Chapter 21
Twenty-one
Harriet stood on the side of what looked like a normal country dirt road through a glorious bit of farmland and considered the facts.
First was that she hadn’t felt any sort of paranormal tingle when she’d walked in and out of the fairy ring, though at the moment she probably wasn’t the best one to judge.
Second was the fact that she was apparently looking at Sam’s father.
If she hadn’t already been introduced, she would have known it by the familial resemblance alone.
She had no idea who he was in the grander scheme of things, but there were half a dozen men milling around who were definitely taking orders from him.
Perhaps he was a garrison captain or a fairly well-off landholder.
Last on the list was that Connor de Piaget was every bit as handsome as his younger brothers. Did the entire family buy hair color from the same place or were they just benefitting from amazing genes? Hard to say, but what she did know was that, as usual, she liked Sam the best.
That, however, was where explicable ended and flat-out weird began.
Off to her right she could see a building that if she’d been on a movie set she might have identified as a wayside inn.
She could hear the occasional whinny of a horse, some oinking coming from what would probably eventually wind up being breakfast, and a few chickens clucking, also probably providing things for breakfast. Smoke curled up from a stone chimney or two and rustically dressed people wandered here and there as if they had every right to do so.
Of course, what was missing was the castle she’d just walked past, the field set up for a modern-day tournament, and the parking lot in the distance, but all she could do was accept the fact that she’d walked into another world.
A medieval world, if Sam were to be believed.
She pulled herself away from what would have been a well-deserved case of hysterics and realized that Sam was standing next to her, watching her cautiously.
She supposed she didn’t dare throw himself into his arms in front of his father, though perhaps she was overthinking what that might signify.
They’d shared their share of comradely hugs and hand-holdings, true, but she’d heard him mutter on more than one occasion something about ships passing in the night.
Obviously he was subtly reminding her that that’s what they were.
“Harriet?”
“Nothing,” she said brightly. She smiled up at him. “Hello.”
He considered her. “What are you thinking?”
“I was wondering if I get any frequent flier miles for this,” she managed.
He smiled faintly. “I think you should come to England more often for that sort of thing.”
“Of course,” she said. “And you should come to Omaha for the same reason.” There, that sounded reasonable and dignified. “Your dad didn’t say anything about seeing anyone in fancy shoes but missing their tall hats, did he?”
“No,” he began carefully, “but that doesn’t mean your parents didn’t come this way. This is a fairly major thoroughfare so ‘tis possible they found a company to travel with toward the nearest proper village.”
She nodded instead of speaking because she was genuinely afraid that if she opened her mouth, she might make some noise of distress that would frighten the horses and the locals both.
Sam reached out and took her hand. “Harriet, your father is a very sensible man and your mother courageous. She can feed them with what she finds in the forests and he can protect them until they find a safe haven.”
“But his sword isn’t sharp,” she whispered.
“I’m not going to ask you how you know save that you didn’t watch it go through my gut in the garden,” he said with a faint smile. “And don’t worry. My father is an unparalleled tracker, so I’m sure we’ll find them quickly whilst Connor takes you to Wyckham to wait for us. Can you ride?”
“I’ve taken a lesson or two,” she said. “My sister the park ranger made me.”
“I’ll inquire about the particulars later,” he said with a smile. “We’re shifting things around a bit to have enough horses, which hopefully won’t make for too uncomfortable a journey.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“I know,” he said quietly. “And not to worry. All will be well.”
She wanted to tell him that after watching him go after his cousin with a sword, she wasn’t worried about him at all. What she was worried about was the thought of her parents being off in the wilds of medieval England without having a clue what had happened to them.
“Harriet.”
She looked at the gorgeous man standing in front of her, dressed in medieval gear and not looking unsettled in the slightest. Then again, this was what he’d grown up with.
Apparently.
He pulled her close and put his arms around her for a blissful, endless moment before someone called his name. He sighed, then gave her a look she had no trouble identifying as a suggestion that she stay put before he walked away to take care of business.
She stood in the midst of medieval men doing their thing and forced herself to remain calm. She was beginning to understand why Sam had wanted her to stay by the fire and knit, but the ride had already left the station and all she could do was hold on.
That took on an entirely new meaning as she soon found herself sitting on the back of a horse of her own, preparing to trot off into the morning mist with Sam’s brother.
She looked over her shoulder once more to find Sam standing next to a horse, watching her.
She waved, had a brief lifting of his hand in return, then turned her face forward and concentrated on not falling off.
She sincerely hoped that wouldn’t be the last time she saw him.
Or her parents.
Two days later she was still holding on to her reins after a successful trip through the English countryside that was seemingly very beautiful regardless of the year.
She was a bit fuzzy on the details past feeling fairly certain they had occasionally stopped to either water the horses or let them graze a bit.
Connor hadn’t wanted to dawdle and she’d agreed with him, though she supposed the four men who’d accompanied them could have easily kept them safe if necessary.
Keeping her nerves in check was another thing entirely and that had everything to do with the enormous castle she’d been looking at since sunrise.
Connor didn’t seem concerned, but maybe he had more confidence in his ability to get them inside Wyckham Castle than she did.
All she could do was ride through the front gates and admire a place that seemed less like a vintage fortress and more like five-star resort.
At the moment, grabbing even a pile of hay in a corner sounded like a luxury option.
She was somehow unsurprised by the things she didn’t see, namely a gift shop, a long line of tourists waiting to get inside the keep proper, and a cute little restaurant where she might have looked over the menu for things she knew Sam would like.
Instead, she was surrounded by people she was fairly sure were, as Sam would have said, the real deal.
“Harriet?”
She realized Connor was standing on the ground next to her horse, holding up his hands for her.
She allowed him to help her down from her borrowed pony because she certainly wasn’t going to manage to get down all by herself.
She tried out a casual merci and had a smile in return so perhaps her adventure inside a fully functional medieval castle was off to a good start.
“You’re exhausted,” Connor said quietly in perfectly good English tinged with a slight but definitely attractive French accent. “Let me see you inside the hall where you may take your ease whilst we await your parents.”
She nodded. As she had noted before, he looked enough like Sam and Theo that she never would have mistaken them for not being brothers, but he was somehow very different.
If Sam were the sun and Theo the moon, she suspected Connor de Piaget was an undiscovered, slightly skeptical planet doing his own bit of traveling through the cosmos, waiting for things to align in the way he liked so he could influence a few tides.
She wondered what he thought about Sam and Theo’s life choices.
“So, does your father work for the lord here?” she asked as they walked across the courtyard.
“I’m sorry, what?”
She looked up at him quickly. “Should I not have asked? I didn’t mean to be impolite.”
“But my father is lord here,” he said, “and you are an honored guest.” He pursed his lips. “Did Sam not say anything?”
She caught herself before she simply lost her jaw on the ground.
Sam’s father was a medieval … well, whatever he was?
She looked at Connor and shook her head because she didn’t want to unnerve him with a list of all the terrible things she was going to do to his brother the next time they met for having failed to confess such an important detail.
“I’m sure he neglected to say as much out of modesty,” Connor said with a smile, “not for any more nefarious reason.”
“He probably would have gotten tired of my constantly curtseying to him,” she grumbled, though in Sam’s defense, she wasn’t quite sure when he would have dropped that little tidbit into casual conversation.
Connor laughed a little. “I beg you not to start that with him. He’ll be utterly unbearable otherwise.”
She doubted that, but she didn’t feel qualified to offer a definitive opinion. “So, does that make your father a baron or an earl or whatever you have now? And that makes you and your brother lords as well?”
“In essence,” Connor agreed. “And what it definitely makes Sam is a menace, but you can repay him for hedging when he arrives. He is also hopeless in properly seeing to a beautiful woman, so I’ll happily school him for you, if you like.”
“Oh, we’re just friends,” she stammered.
Connor only lifted his eyebrows briefly, then put his hand on one of the front doors. “Let me introduce you to my mother. We can discuss other things later.”