All for You (41 page)

She laughed at him, then leaned up to kiss him quickly. “I’m going to leave you up here to brood for a bit.”

He smiled seriously. “How did you know?”

“That you needed it?” she finished. She pulled out of his arms. “Robin told me that the lords of Artane, those who truly have it in their blood, need a fair amount of time alone on the roof.” She smiled. “I told him I would make sure you had enough.”

Stephen had to take a deep breath. “I love you.”

“I know,” she said simply. “Come find me later and I’ll tell you what I think about you.”

He laughed a little, because he thought that he would be cutting his roof time rather short over the subsequent few months if Peaches de Piaget was waiting for him somewhere below.

He watched her go, returned her wave as she walked through the guard tower doorway, then turned back to his contemplation of the sea. He supposed he would need to make an early start with Peaches in the morning to make London before David’s two o’clock deadline, though he was slightly surprised to find out how little he cared what happened.

Because he already knew.

David would enjoy the flashing cameras of the paparazzi, the reporters breathlessly awaiting his announcement, his lawyers straining at their bits. And then he would open his safe-deposit box and draw out two envelopes. One would contain the IOU, which David had already handled and Stephen had forged whilst pretending to be Reginald in the past—rendering it quite useless. The other would contain, so David would think, the quitclaim deed to Artane.

Only it wouldn’t quite contain what David expected it to.

Stephen turned back to his contemplation of the sea and smiled.

P
eaches
leaned her head back against the headrest of the passenger seat of Stephen’s Mercedes and closed her eyes. As usual, that only made her dizzy, so she turned and looked at her husband.

He was wearing a very lovely dark gray suit that almost matched his eyes, a discreet burgundy tie, and sunglasses. He was frowning slightly, but she couldn’t blame him. London traffic was, as usual, terrible.

“Well?” she asked. “Are you relieved?”

He pushed his sunglasses up on his head and looked at her. “Must I be honest?”

“Yes, my lord Artane, you must be honest.”

“Then I’ll tell you that I am thoroughly, profoundly, bloody relieved,” he said with a gusty sigh. He shot her a quick smile. “There was a moment or two when David was making a production of pulling out the quitclaim deed and the cameras were flashing in our faces that I wondered if we were on the brink of a humiliating slide into ignomy and destitution.”

“Having David take another look at the IOU and realizing it had magically been changed from his getting Artane to his having
to give up Kenneworth was a nice touch,” she noted. “I’m not sure, though, that he appreciated all the thought that had gone into it.”

“Or how quickly I’d made Lionel witness it,” Stephen said dryly. “I think the poor lad might have questioned the finish of the game if he hadn’t started puking his poor guts out at the right moment.”

“I suppose that piece of cake I offered him might have had something to do with that,” she said modestly.

He looked at her and his mouth fell open. “You didn’t.”

“My parents are herbalists,” she said. “I think I can safely say they’ve dried and smoked just about every herb out there. But never lobelia. It’s hard on the tummy.”

He reached for her hand. “Remind me to thank you properly for the help. I didn’t realize.”

“I thought you had enough on your mind already and wouldn’t refuse a bit of extra help.” She let out a long, slow breath. “I have to admit I was pretty nervous there in the bank, but I wasn’t about to miss the show.” She studied him thoughtfully. “It’s a good thing you have quick reflexes. David might have broken your nose otherwise.”

“All thanks to Patrick MacLeod,” he said cheerfully, “who I’m not sure
hasn’t
broken my nose a time or two.”

“Irene’s not going to be happy with how she looks in the morning.”

“That’s what she deserves for standing behind me, muttering nasty things about my family,” he said, “though I am sorry her nose will never be the same.”

Peaches watched him kiss the back of her hand, then put her hand on his leg and cover it with his. He watched the road, but he did glance her way now and again.

“Are you relieved?” he asked.

She sighed lightly. “I’m happy it’s over. I feel sorry for Raphaela, though. She didn’t deserve any of this.”

“I wouldn’t worry about her,” Stephen said with a faint smile. “She’ll move to her family’s villa in France and grow grapes for wine. She’s already issued an invitation for us to come stay for a bit this summer.”

“What will happen to Kenneworth House?” Peaches asked. “Will they have to sell it?”

“To the National Trust, no doubt. David’s gambling was much more extensive than he admitted to anyone. I don’t imagine they have the funds to keep the place up. As for what he’ll do?” He shrugged. “Continue to fritter away his legacy until he has none left, I suppose. But I’m not sure any of his line has ever possessed much sense.”

“Well, we know about that first lord Hubert,” she said.

Stephen shivered. “I think I can safely put away any thoughts of trotting through any more gates in the grass to view anyone’s ancestors. I’m not even sure I’m interested in getting to know any more of mine.”

“Robin and Anne were lovely.”

“Ha,” he said with a snort. “You didn’t have Robin of Artane running you into the mud in the dead of winter so he could have himself a bit of a think.”

She patted his leg. “It was a good thing I’d prepared you the week before, wasn’t it?”

He squeezed her hand. “Yes, darling, it was. And don’t think I didn’t appreciate it.”

“Want to run this afternoon?”

“No,” he said with a surprised laugh. “Do you?”

“I wouldn’t mind,” she said honestly.

“And then what? Supper? A film?”

“Chaucer in your library.”

He shot her a brief look. “Are you humoring me?”

She only shook her head and smiled. “Loving you, rather.”

He took a deep breath. “A run, Chaucer, then you can tell me all about the other.”

“You forgot the green drink.”

He blew his hair out of his eyes, then pulled his sunglasses back down and concentrated on the road.

But he was smiling.

And so was she.

S
he
was still smiling not quite a month later when she stood with him in a little chapel inside the walls of a glorious medieval castle that stood on a bluff overlooking the sea and married him.

Again.

They were surrounded by family and friends and, she was
quite sure, several other souls she couldn’t quite see. It was a perfect day that had capped a perfect handful of weeks full of all sorts of things she hadn’t expected.

The first was how fond she would become of his grandmother. The woman was a prodigious shopper, and her taste was flawless and her ability to wring concessions out of snooty couturiers a wonder to behold. And when she wasn’t spending Stephen’s money or haranguing hapless shop owners, she was relentlessly teaching Peaches the ropes of proper British society. She did so in a way, though, that had left Peaches feeling as if it had been her place all along, not just something she had fallen into by chance.

Peaches had managed to sneak a few days in with Tess and John, taking long walks with her sister as she waited for Stephen to finish up class and drive south. They had discussed endlessly the karmic ramifications of three sisters marrying three men from the same family, but come to no useful conclusions except that she and Tess were happy and they hoped Pippa was happy as well.

She had also strolled arm in arm with Stephen’s mother along the shore with Artane watching over them like a dragon perched on the bluff, ready to defend them at a moment’s notice. She had answered all of Helen’s very pointed questions about everything from how it was John de Piaget could look so much like Stephen to just exactly where she and Stephen had gotten married the first time.

Peaches had to admit Stephen’s mother had a strong stomach.

The rest of the time, she’d simply been with Stephen himself, pretending to read while he was working, puttering around in his kitchen, discussing housekeeping at Artane with Humphreys, and trying to decide what she was going to do with the rest of her life. It took her almost a month to decide exactly what that something was going to be, and her inspiration came from a relatively unlikely source.

Anne of Artane.

Peaches had considered at length what Anne would have done if she had been in the twenty-first century with everything and anything she could have possibly wanted at her fingertips, hers just for the asking.

And she knew, because Anne had pulled her aside for a simple
but heartfelt discussion of the role Peaches would be taking on in another time. Anne had told her quite bluntly in an endearing mix of modern English and medieval French that if she had had everything she could only imagine Peaches would have, she would have lived her life the same way. She would have loved her husband, loved her children, and loved those who had come within her scope of influence.

Because in the end, nothing else mattered.

Peaches considered that during her wedding day, as she danced with her husband—twice-wed now—and supped with her family, and relished the company of those who had come to wish them well.

She thought about it as she rested in her husband’s arms.

And when she woke to find him gone, she looked over on his pillow to find a note there.

Meet me on the roof—SdP

She put on warm clothes and climbed the stairs of her fairy-tale castle, and walked out onto the roof and into the arms of her handsome prince. And after he’d spent a sufficient amount of time warming her up, she smiled into his lovely eyes.

“Happy, my lord?” she asked.

“Very, my lady,” he said.

She paused, then considered. “Aren’t you freezing?”

“I’m freezing my arse off up here,” he said with an exasperated laugh. “I thought you would rescue me half an hour ago.”

“Is that my job,” she asked. “To rescue you?”

He pulled her closer, made serious inroads into expressions of affection that apparently required no words, then lifted his head and looked down at her.

“We’ll take turns.”

“Well, we have so far.”

He put his arm around her shoulders. “Let’s go discuss that a bit more, shall we?”

She looked up at him seriously. “Have you had enough time on the roof today, Stephen?”

He smiled. “Yes, and I’ll let you know if I need more. But for the moment, I would rather retreat to a comfortable spot in front of a hot fire with you.”

“In your room.”

“Yes, Peaches my love, in my room,” he said quietly. He paused. “Foolish as it might seem not to take the master’s bedroom, this seems fitting somehow, don’t you think?”

She thought many things, not the least of which was that Robin of Artane would thoroughly approve of the man standing in front of her. He was still trying to juggle a graceful exit from his university responsibilities while taking on the entire burden of managing Artane, but everywhere he went, he left people feeling as though they mattered to him. She knew this, because she had gone with him to meet his tenants, watch his students, and bring smelling salts to Dr. Trotter-Smythe when he’d seen her and Tess walking out of Stephen’s office together. Without fail, those who had been the beneficiaries of his interest and time had pulled her aside to tell her how grateful they were to him. Even Irene Preston had written him a very brief note thanking him for not pressing charges against her brother for defamation of character.

She had written Irene a note, thanking her for all her kindnesses at David’s house party those many weeks earlier. She supposed Irene would think it yet another fist to the nose, but Peaches had meant it sincerely. If she hadn’t been trapped in that terrible hovel of a room at Irene’s direction, driven out into the night by Irene’s words … well, she didn’t like to think about where she would be at the moment.

“What are you thinking about?” Stephen asked, his voice rumbling in his chest. “How lovely that hot fire is I left you in our bedroom?”

“Actually,” she said, resting her head against his shoulder and smiling, “I was thinking about that Kenneworth house party.”

“Heaven forbid,” he said with an uncomfortable laugh. “You aren’t.”

She lifted her head and looked at him. “I was. If it hadn’t been for Irene getting you there and making my life miserable, I might still be waiting to fall in love with you.”

“I’ll tell you a secret,” he admitted. “I had no intentions of going—though in my defense I had no idea you would be there—until a trio of very vocal shades appeared in my office and told me I should reconsider.”

“Did they?”

He pursed his lips. “Very well, they promised they would haunt me endlessly if I didn’t march manfully into the fray. But once I found you at Kenneworth House, I found myself thinking about them with quite a bit more fondness.”

“And then you rescued me.”

“At least once,” he agreed. He bent his head and kissed her softly. “And I would do it again a thousand times.”

“Even to medieval England with all its trappings?”

“All its trappings,” he said seriously. “All of it, my love, all for you, as many times as required, and I would never count the cost.”

“But you would rather stay here.”

He laughed a little. “Darling, we have a hot fire in the bedroom and an Aga in the kitchen. Yes, I would rather stay here. Wouldn’t you?”

She looked up at him, lord of the keep under her feet, keeper of her heart, a man who left her breathless every time he kissed her, every time he touched her, every time he looked at her, a man who loved her not in spite of who she was but because of it …

“Yes,” she said, pulling out of his arms, “I would rather stay here. But not on the roof any longer tonight, aye?”

He laughed and turned her toward the guard tower.