One Magic Moment Read online

  It wasn’t every day that the daughter of rootless hippies held the key to an honest-to-goodness medieval castle.

  Tess Alexander stood at the end of the bridge that spanned the moat in which sat that spectacular, honest-to-goodness medieval castle and had to pause for a moment and contemplate the irony of her situation. Unlike her sisters who had either openly spurned fairy tales and all their trappings or embraced them fully, she had remained out of the fray. She had listened to her siblings argue the merits of possible castle life, but never offered her own opinion on whether or not the possession of a romantically medieval habitation and a knight in shining armor to go with it was a good thing.

  There was something of a karmic nature going on that out of all her sisters, she was the one with the key to a castle that boasted running water.

  She crossed the bridge that spanned her moat, having to remind herself that she was in the twenty-first century, not the twelfth. She walked under the barbican gate and looked up at what actually might keep bad guys at bay. The steel spikes of the portcullises—all three of them—hung above her head like metal icicles. She’d never had occasion to lower any of them, though she’d been assured they were still fully functional. As long as they stayed up where they were supposed to instead of falling down on her head, she was satisfied with their condition.

  The courtyard was, she supposed, much as it had been over the centuries: cobblestones in paths surrounded by swaths of grass that had no doubt been dirt in the old days. She wasn’t unhappy for a bit of green, though she supposed all she had to do to enjoy that was look out the window at the forest that surrounded her castle.

  She walked up the steps to the great hall, then simply stood there with the key in her hand for far longer than she should have. Her hand was trembling, something she tried without success to ignore. It was ridiculous. This was her home, and she could walk inside and still breathe normally. The fact that she’d been hyperventilating the last time she’d come out the door was something she didn’t need to think about—

  A sudden growling behind her—a noise that belonged to the sort of dog that could stand up and put its paws on her shoulders before it made a snack of her nose—almost sent her lurching face-first into the heavy wooden door. She whirled around on the top step, desperately wishing she had something more to use as a defensive weapon than harsh language. She took a firmer grip on her backpack strap just in case she was afforded the opportunity to offer it as meal instead of her face, then looked at her would-be attacker.

  Mr. Beagle, the guard dog of the gift shop’s proprietress.

  Mrs. Tippets stood just behind her tiny terrier, wearing a frown that bespoke serious irritation indeed. Tess would have smiled in relief, but she didn’t imagine smiling would improve matters any. She had no idea what she’d done to inspire such antipathy in Mrs. Tippets, but she’d definitely done something.

  Mrs. Tippets ran the castle’s gift shop with an iron fist and a dour expression, not even cracking a smile at the delivery of her paycheck. Tess supposed it was a wonder anyone left the premises with any sort of souvenir. Tess didn’t open the castle every day for visitors and she did limit even those excursions into her home to the lower floor and the outside, but the gift shop was open five days a week. When it came to keeping Sedgwick in the black, every bit pence helped.

  “You’re back,” Mrs. Tippets said, her frown not dissipating.

  “Well, yes,” Tess said faintly, trying to look less unnerved than she was. She attempted a wave at the dog but only had another growl in return. “I don’t suppose you could call off Mr. Beagle—”

  “And I suppose you’ll be holding another of those hoity-toity events soon,” Mrs. Tippets continued, with no small bit of suspicion and disapproval. “All those people eyeing my wares more closely than I like.”

  Tess bit her tongue, because her aunt had pounded into her the adage that if she didn’t have anything pleasant to say, she should confine herself to comments on her companion’s health and the weather.

  And yes, she held events because it kept the lights on. And given that Mrs. Tippets’s job was to keep the gift shop open so the attendees at those events could splash out for a few souvenirs, the woman should have perhaps been a little more interested in when those events would be happening and how many people would be indeed looking at her wares. But since Tess couldn’t think of a polite way to say as much, she settled for a deep breath.

  “Lovely weather we’re having,” she said politely.

  Mrs. Tippets looked at her as if she’d lost her mind, then without another word took her yipping terrier and turned away.

  “Your sister came back this morning,” she threw over her shoulder as she marched off toward the gates. “Without a key, of course.”

  Tess nodded, then turned back to the door and put her key into the lock. She turned it, then froze.

  Her sister was back?

  She found it difficult to breathe all of the sudden. She’d just talked to Peaches in Seattle that morning. Cinderella was also stateside, busy being Botoxed and writing a book about adventures Tess was sure she was making up, and Moonbeam and Valerie were both employed in very useful work of their own across the Pond.

  That left just Pippa . . .

  Tess pushed the door open, dropped her backpack, and was halfway across the hall before she realized that the sister coming toward her was not her younger sister, but her twin.

  “Tess,” Peaches said, breaking into a run suddenly and catching Tess by the arms, “what is it?”

  “I narrowly escaped . . . an assault . . . by Mr. Beagle,” Tess said, hoping that would be enough to justify how she couldn’t seem to catch her breath. “And when I talked to you this morning, you were in Seattle. So I thought Mrs. Tippets might have been talking about—well, never mind what I thought.”

  “I called you from your kitchen,” Peaches said with a faint frown. “I said as much.”

  Tess pushed away from her sister. “I wasn’t listening.”

  “Apparently.”

  “And I’m fine,” Tess said, trying to sound as if she hadn’t just had the wind knocked out of her.

  “I didn’t say you weren’t,” Peaches said, her frown deepening. “But now that you bring it up—”

  “I’m okay,” Tess repeated. “Really.”

  “Then where have you been for the last month when you led me to believe you were here at the castle?”

  “I was at Cambridge,” Tess said. “Doing, ah, research. Important, time-sensitive research.”

  Peaches’s frown turned into an expression of profound skepticism. “Tess—”

  “I just needed to get away for a few days,” Tess interrupted, pasting a bright smile on her face. “That’s all. So I went and passed many delightful hours in a musty old library.”

  “If you say so. I’ll go make you some green juice.”

  Tess thought she might have needed something a little stronger than one of her sister’s ultra-healthy concoctions, but she wasn’t going to argue. She retrieved her backpack from where she’d dropped it by the front door, then made it halfway across the great hall before she found herself standing in one place, unable to go any farther. That had happened to her regularly over the past year of owning the castle, so she didn’t suppose anyone would think it strange if she just stood there and gaped.

  Sedgwick was, she had to admit, spectacular. The hall wasn’t an enormous thing such as one might have found in a more substantial castle such as Artane, but its height made her feel small and fragile just the same. The tapestries that lined the walls and the enormous fireplaces were enough to convince her that she’d walked back in time hundreds of years.

  Only in her castle there were rugs on the floors, a fridge big enough to hold all her party platters, and a lovely Aga stove to warm her toes by in the kitchen. She didn’t want to think about the fact that while she had a glorious castle that had been lovingly restored decades ago thanks to a man with buckets of money and enorm
ous amounts of time on his hands, her sister Pippa had a castle that wasn’t in such nice shape.

  Never mind that Pippa also had a knight with spurs on his heels to keep her safe in that castle and that the only thing running in her sister’s castle was men away from her husband’s very sharp sword. It was tempting to stand on the edge of that great hall and wonder if Pippa might be at that very moment standing on that very spot eight hundred years in the past—

  But she refrained because the thought was just too ridiculous to take seriously. People didn’t travel through time, sisters didn’t fall in love with men who were centuries older than they were, and England was not full of paranormal happenings she couldn’t explain.

  She studiously ignored the fact that she’d seen ghosts in her hall—particularly a red-haired, bekilted Scotsman who seemed to be most often found lingering near the little room near the gatehouse she used as a prop room for those who wanted to take the experience of walking around her castle to new and dangerous levels of authenticity—or that she had, with her own eyes, seen more paranormal activity of other kinds than any Kansasborn Yank should ever have had to be witness to.

  Like Fate and Karma currently standing with their arms linked there near a fire that some enterprising soul had apparently started earlier that morning, watching her to see what she would do.

  Ignore them, that’s what she would do, because she wasn’t going to think any more about her sister, or ghosts, or time travel. And if her walk across the hall was more of a run and her sudden enthusiasm for whatever nastiness Peaches could pour into a glass was unusual, who could blame her?

  The truth was, she hadn’t intended to let the events of the past few weeks get to her as they had. She had sent Pippa off into the unknown and apparently unrestrainable ether one morning five weeks earlier, then returned to her castle in the south, sure in the knowledge that her sister was happily wed to the man she loved. She’d been convinced that her pleasure in her sister’s happiness would be enough to override any small twinge of sadness she felt over having lost the company of that beloved younger sister. She’d had no trouble putting on a happy face long enough to put her other sister Peaches on a plane back to Seattle and sing jaunty medieval tunes on her way back to her keep.

  That had lasted only until she’d walked in her front door and promptly fallen apart.

  She’d done the only thing she could: she’d fled to Cambridge, lucking into a gig house-sitting for a colleague on sabbatical who’d had his house sitter flake out on him. It should have continued at least through the middle of December, but the man’s sister had shown up and announced she was taking over, leaving Tess with the choice of either bumming couch space off friends or returning to Sedgwick.

  Well, actually, the decision had been a bit more clear-cut than that. Her series of autumn events was heading into full swing, and she’d needed to be home to see to them. Could she be blamed if she’d put off getting on the train until the very last moment possible, giving herself time to convince herself that she could actually go inside her hall and breathe?

  She thought not.

  She set her backpack on a chair in front of the hearth and dug inside for her wallet. She needed to get out; that was the ticket. She could go someplace less, ah, old, like Knole House, or maybe even just down to the local pub. That was a lovely seventeenth-century building full of dark wood and even more modern amenities like bangers and mash. Yes, something more on the current side was just what she needed—

  “Hey, where are you going?” Peaches called from the top of the passageway that led to the kitchen. “I haven’t gotten to your juice yet.”

  “I’ll drink it later,” Tess said, shoving her wallet into her jacket pocket. “I’m going out.”

  Peaches was silent in such a meaningful sort of way that Tess found she had to stop in mid-flight and turn to look at her. She took a deep breath and attempted a smile.

  “I just need a few minutes in a more modern place. But save me some juice.”

  Peaches only watched her, her expression one of understanding.

  Tess nodded, then turned and fled out the front door before she opened her mouth and a terrible noise of grief came out. So Pippa had gotten married and moved a bit out of cell phone range. Lots of people did that and their families survived. Tess was sure she’d be counting herself in that latter group very soon.

  Within minutes, she was backing out of what served as the castle’s car park, happy to be doing something constructive with her time. She drove along the small road leading away from her castle, slowed down, considered, then swerved expertly and sideswiped an ancient and fortunately quite sturdy oak. She stopped, hopped out of the car and went to look for the mirror she’d knocked off.

  It had fallen more or less where they usually fell, which saved her the time she would have otherwise spent looking for it. She tossed the latest victim into the pile of mirrors languishing behind the tree, then got back in her car and started off again. The village was small, and any business she could provide for it, she went out of her way to see to. She’d been knocking off side mirrors for almost a year, because it gave her an excuse to go to town, and it gave Grant, the owner of the local garage, something to fix. He’d been the first local to be pleasant to her as the new owner of the hall up the way, and she’d shown her gratitude as she could.

  But he wasn’t there any longer. He’d sold his shop at the end of the summer so he could retire to France. Tess imagined that the new owner, no doubt as dour and crusty as Grant had been, would welcome a friendly hand extended. Giving him a little business was the least she could do. It might take her mind off the things she wasn’t allowing to bother her.

  She turned onto the main road and started toward the village. She had been in England for several years, so the vagaries of driving on the left had long since ceased to be anything she even thought about. Narrow roads didn’t bother her, nor did passing trucks that took up more space than they should have.

  Of course, trying to pass trucks with expensive black sports cars keeping a safe following distance of approximately six inches from her back bumper was a novelty, but she was nothing if not flexible.

  She passed the lorry, fully expecting the black car to speed past her after she did so. He didn’t. He merely swung in behind her as if his front bumper had been magnetically attracted to the back of hers. What was it about guys in sports cars? She suspected the bill of sale came with detailed instructions on how to tail little runabouts to intimidate and unnerve their innocent drivers. Tess was tempted to slam on the brakes to get him to back off, but she had money in her budget for side mirrors, not rear-end restorations.

  She finally had had enough. She rolled down her window and motioned politely for the gentleman to pass her. Could she be blamed if she’d felt compelled to use an extended middle finger to do the like?

  He took the hint, then blew past her so quickly she barely had the time to get her window back up before bits of road hit her in the face.

  She rolled her eyes, then put the encounter behind her. She had more important things to do, like support her new mechanic.

  The village wasn’t a large place, as villages in her part of southern England went, and it was fortunately far enough off the beaten path that the traffic was light. And while that likely didn’t do much for the local economy, it certainly contributed to a rustic, step-back-in-time sort of charm.

  But not too far, thankfully.

  Tess pulled into the front of the mechanic’s shop, turned off the engine, then crawled out of her car. She wrapped her intentions to do good around her like a cloak and walked into the garage. A guy who couldn’t have been more than about twenty popped up from behind a car and walked toward her with a welcoming expression.

  “Oh, hello,” he said, smiling. “Need a tune-up?”

  Tess gestured back toward her car. “I’m afraid I’ve lost a mirror,” she said. “It happens with surprisingly regularity, so I imagine I’ll be in again soon.” She s
miled. “I don’t think we’ve met, though. Are you the one who bought the shop—”

  “Me?” he interrupted with a laugh. “Oh, nay, miss, I’m not the owner. He’s in the—”

  “Enough, Bobby,” a voice said curtly.

  Tess turned in time to see a shadow detach itself from the back of the shop. She had the impression of broad shoulders, long legs, and a lithe grace that seemed somehow completely out of character for an old geezer who’d taken on a shop where he could work on his vintage whatever it was he loved. She was half tempted to readjust her intimidation chignon, but she didn’t dare attract any more of Karma’s attention than she had already by just getting out of bed. She watched the man remain in the shadows for a moment or two before he ducked into what was probably his office and shut the door firmly behind him.

  Bobby smiled awkwardly. “I’ll have it done in a blink, miss. Why don’t you take your ease in the pub? It looks like rain.”

  She handed him the keys. “I have an extra mirror in the boot,” she said slowly. Actually, she had a box full of them, but he would figure that out soon enough.

  “Even better, then,” Bobby said with a smile.

  Tess left the shop before she got herself in any more trouble, then wondered how it had gone from a fairly fallish day to the depths of winter in such a short time.

  And why had the shop owner not been an old geezer, like she’d been expecting?

  There was something else about him that bothered her, but she couldn’t lay her finger on it. She supposed it would either come to her or it wouldn’t. For the moment, the best thing she could do was try to ground herself in her own century.

  She sought refuge in the pub, then settled for a high-backed bench near the window. It seemed like a very reasonable thing to drink tea and watch the occasional car go by. There was no activity across the street, except Bobby, who didn’t waste any time in getting to work on her car.

  She considered the shop’s owner. The truth was, she hadn’t expected to find a young man—young being a relative term, of course, when used to compare a man of eighty to a man of perhaps thirty—as the owner of that shop, but she couldn’t believe that hulking shadow to be anything else. Odd, though, that such a young man had decided on such a sleepy town so far away from anywhere else.