by Lynn Kurland
“Did he have only brothers, or a different combination?”
Gideon laughed uneasily. “What next, Zach? You’re making the Inquisition seem mild.”
“Just that last question, please,” Zachary said seriously. “Did he have only brothers, or not?”
“Two brothers and a sister.” Gideon shot him a perplexed look. “I don’t know why you’re so fixed on this, but I’ll tell you all I know. It seems the sister died of consumption whilst Kendrick was off doing, ah, whatever it was he did. He came home to find her gone. He took it very hard, apparently. Megan says he rarely discusses it even with his wife. Too painful.”
Zachary could only imagine. And from that little bit right there he knew that Robin had kept to his decision to say nothing about the truth, not even to his other children. Zachary thanked Gideon kindly for the information, then followed him, grateful for the time to wipe any expression off his face. If Kendrick had suffered greatly because he’d thought his sister was dead, odds were he wasn’t going to be all that thrilled when he realized that Zachary was directly responsible, albeit not by choice, for the agony he’d gone through.
He went upstairs to wash for supper. He shut his bedroom door, then reached for his phone. He should have called earlier, but he hadn’t been able to. He wasn’t sure if he should just blurt out what he’d seen, or tell her in person.
He also wasn’t at all sure he wanted to deal with the fallout from it quite yet.
She picked up on the third ring. “Aye?” she said hesitantly.
“Maryanne?”
“Zachary,” she said, sounding equal parts relieved and happy. “You’re safe, then.”
“Safe and sound,” he said, lying back on the bed and staring up at the canopy overhead. “What did you do today?”
“I took three showers and spent the rest of the afternoon learning to play poker with your nephew Ian, whose Gaelic is flawless.”
Zachary smiled and felt the tension ease from him. “He’s his father’s son, true. Did you lose?”
“Badly at first, but I broke even.”
He realized, with a start, that he wasn’t in the room he’d been in before.
He was in Mary’s room.
Yet another thing to add to the list of very weird things that went on in his life.
He pushed that aside and allowed himself the very great pleasure of listening to her spout a combination of Scottishisms and Jennifer’s Americanisms with equal abandon. As he did so, he knew only two things.
He loved Maryanne de Piaget so much it hurt.
And Kendrick de Piaget was going to kill him when he found out.
Chapter 24
Mary looked at herself in the mirror of a Benmore Castle loo and supposed she should have been appalled by what she was seeing. She was wearing jeans that were scandalously revealing, a marginally discreet shirt that reached down past the top of those jeans, and a pair of little slippers in black that wouldn’t have held up for one trip through her father’s stables. She had met with the approval of her trio of keepers, though, so perhaps she had little to complain about. Indeed, she had them to thank for many things over the past four days.
She had been uncomfortable spending any coin but her own, but Elizabeth had dismissed her concerns with a negligent wave and many tales about Jamie trying to force an inheritance of some sort on Zachary and Zachary’s flat refusals. If Mary spent a bit of what Jamie had tried to give away, Jamie would only congratulate her on her good sense. So she had traveled to the nearby village with the women of Zachary’s family and subsequently found herself turned into a twenty-first-century miss.
She now had modern clothes and things to go under those modern clothes. She’d had her hair trimmed with scissors instead of a dagger, and her nails attended to in a way that made her hesitate to pick up another pitchfork. She had concentrated on learning as much of modern English as she could and thanked her father silently more than once for his insistence that she put at least as much effort into training her mind as her brothers had.
She had also, over the past few days, spent enjoyable evenings either at Jamie’s or Patrick’s. She had spoken at length to Jamie and Cameron about their adjustments to things of the Future. She’d fallen in love with all their children. Jamie’s sons and Patrick had been perfectly willing to go on very brief explores with her to build her strength, and she had happily held wee girls on her lap in the evening as tales were told in front of the fire.
The greatest gift, however, had been something Elizabeth had brought her the day Zachary had left for England. It was an enormous black book, easily the width and length of her arm completely stretched out, that contained drawings Zachary had made over the course of his travels. They were mostly of buildings, which didn’t surprise her, made on whatever scraps of paper he’d had to hand. They were accompanied by notes he’d taken about where he’d gone and lists of souls he’d encountered. Opposite each drawing were things Elizabeth had called photographs. Those had been made also by Zachary, but were present-day images of things he’d seen in the past.
The photographs had been as startling as his drawings, as he was as skilled a photographer as he was an artist, viewing his subjects from a master builder’s perspective. The drawings and photographs were full of arches and lines and things that intersected in sensible and logical ways.
She had realized as she had flipped through the pages why Jamie had chosen him to be his companion on travels through the ages. Zachary had been an observer only, content to leave planes and angles meeting where they had been originally designed to meet. She had then understood how much it had cost him to come back to Artane and insert himself into events he’d known he should leave alone.
That said much about his love for her.
She took a deep breath, then blew it out. Perhaps she would go back to Moraig’s, build up the fire, then sit with the book again and wander through the ages. It would pass the time until Zachary came home.
She left the garderobe, then went to look for Madelyn. She was sitting at the kitchen table with Hope and Sunshine. Hope was happily chewing on some sort of soft toy. Sunny looked less happy, though she smiled readily enough. Cameron had flown to London for the day and she was no doubt less than comfortable with his being so far away. Mary had been amazed that a man could travel from Scotland to London and back again in a single day and still have daylight to spend afterward.
Future marvels, indeed.
“Would you like lunch?” Madelyn asked.
Mary shook her head. “I think I need to go home—or to Moraig’s, rather.”
Sunny smiled in understanding. “It is a good place to heal, Mary, and she would have been pleased to see you happily installed there. Why don’t we come get you for dinner? Jamie’s issued a blanket invitation to go down to the keep.”
Mary nodded. “I’d like that.”
“Is Zachary coming home soon?”
“He said last night that he thought he could leave in a few days,” she said, putting on a smile. “The work is progressing well.”
“I’m sure he wishes he were closer,” Madelyn offered.
Mary knew the others were merely providing her with an opportunity to burst into tears if she so chose, but she couldn’t. She had come to terms with the Future. She just hadn’t come to terms with the fact that Zachary hadn’t demanded that she wed him as quickly as possible. It was ridiculous to want that so badly, but she couldn’t help herself. He had been gone only a few days, but she had missed him.
She smiled at her keepers, then excused herself and left the castle. Madelyn and Sunny had warned her repeatedly to stay on the path. After listening to the stories of Jamie and Zachary disappearing without warning, she had taken the warning to heart.
She continued on in silence. It was odd to have so much time alone if she willed it. She was accustomed to never having a moment’s peace to think. Now she could remain inside Moraig MacLeod’s simple walls and do nothing but read by the fire and indulge i
n long, luxurious showers whenever she chose. She had come to love the cozy fire in Moraig’s house, the soft furniture, the sturdy lock on the door. She thought of Zachary when she fetched the wood he’d chopped for her, or when she heard her phone ring and knew it was him calling a handful of times a day just to see how she fared. The phone was a marvel, but it couldn’t replace what she wanted the most—
She heard the footsteps before she thought to move. She found herself almost ploughed over, but the man running toward her merely reached out a hand and steadied her before he continued on.
“Sorry, Maddy—”
Mary realized, with a start, that it was Zachary. He came to a skidding halt, then turned around and gaped at her.
“Mary?”
The sight of him was like sunshine after a storm. She had forgotten how handsome he was, and how strong, and how familiar and beloved.
She was fairly certain a noise of some sort came out of her, but she couldn’t identify it. She ran toward him only to have him meet her halfway. She flung her arms around his neck and felt his arms go around her. He picked her up off the ground and held her so tightly, she couldn’t breathe.
“I thought you’d gotten lost,” he said hoarsely.
“I was with Madelyn and Sunny,” she managed. “I had a makeover.”
He laughed, but he didn’t release her. He simply held her. She pressed her face against his hair and closed her eyes. And in that moment, she knew she was lost. She had known she missed him, but this was something else entirely. She had missed her brothers and cousins when they’d gone off, and she had welcomed them back happily when they’d returned, but she had never in her life felt such an overwhelming rush of relief.
“I can’t let you go,” he said finally.
“Please don’t.”
He laughed again, sounding as relieved as she felt. He let her slide back down to her feet. He continued to hold her close, though, as if he simply couldn’t bring himself to release her.
“I didn’t think to stop at Benmore,” he said. “I went to Moraig’s, but when you weren’t there ... well, I panicked.”
“I should have left word written somewhere.”
“I should have called. I wanted to surprise you.” He pulled back far enough to look down at her. “Let’s go home.”
She smiled up at him. “Aye.”
And then that moment, she felt something shift. He smoothed his hand over her hair, then bent his head and kissed her, just to the side of her mouth. Then he kissed the other side of her mouth. Then he smiled down at her.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have done that.”
“If you say that to me again, I will pull the dirk from your boot and stab you.”
He laughed and put his arm around her shoulders. “You’re feeling better. Let’s go sit in front of the fire and you can tell me all about it.”
She walked with him along the path and through the woods to the little house that leaned against a tree and was full of healing. Zachary held her hand tightly as they crossed the threshold. She understood why. Sunny had told her, with an accompanying shiver, just how the doorway had gone awry for her and her husband.
Zachary helped her with her coat, then walked her over to a chair before he took off his own coat and built up the fire. He turned and squatted down in front of her.
“What do you want for lunch?” he asked.
“Anything but bangers and mash.”
“You’ve been eating at Jamie’s,” he noted. “I don’t think Moraig’s kitchen would put up with them, though, so you’re probably safe here. I’ll see what I can find.”
“You could sit—”
“I’ve been sitting for hours. Just rest and I’ll see to lunch.”
She found that she couldn’t. She listened to him rummage about in the kitchen for a handful of minutes before she rose and wandered over to lean against the little wall that separated the kitchen from the great chamber. She looked at Zachary in his jeans and bare feet, with a shirt stretched over his broad shoulders, and wondered what her father had done with Zachary’s future clothes when he’d arrived. Had them burned, likely.
Perhaps her father had known what Zachary was.
For herself, all she knew was that she was unreasonably happy to have him almost within arm’s reach. She loved the way his dark hair fell into his eyes in time for him to blow it out of his way. She watched him heat soup and remembered how willing he’d been to work in her father’s blacksmith’s forge. He’d shoveled manure, he’d burned his hands, he’d humored the twins when they’d hounded him endlessly about his past and his lack of French. All because he was just that sort of lovely, responsible man.
She realized suddenly that he was watching her.
“Kind thoughts?” he asked.
“I was just thinking that I’ve never known a lord’s son, not even my relatives, who would have managed what you have.”
“It doesn’t take much to shovel manure, Mary.”
She smiled. “Is there anything you can’t do, Zachary?”
He set his stirring spoon aside, then crossed the two steps that separated him from the counter that stood between them. He leaned his hands on it and looked at her seriously. “Exercise self-control.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I want you to have time before I start kissing you senseless from dawn to dusk.”
She suppressed the urge to fan herself. “I’ve had time.”
“You need more.”
“Are you saying I don’t know my own mind?”
He took a deep breath, let it out, then leaned forward and kissed her.
It was only the briefest touch of his lips against hers, but it was all the more devastating for its sweetness.
“Time.”
“Nay.”
He pulled back. “Let’s negotiate after supper. Can I assume Jamie’s feeding us?”
“Aye.”
“Will you dance with me?”
“I might if you’ll stop telling me I don’t know my own mind.”
He leaned forward and kissed her again, then turned away and began to fuss with his soup. He looked at her once over his shoulder. “After supper. If you’ll humor me then.”
She thought she might be willing to humor him sooner than that, but she supposed she had all the time in the world for that sort of thing.
She nodded, then went to sit down before her knees gave way.
Several hours later, she was walking back into Moraig’s little house, still holding tightly to Zachary’s hand when they crossed the threshold. He hung up both their coats, then went to build up the fire, just as he’d done every time they walked into the house. Mary leaned against the wall and watched him work. Jamie had suggested that ’twas far past time she stayed in the keep and let Zachary fend for himself at Moraig’s. He’d warned Zachary about the evils of sleeping too close to a woman who had not agreed to have anything serious to do with his sorry self. She hadn’t bothered to point out to Jamie that Zachary hadn’t asked her to have anything to do with him.
She supposed Jamie might have known that.
Zachary had only ignored his brother-in-law and danced with her every dance Joshua had been able to play.
Jamie had tsk-tsked him very loudly.
She blinked when she realized that Zachary had stood and was now brushing off his hands, watching her as he did so.
She felt a little weak in the knees, truth be told.
He walked over to her, took her hand, then led her to a chair in front of the fire. He sat, then held open his arms. She took a deep breath, then made herself at home on his lap.
“Would your father be appalled?” he asked with a smile.
“My father would kill us.”
He pulled her braid forward over her shoulder. “I give you my solemn vow that you will remain unravished.” He shot her a quick smile, then began to unbraid her hair. “I think I can cling to the shreds of my self-control well enough for that.”
“U
nfortunately.”
He looked at her in surprise, then laughed. “You’ve spent too much time with my sister and sisters-in-law.”
She swallowed, hard. “I missed you, Zachary.”
He put his arms around her and pulled her close. “I missed you, too. And if I start thinking about it, I’ll start kissing you. And if I start kissing you, Maryanne ... well, you have a better opinion of my self-control than I do.”
She pulled back and looked at him. “I begged once.”
He looked a little stricken. “And it almost killed me not to do what I wanted to do, which was drop to my knees and plead with you to be mine, then wonder how in the hell I was going to convince your father of the same.”
“He would have said aye.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so. And I couldn’t have asked you to then.”
And now? she wanted to ask, but she couldn’t bring herself to. She had begged once. She wouldn’t do it again.
He stared at her for several moments in silence, then met her eyes and smiled. “Do you know you have seven freckles?”
“Six.”
“Nope, there are seven. Let me count them for you.”
She realized only after he’d pulled her closer that he intended to count them with kisses. She closed her eyes and shivered in spite of herself.
Aye, her father would have killed them both. But he would have killed Zachary very slowly.
He kissed his way across one cheek, over her nose, then finished by attending to the other cheek. She realized she was trembling, but she couldn’t stop it. She supposed there was no sense in telling Zachary that he was the first man she’d ever been kissed by. If he didn’t know it ... well, he had to know.
He looked at her again, kissed her very softly, then settled her so she might rest her head on his shoulder. He trailed his hand through her hair, combing it with his fingers. The other arm he kept around her, periodically stroking her back.
“Maryanne?” he said finally.
“Aye?”
He was silent for quite a bit longer, but he didn’t stop touching her. “I want you to be sure. I haven’t given you any choices about your future so far.”