Chapter 27
Peaches sat at the lord’s table in the great hall of Artane and looked up at the ceiling.
It was the same hall she’d walked through a dozen times when she’d been mourning over her sister, then when she’d come to Artane to look for Stephen.
That she should be sitting in the medieval incarnation of it, next to its future lord, should not have been all that strange.
Though she had to admit it was.
She looked at Stephen, who was sitting next to her simply leaning back in his chair and watching her with a small smile.
“What?” she asked.
He only shook his head. “I’m just happy to have you here.”
“Are you?”
“In spite of everything, yes, I am.”
Robin leaned around his wife and looked at them. “And I’m happy to have you both here.”
Peaches looked at him, feeling slightly puzzled over that.
She could imagine why he would want to see Stephen, but she had no claim on anything that belonged to either the keep or him.
He was looking at her, however, with a serious twinkle in his eye.
She had heard from Mary in casual conversation one long afternoon spent walking on the beach that her father had been a terrible tease.
Peaches couldn’t imagine what he had to tease either her or Stephen about, but judging by the look in his eye, he’d found something.
“We appreciate your hospitality,” Stephen said, looking at Robin with an expression Peaches understood completely. “How lovely of you to entertain us.”
“Entertainment,” Robin said, snapping his fingers as if he’d just remembered something he’d forgotten. “Or, even more interesting, nuptials.”
“Robin,” Anne warned.
He ignored his wife and smiled brightly. “You know, it’s been a bit since we had a wedding, and I don’t think you two should be traveling together either unwed or unchaperoned.”
Peaches felt her mouth fall open. “A wedding?”
“Don’t like him, eh?” Robin asked with a knowing wink.
“Robin,” Anne said with a long-suffering sigh, “stop poking at them.”
“I’m not poking at them, I’m looking out for their future safety and welfare. Besides, I was robbed of two weddings that I can think of and others I will be too dead to know about. This is the least they can do to soothe my injured pride.”
Peaches felt Stephen grope for her hand under the table.
“My lord,” he began slowly, “I haven’t even begun to woo her—”
“No time like after the wedding to begin.” He handed Stephen something. “There’s a start for you. No need to thank me.”
Peaches looked at the very lovely, very medieval looking gold band lying on Stephen’s open palm, then she looked at him. He looked at Robin for a moment or two in silence, then turned to her. He smiled at her, that gravely polite smile she loved.
“Well?” he asked quietly.
“Oh, by the saints,” Robin exclaimed. “Is that the best you can do?” He looked at his wife. “I fear for the continuation of my line, truly I do.”
Peaches watched Stephen shoot him a dark look, which she thought was rather brave, given the circumstances. She’d seen Robin in the lists. Then Stephen looked at her.
“You know this isn’t exactly how I planned on seeing this happen.”
She couldn’t help herself; she laughed. The last thing she had thought she would be doing in medieval Artane was getting married, but somehow it seemed fitting. She smiled at her yet-to-be-made fiancé. “Well, I don’t require all that much wooing.”
“That’s fortunate, because you’ll have about fifteen minutes of it,” he said dryly. “But I could remedy that over the course of the rest of our lives.”
She looked at him seriously. “You know that your grandmother wouldn’t approve, don’t you?”
“Granny isn’t around to offer an opinion. And she’s my mother’s mother.” He nodded toward Robin. “He likes you, and he has a sword to use in expressing potential disapproval.”
Peaches felt her smile fade. “And when your grandmother finds out?”
He leaned close and put his mouth against her ear.
“I am the Earl of Artane, my love,” he murmured, “and I don’t give a damn what my grandmother says.
If she could remove her nose from her guest lists long enough to see the truth of it, she would see that Artane could not have a finer mistress.
” He pulled back and looked at her. “Well?”
She saw Robin watching her with a smile and thought that maybe Stephen’s grandmother could perhaps learn to deal with things. She looked at Stephen. “I believe I would consider listening to a proposal of marriage.”
Stephen pursed his lips. “My lord Artane has been a bad influence on you.”
“I’m afraid so.”
She watched as he pushed his chair back, stood, then made Robin and Anne a low bow. “My lady’s father is unavailable,” he said seriously. “So, if you wouldn’t mind—”
“Of course I wouldn’t mind,” Robin said. “I’ll happily stand in for her sire. I’ll dower her properly, of course, but what of you, little lad? What do you bring to this union? A little hut on the shore? A silver coin or two?”
Peaches laughed in spite of herself at the look Stephen gave Robin. Robin only returned that look blandly.
“Very well, I can divine that on my own.” Robin waved expansively. “Go ahead and ask her, lad. If she says you aye, I’ll have the priest fetched.”
Peaches watched Stephen go down on one knee in front of her right there at the supper table and found that what had seemed like a potentially amusing story to tell her sister had suddenly become all too real.
She found that she was shaking, badly. Stephen looked up at her, his own expression very serious.
“I know what you’re thinking.”
She nodded. “I imagine you do.”
He looked at her hands, then met her eyes. “And if it were instead in a little vineyard on a hill in Tuscany, what would you say?”
“Yes.”
“Could you just pretend, then?”
Peaches looked around her at a hall that was nothing short of magnificent, a hall that had stood for eight hundred years, protected and defended by generations of de Piaget men and women who had been completely committed to preserving their family’s heritage.
She looked at Robin and Anne, who were sitting close together behind Stephen.
Robin’s arms were around his wife, his cheek against her silvery blonde hair, his expression grave.
Anne was watching her with a look that said she understood exactly what Peaches was thinking.
Peaches looked at Stephen again. “I don’t think any of your other girlfriends would appreciate your hall.”
“But you would.”
“I would,” she agreed, finding it necessary all of the sudden to blink a time or two to keep her tears where they belonged. “Is it midnight?”
He smiled. “Somewhere.”
She took a deep breath. “Then yes. And yes again.” She paused. “In case we need to do this at a different time.”
He stood up, then pulled her up and into his arms. And then he exercised his lordly prerogative and kissed her thoroughly.
“Ring!”
Peaches heard Robin bellow the word, but it took a moment or two before what he’d said registered. She smiled at Stephen as he put the ring on her finger, then pulled her back into his arms.
“Oh, there’ll be none of that yet,” Robin said, shoving back his chair and rubbing his hands together. “We need to fetch the priest and tromp out to the chapel. You don’t think I’m going to allow you to wed her right here at the table, do you? And you, my lad, should probably go have a wash.”
Stephen looked at Robin in surprise. “I already did.”
“Go have another.”
Stephen opened his mouth, considered, then shut it. “As you will, my lord.”
“Ah, deference,” Robin said, sounding supremely satisfied. “Let’s go find candles and torches. And have a very short ceremony.”
Two hours later, Peaches sat in front of a fire in a guest chamber that had been filled with candles, delicate edibles, and her newly made husband.
She was, she had to admit, very glad to be sitting down.
Stephen had locked the door, settled her comfortably in front of the fire, then paced until he finally came to a stop in front of her.
“This is my room.”
She looked up at him in surprise. “In the twenty-first century?”
He nodded, then rubbed his hands over his face. “I wish I drank.”
“No, you don’t.” She smiled up at him. “Are you flipped out?”
He looked at her suddenly, then smiled. “I probably should be, but somehow I’m not.” He walked over to her, pulled up a stool, and sat down in front of her. He took her hands and looked at her seriously. “This isn’t exactly how I envisioned our wedding proceeding.”
“Well, the chapel was lovely,” she said philosophically. “And the guests were still family, in a manner of speaking.”
“The chapel is still lovely eight hundred years from now,” he said, “but we would have had more age-appropriate family surrounding us. Though I’m not sure the lighting would have been any better.”
“I think candlelight is very romantic,” she said.
“Which is fortunate,” he said, “given that since none of my forbearers has dared install electricity, we would have enjoyed the same in our day.”
“Then what’s the difference?” she asked with a shrug. “Great food, family, a fire in the fireplace—”
“A wedding gown befitting your beauty, photographers, my mother and brother, your sister and her husband?” He brought her hands to his mouth and kissed them. “A carriage drawn by horses to drive us to a Rolls waiting to whisk us to the airport for a flight to Paris for a honeymoon?”
“Nah,” she said with a smile, “I’d rather rough it here in medieval England.”
He smiled, apparently in spite of himself. “You realize we’ll have to do it all again for everyone else when we return home.”
“Do you mind?” she asked wistfully. “If this time is just for us?”
“Peaches, darling, I wouldn’t mind if the rest of our lives were just for us,” he said seriously.
“But given that they won’t be, no, I don’t mind.
I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He smiled that brief, grave smile that she had come to love.
“You, here with me, in this fairy-tale castle on the shore. And a honeymoon in Regency England to look forward to. I can perfectly understand why you’re thrilled with the entire scheme. ”
She laughed and reached out to put her arms around his neck. “You can keep Paris in the back of your mind for the next honeymoon if you want to.”
“I believe I shall. And whilst I would never admit this to anyone but you, I would be thoroughly delighted to have you and an endless supply of decently prepared French cuisine in the same locale for an extended period of time.”
She sighed. “Salads with exquisite dressings.”
“Filet mignon and foie gras.”
Well, there were obviously just some things they would have to agree to disagree on.
But before she could start a list of those sorts of things for him, he kissed her, which left her unable to think about anything but the man who had pulled her up and into his arms who had gone to unbelievable lengths already to rescue her, their home, and their future.
And for the rest of the night, she supposed that was enough.