Chapter 25 #2
Megan talks too much, Peaches thought, but she didn’t say as much. She only restacked her books behind her back, then rubbed her hands together as she walked over to the door.
“I’m off to get one,” she said. In another century. “How’s Mary?”
“Feeling better, and you’re changing the subject.”
Peaches had been herded enough by de Piaget men and de Piaget men-by-marriage to know if she didn’t push right on through Zachary Smith, she wouldn’t get out the front door.
“It’s not a very interesting subject and considering all the Regency delights I’ve been researching for Stephen, I know interesting. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go see if I can be useful.” Somewhere.
Zachary didn’t move. “I know where he went.”
Peaches stuck her finger in her ear. “I’m not at all sure I know what you’re talking about, but I do know I’m in a bit of a hurry. So, if you’ll excuse me—”
“I would have done the same thing in his place,” Zachary continued relentlessly, “and told the woman I loved, the woman I was leaving behind, to stay behind. I can’t believe Stephen didn’t do the same thing.”
“Oh, he left me a little love note,” Peaches said, wondering if it would be rude to just give Stephen’s uncle a good shove. “Why don’t you let me by and I’ll go get it? You and Mary can reread it with me, and we’ll all enjoy it again.”
Zachary wasn’t smiling. “I don’t suppose it would do me any good to list for you all the perils associated with what you’re contemplating.”
“What?” she asked with the best laugh she could muster. “A trip downstairs to the kitchen?”
He wasn’t laughing with her. “Peaches, this is nothing like a trip downstairs to the kitchen. The dangers are real and quite often fatal.”
She put her shoulders back. “I know.”
Zachary pursed his lips, then he reached down behind him and pulled up a very rustic-looking pack. “You should take this,” he said. “You know, on that adventure you know all about.”
She would have smiled, but she was too terrified to. “Are there snacks inside?” she managed.
“Beef jerky and pork rinds.”
“You know, you aren’t very funny.”
“That’s what your would-be lover says to me as well,” Zachary said mildly, “but he blames it on too many adventures having warped me.”
“Have they?”
He looked at her seriously. “The gate here is … turbulent, which is why I would hazard a guess Stephen told you very explicitly to stay behind and knit—”
“Read.”
“Whatever.” He blew out his breath. “You know, it’s very difficult to know where he went, and the odds of you landing in the same place are very slim.”
Peaches slung the pack over her shoulder and held the strap because she thought it might hide her trembling hands a bit better. “But it isn’t impossible.”
“Not entirely.”
“That’s enough,” she said.
He shook his head slowly, smiling faintly. “Peaches Alexander, you are a formidable woman.”
“No,” she said, her mouth suddenly very dry. “I’m terrified.”
“Good,” he said without hesitation. “You should be. Do you have a knife?”
“Knife?”
He nodded at her shoulder. “In the pack. Stow it somewhere on your person where it can’t be seen but can be reached.
And be prepared to use it.” He rolled his eyes.
“I can’t believe I’m saying any of this.
You’re absolutely crazy to go without at least some sort of training.
” He looked at her, hard. “Could you kill someone if you had to?”
She couldn’t even nod.
“That’s what I thought.”
“He needs to know his father is gone,” she managed, “and he needs to know what I just found out.”
“You can tell him both when he gets back.”
“It will be too late then,” she said, starting to feel a little panicked. “David gave us seventy-two hours. We’re already through almost twenty-four and look what that jerk has done. Stephen needs to be looking in a different direction instead of—”
“Talking Robin de Piaget into hiding things in the wall?”
She blinked in surprise. “Why would you think that?”
“It’s a long story,” Zachary said with a smile, “having to do with some enterprising souls in James MacLeod’s family. Keep going with what you were telling me. Stephen will think he’s taking care of things, but then what?”
“He won’t be looking in the right place.”
“And you know the right place?”
“I know the right place,” Peaches said, “and I think I’m close to the right person.”
Zachary shifted. There was now room enough to escape if she’d wanted it, but now she had him listening and not lecturing, she supposed she could ask him for help.
“I need Regency-era clothes for both of us,” she said. “I’ll wear the medieval ones Humphreys dug up for me in Stephen’s house for the first leg of the trip.”
“You can’t go today,” Zachary said firmly. “It’s too late.”
“If I can get clothes together and be gone in an hour, I’ll have plenty of time to get there before dark.”
“Get where?” he asked politely. “I’m not sure you were clear about that before.”
“Medieval Artane. Then Stephen and I will head to Regency-land and change history.”
Zachary sighed, then rubbed his face. “It goes against my grain to send a woman through time unprotected.”
“And just who am I going to take with me?” Peaches asked reasonably.
“You, a father-to-be? John, a new husband? Kendrick, who might give his father a heart—” She shut her mouth before she finished the rest of that sentence.
“I’ll be fine. Just a little step in and a little step out and there I am at Artane. ”
“And if it’s the wrong year?”
“I’ll deal with it.”
He looked at her seriously. “And if you can’t?”
“Then I can’t,” she said.
He sighed. “I’ll go look for costumes.”
“Thank you, Zach.”
“Thank me when you get back safely with that crazy man you’re in love with.”
“How do you know I’m in love with him?” she asked lightly.
“You wouldn’t be contemplating this trip if you weren’t.”
Peaches smiled, though she thought it might have been a less successful smile than she would have wanted. She watched Zachary go, then made her way to Megan’s room where her accomplice was waiting for her.
She would pack in a hurry, then be on her way.
And hopefully catch Stephen before he made decisions they both might come to regret.