One Magic Moment(17)
Author: Lynn Kurland

 

“Don’t be daft,” he said with a frown. “I’ll drive you home.”

 

“I can get there on my own.”

 

“It’s ridiculous to take the train when I’m going the same way. I won’t kill you on the motorway if that’s what worries you.”

 

Actually, that was the least of her worries. It was the thought of being in the same enclosed space with him for more than ten minutes that was about to give her hives. But before she could muster up the energy to run, she found herself shepherded in the direction of his car, then ushered into the passenger seat.

 

She knew she was an idiot to allow it, but maybe her imagination had been running away with her. She latched on to that thought with the tenacity of a drowning woman. Perhaps there was nothing at all odd about sitting next to her brother-in-law’s brother. Her medieval brother-in-law’s brother.

 

She tried to wrap her mind around that as he negotiated impossible afternoon London traffic. Even on a Wednesday, it was terrible. It reminded her of all the reasons she had been willing to live full time at Sedgwick.

 

Though she was more tempted than usual to take up a standing offer to come back and tutor at Cambridge.

 

“You play very well,” she ventured, at one point.

 

“Thank you,” he said in a tone that said he didn’t want to discuss it further.

 

She was happy to oblige. She decided abruptly that not only had she had enough conversation with him for the day, she’d had enough of watching him as well. She concentrated on the scenery, didn’t protest when he turned on the radio, listened for five minutes, then turned it off. She could understand. He played better than anything she’d heard and he was a far superior singer. She would have asked him why he didn’t make a career of it, but she supposed she already knew the answer. If he was burying himself in a tiny shop in an obscure village in the south of England, he obviously didn’t want any notoriety.

 

And she didn’t care why not.

 

Not at all.

 

It was an excruciating ride back home. She was acutely aware of him sitting next to her, so close she could have reached out and touched him at any moment, but she wasn’t attracted to him, no, not at all. He was grouchy, taciturn, and bossy. She wasn’t altogether sure what she wanted in a man, but she had the feeling it would involve tweed. John de Piaget probably wouldn’t recognize tweed if it wrapped itself around his head and suffocated him.

 

She’d never been gladder of anything than she was the sight of her castle rising up at the end of the road. She had her hand on the door latch before he had the car out of gear.

 

“Wait,” he commanded. “I’ll get the door.”

 

“I can get it myself.”

 

He shot her a look. “Wait.”

 

She thought she might have had enough. “I am not your girlfriend,” she said, doing her best not to grit her teeth, “so you have no right to boss me around.”

 

“I don’t boss around my girlfriends,” he said evenly.

 

“I hate to think what you do do with them,” she retorted.

 

“I’ll get your door,” he repeated.

 

She told him to stuff it. In not so many words. And not so politely.

 

He got out of the car. She did, too, and decided that a hasty retreat to the castle was the best course of action.

 

“Thanks for the ride,” she threw over her shoulder, then she bolted for her drawbridge. She made it to the barbican gate before she realized he was right behind her. If she’d been able to drop the portcullis—any of them, or perhaps all three together—she would have. The best she could do was spin around and hold her hand out to hold him off. “That’s far enough.”

 

He leaned against the stone wall and nodded toward the courtyard. “I’ll watch you get inside, if it’s all the same to you.”

 

“I couldn’t care less.”

 

He only lifted an eyebrow and said nothing.

 

She suppressed the urge to punch him. How was it a man she didn’t like and never wanted to see again—odd how she had to keep reminding herself of that—could consistently and relentlessly bring out the worst in her?

 

Silence was golden, yes, that was the ticket. She nodded briskly to him, then turned on her heel and walked across her courtyard with as much dignity as she could muster. Fortunately, Peaches wasn’t there to open the door and ask questions. She got herself inside her great hall, avoided her office, then continued on right upstairs to her bedroom.

 

If only the day could have ended there, she might have called it a wash. But no, she had to keep going until she had reached the roof. She stood just outside one of the guard towers and watched as taillights faded into the distance.

 

She stood there for far longer than she should have, hearing the song he’d sung echoing in what was left of her tiny little mind. She knew the tune, of course, because she had her PhD in Medieval Political Thought. To round out her education, she’d studied quite a bit about the music of the time, and the dancing, and the rest of the gamut of artistic endeavors.

 

Apparently John had, too.

 

She took a deep breath, then turned and went inside. She wouldn’t see him again because he was obviously as unfond of her as she was of him, and that was a good thing.

 

It was a very good thing, indeed.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 6

 

 

 

John stood in his garden with his sword in his hand, shaking with weariness, and wished for nothing so much as one of his brothers—preferably Robin—to grind him into the dust where he might not need think any longer. He didn’t want to think any more about medieval things, things that seemed to be hedging up his way everywhere he turned.

 

Which made it a bit ironic that he was training—if that’s what it could be called—with a sword, but he was happy to ignore the irony.

 

It was safer that way.

 

He had, as it happened, been doing the safe thing for several years now. He had never used his sword out of doors, preferring to rent a large industrial space when he could and settle for karate or even the occasional stint in a gym when he couldn’t. One of the attractions of Grant’s place for him had been the cottage located behind the shop and a large, high-hedged garden behind that that bordered nothing but pastureland. He had absolute privacy given that his shop was on the edge of the village and there weren’t any second-floor flats anywhere in the vicinity.