One Magic Moment (5 page)
Geoffrey Segrave, Segrave & Kingsley, LLP
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John pursed his lips. A solicitor amongst a clutch of lawyerly types, no doubt. He was tempted to wallow in the irony of doing business with a man bearing that last name, but he didn’t do irony any longer. In fact, there were several things he didn’t do any longer, beginning and ending with looking at anything that might have loitered in his past—
He cut his thoughts off before they migrated to points forbidden and uncomfortable. He arranged for one of the man’s flunkies to come pick up the Jag the next day for his lady wife, then hung up and considered the rest of his afternoon. He looked at the credit card on his counter, then at the garage. There were times, he supposed, when what looked like a bad idea from the start was exactly what it seemed.
Hadn’t he told himself that setting up shop in a small village might be less than desirable? Hadn’t he reminded himself that if one wanted to avoid standing out, losing oneself in a city of decent size was the wisest course of action? Had he not fought with a good deal of determination what had felt like the hand of Fate in each step that had led him from a rather comfortable, if nomadic, life in the north to a far-too-exposed existence in the south?
He was going to have to fight harder next time, that was obvious.
“Oy, boss,” Bobby said from behind him, “what about the young miss’s card?”
John suppressed the urge to flinch. ’Twas his fault she’d left it behind, of course, because he’d stopped just short of shoving her out of his shop. He would have vastly preferred to have been able to say that it was because he’d been distracted, or irritated that he’d had to rescue her in the pub, or anxious to get her out of his office so he could see to other things.
But none of that was true.
The truth was, he’d watched her walk over to the pub, then followed her there just to have another look at her. Could he be blamed for ordering for himself a Lilt, neat, to be enjoyed whilst leaning against the wall watching a young woman who seemed to have trouble judging the distance between her passenger door and the nearest unyielding surface? Grant had told him he would have some regular customers with peculiar mechanical issues. He’d never expected that one of them would take his breath away just to look at her.
He supposed she would have gotten away from Frank’s lecherous advances soon enough on her own, but he’d been across the tavern, brandishing his chivalry, almost before he’d known he was going to.
He sighed, then turned and took the credit card from Bobby. “I’ll get it back to her. What’s left on your list for the day?”
“I’m finished,” Bobby said. “Unless you’d like me to pop the bonnet on that old Jag of yours—”
“I’ll see to that one myself,” John said without hesitation, “though your generosity is much appreciated.” He couldn’t bring himself to thank Bobby again for the earlier rescue. Once had been more than enough.
“I’ll tidy up, then,” Bobby said, then trudged past him out into the garage, already humming some mindless tune that was popular in the current day.
John had hummed enough mindless things in recent years that he thought he might safely leave them behind for the afternoon and see to a few other things.
“Lock up for me after you’re through, would you?” John called. “I’ve an errand to run.”
“She’s a bit o’ alright,” Bobby agreed.
“I’m taking groceries to Mrs. Winston,” John said darkly.
“Old Doris?” Bobby asked with a laugh. “Aye, she’s a bit o’ alright as well.”
John cursed him under his breath and left the shop. He did indeed intend to be about a bit of good-deed-doing, though he couldn’t say it was completely altruistic. Doris Winston was every day of eighty and managed her own grocery visits with ease, but she happened to have an ear to the ground on a daily basis. If there was anything to be known about that dark-haired beauty who’d come into his shop and knocked the breath from him, it would be Doris.
John hated to think what she’d dredged up about him.
The tale he’d noised about himself was an innocuous one about his having left home early, then having bummed about various garages by day and bands by night until he’d come into a bit of money, which had allowed him to buy old Grant’s garage when the man’s rheumatism had necessitated a decamping for France. All of which, for the most part, was true.
Well, except the part about limiting himself to bands. It wouldn’t have done his reputation as a gearhead any good for anyone to have known he far preferred classical guitar to grunge, jazz to pop, and that he could be, when he’d occasionally indulged in a pint too many, prevailed upon to dredge up a ballad or two of a less modern vintage. Fortunately for him, the women he’d been stupid enough to play them for had been completely clueless as to their origin.
And his, for that matter.
He had to admit, he found himself longing, just once, to meet a gel who looked at him, then looked away, instead of looking, then boldly looking a bit more until he’d understood the invitation. He’d become just as adept at the look that said he wasn’t at all interested.
He hadn’t been able to muster up even a hint of that sort of look that afternoon. He’d been too damn flustered, something he had never once in his life experienced.
Perhaps that should have been a sign of some sort.
Aye, one that said he should ask old Mrs. Winston where the poor driver in question might be found so he could return her card to her and have done as quickly as possible. He turned up the collar of his leather jacket and quickened his pace toward the local green grocer.
Half an hour later, he was standing under the awning of Doris Winston’s front stoop. The door opened and he was greeted with almost as much enthusiasm as she used when he arrived to pay his rent on the little cottage behind his shop that she owned. He’d offered to buy it—indeed he would have preferred that—but she had insisted that for as long as she was alive she wanted to see him every month. Not being one to argue with old women, he’d acquiesced without complaint. The grocery runs were made simply because he liked her.
“Ah, Johnny,” she said, holding open her door, “you’ve come for tea.”
“I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble,” he said politely.
“You know it’s no trouble, lad. Come and sit, and fill an old woman’s ears with village gossip. I heard you rescued a pretty thing from unwanted advances in the pub a few minutes ago.”
“Three hours ago,” John corrected, following her into her kitchen. “Who passed on those tidings?”
“I never reveal my sources,” Doris said airily. “Just leave the things there, love, and come sit. We’ll have a little chat over my famous black currant jam.”
He imagined they would.
She graciously allowed him to hold out her chair at her tea table. He sat across from her, indulged for a quarter hour in a ritual he had come to quite enjoy over the years, then pushed his cup aside and looked at his landlady.
“I’m curious,” he said in as offhand a manner as he could manage. “Mildly.”
“Her name’s Tess Alexander.”
He suppressed a smirk. He’d known that already from a casual glance at her credit card.
“And she’s a Yank.”
He felt his jaw slip down. “She’s not. She didn’t have an accent.”
“And how much conversation did you have with her, my lad?”
John pursed his lips. “Enough to listen to her threaten to do damage to Frank Rivers if he didn’t keep his hands to himself.”
“Thought she needed a rescue, did you?”
“I was being gentlemanly.”
Doris only smiled. “I imagine you were. First gentlemanly, then curious. Where will it lead?”
“To my returning her charge card to her and resuming my own very sensible existence whilst she goes about her own,” John said grimly. “Pray give me details to aid me in that.”
Doris pushed her teacup aside as well. “She’s an academic, or so I understand, and has a PhD in medieval studies of some sort.”
John supposed he would look less than dignified to have his mouth continually hanging open, so he decided it was best to just grit his teeth.
Medieval studies. His least favorite topic of conversation, as it happened. He’d known just looking at her that the relationship was doomed from the start.
“She was offered Sedgwick by Roland, the last Earl of Sedgwick,” Doris continued, “though it’s my understanding she didn’t have a clue who he was at first. Thought him the caretaker, I daresay. You know he wasn’t one for carrying on with his title.”
John hadn’t known Sedgwick had
had
a last earl, so he supposed the current owner, the possessor of those astonishingly pretty green eyes, might be forgiven as well.
had
a last earl, so he supposed the current owner, the possessor of those astonishingly pretty green eyes, might be forgiven as well.
“I believe he’d been looking for the proper person to bequeath his keep to,” Doris continued with a faint shrug, “which took a bit of doing. He’d learned of her through some symposium on medieval life and liked what he’d heard. He up and gave her the castle without hesitation. She doesn’t seem to lack for funds, so I’m assuming he gave her a few quid as well to keep the lights on. She runs parties there of all sorts, mostly reenactment things. Those seem particularly suited to a castle still boasting a roof, don’t they?”
He grunted, because that was all he could do.
“I think she teaches still, some. I imagine you might find her lectures interesting.”
“I much prefer the nineteenth century,” he commented as nonchalantly as possible. “The music was sublime, don’t you agree?”
She looked at him over her spectacles. “I agree. Perhaps you should play something from that era for me sometime.”
He agreed that he would, thanked her profusely for tea, then made for the door before she could ask any more questions or delve any further into her list of things she possibly knew about him. He’d unbent far enough the month before to tell her he’d been born in the north, grown to manhood in the north, then left home to seek his fortune. He’d admitted to a former employment at a garage, but he hadn’t elaborated. He never elaborated.
“You’ll come play for me this week,” she announced. “I’ll expect something tolerable to listen to.”
“I’ll attempt it,” he promised before he escaped out her front door.
He walked quickly back toward his shop only to realize that he was walking quickly toward something he didn’t want to. He didn’t care for otherworldly sensations. The fact that he’d had Fate tap him smartly on the shoulder when Mistress Tess Alexander had pulled into his car park had unnerved him more than he wanted to admit. He didn’t know her and wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to rectify that. He liked his pleasant, unremarkable life where he merely passed his days enjoying the comforts modern times could provide. Anything else made him supremely uncomfortable.
Nay, it was more than that. As far as he was concerned, his life had begun eight years ago when he’d left home with nothing but the clothes on his back, a bag full of coins, and his wits to keep himself alive. Thinking about anything that had come before was something he absolutely refused to do. If an acquaintance began to pry into those years, he or she was pointedly discouraged from prying any further. Blunt questions were answered with an absolute severing of all contact. As far as he was concerned, he had no past.
It was safer that way.
He almost ploughed into a bairn of some sort who had come flying out his mother’s gates toward the street. He caught the little brat out of habit—damn that chivalry and all its incarnations—and put him back into his mother’s frantically outstretched arms without comment.
Bairns, he noted with a knowing nod. Yet another thing to avoid like the plague. He had more than enough to keep himself occupied with without the burdens of a wife and children and a place to put them and keep them safe. It was all he could do to keep others from dinging his car. He wasn’t interested in taking on anything else.
He put his head down and continued on his way, praying he wouldn’t encounter anything else unsettling before he’d done his duty and could retreat to his cozy cottage where he could keep the world at bay.
He walked behind the shop and opened one of the garages there. In times past, he knew old Grant had stored his prized collection of vintage Jaguars in those bays. He’d filled those slots with his own collection of things he’d had shipped down from the north: two Jaguars, a sweet little MG, and a rather less-than-discreet black Aston Martin. He considered, then decided that perhaps discreet was more the order of the day. He chose the Jag that was running, then managed to get himself out of the village without losing a hubcap or running afoul of any overzealous traffic wardens.
He’d never driven to Sedgwick, as it happened, and he missed the turnoff—to his disgust. He flipped a U-turn in an appropriate place, then retraced his steps. He forced himself to simply watch the road without putting any thought into the watching. He would have preferred to avoid looking at the castle in time as well, but he couldn’t. He turned off his car in the car park, leaned his head back against the seat, then let out a slow, unsteady breath.
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