Page 41 of When I Fall in Love (De Piaget #4)

ARTANE PRESENT DAY

M egan MacLeod McKinnon de Piaget sat with her baby in her arms in the lord’s solar at Artane and listened with half an ear to the goings on around her. Gideon and his uncle, Kendrick, the earl of Seakirk, were playing chess and laughing. Kendrick’s children were making mischief as surreptitiously as possible. Lord Edward and Kendrick’s wife, Genevieve, were discussing the proper pruning of rosebushes. Megan smiled to herself and wondered if her sister was at that very moment in her own time sitting in the lord’s solar, watching her own husband play chess with one of his brothers. Perhaps she was at Wyckham, making it lovely. Perhaps she was in France, walking along the beach.

Her parents and Victoria and Connor had returned the week before from their trip back in time to see Jennifer marry Nicholas de Piaget. Victoria had said they were content. Megan didn’t doubt it. Nicholas sounded like a wonderful man and she had no trouble believing that her sister was gloriously happy.

Still, it would have. been nice to know for sure.

The earl rose and stretched. “Children, I’m off. Kendrick, lad, stay out of my Schnapps.”

“Of course, my lord,” Kendrick said with a grin.

“I’ll take the lads up for you, if you like,” he offered. “And your wee girl. She’s a lovely thing, that Mistress Adelaide.”

“Brilliant,” Kendrick said. “Lads, go with His Lordship and don’t pester him about things in glass cabinets. Addy, Mum and I will be up in a moment to tuck you in, aye?”

Megan watched her father-in-law tromp out with Kendrick and Genevieve’s rambunctious brood, waited until the solar was completely devoid of all youthful ears, then turned to look at Kendrick.

“Okay,” she said firmly, “spill it.”

“Spill what?” he asked innocently.

“All the details you’ve been hunting up since my family left last week,” she said. “Gen and I watched you do it.”

“I was just reading,” he said with a shrug. “I’m a reader, you know.”

“Right,” Megan said wryly. “Come on, Kendrick. You know you want to tell us.”

Kendrick tipped his king. “I must admit, I’ve learned a few interesting things.”

“Things that you didn’t already know?” Genevieve asked dryly. “After all, you did squire for Nicholas, didn’t you?”

Megan gaped first at Genevieve, then at Kendrick. “You did what?”

“In another life,” Kendrick agreed. “Aye, I did.”

“Then you knew Jennifer.”

Kendrick smiled gravely. “Very well.”

Megan felt tears spring to her eyes. “You didn’t tell me?”

“I couldn’t, now, could I?” he asked gently. “Not then. Not before Jennifer even knew what the future had in store for her. And I didn’t dare until your parents had come back from the past with a good report. You never know how history might find itself changed.”

Megan sighed. “You’re right, of course. But you could make me feel better now by giving me an eyewitness account of her life.”

He sat back in his chair. “Gladly. What will you know?”

“Was she happy?”

“She was. Deliriously.” Kendrick smiled. “My uncle loved her to distraction. I was forever stumbling upon him kissing her in darkened corners. Actually,” he said, scratching his head, “now that I think on it, he kissed her in lightened corners as well.”

Megan smiled. “I’m glad to hear it. But did you ever know who she was? What she was?”

He shrugged. “I thought she was a fairy. That was my uncle Montgomery’s doing, as you might imagine, what with his being the source of all information on fairies. He was convinced she was of Jake Kilchurn’s ilk. And so she was.”

“But, Kendrick,” Genevieve asked in surprise, “what did you think when you first met Megan?”

“That I was seeing a ghost,” Kendrick laughed. “I covered it manfully by gaping at Gideon instead.”

“Tell me more of Jennifer’s life,” Megan urged. “They lived at Wyckham?”

“Part of the year. The other half they went to France. Nick had Beauvois, of course, and Auntie Jen loved the ocean.”

“How many children did they have?”

“Ten, including two sets of twins.”

Megan gaped. “You’re kidding.”

“I never kid,” he said solemnly. “It was all that kissing. I daresay it led to other things.”

“Heaven help her,” Megan said, with feeling.

“Aye, she said the same thing. Often.” He smiled. “She had a few who were definite handfuls.”

“Who?” Genevieve asked. “The ones who were willing to throw in their lots with you and see what sorts of adventures they could give their father gray hairs over?”

Kendrick winked at Megan. “She knows me too well.”

“Ten children,” Megan said, shaking her head. “I’ll bet she wished for a midwife, at least.”

“She had one. Two, generally, for most of her children.” Kendrick smiled. “A couple of Scottish ladies. Helen McKinnon and Mary MacLeod, I believe. I met them a time or two.”

Megan gaped at him. “My mother? My grandmother ? ”

Kendrick smiled. “So it would seem.”

Megan looked at Gideon and felt a little shaky. “I think it’s going to take me a while to get used to all this wandering through time that I never knew about.”

“Trust me,” Gideon said, looking a little green himself, “I feel the same way.”

Megan took a deep, steadying breath, then looked at Kendrick again. “All right, I can handle some more now. Did she play her violin much?”

“I heard her play countless times,” Kendrick said. “Most often in France, where new music was not so strange and the servants more discreet. The peasants enfeoffed to Wyckham were convinced there was a spirit who played music to break a heart inside the keep. In France, they just smiled and went about their work. But,” he added, “she did manage to keep a full compliment of other musicians at Wyckham, Nicholas had built a gallery there and music was played every night. Nicholas loved to dance with her.” .

“I imagine that led to more kissing,” Megan said dryly.

“And more children,” Genevieve laughed.

“I daresay my uncle planned it thus,” Kendrick said with a twinkle in his eye. “All I know is that he cherished her more than life itself and not a day went by that I didn’t see him do something special for her. Flowers, a walk at sunset, music, a beautiful gown. He lavished gifts and love and attention upon her.” He smiled at her. “You can rest easy knowing she was adored throughout their life.”

“When did she die?”

Kendrick shifted. “She was still alive when I was killed.”

Megan looked at him closely. “And?”

He returned her look, but his eyes were wide with feigned innocence. “And what?”

“You know something you’re not telling.”

Genevieve laughed at her. “Megan, you know him too well.

Kendrick, we can all tell you’re bursting to say something else. Spill the beans.”

“They’re fairly considerable beans.”

“Spill them,” Megan warned, “or Gideon will take you out and thrash you in the lists.”

Gideon looked up quickly. “Megan, I could run him over in the lists with the Range Rover. I think the thrashing would be limited to that.”

Kendrick laughed and reached over to clap a hand on Gideon’s shoulder. “You’re coming along nicely with your swordplay. Never my equal, of course, but you’re holding your own.”

“He needs to go to Jamie’s medieval boot camp,” Megan said.

“I’ve considered it,” Gideon said with a grin, “but I fear that it would lead to all sorts of adventures that you might not want.”

“Blame it on me, why don’t you,” Megan laughed uneasily.

“I’ll share the blame,” Gideon said with a smile. “I think Artane Enterprises would fall apart without me there to mi-cromanage it.” He winked at Megan. “Though a little vacation up north might not be such a bad idea. Who knows where a trip to James MacLeod’s land might truly lead?”

“All I know is that it’s leading me away from what I want to know,” Megan said. She looked at Kendrick. “Spill those substantial beans. How old was Jennifer when she died and what happened to the Degani?”

Kendrick seemed to consider his words. “Their graves are inside the church gates. You could go look, if you liked.”

“Did they bury the violin with her?” Megan asked in surprise.

Kendrick looked at her, clear-eyed. “I never said that.”

“Husband, what are you saying?” Genevieve asked faintly.

“I said their graves are inside the church gates,” Kendrick said. “Whether the violin, or anything else, finds itself inside those graves is anyone’s guess.”

Megan gaped at him, stunned. Then she looked at Gideon. He was gaping at Kendrick in a similar manner.

“Kendrick, old man, what are you saying?” Gideon said.

Kendrick fished a key out of his pocket and slid it across the table to Gideon.

“You should put that somewhere.”

Gideon picked it up as if it had been a live snake. “Whyever for?”

“Someone may come looking for it someday.”

“What is it?”

“The key to the little cottage adjacent to Wyckham.”

“Why do you have the key?” Gideon asked.

“I own the cottage.”

Megan frowned. “Why?”

“Because it came with the castle.”

“You own the castle, too?”

He smiled. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“Kendrick,” Genevieve said seriously, “what in the world are you talking about?”

Kendrick smiled. “I am saying that there was a very interesting map in my uncle Nick’s trunk. I saw it the first time I picked the lock to see what he kept inside there. The map had all sorts of red Xs on it.” He looked at Megan. “I wonder what those were?”

“It sounds like a Jamie map.”

“Aye, I would say so ... now. At the time, I had no idea. All I’m suggesting is that maps are very interesting, graves may or may not be filled with their owners, and that a very expensive, very rare violin really doesn’t belong in a tomb.”

“Kendrick!” Genevieve exclaimed.

He held up his hands. “ ’Tis but a bit of conversation.” He looked at Megan. “Tis only that. But, all I can tell you is that I caught my uncle Nicholas studying that map more than once.” He paused. “You can make of that what you will.”

Megan looked at Gideon, then she began to smile. She smiled in spite of the single tear that rolled down her cheek.

“Well,” she said. “We should probably buy a bigger house with a guest room. Who knows when we might have guests?”

“Someday,” Kendrick said. “Just someday.”

Megan took a deep breath. “I won’t think about the possibility now, then. It’s enough to know that he loved her. Then.”

“He did, very much,” Kendrick agreed. “You will be pleased, I think, with him. I mean,” he said with exaggerated haste, “you would have been pleased with him.”

Genevieve rose and pulled him up out of his chair. “You, my lord, have an overactive imagination. Come for a walk with me. I think I saw a darkened comer not far from here.”

Kendrick laughed and followed her toward the door.

“If I were you, I would buy that bigger house,” he whispered to Megan on his way by. “You’ll never know when you might need it for an unexpected family visit.”

Megan smiled as they left the lord’s solar, then looked at her husband who was sitting in the chair across from her. “Well?” she asked.

“Let’s put that baby down, woman, and find our own darkened bit of hall,” he said, getting to his feet and coming to stand in front of her. He held down his hand.

Megan took it and let him pull her up. She looked up at him. “I think she’s happy.”

“It sounds as though she is,” Gideon said. He put his arm around her and turned her toward the door. “Is your mind at ease?”

“What, after all those appalling hints Kendrick dropped?” she asked incredulously. She paused. “Do you think he’s kidding?”

“I don’t think he kids.”

“He’s a terrible tease.”

Gideon kissed her softly. “I daresay, Megan my love, that we had best be prepared just in case. Who knows how many extra bedrooms we should have. She had ten children, after all.”

Megan nodded with a smile, then walked with him out of the lord’s solar and across the great hall. Well, she supposed she would know in time whether Kendrick was teasing or not. And in the end, maybe it didn’t matter. One way or another, Nicholas and Jennifer had lived happily ever after.

It was the perfect fairy-tale ending.

That was enough for her.