Page 33 of When I Fall in Love (De Piaget #4)

J ennifer finished the Schubert, then put her violin under her arm. She could hardly believe she had her instrument in her hands again. The pleasure that playing had brought her was almost more than she could stand. After weeks without modem music, the sound of Schubert’s notes coming from under her fingers was something she thought might take a very long time to get over.

She realized, with a start, that it was the same piece she’d played for Lord Edward that night she’d been at Artane. Well, perhaps played was being generous. It was the same piece she hadn’t been able to get through.

Was this why?

She looked at Nicholas. He was sitting on his stool with his hands clasped, his forearms resting on his knees, his head bowed.

She walked over to him. “Nicholas?”

She saw the tears glistening as they fell onto the floor.

She put her violin in the case and the case onto the floor. She put her bow on the bench, then sat down and put her hands over his.

“Nicholas?” she whispered.

He lifted his head. His eyes were red and tears were streaming down his cheeks.

“I’ve never heard anything so exquisite in all my life,” he said hoarsely. “You play ... you play so beautifully.”

“Thank you,” she said reflexively. She attempted a smile. “Thank you.”

He lifted her hands and kissed them. Then he put them back in her lap and rose.

“I must tell you the real reason why I went to see Amanda.”

Jennifer blinked at the non sequitur. Then, as she realized what he’d said, she gasped, unable to catch her breath. She couldn’t catch her breath because the wind had just been knocked out of her. All right, so she had no reason to be jealous of Nicholas’s sister, but there was something about knowing that the man she loved had once loved someone else. Now that he was going to tell her why he had gone to visit that someone, it was just a little breath stealing.

“Go on,” she said, but there was no sound to her words. Just a little squeak.

A pitiful little squeak.

Nicholas walked to the window, then turned and walked back to his stool. He sat down slowly. “I actually went to see her husband.”

“Oh,” Jennifer said, feeling suddenly quite a bit better. “Her husband?”

“Jackson Alexander Kilchurn IV.”

“He sounds like nobility,” she said, attempting a smile. “Or someone in line for the throne.”

“He is neither, though the sentiment would flatter him.” He paused for several minutes. “There is another of those gates you speak of.”

Jennifer opened her mouth to ask what he meant, but then the import of his words sunk in. “Another gate? Another time gate?”

“Near Artane,” Nicholas said. He took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. “It goes to the Future.”

“And how in the world would you know that?” she asked incredulously.

“Amanda’s husband used it to get back and forth from here to his home in 2005. More than once, if the truth is to be told.”

“Amanda’s husband?” Jennifer asked incredulously. “The one you went to ... oh,” she said. “The one you went to see.”

Nicholas nodded.

“Did you go to see him ... about...”

He nodded.

“You went to see him to find out about a time gate?”

He bowed his head. “Aye.”

She had to wait a moment to catch her breath. “You knew? About me?”

He lifted his head and looked at her. “From the moment I saw you.”

She almost fell off her stool. “You knew?”

“I told you I had something to tell you.”

She had to get up and pace. There was a part of her that was afraid that she would keep saying those two words indefinitely, or at least until she could wrap her mind around the reality of them. She stopped and looked at him.

“You knew. About me.”

“Aye.”

“You knew about me from the start?”

He nodded grimly.

“Does this other gate work? The one your brother-in-law used?”

He closed his eyes briefly. “Aye.”

“Let me understand this,” she said, feeling herself start to shake. “You knew I was from the future the moment you met me, you watched me try to get back there three separate times, you knew where a working gate to the future found itself, yet you didn’t tell me.”

He winced. “Aye.”

She could hardly catch her breath. When she did, she could hardly use it to breathe out words. “You lied to me?” she whispered.

He jumped to his feet suddenly. “I didn’t want you to go,” he said, glaring at her.

“You lied to me!” she exclaimed.

“Aye, I lied to you, damn you to hell,” he shouted. “I lied to you and I would lie again the same way, time and time again.”

She recoiled. She wasn’t sure what surprised her more: that he would purposely withhold the one fact that could have spared her all the agony she’d gone through for the past two months, or that he’d shouted at her.

“You lied to me,” she whispered.

“Aye, I did,” he snarled. “But it matters not one whit now, does it, because now that you have a way to return home, you’ll leave with your sister and her husband and go your merry way without a backward glance.”

She blinked. “But—”

“I’ll be damned if I’ll watch you leave with them and vanish into nothingness.”

She gaped at him.

“And if you think I’d ask you to stay after listening to that—” He pointed at her violin.

His hand was trembling.

“After listening to that,” he said, taking a deep breath, “then you’re mad as well as damned and I’ll have no part of you.”

And with that, he turned and strode out of the chamber.

He slammed the door shut behind him.

Jennifer stared after him, more stunned than she’d ever been in her life. She wanted to sit, but she couldn’t. She wanted to pace, but she was frozen in place.

He’d known that another gate existed.

She paced around the room, then found herself looking down at her violin. It was tempting to just put her foot through it, run after Nicholas, and tell him that if that’s what was going to keep him from asking her to marry him, then it was a nonissue.

Assuming he’d ever wanted to ask her to marry him.

She knelt down—actually she collapsed to her knees, but since no one was there to watch, she supposed she could call it what she liked—and mechanically started to put her violin away. She cleaned the rosin off the strings. She loosened the bow and tucked it back into its place in the lid. She secured her violin inside the case, then shut the whole thing up, put it back into the medieval bag Victoria had so thoughtfully provided, and set it all on the bench.

She had to set herself on the bench as well.

Amanda’s husband was from the future?

She wondered who else knew that. How many members of Nicholas’s family knew that Jackson Kilchurn—and she remembered Montgomery telling her that his name was Jake and thinking at the time that it was a very strange name for a medieval guy—was from the future?

Did they all know?

Did they know about her?

She thought suddenly of her jeans rolled up in Lord Rhys’s study. Had he examined them? Did he know his son-in-law was more than he seemed?

And why had Nicholas traveled all the way to see Jake Kilchurn about the gate if he’d never intended to tell her?

She shook her head. He probably had intended to tell her—after their fortnight moratorium was up.

She looked out the window at the darkened sky and considered other things.

He’d had gowns made for her, he’d had a sword made for her, he’d wooed her for a fortnight. He had to have known she wanted to tell him where she was from, yet he’d begged her not to. She frowned. That was what didn’t make sense. If he’d known she was from the future, why wouldn’t he have wanted her to admit it? What in the world had he thought fourteen days of delay would accomplish?

Well, other than her falling in love with him.

She froze.

Was that what he’d intended? Had he wanted her to fall in love with him? He had hoped that if she did and he told her the truth, she wouldn’t want to go?

She rubbed her forehead. She had a headache from crying and that was making it incredibly difficult to remember what he’d said. All she knew was he had shouted at her, he had wept when she’d played, and he assumed now that Vic was there, she would go home.

Was it possible he didn’t want her to go?

Was it possible she could stay in the past with him?

She closed her eyes briefly. If she did, that meant never seeing her family again, never seeing her nieces and nephews grow up, never again having ice in her drinks. No chocolate, no junk food, no indoor plumbing. No television, no iPod, no front-row seats at the New York Philharmonic.

She started to pace. No career as a soloist, no more Manhattan lifestyle, no more great roast beef sandwiches at DiMaggio’s deli down the street from Victoria’s apartment. No more Thanksgivings, or Christmases, or Easters at her parents’house. No more family reunions. She would never see Megan again, or her parents, or her grandmother.

She wondered, absently, if Vic had brought a camera. At least her parents would get to see what Nicholas looked like.

Then again, he looked a lot like Gideon, so maybe they didn’t need a picture.

She paced for a very long time. In the end it came down to one simple choice: her family, or the chance for a family of her own with Nicholas.

When looked at in that light, the choice was no easier, but it was much clearer.

She picked up her violin, took a torch off the wall as easily as if she’d been doing it her whole life, then left the tower room. Miles was standing at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at her. She stopped in front of him and shoved her violin into his arms.

“Don’t lose that.”

“I won’t.”

She started to walk away, then turned and looked at him. “You knew, didn’t you?”

“About what?” he hedged.

“About me.”

He hesitated, then sighed. “Aye.”

She wagged her finger at him. “You’d better be careful. You might find one dropping onto your front door someday.”

“If only I could be so fortunate,” he said quietly.

“Where did Nicholas go?”

“He thundered off down the passageway. He forbade me follow him, which I wouldn’t have done anyway since my task was to guard you.” He paused. “Are you going after him?”

“Of course.”

Miles smiled. “I hoped so.”

“Well, we’ll see what he thinks,” she said, then she turned around and walked away.

Yes, who knew what he would think indeed.

She was almost afraid to find out.