One Magic Moment(41)
Author: Lynn Kurland

He caught her hand before she could get it on the handle. “I’ll get your door, Tess. Wait for me.”

 

She knew she was crazy to, but apparently she’d left her good sense back there in her castle along with the letter telling her about her newly acquired title. She only nodded and watched him crawl out of his car, a perfectly modern man dressed in jeans and a sweater. She wondered if Montgomery missed him. She wished there were a way to get word to his parents that he was alive and apparently not unhappy in the future.

 

She wished she’d known him for longer than just a pair of weeks.

 

He opened her door for her, helped her out of the car, then looked at her in surprise.

 

“What is it?”

 

“Nothing,” she managed.

 

He considered, then shut the door, locked the car, and pocketed the keys. Then he drew her into his arms, as if she were the one who needed comfort. She put her arms around his waist again and stood there in his embrace until she thought she would either tell him she thought she might just be crazy about him or burst into tears. She took a deep breath, then stepped back.

 

“Not prudent,” she managed.

 

He looked at her gravely. “Likely not.” He reached out and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “And just so you know, that’s the last of the embraces you’ll wring out of me today.”

 

She couldn’t help a smile. “You are an awful man.”

 

“Yet there you are.”

 

“Here I am,” she agreed.

 

He put his arm around her shoulders and turned her with him toward the entrance. “Let’s go distract ourselves with some sixteenth-century grandeur. Just keep in mind I absolutely refuse to snog with you. I’m not even sure I can be prevailed upon to hold hands. We’ll see.”

 

“I was just going to say the same thing.”

 

He laughed a little and tugged her along with him.

 

It was madness, absolute madness.

 

She understood, however, just how it was that Pippa had done the unthinkable and fallen for John’s brother in such a short time.

 

She was very much afraid she was about to do the same thing.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 12

 

 

 

John wondered how it was that a man of medieval birth went about wooing a woman from the Future.

 

He had, over the years, wished he could have had a few minutes of conversation with his brothers, but he’d never wished for it more than he did at present. He’d watched Robin fall in love with his wife, but she’d been of their time and she’d had Robin’s heart for years. Miles had wed himself a gel of unusual heritage, as had his brother Nicholas, but he’d been too stupid at the time to think he might hope for the same for himself. He supposed his father had foisted some wench of noble birth off on Montgomery who had no doubt already sired himself a handful of brats to be tormented by.

 

The thought was, John found to his surprise, a bit more painful than he’d anticipated.

 

He looked at his Future gel and wondered how it was he would go about winning her. She was currently trying to lean over a rope that separated her from Queen Elizabeth I’s reputedly favorite bed without looking as if she were leaning over the rope that separated her from QEI’s favorite napping spot. John smiled politely at the National Truster who was frowning severely in their direction, then did Tess the favor of hooking a finger through the belt loop of her jeans so if she pitched forward, she wouldn’t bloody her nose.

 

“Thanks,” she whispered conspiratorially.

 

“My pleasure, believe me.”

 

She pursed her lips at his tone. “Scoundrel.”

 

If she only knew. He released her trousers and reached for her hand when she’d finished her investigations, but he doubted she’d noticed. She was far too busy making mental notes of things she’d no doubt seen before. Why she was so interested in it all at present, he couldn’t have said.

 

“Haven’t you been here before?” he asked after the third chamber in which he’d had to cover for her nosiness.

 

“With Peaches, who doesn’t have the patience for this sort of thing,” she said, looking at him apologetically. “She would rather stand in the middle of the room, close her eyes, and take a reading on the feng-shui quotient of what she’s seeing. I’m not entirely sure she doesn’t have a paranormal meter running as well.”

 

“Ghosts?” he said with a snort. “What rubbish.”

 

She only lifted her eyebrows briefly and turned to focus on yet another bit of weaving.

 

He surrendered and resigned himself to holding on to her trousers.

 

It was a long morning.

 

“Lunch?” he suggested hopefully, when it seemed they had examined at least half the bedchambers and most of the common rooms.

 

“Briefly.”

 

“I wonder what would happen if you studied me as intently as you have the tapestries?” he asked politely.

 

“If I subjected you to the same sort of scrutiny I have QEI’s bedclothes,” she said with a smile, “you would bolt the other way.”

 

“I would not,” he protested.

 

“Shall we test that?”

 

“Nay,” he said, shifting uncomfortably.

 

She turned to look at him fully, which left him longing rather more than he would have suspected for those moments when she’d been studying tapestries and carvings.

 

“I thought you didn’t want this thing moving too quickly,” she said seriously.

 

He started to pull her into his arms, but he was interrupted by the pointed throat clearing of yet another National Trust do-gooder. He looked at Tess. “Never sell your hall to the government.”

 

“I won’t.”

 

“At least there I can maul you without being harrumphed at.”

 

She smiled and took his arm. “I think you need to be fed. You’re starting to get a little cranky. And we don’t have to look at all the rest today if you don’t want to.”

 

“The saints be praised,” he said, though he wasn’t entirely serious about it. He had to admit he enjoyed a good historical sight as well as the next Englishman, though if he were to be entirely honest with himself, he enjoyed the sight of Tess more. Traipsing through the past in jeans and boots was simply a decent excuse to have more of that last part.