One Magic Moment(15)
Author: Lynn Kurland

 

The girl hung up and smiled at her. “You must be Miss Alexander.”

 

Tess smiled uncomfortably. “Yes, well—”

 

“John said you might be coming.” She stood. “Come on. I’ll take you back.”

 

Tess followed her because she couldn’t on such short notice invent a good reason why she shouldn’t. Within moments, she found herself standing in the darkest part of a mixing room listening to John playing the acoustic guitar.

 

She was provided with a chair, which she sank down into gratefully. A dozen questions immediately clamored for attention, but she ignored them all in favor of simply sitting there and listening. She had no idea he was accompanying a jazz vocal group until the tracks were played back together. He listened with a frown, then requested some sort of do-over. She wasn’t a picky listener; she honestly couldn’t tell the difference, but he seemed to be happier with the subsequent effort.

 

She continued to sit in the dark and listen as he recorded another two songs. It was so far from what she’d expected to find him doing, she could hardly take it in.

 

It unfortunately gave her the chance to look at him from the safety and comfort of knowing he had no idea she was sitting there gaping at him.

 

He was gorgeous. There was no other way to say it. She supposed she shouldn’t have expected anything else. She’d had a good look at his brother for several days and almost grown accustomed to being startled at the sight. Worse still, she just happened to know John and Montgomery’s, ah, nephew, Stephen de Piaget, who was almost as handsome as they were.

 

But there was something about John . . .

 

Maybe it was the perfection of his face with his chiseled cheekbones and strong jaw, or enviable physique that a T-shirt and jeans did nothing to hide, or his long fingers that flew over strings as if he’d done nothing else with those hands for the whole of his life but practice.

 

Or it could have been the fact that she knew she was looking at a medieval knight who somehow, beyond all reason, found himself masquerading as something quite different in the twenty-first century.

 

He finished before she’d finished the cataloging of his perfections. She’d really hoped she might get past them quickly so she could get back to listing all the reasons why she never wanted to lay eyes on him again. Too bad she just wasn’t going to have time for that. She watched as a man in slacks and a sweater came into the studio and chatted with him for a bit. The producer turned on the mic when John directed a few questions his way. Tess knew she was sitting too far back to be seen, but she found herself unaccountably nervous just the same.

 

“Dave’s been nagging me again,” the man in the sweater said, sounding as if he was fully prepared to engage in a bit of it himself. “He’s pretty determined.”

 

“No,” John said stiffly. “Still no.”

 

Tess was marginally satisfied to see he could be as unyielding with others as he had been with her.

 

“It would just be a demo now, but it could be a career direction.”

 

“This isn’t a career, Kenneth. It’s a diversion.”

 

Kenneth looked at him calculatingly. “I have a lute.”

 

Tess found herself sitting on the edge of her seat. A lute? She couldn’t imagine that John would ever admit to playing such a thing, but what did she know? Maybe he was more in touch with his past than he’d let on and didn’t mind demonstrating that for others.

 

Which didn’t adequately explain why he seemed so perfectly at home in jeans and a pricey black sports car, but she would think about that later, when she could think straight again.

 

She couldn’t say she knew enough about John de Piaget to predict what he was going to do, but she had to admit he looked almost as ready to bolt as he had when she’d asked him if he wanted to come inside her great hall.

 

He sat back in his chair and looked up at Kenneth with absolutely no expression on his face. “Absolutely not.”

 

Kenneth looked at him, obviously amused. “I’m not asking you to cut out a major organ and hand it over, John. It’s just a lute.”

 

Tess found herself unaccountably nervous. It was one thing for her to know who John was and, more to the point, what he was; it was another thing entirely for someone else to know. Kenneth, whoever he was and whatever sort of sway he held over John, was likely completely oblivious to John’s past. She could only imagine how zealously John guarded that past.

 

Actually, she didn’t have to imagine much. She could see it on his face.

 

Briefly. As quickly as the shutters had come down, they disappeared and the moment was gone. John simply looked up at his tormentor.

 

“Don’t tell me,” he drawled, “Dave just happened to leave it behind the last time he was here.”

 

“He’s forgetful.”

 

“Why in the hell would he think I could play it?”

 

“He heard you in Edinburgh last year at the Festival.”

 

John looked heavenward briefly, then back at Kenneth. “I was drunk.”

 

Kenneth only smiled. “Were you?”

 

“No,” John said shortly, “but I wish I had been. I absolutely wish I were now.”

 

“But you aren’t, and I have a very lovely reproduction instrument in my office.” He smiled encouragingly. “One song, sung soberly.”

 

“I only know one song.”

 

Tess doubted that, but she didn’t suppose she should offer that observation.

 

“Then play that one,” Kenneth said smoothly. “Five minutes of your time and I stop having to avoid his calls. Do it for me as thanks for all the lovely gigs I’ve gotten you over the years.”

 

John dragged his hand through his hair. “Damn you.”

 

Kenneth rubbed his hands together. “I’ll be right back.” He looked over his shoulder on his way out the door. “Don’t go anywhere.”

 

John sent him a dark look, then put away his guitar and began to pace around the studio. He stopped at one point, then turned and looked into the booth.

 

Tess was sure he couldn’t possibly see her. She was sitting so far back in the shadows that she could hardly see herself. But he didn’t look away. He didn’t smile, either. It was as if he stood on the edge of something he didn’t want to fall into but found himself without any choice.

 

She understood. She’d felt that way when he’d held out his hand for her keys that morning.