Some Enchanted Dream: A Time Travel Adventure (Seasons of Enchantment Book 2) (18 page)

After cleaning up her appearance, and donning the beige skirt and the blouse again, despite the need for it to be cleaned, she exited their room and closed the door so he could sleep.

She would have liked to have lain in his arms last night and let him talk about the exciting things he had seen at the expo. A little pillow talk before falling asleep, but her exhaustion ended any further intimacy between them last night.

Funny, they'd been married less than six months, and they never really had a honeymoon. They wed in haste to protect each other and ran away from Dublin months later when the soldiers sought to arrest him. This should be their honeymoon. Paris, in the spring of 1889.

It sure as hell didn't feel like one. The romance was flickering amid grief and simmering tempers as they found themselves in an uncertain situation.

She pushed back the sinking feeling of dread and went to gaze out the large window. The city of Paris below never failed to rouse her spirits. It was a wonderful time to be here. The city was celebrating its one hundred year anniversary of the Revolution and the fall of the Bastille. They were safe here, in the city of light. They could find a modest house in a quiet neighborhood and live here in peace. And perhaps raise a child. 

She moved to the main room and discovered new items awaiting her inspection. An icebox had been delivered, a beautiful polished wood cabinet with brass knobs on the compartment doors. She opened one small cubby and felt the cool metal interior. She looked carefully at the garish green cabinet that filled the wall to the left of the hallway door, noting the basket of fresh eggs she suggested when Adrian was making his list of necessities. She found a metal canister of ground coffee and an old fashioned percolating pot with a metal basket. Covered stone crocks were labeled in elegant French script denoting the essentials of every cook's kitchen, flour, sugar, salt and tea.

She lifted the lid on the flour, and sure enough, they were filled. A crate of potatoes was at her feet, and a scuttle filled with coal. Excellent.

Now if they only had someone among them who knew how to cook.

Tara filled the coffee pot with water and sprinkled a measure of the deep earthy brown dust into the perforated metal basket. This was no different than making camp coffee over a hot fire. She'd done it many times for her professor as an undergrad student during her under grad internship. That one semester jaunt to a Incan ruin to delve into archeology had given Tara the skill to make camp coffee, even if it hadn't developed a love for digging in the dirt and cataloguing teeth and bones of persons long dead as a potential career choice.   

Mick and Riley popped in from their room across the hall.

"How was your little family outing yesterday, darlin'?" Mick sat down at the table and propped his face between his palms. The canny look in his eye betrayed the lack of innocence in his casual question. "I do hope you had a good time with the humans."

She set the coffee pot on the stove and checked the coals. They were banked just right, an odd occurrence, as it was only seven in the morning. Someone must have tended it recently. Her eyes darted to the closed door of her bedroom, where Adrian slept blissfully on.

"I need to talk to you." Tara sat at the table with her back to the stove and fumbled with the dish towel in her hands. "Something happened last night, something very unusual."

Riley stood at the windows several feet away with his back to them, but he turned at her words, giving the impression he could hear better than any human. "The street is clean today," he told Mick in a cryptic tone as he came to join them at the table. Rather than sit, he plopped his butt on the apple green cupboard shelf and slumped over with arms folded across his chest.

Mick exchanged a look with Riley, but didn't comment. "And what was it that happened to you last night, dear sister?" Mick's persuasive tone and his wide, expressive eyes were a clear invitation to continue her confession.

Tara wound the towel tight about her fist. She focused on it for a moment, avoiding Mick's penetrating blue eyes as she tried to find the proper words. "I-I somehow . . .
flew
home."

"
Oooohhh
," both men crooned as one. Two pairs of eyes widened as they studied her. 

"Did you, now?" Riley came forward from his perch and put his hand on her shoulder, patting her as if she'd just lost her first tooth. "T'was bound to happen, wasn't it, Mick? Our baby sister's growin' up. Seemed it was just yesterday when the mountain above our home shook from her wailing and the thunder clapped above us when herself was having a right good tantrum, as wee ones will do now and again."

"Trying to wax poetic's not workin' in your favor," Mick said, giving his brother a stern frown. "You've spent too much time in the court of the Green Lady. You sound like a stuffed shirt. I told ye, focus on getting information from the twit instead of trying to impress her with your wandering wit. Now off with you. Let me have a talk with our girl whilst the humans still dream."

Riley wasn't pleased by Mick's harsh rebuke. His hand remained on Tara's shoulder, cupping it and kneading lightly. His russet brows were drawn together in a stormy frown as he glared at their elder. "Sure, and wasn't I the one who cast the spell to hasten her awakening to the gifts of our race. Now you order me away like a dog what's whittled on a fine carpet."

"Go back to the Green Witch, and keep your tongue on business this time, aye? Leave the poetry to the bloody fool humans who visit her court in their vaporous dreams."

Tara rose as the coffee started to boil and perk. With the towel, she removed it from the hot stove to allow it to cool on the scarred old table. Riley turned to the cupboard and retrieved two cups. He set one in front of his brother, and one before Tara. With a parting glance of resentment at Mick, he turned on his heel and left the apartment.

"That wasn't necessary," she said as she resumed her seat. "He could have stayed, in fact, I would have preferred it, if I'd been consulted." Riley was a gentle soul, a healer through and through. Intuitive and sympathetic. She wasn't impressed with Mick's brusqueness.

Tara poured herself a cup of the fragrant brew, and offered him a portion. He nodded, allowing her to filled his cup. Mick was typically good natured and pleasant. This was a side of him she didn't know existed.

"True, but I wanted this special moment alone with me sister. So, shock me with a lightning bolt, why don't you?  Might make you feel better, about a lot of what's ailing you of late." He lifted his cup of coffee and blew on it to cool it, but his eyes never left her face as he completed the action. It was almost as if he were daring her to question his strange words.

"I could give you a frying pan adjustment," Tara replied, holding his gaze with challenge. "As I see you did procure a frying pan for our humble abode." She placed her hands around the new white ceramic mug provided for her use, free of charge, no doubt, by her bewitching Fey brothers who charmed it out of some poor soul. The warmth of the coffee was comforting in her hands. "As to lightning bolts, I've no idea as to how to toss one at someone who annoys me.  That is a feat reserved for the old gods of myth, like Thor and Zeus."

His lips curled up into a sardonic smile. "Is it now? Well, what do you say?"

Why was this angelic looking man sitting at her kitchen table mocking her words yet not telling her a damned thing with his beguiling twists of phrase?

"And I suppose that little trick you do, waltzing through time, that's simply a mortal child at play, aye Tara, darlin'?"

She stifled a gasp, and let go of her cup, withdrawing her hands to her lap as if to hide them from his silvery blue gaze.

He noted her unconscious retreat, as his eyes followed her hands and then rose to her face. Mick was studying her, carefully watching her every move while appearing offhanded and casual.

"What are you saying?" Tara leaned forward, bringing both hands on the table again, her palms open between them. "All of this is new to me. I just learned I could move through time a few weeks ago. Stop speaking to me in riddles. Help me understand what's happening."

"You are growing up." Setting aside his cup, Mick's hands glided effortlessly over her own to clasped them with gentleness. "You are leaving childhood, darling, entering what the mortals deem adolescence, when gifts and talents start to fully awaken."

"You mean, the time traveling?"

He shook his head. "No, you did that as a wee girl. You've other gifts that will emerge as you mature. We all share some of the same abilities common to all the fey born, such as the ability to charm humans and gain what we need from them. But every fey also has specialized talents that belong only to them and few others."

Her brother squeezed her hands as he continued to smile softly at her. The tenderness in his eyes almost brought a prickling of tears. How she wished she could have grown up with Mick and Riley to look after her, instead of in the unfeeling welfare system of humans.

"Not all of us can traverse through time or space. Yet, you seem to be able to do so with ease. Few of our race are able to perform that magic."

"But I'm only half Fey. Our mother loved a human sailor, a sea captain, so I was told. Shouldn't my powers have been cut in half?"

"No, you are full blood Fey, a royal princess of the Bright and Shining Starling Mountain Clans. We lied to the other clans to keep you safe as an infant. A Fey who can traverse time, control weather patterns and summon thunder and lightning at her will is a prize many a Darkling Fey would covet and wish to control. We had to lie to keep you from being abducted."

"Obviously it didn't do any good." Tara yanked her hands from his. She couldn't help the bitterness in her voice. She'd been kidnapped by a Darkling Fey, become lost in time, lost in the world of mortals at a tender age. She grew up alone, the child of foster care, shuffled about from one home to another as families always sensed she was different.

"Aye, it went badly, it did. We thought you lost forever. Kerry went to find you."

"But he didn't find me. I found Adrian. And you worked for him as one of his midnight riders."

"True." Mick's smiled faded. "You found us, you did. You found us through him. It was foretold at his birth that he would shelter one of our own who was lost among the mortals.  We knew it would be you he found, we just didn't know where you had been taken by our enemies. So Riley and I stayed near him, and Kerry crossed the waves of time in search of you."

She sighed, and dropped her head into her hands. "This is just . . . too much . . ." 

Mick's hand grasped her wrist and pulled it across the table. When she looked up at him, his pale fingers laced through hers. "No, sweet sister. 'Tis just enough, for the moment. You are awakening to your true nature. Finish your coffee, we've lessons ahead of us."

"I need to procure some clean clothes." She gestured to her ivory linen top and beige skirt. "The same way you and Riley do. I won't break into Adrian's funds for dresses when he's so worried about his means. And," Tara grinned at Mick, "I'd like to try this gift of acquiring. Will you come with me? You can show me how to do it properly."

"Lessons first, then shopping for new frocks." Mick's attempt at severity was diluted by a charming grin as he tried to hide his amusement behind gruffness.

Chapter Fifteen

Adrian awakened to find it was past the lunch hour.

He groaned as he pulled himself from the bed. His back hurt, and the gash on his arm was stinging from the tussle last night.

He grinned, feeling a renewed sense of purpose.

Make a difference
, she said, well, he'd do his best to please the woman. Back in Ireland, he led raids in the night and organized the rescue of countless men and women oppressed by tyranny. Tara forgot that as she chided him for his noble birth and the privilege his position and wealth had brought in his past life.

He forgot it for a time, too. He'd been lost in pain and grief after he'd been shot. He'd spent months mourning friends captured and fallen in the fight. He mourned the death of their hopes for a free Ireland when the British discovered their plans and had the rebel leaders arrested.  Tara saved him from sharing their miserable fate. He'd be dead now if not for her.

Well, then. He was alive, and he could still creep out of the shadows to confront those who preyed on the weak and helpless. Didn't matter if he lived in County Cork or Montmartre, he was still Adrian Dillon, Captain Midnight. He knew how to fight. He just needed weapons. 

He pulled on his small pants and then the neat gray trousers, and ran fingers through his tousled hair. He scratched his chin, grimacing to find the sandy growth had returned to shadow his jaw.
Ach, never again will I take for granted the privilege of having a valet.

Today required he look his best. Clean shaven, respectable. Noble. The gray suit he had purchased would serve well. Today was Monday. He was going to the bank to claim his money as Lord Dillon's heir, and he was going to purchase two new six-chamber repeat fire pistols.

This modern time might be confusing, but it did have its compensations.

*   *   *

Dan paused outside Gisele's door. He wanted to knock, but he didn't relish waking her too early. It was noon. The daily cannon salute had just sounded from the tower. He had a bouquet of flowers in his hand. Daffodils and white roses. He'd been to the market after sleeping for a couple of hours in his own bed.

What are you doing?
his conscience chided.
Making it worse by giving her flowers? Lame, dude. Really lame. She'll be amused and consider you an inexperienced, emotional sop. The rules of dating say you should never . . .

"Fuck the rules," he whispered, "I'm not in the twenty-first century anymore."

He knocked.

One minute, two, and then three. He knocked again.

The door was opened, and Gisele's big blue eyes stared up at him with surprise.