Chapter 19 #3
She realized that the kettle was whistling.
She watched Sam lay his sword on the kitchen table and go turn off the hot water.
She briefly considered the idea of ditching him by hightailing it out the front door, then ruthlessly smothered the impulse.
She had stepped out of the shadows and now she had Things to Do.
She put her shoulders back and leaned over to have a closer look at the sword Sam had left unguarded.
The leather sheath wasn’t new, though it looked very well-tended. She put her hand on the hilt of the sword and found it to be definitely made of metal, not plastic. She started to pull it out—
“It’s very sharp.”
She looked up at him. “As sharp as Jackson’s?”
He nodded.
“Then I shouldn’t use it on you?”
“Well,” he said with a brief smile, “if I had on Jackson’s jacket you could repay him for his treatment of mine, but otherwise perhaps not.”
She decided that she wanted to sit, so she sat and watched Sam as he made tea.
He poured two mugs, then brought them over to the table and set them down on either side of his sword.
He looked as if he might be ready to spill some substantial beans so she kept her thoughts about the spectacular if not slightly perilous table decor to herself.
She waited until he’d made himself comfortable, then pointed at the pinboard. “What are the hearts?”
“Matches successfully made?” he answered with a hopeful smile.
She popped up out of her chair and went to re-examine the lay of the board’s land.
On closer inspection, she found it was indeed organized by date.
She used her finger—it was shaking more than she wanted it to, but she wasn’t going to apologize for that—to follow along the timeline until she came to 1824.
Fanny Darling & Ignatious Gideon. There was no heart there, which for some reason surprised her. She looked at Sam.
“No match?”
“I haven’t had a chance to look up the parish records yet,” he said carefully. “But the original contact was successful.”
“But how would you know—” She took a deep breath. “I’m not sure I want—yes I do want to know. How do you know that?”
Sam took his own deep breath. “I know because I gave him a shove in the right direction at the right time.”
“Ig—what was his name?”
“Ignatious.”
She considered. “Were he and Fanny in love?”
“Madly,” he said with a faint smile, “though neither dared declare it. Without a course correction, they would have spent the rest of their lives pining for each other in silence.”
“Is that why you were—well, never mind. Of course that’s why you were dressed like that—wait a minute.” She realized that if she didn’t stop shaking her head, she was going to have to sit down and if she didn’t stop interrupting herself, she was going to hyperventilate.
“Would you like your tea?” he asked.
“Do you have any whiskey?”
He smiled. “Let’s start with tea.”
Which was just as well because she wasn’t sure she would be knocking back anything that wouldn’t be coming right back up. She pointed her finger at him, but that only made him smile again so she sent him the sternest look she could manage.
“I’m just getting started with this line of inquiry.”
“I know,” he said, reaching over his sword to push her mug a little closer to her. He wrapped his hands around his own mug and looked at her seriously. “Carry on. I’ll answer anything you ask me with complete honesty.”
“Have you been lying up to now?”
He let out a careful breath. “Hedging, perhaps.”
“Then let’s back up a little.” She nodded toward the bulletin board. “Those aren’t notes for your brother’s books, so what are they?”
“Matches either made or needing to be made.”
She felt her mouth fall open. “You’re matchmakers?”
He smiled faintly. “It’s a side hustle.”
She laughed a little before she could stop herself, then recaptured her frown so he didn’t think he was off the hook quite yet. “Next you’ll tell me that you’re getting your information from the ghosts that haunt … wait—” She gaped at him. “You’re matchmaking with the help of ghosts?”
He winced. “Occasionally.”
“But Fanny Darling,” she said weakly. “In 1824.”
He nodded carefully. “In 1824.”
Her thoughts made a very quick trip back to where they’d started, namely to that doorway in the forest. At the moment, thinking that it might lead to a different time instead of some mythical realm sounded like the most reasonable thing she’d heard all day.
She took a deep breath and looked at Sam.
He didn’t look magical. He looked like a very normal albeit adorably gorgeous guy who covered for his twin because he was fond of him, held her hand in the back of fancy cars because it soothed her, and was currently pushing her mug toward her and nodding encouragingly because he probably thought tea might help her not lose her mind.
“I’m letting it cool off,” she managed.
He sat back and simply waited.
“You have to tell me what I saw back in the forest. That … that …”
“Gate,” he supplied.
“Gate,” she repeated. “Are you saying that wasn’t some high-tech hologram put on by the faire people?”
He shook his head.
“How do you know?”
He looked heavenward briefly, then back at her. “That’s the last thing I have to confess.”
She put her hands in her lap instead of around her mug because she thought that might be safer, then simply looked at him and waited.
“Do you remember what you told me about your parents?”
“That they’re LARPers?”
He nodded.
“What about it?”
He looked at her seriously. “I’m not.”
“You’re not a LARPer?”
He shook his head slowly.
“What does that make you, then?”
He took a deep breath, then set his mug of tea aside. “It makes me the real thing.”
She blinked. She blinked again, but she still found herself looking at a guy dressed in medieval clothes and sitting across a sword-encrusted kitchen table from her.
“You mean,” she said, then she had to clear her throat and try again. “You mean that you don’t just have a rich fantasy life that leads you to believe that you’re a medieval knight, you really are one?”
He nodded.
“Of course.” She nodded as well, just to make him feel comfortable and perhaps help him keep a firmer hold on reality. “But what you’re really saying is that you’re just pretending, right?”
He shook his head. “I was born in the Year of Our Lord’s Grace 1242, knighted by Henry III in 1261, and in 1267, I left my home to come to modern-day London.”
She felt a shiver run through her. It wasn’t particularly cold, so she chalked it up to wondering how she’d managed to step into a really campy TV series where the writers had taken bets with each other about just how far they could strain credulity before they were fired.
In her opinion, they were definitely currently flirting with the unemployment line.
It was true that Samuel de Piaget had some strange linguistic quirks that she’d thought had come from too many rereads of his brother’s books.
It was also true that he and Jackson were very proficient with swords that belonged on a movie set but were absolutely too sharp for the same.
Sam was also familiar with those rings in the grass because he’d identified the one they’d seen earlier.
And if that held true, it was entirely possible that he’d used that strange circle near The Squealing Piglet to go nudge Miss Fanny Darling into the arms of her soulmate in 1824.
She considered a bit longer. If traveling through time were possible, why did it have to go only one direction?
Couldn’t a medieval knight just as easily decide he simply couldn’t live another day without chocolate and Shakespeare, find one of those gates, then use it to hop across the centuries and give modern life a whirl?
She snuck another look at Sam, but he was only watching her with the most serious expression she’d seen him wear to date.
She examined the two paths that seemed to be diverging in front of her. The first path led back to Bradford-Next-the-Stow where she could no doubt bunk with Francine Collins and perhaps even be of some use to TD Piaget.
The other side of the fork lay through a gate so slathered with paranormal vibes that it made seeing ghosts in Sam’s kitchen seem like an everyday trip to the Mini Mart.
On the far side of that gate were her parents and possibly the chance to, as Sam had once said about medieval times, enjoy hot fires, live entertainment, and dark skies full of stars.
He would apparently know.
She took a deep breath, then made her choice. It was less dramatic than she’d expected it to be, but perhaps that was because it had been a path she realized she’d been preparing for all along. She put her hand on his sword, then looked at him.
“I think,” she began finally, then she had to take a handful of restorative breaths before she could go on.
“You think?” he asked gently.
“I think this is going to require an entirely new list.”