Chapter 28
Stephen stood in the hallway of Artane’s upper floor in a time definitely not his own and wondered just how in the hell it was he was going to rid himself of the body he was holding under the arms. He looked at Peaches and nodded at the door she was standing in front of.
“We’ll put him in there.”
She nodded and opened the bedroom door—his bedroom door, as it happened, which was just as unsettling as it had been six hundred years earlier in Robin de Piaget’s time—then held it open whilst he dragged an unconscious Regency wastrel inside.
That wastrel happened to be his grandfather a few generations removed, which was the only reason Stephen hadn’t already dropped him on his fool head.
Peaches shut the door, then lit a lamp with the help of a match. She turned and looked at him.
“I suppose that was one way to do it,” she said cheerfully.
He had to admit it had been. They had arrived in Regency Artane just as the sun was setting and managed to blend into the crowd that was making its way up the path to the great hall.
Stephen would have thought he’d stumbled onto a period piece set if it hadn’t been for the all-too-real smell from the stables and the guests alike.
Things had gone fairly well until he’d come face-to-face with Reginald de Piaget, current earl of Artane, and realized that he probably should have aimed for a party where the guests had been wearing masks.
Reginald goggled, gurgled, then patted himself to look for something Stephen decided abruptly wouldn’t be in their best interests for him to find.
His and Peaches’s best interests, that was.
He had grasped Reginald firmly by the arm and smiled pleasantly.
“I wouldn’t,” he had advised.
Reginald had ripped his arm away. “I’ll have your name, sir, or you will face me over pistols at dawn!”
“Oh, let’s avoid that,” Stephen had demurred. “Why don’t you instead divulge a few details about the current lord of Kenneworth you’re about to face over cards with nothing left to wager but your ancestral hall and all its entailed properties?”
Reginald de Piaget, that very keen gambler, had blanched, then opened his mouth with what Stephen had seen was the intention to call for aid.
That had resulted in a trip upstairs, Peaches creating a diversion by getting something in her eye, and Stephen using Patrick MacLeod’s favorite heel-of-hand-under-chin technique to render the other man blissfully unconscious.
All of which left him now looking at his hapless progenitor lying on the floor, drooling prodigiously.
“What an idiot,” he muttered.
“You really want to just tie him up?”
Stephen shrugged. “I am at a loss for any other solution.”
“Oh, I fully agree with it,” she said, studying Reginald de Piaget, who was lying unconscious at her feet. “I’m just wondering where we’ll put him once we’ve got him swaddled.”
“We’ll gag him and shove him under the bed. But I’ll need his cravat first. He seems to favor that truly revolting color of green.”
Peaches looked at him, then came to put her arms around him. “Stephen …” She shook her head and held him tightly. “If any of your students could see you now, they would be impressed.”
“Because I managed to clunk my hapless grandfather from the past on the head and drag him down the hallway? Into my own room again, which I will tell you this time is causing me a rather substantial bit of discomfort. Though at least I know my way around, if you know what I’m getting at.”
She considered, then glanced at Reginald. “How hard did you hit him?”
“Very.”
“Then we’d better take advantage of that—and no, not for anything more than removing his cravat and jacket.”
“I thought you wanted to honeymoon in Regency England.”
She laughed and pulled away. “I did but that was before we got here and I started not being able to breathe normally. Let’s hurry before we’re stuck here permanently.”
He had to agree that was something he had no stomach for, so he set to the task of compromising part of his grandfather’s modesty. He removed Reginald’s coat, shirt, and cravat, then put them on. He stood still whilst Peaches adjusted the bile-green cravat, then looked at her.
“What do you think?”
“I think you’re gorgeous,” she said. “Even in that color, which is truly disgusting. I don’t think anyone will be able to tell the difference between you and your drooling grandfather there. Now, let go of me. You should be using your time to review your gambling strategies.”
“I reviewed them last night,” he said, drawing her back into his arms. “The time change and all that.” He looked at her solemnly. “It kept me awake.”
“That wasn’t all that kept you awake.”
“Now that you mention it, no, it wasn’t—”
She laughed, sounding a little breathless. “Stephen de Piaget, you’re a rake.”
“It’s the bilious cravat,” he said, praying he wasn’t going to bring home lice thanks to putting it on. “It’s making me reckless.”
She pursed her lips. “Yes, I’m sure that’s it.” She looked at him, then shivered. “Please let’s have this over with, really. I’m ready to go home.”
He sighed deeply, then held her close for several minutes in silence.
“Thank you for marrying me,” he said finally.
“Really?”
He nodded. “Yes, really.” He held her for another very long moment, then stepped back reluctantly.
“Let’s go see to this so I have a home to take you to.
Though I will tell you I’m finding it very difficult to concentrate on the task at hand.
” He smiled at her. “You’re very distracting in your Regency garb. ”
“Shall I tell you tales about David Preston to inspire you?” she asked lightly.
He pursed his lips. “I think that might have done it right there, darling. Let’s see to Reggie, then I’ll go put the game into motion.”
“I’ll go mingle.”
He looked at her seriously. “Be ready to run, Peaches.”
“Do you think we’ll need to?”
“At this point, love, I wouldn’t be surprised by anything.”
She leaned up on her toes and kissed him briefly. “Play well.”
“Stay within reach.”
She looked up at him seriously. “That is the place I would like to be for the rest of my life.”
He hugged her quickly, then let her go before he either sobbed like a babe or told her he’d changed his mind about trying to save his hall and they would just have to move to Italy and work on growing olives.
He exchanged one last look with her before she slipped out the door and he turned to the first task of the night, which was to get his ancestor out of sight.
He only hoped the rest of the night’s activities would be so easily accomplished.
It was sunrise when he stumbled with Peaches up toward Artane’s gates. Modern Artane’s gates, his father’s gates—
Only they weren’t his father’s gates any longer. They were his gates.
“Are you okay?”
He looked at his wife of eight hundred years and smiled wearily.
She was wearing her Regency clothes with a backpack over her shoulders, looking as if she’d spent the night rolling in the mud.
He was also wearing Regency clothes, but instead of a backpack, he was carrying a sword.
But he suspected he also looked like he’d spent the night rolling in the mud.
Which was exactly what they’d been doing.
“I’m numb,” he admitted, “from cold, terror, and lack of food.” He shook his head slowly. “If we’d had to eat any more of that slop Reggie was serving, I would have lain down right there at the card table and surrendered.”
She smiled up at him, a bit of dirt on her cheek flaking off as she did so.
“I would say indigestion was what turned the tide in that very dodgy game—Lionel of Kenneworth suddenly coming down with food poisoning, I mean—but I think he would have feigned stomach trouble just the same to get out with his pride intact simply because you’d outcheated him. ”
“I didn’t cheat,” Stephen said archly.
“Liar.”
He looked at her, then smiled in spite of himself. “Very well, I didn’t see any reason not to use his own ploys against him. But I’ll have you know and want it remembered for future generations that all the sterling I won at cards during my Eton years was won fairly.”
“Just Eton?” she asked politely. “Not at Cambridge?”
“I have an extensive collection of first editions,” he admitted. “You don’t think I would spend my money on them, do you?”
She smiled, then her smile faded. “You didn’t answer the question I was really asking.” She nodded toward the castle. “Are you okay?”
He took a deep breath, then nodded. “I will be.”
“Do you want me to catch a train—”
He started to make an offhand comment, then realized she was serious. “Of course not,” he said in surprise.
“But, Stephen, this is a really personal—”
“Peaches, darling, we’ve spent the past two days being really personal.
And I spent days and days and days before then wishing that there was some way I could convince you to become very personal with me.
” He stopped and looked down at her seriously.
“I will hold my mother because I am her son, and I love her. But I want you there as well. Unless, of course,” he added slowly, “it would make you uncomfortable.”
She shook her head. “No, it won’t. I’ll stay, if you like.”
He studied her for a moment or two. “How long do you think it will take, my lady, before we don’t tiptoe around each other anymore?”
“I think you’ll need to date me a few times,” she said solemnly. “And scare up some of that wooing you keep promising me.”
He drew her into his arms, held her for a moment in silence, then pulled back and kissed her briefly. “We’ll attend to what we must here first, then I’ll see if we can’t indulge in a bit of the other. Will that suit?”
She turned to look at Artane sitting there in front of them, waiting. She took a deep breath, then nodded. He took her hand, then walked with her through his gates.