One Magic Moment Read online

  He tossed aside the junk mailings, then froze with a thin letter in his hands.

  His suddenly unsteady hands, as it happened.

  He recognized the handwriting, though he’d only seen it a few times. There was no return address, but that didn’t surprise him. There was only one way to get hold of the writer of the letter and that wasn’t through the Royal Mail.

  He blew out his breath, then opened the letter, steeling himself for all sorts of things he wouldn’t care to read. The scrawl there was as illegible as it always had been.

  John,

  Thought you’d be interested in this bloke Ian MacLeod’s contact info. He’s Cameron’s cousin by marriage and specializes in swords and that sort of rot.

  Cheers,

  Oliver

  John leaned—gingerly, of course—against the fender of his car. Well, he might have sat down, but since he’d done it so carefully, perhaps no one would notice how unsteady beneath him his knees had suddenly become.

  Something untoward was at work in his life.

  If he’d been a more superstitious sort of lad, he might have thought Fate was stalking him. First a woman who had spent her academic life wallowing in the Middle Ages, then an unexpected note from a man he hadn’t talked to in months. He wasn’t sure he wanted to think about why he’d become acquainted with Oliver, but perhaps there was no harm in it now there was no danger of his falling upon his arse from undue stress over the memory.

  He had, a year or so into his current life, found himself a bit more strapped financially than he had supposed he might be, which had necessitated the relinquishing of a bit of his inheritance. He’d heard tell of a group, Cameron Antiquities, that specialized in very discreet purchases and sales of, ah, antiquities. Since that was what he’d had to sell, he’d made contact, then eventually made a friend of sorts of Oliver who had been the go-between between him and Robert Cameron. He’d preferred to keep his anonymity for his own reasons—and Cameron had been a Scot, which had been yet another reason to keep his distance—so he’d simply dealt with Oliver as the occasion arose.

  Oliver had never asked him where he’d come by his apparently never-ending stash of medieval gold coins and he hadn’t volunteered the information. He’d simply wanted his assets converted into modern sterling as quickly and discreetly as possible, and Oliver had obliged.

  Obviously, Oliver had been thinking a bit more diligently about why John had come by his inheritance than John had feared he might.

  Ordinarily, John would have done as he always did when dealing with nosy souls; he would have immediately severed all contact with Oliver and left him to his ruminations. But something stopped him. It wasn’t that he still had a decent amount of medieval gold stashed in a safe-deposit box in Zurich, or that he’d had a nagging suspicion that at some point in the future, he might actually want to have a brief chat with Robert Cameron over a pint.

  He supposed it was that he had found, beyond reason, something of a friend who treated the unacknowledged oddities of his past without so much as a lifting of an eyebrow.

  Which was a maudlin bit of business that should have had him taking something firm to his forehead until good sense returned. He scowled. ’Twas obviously a weakness brought on by a bit too much contact with a certain wench. All the more reason to hope he never saw her again.

  He looked again at Ian MacLeod’s phone number. He’d heard of him, of course, because when one had a Claymore hiding in one’s closet, hearing about others with that sort of preference seemed to come along with the territory—even if he did his best to keep it a secret. Well, a Claymore and two medieval swords of varying adornment but equally superior quality.

  His two concessions to the past he never thought about.

  He’d also heard rumors about Ian MacLeod’s cousin, who was reputedly the laird of a particular branch of the clan MacLeod loitering in the Highlands, though he couldn’t bring the blighter’s given name to mind at the moment.

  It was odd how the name MacLeod continued to come up when he didn’t expect it. He’d been able to ignore it easily enough in the past, but to be reminded of it now by virtue of a reference to Ian MacLeod? When he was doing his damndest to avoid a woman who knew all about a time period he was doing his damndest to forget?

  He folded the letter up and shoved it in his pocket. He didn’t have time to think about it at the moment. He imagined he wouldn’t have the occasion to think about it later. He would probably keep the information for purely academic reasons, but it would be a cold day in hell before he used it.

  Surely.

  He pulled his guitar out of the boot of his car, then took himself and his shaking knees into the studio. At least here he wouldn’t be faced with things he didn’t like. He had developed a reputation through a very fortuitous chain of events as a respectable studio musician. He’d done quite a bit of recording in Scotland; eventually word had spread and he’d found himself in London more often than not. In fact, that was one of the reasons he’d looked for a business to buy in the south. Finding Grant’s shop had been a marvelous stroke of good fortune.

  Or so he’d thought.

  Now, as he found himself faced with his past thanks to two different souls, he was beginning to think his purchase of that shop could be credited to a less savory source. Perhaps he should have stayed in Scotland or decamped for somewhere completely different, like the Colonies. Or perhaps Germany where he could have actually gotten his Vanquish out of first gear on a regular basis.

  And to think he’d actually given Tess Alexander his business card with his mobile number scrawled on it in his own hand.

  He was, again, daft.

  He walked inside, grateful for the rush of warmth that would do his unpleasantly cold hands some good. Janet, the receptionist, smiled when she saw him.

  “You’re early,” she noted. “As usual.”

  “Just trying to keep Kenneth from sacking me,” John said easily.

  She laughed. “He would never do that. Too many people bothering him for your time.” She nodded to her left. “The main studio’s empty and waiting for you.”

  “I appreciate that,” he said.

  “Coffee?”

  He grimaced. “Can’t stand the stuff,” he said, which was what he said every time she offered him some. He started to walk away, then turned back. “I might be having a guest this afternoon.”

  “What’s her name?” Janet asked, her eyes twinkling.

  He pursed his lips. “Why should it be a she?”

  “Because you have a very long list of would-be groupies who all happen to be female. Who am I looking for?”

  “A neighbor,” he said as casually as possible. “Tess Alexander is her name. I’m not sure she’ll bother, but you never know.”

  “I’ll watch for her,” she said easily.

  He nodded his thanks, snagged a bottle of water from the kitchen, then made his way to the studio. He found himself a comfortable chair, pulled out the music he’d been charged with playing, then tuned his guitar and prepared to warm up a bit.

  Unbidden and certainly unwelcome memories of his past washed over him without warning. Commanding them to leave him be was useless. It had been, he could admit with all frankness, that sort of day.

  Playing the guitar hadn’t been the first job he’d had after leaving home; that had been mucking out stables. His skill with horses and, truth be told, his inordinate fondness for them had earned him room and board for a pair of months until he’d gotten on his feet a bit and been able to look for something that paid better. It had been listening to modern music whilst about his work that had given him the idea that perhaps he might make a go of that sort of thing.

  A year, two different stables, and a restaurant dishwashing job or two later—he hadn’t dared convert any of his gold at that point—he’d had a guitar and himself in Edinburgh at the same time. He’d performed at the Festival for a lark that first time, absolutely clueless as to who might have been in the audience
. After all, what had it mattered? He’d given himself a year to see what another world was like before he’d fully intended to return to his own, wiser, more seasoned, and ready to settle down into the rather pedestrian life of a lord’s fourth son. He’d had no intention of loitering about in present-day England to see who might have wanted his musical services.

  He deftly circumvented the memories of a particular fortnight that had left him realizing he was rather more wedded to the present day than he’d anticipated he might be.

  It had been at that point that he’d made more definite plans, found a lad to put him legally in the current century, and run across a fortuitous and random mention of Cameron Antiquities, Ltd. A discreet inquiry had resulted in that cautious friendship with Oliver and even an offer of an introduction to Lord Robert Cameron. John had declined the latter because at the time he’d had enough of nobility to last him a bit.

  He’d continued on with his life, continued to play, forced himself to acclimatize to his circumstances, and flown under the radar, as the saying went. He’d gone from being a grubby, overwhelmed stable boy to being a reclusive, several-times-over millionaire. He dabbled with cars because he’d always fancied unraveling how mechanical things worked. He played whatever stringed instrument he could lay his hands on—some rather badly, as it happened—because he had inherited his grandmother’s love for music. He’d moved from day to day, ignoring who he had been and contenting himself with who he was.

  Until Tess Alexander had walked into his shop and forced his world to grind to a halt.

  A doctor of medieval studies.

  The irony of it was enough to do him in.

  And now that bloody note from Oliver, whom he hadn’t seen since the first of the year when he’d first begun to investigate a move south. John pursed his lips. Of course, he’d heard of Ian MacLeod’s school of swordplay, but he’d dismissed it as a Highlander taking his heritage far too seriously for his own good.

  It was as he’d thought before: Oliver had obviously spent too much time wondering why it was John had such a large supply of rare medieval gold coins and that had led him to speculating on other things he shouldn’t have.

  John didn’t particularly want to think about that.

  He didn’t want to think about anything else that made him uncomfortable, either, so he turned his mind back to the music in front of him. He would have a decent day, pick up a few quid for his trouble, then hopefully escape before Tess Alexander did the unthinkable and called him.

  He felt fairly safe in assuming she wouldn’t. He wasn’t sure what he’d done to irritate her, but she seemed to want as little to do with him as he did her. His damnable chivalry would have been trotted out and exercised, then put away where it could trouble him no further for the day. He would return home to relative obscurity and that would be the end of it. Perhaps he would find a driving instructor and mail her the man’s business card so she didn’t carry on with leaving what he was sure were monumental dings in an innocent oak tree.

  He would also never curse himself for missing the turnoff to Sedgwick because he would never have a need to go there again.

  He felt better already, having put his life back in order, all the pieces back in place.

  He put that beautiful, haunting woman out of his mind and got to work.

  Chapter 5

  Tess looked at the address on the card John had given her and wondered if she had lost her mind. She’d been wondering that for the better part of the day, actually, ever since she’d gotten on the train.

  She’d arrived in London too early to conduct any business, so she’d killed a couple of hours in her favorite coffee shop, pretending to look out the window and watch humanity hurry by.

  She’d eventually made her way to pick up the two rare and pricey books on medieval warfare her preferred dealer had found for her, then spent a useless hour in his shop, poking around in piles of things that hadn’t been dusted in at least a year. She’d loitered in Victorian England for a bit, which had been a decent distraction, though perhaps not enough of one.

  She’d wandered the streets for a good half an hour before she made herself at least go and order something for an early lunch. She tried to eat, but she’d been less successful at it than she would have liked to have been. She had managed part of a salad and some juice, then taken her knitting out and tried to work on a sock. That resulted half an hour later in the necessity of ripping out everything she’d managed to do. She had shoved everything back into her bag, ignored her instinct for self-preservation, and gone to look for a Tube station.

  She realized as she now stood in front of the appropriate address that she was looking at a recording studio. She frowned, then opened the door and walked inside. It wasn’t an enormous place from what she could tell, but the receptionist was dressed nicely and the client list Tess glanced at while she was waiting for the girl to get off the phone was downright impressive.

  The girl hung up and smiled at her. “You must be Miss Alexander.”

  Tess smiled uncomfortably. “Yes, well—”

  “John said you might be coming.” She stood. “Come on. I’ll take you back.”

  Tess followed her because she couldn’t on such short notice invent a good reason why she shouldn’t. Within moments, she found herself standing in the darkest part of a mixing room listening to John playing the acoustic guitar.

  She was provided with a chair, which she sank down into gratefully. A dozen questions immediately clamored for attention, but she ignored them all in favor of simply sitting there and listening. She had no idea he was accompanying a jazz vocal group until the tracks were played back together. He listened with a frown, then requested some sort of do-over. She wasn’t a picky listener; she honestly couldn’t tell the difference, but he seemed to be happier with the subsequent effort.

  She continued to sit in the dark and listen as he recorded another two songs. It was so far from what she’d expected to find him doing, she could hardly take it in.

  It unfortunately gave her the chance to look at him from the safety and comfort of knowing he had no idea she was sitting there gaping at him.

  He was gorgeous. There was no other way to say it. She supposed she shouldn’t have expected anything else. She’d had a good look at his brother for several days and almost grown accustomed to being startled at the sight. Worse still, she just happened to know John and Montgomery’s, ah, nephew, Stephen de Piaget, who was almost as handsome as they were.

  But there was something about John . . .

  Maybe it was the perfection of his face with his chiseled cheekbones and strong jaw, or enviable physique that a T-shirt and jeans did nothing to hide, or his long fingers that flew over strings as if he’d done nothing else with those hands for the whole of his life but practice.

  Or it could have been the fact that she knew she was looking at a medieval knight who somehow, beyond all reason, found himself masquerading as something quite different in the twenty-first century.

  He finished before she’d finished the cataloging of his perfections. She’d really hoped she might get past them quickly so she could get back to listing all the reasons why she never wanted to lay eyes on him again. Too bad she just wasn’t going to have time for that. She watched as a man in slacks and a sweater came into the studio and chatted with him for a bit. The producer turned on the mic when John directed a few questions his way. Tess knew she was sitting too far back to be seen, but she found herself unaccountably nervous just the same.

  “Dave’s been nagging me again,” the man in the sweater said, sounding as if he was fully prepared to engage in a bit of it himself. “He’s pretty determined.”

  “No,” John said stiffly. “Still no.”

  Tess was marginally satisfied to see he could be as unyielding with others as he had been with her.

  “It would just be a demo now, but it could be a career direction.”

  “This isn’t a career, Kenneth. It’s a diversion.”
/>   Kenneth looked at him calculatingly. “I have a lute.”

  Tess found herself sitting on the edge of her seat. A lute? She couldn’t imagine that John would ever admit to playing such a thing, but what did she know? Maybe he was more in touch with his past than he’d let on and didn’t mind demonstrating that for others.

  Which didn’t adequately explain why he seemed so perfectly at home in jeans and a pricey black sports car, but she would think about that later, when she could think straight again.

  She couldn’t say she knew enough about John de Piaget to predict what he was going to do, but she had to admit he looked almost as ready to bolt as he had when she’d asked him if he wanted to come inside her great hall.

  He sat back in his chair and looked up at Kenneth with absolutely no expression on his face. “Absolutely not.”

  Kenneth looked at him, obviously amused. “I’m not asking you to cut out a major organ and hand it over, John. It’s just a lute.”

  Tess found herself unaccountably nervous. It was one thing for her to know who John was and, more to the point, what he was; it was another thing entirely for someone else to know. Kenneth, whoever he was and whatever sort of sway he held over John, was likely completely oblivious to John’s past. She could only imagine how zealously John guarded that past.

  Actually, she didn’t have to imagine much. She could see it on his face.

  Briefly. As quickly as the shutters had come down, they disappeared and the moment was gone. John simply looked up at his tormentor.

  “Don’t tell me,” he drawled, “Dave just happened to leave it behind the last time he was here.”

  “He’s forgetful.”

  “Why in the hell would he think I could play it?”