Chapter 12 #2
“So I understand,” Harriet said with a hesitant smile. “Sam’s done a good job of being his brother, though. I had no idea they had switched places until he was forced to confess.”
“Because I was slated to give a workshop on the craft of writing,” Sam said with a snort, “and threw myself at Harriet’s feet to beg for her aid. And that right there is enough to leave me feeling faint. Zachary, let’s go order something. Ladies, don’t say anything interesting until we return.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Harriet murmured.
Mary only looked at him, blinked several times, then sent him a look that promised not only a lengthy hug, but a stern lecture right after it.
He nodded in acknowledgment of the same, gave Harriet a reassuring smile because she deserved it, then pushed himself up off the banquette and walked with Zachary over to the bar.
“You’re looking older,” Zachary noted.
Sam rolled his eyes. “That’s what you want to discuss at the moment?”
Zachary only smiled, ordered food for the five of them, then paused after he’d paid. “Jamie would be curious how that had come about.”
“But my gut is not at all curious about what would be left of it did I meet your brother-in-law and his very sharp sword in some darkened copse of trees in the Highlands, so perhaps another time.”
Zachary smiled. “Fair enough. By the way, your girlfriend is charming.”
“She’s not my girlfriend, though she is very charming.”
“Your uncle Montgomery would say you’d caught yourself a faery.”
Sam felt a little winded. “Aye, so I tell her. Often. I’m not entirely certain it isn’t true.”
Zachary clapped him on the shoulder. “You should come for supper.”
Sam took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “To be honest, we weren’t sure how to do that.” He paused. “’Tis complicated.”
“Actually, it isn’t. Get in your car, drive to Wyckham, park inside the walls. Find the front door if you can manage it, then knock. I might let you in. I’ll definitely let Harriet in.”
Sam glared at his cousin by marriage on principle and because Zachary likely expected it, but he hardly knew where to start with any of the rest of it.
Finding family had been a possibility all along, to be sure, and he couldn’t say that he and Theo both hadn’t missed that camaraderie of cousins they’d grown—mostly—to manhood with.
But somehow resurrecting those bonds in a time not their own had seemed a little too …
permanent. Unlike, of course, purchasing automobiles, paying council taxes, and stashing funds in Switzerland.
Or having a comrade-in-arms turn into a friend who might possibly some day become more than that.
“Where is Theo really?”
Sam was thrilled to be discussing anything else. “He’s off repairing a bit of a stitch-up in 1657.”
“Alone?”
“He said he could see to it.”
“Well, it isn’t as if you don’t have enough experience to decide that for yourselves, green lads that you are.”
“You realize,” Sam said evenly, “that I’m almost as old as you are now.”
“And you know that I’ll never look at you as anything but a troublemaking teenager. I also still owe you for showing up in my kitchen and forcing me to chase after you with Stephen.” He stretched uncomfortably. “I believe I still have a bruise or two from the kerfuffle. How old were you then?”
“Ten-and-six,” Sam said shortly, “and don’t think I have any sympathy for you. You were, I’m quite certain, laughing heartily with Stephen as you turned us loose in your larder and allowed us to eat until we were absolutely fit to bust.”
“Gluttony, my lad, is a sin.”
Sam glared at him. “So was tossing us into the back of your car, driving us to the coast, then cruelly shoving us through the main gate below Artane without allowing us so much as a nap to mitigate the assaults to our tums. We were sick for a solid se’nnight.
” He scowled at the memory. “Uncle Robin confined us to the barn for the duration.”
“Poor you,” Zachary said rather unsympathetically. “How long has Theo been gone?”
Sam was utterly unsurprised by the change of topic. Zachary had indeed learned well his father-in-law’s blunt ways.
“Four days,” he said, “give or take a few hours. I’ll finish out his conference for him if necessary, but if he isn’t back before Sunday, I’m going after him.”
“Text me the details when you have privacy,” Zachary said seriously. “I’ll see what I can dig up.”
Sam looked at him. “Are you finding this conversation as weird as I am?”
Zachary smiled pleasantly. “I would be, and you know my father-in-law would be agreeing with you there, but the wisdom of my years that rests so heavily upon my shoulders leaves me unsurprised by many things.”
“You’re starting to sound just like him.”
“Says the teenager who was almost walled up in that same man’s dungeon more than once.”
“I haven’t lost any of my sword skill, you know.”
“Definitely come to Wyckham, then,” Zachary said with a smile. “You can point out all my flaws when we meet in the lists.”
Sam found that he couldn’t quite toss off the casual reply he wanted to, so he simply nodded and followed Zachary back across the pub to slide onto the bench next to his …
He rubbed his hands over his face. He hardly knew what to call her.
How had his life had become so much more complicated more quickly than he’d ever considered it might?
Modern family, modern events, a modern woman who looked at him from pale blue eyes that were almost hidden behind her masses of supposedly brushed hair.
He reached out before he thought better of it and tucked a strand or two of the same behind her ear, smiled at her, then looked at his cousin and her husband.
“Might have decent weather at the weekend, what?” he said pleasantly.
Wee Anne threw a stuffed bear at him, which he supposed he deserved. He laughed a little as he caught it, then handed it back to her.
“Well played, my lady,” he said, inclining his head. “Let’s save that for after brunch, shall we? I promise we’ll play catch outside.”
He wasn’t certain if that satisfied her, but it at least bought him a moment to see to his own rampaging emotions before he looked at Maryanne. She was smiling through her tears, which he could only assume might be due to the fact that she was apparently with child again.
She and Zachary were fortunate, indeed.
If he made conversation from that point on, he didn’t remember it. He became fairly distracted by some superior fare—much better than what he’d last had there in 1710—only to realize that at some point the conversation had definitely gotten away from him.
“Isn’t Artane that big castle on the coast in the north?” Harriet asked.
Sam dragged himself back to the present moment and attempted to toy casually with the rest of his egg. He looked at Zachary who was thankfully managing to keep a pleasant, unpanicked expression on his face.
“Gorgeous place,” Zachary said, nodding. “You should visit if you have the chance. I know the family.”
Sam managed not to snort because he was fully in control of himself at all times.
“It’s been home to the de Piaget family for centuries, actually,” Zachary continued mercilessly. “They’re very fond of their antiques. Indeed, they humor me by letting me make off with them from time to time.”
Sam suppressed the urge to reach over and stab Maryanne’s husband with a fork, an urge that became almost uncontrollable after the bland look that same husband sent him immediately after that comment.
“Don’t let Zachary be modest,” Mary said with a smile.
“He’s head of the Cameron/Artane Trust for Historical Preservation and they constantly send him off hunting for all kinds of things to preserve.
That’s why we’re here today, actually. There’s a priest’s hole in the back of the pub that we want to see. ”
Sam imagined he might be able to offer an opinion on that, but, as always, discretion dictated that he continue to attend to his meal.
“I see,” Harriet said thoughtfully. “And you’re related to the de Piaget family who owns Artane?”
“By means of a family-tree that stretches back through the ages,” Zachary agreed. “But mapping that all out would take a large piece of paper and a bigger table.”
Sam caught the look Harriet sent him and suspected she was thinking about pinboards and red string. He shrugged helplessly, had a faint smile in return, then did his best not to think too hard about how lovely it was to be sitting with family, never mind the year.
“Harriet, are you interested in history?” Zachary asked after he’d apparently decimated his meal to his satisfaction. “I’m always looking for help in fending off ghosts while I’m digging around in priceless artifacts.”
Sam admired his cousin-in-law’s ability to create a diversion and he didn’t argue with Harriet when she agreed that she was most definitely interested in history and had no fear of ghosts.
He exchanged a look with her that he imagined they would be discussing later, let her out to go off with Zachary to points unexamined and likely very haunted, then sat back down and looked at his cousin.
“Hello, Maryanne,” he said quietly.
“Why didn’t you come?”
He was unsurprised by her directness and a little reassured that some things hadn’t changed. He took a deep breath. “I wasn’t sure—we weren’t sure how to simply arrive at your front door, never mind managing the rest of it.” He looked at her helplessly. “Living in two different times, that is.”
“And not committing to either?”
“Exactly that.”
“I daresay I’ve had an easier time of it.”
Sam didn’t want to say that at least he still managed to go home and visit his parents—and Mary’s as well—so he didn’t.
“How are they?” she asked.
He closed his eyes briefly. “They miss you.”
“I can scarce believe we’re discussing this.”
He stared at her for a moment or two in silence, then got up and went to sit with her. He managed to hug her without Anne clouting him with her bear which he supposed was progress.