped him before he walked away and looked up at him seriously. “I can’t make light of that, John.”
He turned, winced, then gathered her into his arms again. “I’m sorry,” he said, holding her close. “It isn’t fodder for jest. My family
is
happy, though. And I’m ecstatic.”
“Why?” she managed.
“For dozens of reasons I’ll begin to explain tonight as we pass each other in what I’m sure will be a score of very chaste, very sedate dances where I won’t be allowed to touch you.”
“At least you’re not wearing heels,” she pointed out.
“For you, I might even be persuaded to wear them again next year at Payneswick.” He pulled away and smiled. “Let’s go have this over with. I have plans for you later.”
She followed him back to the great hall, sure she wouldn’t take a step that she didn’t feel uncomfortable for what had just transpired in Nicholas’s solar, but she found she was wrong. She was swept into a family circle, the likes of which she’d enjoyed only with her sisters.
And after John had whispered to her
stop thinking
for the dozenth time, she found that she could.
Though she imagined she would weep over it later just the same.
Chapter 26
J
ohn
stood on the steps with Nicholas and bid farewell to the trio—for their numbers had increased briefly—of disappointed gels and equally unfulfilled parents as they trudged off toward the front gates.
“None too soon,” Nicholas said under his breath.
John smiled in spite of himself. “Thank you for the aid in helping them see clearly my attached status.”
“I wanted them gone because they were about to eat through my larder.” He looked at John and shook his head. “Why is it these arranging of marriages tend to include so damned much food in the bargain?”
“To test your stamina, no doubt,” John said, “which, thankfully, was apparently not up to their standards.”
“Or that might have been you walking up and down the passageways last night and announcing in stentorian tones that you were engaged to that lovely Lady Tess of points unknown so they’d best shove off this morning and look for more accommodating ports.”
John lifted his eyebrow briefly. “Just making it so you have enough to eat this winter.”
“Normally I wouldn’t worry about it, for we would be in France, enjoying the bounties of land and sea,” Nicholas said with a sigh. “I suppose you’re fortunate Jennifer is so close to her time, else you wouldn’t have found us here at all. You would have found shelter, though, of course.”
“Without bursting into tears and terrifying you,” John said seriously, “I will say that I was profoundly pleased to see you.”
“And I you.” He looked out over his courtyard for a bit, then turned back to John. “And for your future?”
John looked around himself casually to see who might be within earshot. Finding the coast clear, as the saying went, he decided the opportunity was before him to speak freely. “I’m going home.” He looked at his brother frankly. “It makes me sound a perfect bastard, doesn’t it? To trade you all for a different time?”
Nicholas shrugged. “As I admitted before, I’ve been tempted to have a wee visit myself, but Jennifer won’t let me. Not until we’re finished with bairns.”
“And how many more will you have, do you think?”
“I understand we have ten who live. How many don’t, I don’t know. Perhaps we’ll be spared that grief.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Have you been poking around in my genealogy?”
John shook his head slowly. “I couldn’t bear to. As far as I was concerned, I had no past. Certainly no past
in
the past.”
“How interesting for you, then, to encounter a woman whose specialty is the past.”
“Trust me,” John said dryly, “the thought has occurred to me more than once. I looked for every possible reason not to see her again.”
“Unsuccessfully, apparently,” Nicholas said with a smile, “and fortunately for you, I think.”
“Do you like her?”
“Very much,” Nicholas said without hesitation. “I think she might be the single person in the Future who could live with you and not think you completely mad.” He studied John for another very long moment. “Would you stay?” he asked finally. “If we begged you to?”
John shifted uncomfortably. “The thought of you down on your knees makes me slightly ill.”
Nicholas laughed. “I was going to advise you not to expect
me
to be the one begging, but that would have sounded too much like Robin.” He sighed. “I wouldn’t ask it of you. This will sound as daft as anything you could possibly say, but I think you belong in that time of yours.”
“I’ll make sure we have guest chambers enough that you might make a visit in your hoary-headed old age.”
“By the saints,” Nicholas said with a shiver, “what a thought.” He shot John a look. “But don’t think I haven’t fondled your keys already just the same. And your phone.”
“How did you know how to work it?” John asked in surprise.
“I can find the
on
button as easily as the next medieval lord,” Nicholas said archly.
John laughed in spite of himself. “I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.”
“Neither can I. We’d best head for the lists. I’m sure a morning of swordplay will ground us in the proper year.”
John wasn’t opposed to that, for a variety of reasons. The first was because he wanted to be prepared, but perhaps even more than that, he wasn’t going to pass up a morning spent with his brothers.
By the time Nicholas, Robin, and Miles had taken their turns with him, he was so wrung out, he wasn’t sure he would make it back to the house, much less back to the Future. He stumbled off the field and looked for a place to sit only to find the bench by the wall occupied by Tess and an extensive collection of nieces and nephews. She was holding Robin’s only gel Mary on her lap whilst others had piled onto the bench next to her. Kendrick and Rose, Amanda’s eldest, were standing in front of her, arguing the merits of investigating things better left uninvestigated if the speed with which they bit back their words on his approach was any indication.
He folded his arms over his chest and looked at them severely. “Plotting naughtiness?”
“They are,” Amanda’s eldest son Jackson said without hesitation. “I can tell you—”
Rose sat down on her brother and robbed him of his wind. She smiled up at John innocently. “Nothing untoward, Uncle John. Just expanding our minds in useful ways, as Father always instructs me to do.”
“I can just imagine,” John muttered. He looked at Tess and smiled. “At least they’re keeping you warm.”
She looked perfectly serene. “Warm and entertained. A lovely combination.”
John looked at the collection of the eldest lads there, sons of Robin, Nicholas, Jake, and Miles, and tried not to let the sight of them make his heart ache. If he could have, he would have taken a few pictures of them with his phone, just to have in the Future.
“I’m going to clean up,” he said to those same lads. “See to your future auntie Tess for me until I return.”