Page 7 of When I Fall in Love (De Piaget #4)

J ennifer stood at the edge of Wyckham’s garden and admired the now-tended beds and the lovely paths meandering through them. This was what she had seen when she’d stared at the place hundreds of years in the future. Pruning trees and rosebushes with a knife had been difficult, but she’d given the job to Montgomery, who had seemed to like it. She’d almost suggested he go get Nicholas’s sword, but she suspected that probably wouldn’t have flown.

What had flown had been time. Two weeks had gone by almost in the blink of an eye, two weeks of gulping down as much medieval Norman French as humanly possible. It helped that she spoke Italian. It helped that she had a very good ear. It had also helped that she’d needed a distraction from the reality of living in a keep she’d seen ravaged by time in the future. She’d been happy for anything to keep her mind busy and off a few questions such as why the gate hadn’t worked, what the hell she was doing in medieval England, and, the perennial favorite, why Nicholas de Piaget had to be so ridiculously handsome.

She had no answers for any of them, so she’d done the only thing she could do—keep herself busy until an opportunity to try the gate again presented itself. Besides, it was probably foolish, but she couldn’t help but feel a little connected to Wyckham. If she did nothing else but tidy up the garden, it might be just enough of a change that someone would want to take care of it.

It could happen.

She wandered down one of the garden paths, bending down occasionally to pluck out the stray weed, and considered her situation. Thanks to a few casual conversations with Montgomery and John, she’d determined that she was indeed loitering in 1229. Henry III was sitting quite happily on the throne. The Magna Carta was in full force and courtly knights were in full fashion. Gregorian chant reigned supreme. Violins hadn’t been invented yet. James MacLeod hadn’t even been born yet.

She was in trouble.

Well, at least there were some things to be grateful for. She had Doc Martens on her feet, which were sturdy and didn’t look all that obtrusive. She had been given the steward’s room, which had a bed and a candle. She’d learned to take a torch to the bathroom and not have it fall over onto her while she was about her business. She had scoured the nearby forest for leaves, solving the toilet paper problem. The downside was that she hadn’t seen any feminine protection products, but she would deal with that when she had to.

Though she had to admit she hoped she wouldn’t have to. Despite the comfort of her own room and the pleasure of the twins’ company, she had determined that two weeks was probably the extent of her tolerance for hanging out in other time periods not her own.

She’d asked Montgomery about the abbey. She’d learned that it was being built by Nigel of Ledenham as penance for doing something that was apparently so terrible that Montgomery couldn’t bring himself to talk about it.

Montgomery was, however, very willing to talk about other things, as was John. She liked Nicholas’s brothers. They were open and artless and quite opinionated about almost everything from royalty to fairies. Montgomery, in particular, had opinions on the latter and he tended to look at her pointedly when he discussed them, as if he expected her to have some special knowledge about them. Maybe it was her Doc Martens. They probably inspired all sorts of speculation in medieval teenagers.

All in all, medieval England had turned out to be a very tolerable place for a brief visit.

The only small fly in the ointment was Nicholas de Piaget himself, that paragon of chivalry who had no idea that inhabitants of Artane 800 years in the future still talked about him. She saw him often, but only from a distance. She supposed he spent a good portion of each day trying to feed them, which Montgomery said he wasn’t particularly happy about but had to do, given Gavin of Louth’s decimation of the pantry. He showed up at night, but immediately retreated to the kitchen as if she had cooties and he was afraid he’d catch them if he sat too close. He was obviously a good hunter, though, and a very good chef. She wasn’t a huge fan of wild game, but hunger was the great culinary equalizer and Nicholas was good with spices. She had tried to provide mushrooms and green edibles for him and though he used them, he never said anything to her about them.

The cootie thing again, obviously.

She didn’t consider herself particularly thin-skinned, but it was actually starting to get to her a little. What, was she a complete beast by medieval standards? Was it the red hair? Did she have too many freckles? She had five, by last count, which was pretty good considering her coloring. She’d wondered at first if he was trying to get his keep ready for a bride. Montgomery claimed Nicholas’s disagreeable mood actually came from their grandmother trying to marry him off. He had looked at her pointedly during that conversation, too, as if he’d wanted her to audition for the part.

She shook her head. No, there was no point in that She’d tidied up Nicholas’s garden for him. She’d learned a vast amount of medieval Norman French. She’d taught the boys how to forage for wild greens. There was nothing else to be done. It was time to go home.

In fact, she’d decided that tomorrow was the day. She would get up, give Montgomery back his clothes, then get on with getting back home.

She took one last look at the garden, sighed deeply, then turned and walked back around the side of the castle. Montgomery and John were hanging out there, looking hungry.

“Is it time to eat yet?” Montgomery asked hopefully.

Jennifer squinted up at the late afternoon sun. “I suppose it might be.”

“Is there supper?” he asked.

“Have you made any?” she countered with a smile.

John scowled. “You know we haven’t and Nick isn’t back yet. We will likely perish from hunger before he arrives.”

Jennifer pointed toward the front gates that actually had no gates but were just a hole in the wall where the gates should have been. “Go find greens,” she ordered.

“But we need to tend the horses,” Montgomery said.

“I’ll tend the horses,” she said. “You two go forage for food.”

John’s face brightened. “In truth? Are you able? Willing?”

“I am able and I’m happy to do it,” she said, smiling. “You find something to eat, I’ll pitch some hay, then we’ll meet inside in half an hour and have a feast.”

John bowed so low, he almost fell over. He straightened and bestowed a brilliant smile on her. “You, lady, are marvelous—”

“Oaf,” Montgomery said, giving him a shove. “Rather you should insist on doing the stable work in her stead, as I will. Mistress Jennifer, I will—”

“No, you won’t,” she said, turning him around. “I can shovel horse manure as well as the next girl. Go look for something to put in a salad.”

“But—”

“Go, and don’t bring back anything poisonous.”

Montgomery hesitated, but she gave him a push in the right direction. He and John trotted off obediently and Jennifer turned to face the stables.

She wasn’t a connoisseur of horse housing, but it was obvious that Nicholas’s stables needed spiffying up. Her only frame of reference was what she’d seen at Camp MacLeod, and those were pretty fancy. Jamie and his family took their horses even more seriously than they did their very expensive, very fast cars. Nicholas’s stables had potential; they just looked like they hadn’t been tended to in a while. In fact, the entire keep looked like it could really use some work. Either Nicholas didn’t have the money, or he didn’t have the time.

But she had the time, at least for the rest of the afternoon, so she would do what she could.

She resolutely pushed out of her mind what she knew the keep would look like in 800 years.

Montgomery and John’s horses were contentedly standing in their stalls. She wasn’t sure she dared feed them, but she could clean out their stalls. Then again, just where was she supposed to put them while she was doing that? She’d learned to ride at Jamie’s, true, and she had learned something about the care and feeding of horses, but Jamie, Patrick, or Ian had always done all the real dirty work. Presently she didn’t have a Scottish uncle or cousin to catch Montgomery’s horse if she let it go, so she supposed she should leave the current occupants for later.

Nicholas’s horse wasn’t there so maybe that was the place to start. Jennifer found a pitchfork, then paused and leaned against the stall door. She looked inside the empty stall and let herself, in the privacy of hay and manure, wonder about the man who owned the stable.

So his grandmother was trying to set him up. Why hadn’t it worked so far? Was he too picky? Too controlling? Too handsome? Surely such a paragon of all knightly virtues should have found himself with a string of beautiful women trailing after him.

She had to admit that he was completely out of her experience, and she wasn’t unused to intimidating men.

Her father, for instance, was a tall, handsome, very intelligent man. Her brother, Thomas, had all those characteristics and had added something more in the acquisition of the ability to take a very sharp sword and do business with it. Victoria’s husband, Connor, might have been mistaken for one of those medieval Scottish lairds whose lives had depended on their skill with a six-foot broadsword and a mind that effortlessly thought in warfarish circles around lesser mortals. If one believed in medieval Scottish lairds finding themselves in the twenty-first century.

Which, as it happened, she did.

Connor MacDougal and James MacLeod both were of that medieval bent. Jamie’s brother, Patrick, who had over the past month taught her more about wild edibles than she’d ever anticipated wanting to know, radiated that same sort of thing. Their cousin, Ian MacLeod, ran a training school where men from all walks of life came to learn how to wield a sword in a most intimidating fashion from Ian himself who, as it happened, had grown to manhood with a sword in his hands. Lots of his students were very, very afraid by the end of day one.

So all those men, relatives of hers, carried that same whiff of medievalness about them. They were rough, formidable, and left anyone who looked at them with the impression that it was better to walk away than engage. Their skill was an in-your-face sort of thing that announced its presence the moment you met them.

Nicholas, to her mind, was a different animal entirely. Since he was a de Piaget, he was medieval nobility, though it wasn’t obvious from his relatively clean, well cut clothes. Unfortunately well cut, if anyone wanted her opinion on the matter, because they had hinted at a physique that was truly drool-inducing. But they didn’t look expensive.

Still, despite that smooth, unassuming exterior, she had seen what he could do with just a few swings of his sword. He’d been yawning while he was at it. She could only speculate on what he could do if he really meant it.

She suspected that she should have been glad that she’d only seen him in passing for the past two weeks. If she’d had to look at him much more than that, her eyes might have caught on fire.

Like right now.

She clutched her pitchfork as she realized Nicholas was standing in the entrance to the stables, leaning against the door frame and watching her with his arms folded over his chest. He looked at her pitchfork, then lifted both his hands in a gesture of surrender.

She caught her breath on a half laugh, then remembered herself and frowned as best she could. No sense in letting him think that a friendly gesture would make up for having avoided her so pointedly. She put the fork tine-down into the dirt and looked at him.

She was actually a little relieved that she had something to hold on to.

All right, so he hadn’t been that friendly. So he probably thought she was a fairy right along with his youngest brother and had decided that staying away from her was the wisest thing to do. So he hadn’t trotted out all his chivalric moves and used them on her. Maybe he was shy.

Or maybe he was just the most arresting man she’d ever been in close proximity to and nothing else mattered.

His hair was a beautiful blond, streaked by sunlight and blown by whatever riding he’d just done. It was a little on the long side and some of it hung into his eyes, eyes that were clear and beautiful and very intense. He wasn’t smiling, but that was probably a good thing. She supposed if he’d smiled at her, she just might have had to sit down.

She was tempted to look the rest of him over, but that would have been gawking and she didn’t think she was up to any of that. So she took a firmer hold on her pitchfork and attempted a smile.

“Hi,” she managed.

He pushed off from the door frame and walked over to her.

Jennifer clutched the pitchfork. She suspected she should have been glad he’d been gone so often. She wouldn’t have gotten anything done otherwise.

He stopped a couple of feet away from her. “The lads say your French has become very good,” he said.

“Thank you.”

“You learn quickly.”

“Your brothers are good teachers.”

He looked at her for another moment or two, then reached out and put his hand on the pitchfork. “I’ll take that.”

“I think I need it,” she managed.

He tilted his head and frowned. “Why?”

“I’m not finished with my work.” But my knees are finished with holding me up.

She thought it might be best not to say that.

“My mother taught me it wasn’t chivalrous to allow a lady to muck out stalls when a man is there to do it for her.”

“Did she?”

“Actually, she didn’t,” he said gravely, “but I suppose she trusted that I would come to that conclusion on my own.” He gently pulled the pitchfork away, then pointed at a bale of hay against another wall. “Sit, lady, if you please, and let me see to it for you.”

Oh, why hadn’t she gone that morning while he’d been out doing whatever it was he did? She managed to get herself over to the aforementioned bale of hay and sit down before she fell down. And then she had the undeniable and unaccustomed pleasure of watching a medieval guy take care of his horse. It really shouldn’t have been that big a deal. She’d watched her Scottish kin take care of their horses before. Somehow, though, watching an attractive man that you were unaccountably attracted to take care of some essential stable work was something entirely different.

He pitched hay as if it cost him no effort at all. His arms strained a little under the weight, but in a way that left her fanning herself.

When had it gotten so hot?

He finished far too soon and led his horse into the stall. He took off its gear, put it away neatly, then shut the stall door. He took both Montgomery and John’s horses and put them outside. Jennifer supposed the beasts didn’t dare run away.

Nicholas returned and made very quick work of mucking out their stalls. Jennifer frowned. Why couldn’t she have found this kind of guy at home?

Because he probably wouldn’t have been living in Manhattan where there weren’t all that many stables to muck out.

Nicholas finished, put all the gear away, then turned and looked at her.

“Dinner?” he asked.

Then he held out his hand.

She looked at his hand for a moment in surprise, then up at him. “Um,” she began.

He only continued to hold out his hand toward her. Jennifer closed her eyes briefly, then put her hand into his and let him pull her to her feet.

His hand was warm and dry and rather callused. She supposed that came from using a sword. Jennifer looked up into those fathomless eyes of his and felt herself growing just the slightest bit faint. His breathing seemed just a little ragged. She knew that because it matched hers.

Oh, this was just so bad on so many levels.

Then he suddenly released her hand as quickly as he’d taken it.

“Supper,” he said roughly. “You must be hungry.”

“I’m fine,” she managed.

He nodded toward the keep. “Cold, then,” he said. He grabbed his saddlebags and walked away.

He did look over his shoulder, though, to see if she was following, and he paused to let her catch up to him.

She had to trot to keep up with him as he walked across the courtyard and she was accustomed to the quick pace of Manhattan sidewalks. She ran with him up the stairs and into the great hall. He came to an abrupt halt and looked down at her.

“Dinner,” he said.

“You’ve said that before.”

He looked at her, swore, then looked at her again. “I’ll see to it,” he said.

He walked away from her as if he simply couldn’t bear to be anywhere near her. She watched him stride across his great hall and disappear into the passageway that led to the kitchen.

She wasn’t quite sure what she was supposed to think about what had just happened.

She was sure, however, that she would be much, much better off to just get back home while she had her common sense, and her ego, left somewhat intact.

She was almost run over by John and Montgomery who tumbled in through the door. Montgomery slung his arm around her shoulders in his normal brotherly fashion.

“We found greens,” he announced happily. “Do you care to inspect them?”

“I’ll trust you,” she said weakly.

“We’ll take our findings to Nick,” John said. “Let us be about it, Montgomery, so supper won’t be late.”

Jennifer watched them disappear into the kitchen. Yes, she had to go home. Medieval England had been great. There was peace and sky and room—all those things she had longed for while she’d been pacing in her minuscule apartment, but it wouldn’t do her any good to have those things if she was alone.

And it sure as hell wasn’t looking like she was going to have any company anytime soon.

She didn’t understand Nicholas de Piaget and she hadn’t come back in time to be his girlfriend. The man obviously didn’t want a girlfriend—at least if that girlfriend was her. She was tired of men who didn’t know what they wanted. She was ready for a man who was ready to settle down and have a family.

She wanted what Megan had, what her parents and Victoria and Thomas had. She wanted a husband and children and chaos that revolved around family, not fabric and concert schedules.

Maybe she would get back to the future and have a chat with the Boar’s Head Trio. Surely those grandfatherly ghosts who had set up Megan, Thomas, and Victoria could set her up with equal success. Where was that Manhattan attorney with a slim briefcase and a closet full of expensive Italian suits when she needed him?

Yes, it was home for her.

As soon as she could get there.

In spite of Nicholas de Piaget’s pale eyes or his warm hands or his beautiful face.

Or the way he had looked at her in the stables, as if he didn’t particularly want her to go.