Love Came Just in Time (4 page)

But did demons smell so foul? That was a point he wasn't sure on. He considered it as he gave the mud-covered harpy before him another look. It had to be a harpy. He'd heard of such creatures roaming about in Greece. They were part woman, part bird. This being certainly chirped like the latter. She spoke the peasant's tongue, poorly, and her accent was passing strange. Miles frowned. Had she truly come from Greece? Then how had she come to be standing outside his gates?

“Look, can't you at least open up? I'm freezing and I stink.”

Miles considered. “Indeed, there is a most foul odor that attends you.”

“I went for a swim in your moat.”

“Ah,” he said. “That explains much.”

The harpy frowned at him. Miles took a step closer to her. She was a very plump harpy, indeed. Her arms were excessively puffy, as was her middle. She had scrawny legs, though. No doubt in keeping with her bird-like half. He stared at her legs thoughtfully. She wore very strange hose. Even stranger shoes. He leaned closer. Her foot coverings might have been white at one time. It was hard to tell their present color by torchlight, but he had little trouble identifying the stench.

“Hey,” the being chirped at him, “would you just let me in already?”

He hesitated. “Are you truly a harpy?”

The creature scowled at him. “Of course not. Who are you? The gatekeeper of hell?”

Miles laughed, in spite of himself. “You insult both me and my fine hall, and now I am to let you inside?”

The woman, who claimed not to be a harpy, looked at him with a frown. “Hall?”

“Speningethorpe,” he clarified.

“And just where is that?” she demanded.

He shrugged. “It depends on the year, and who is king. 'Tis nearer Hadrian's wall. Some years it finds itself in England, some years in Scotland. A lovely place, really, if you've no use for creature comforts.”

The woman swayed. “England? Scotland?”

“Aye,” Miles said.

The woman sat down with a thump. “I'm dreaming.”

Miles wrinkled his nose. “Nay, I think you aren't. I know I'm not.”

The woman looked up at him. He thought she might be on the verge of tears. It was hard to tell with all that mud on her face.

“I'm having a very bad day,” she whispered.

“Demoiselle, your wits are most definitely addled. ‘Tis no longer daytime.'Tis well past midnight.”

She nodded numbly. “You're right.”

Miles looked down at her and, despite his better judgment, felt a small stirring of pity. She was shivering. What she truly was, he couldn't tell, but she had come banging on his gates in the middle of the night seeking refuge. How could he refuse her?

He jammed the torch into a wall sconce, then turned back and looked at her.

“Are you alone?”

She nodded again, silently.

“No retainers lie in wait, ready to storm my keep and take it by force after I let you in?”

She looked up at him and blinked. “Retainers?”

“Men-at-arms.”

“No. Just me and my stinky self.”

Miles almost smiled. “Very well, then. The both of you may come in. I'll raise the gate just far enough for you to wriggle under, agreed?”

“Whatever you say.”

Miles propped his sword up against the wall and trudged up the steps to the upper floor of the gatehouse. For all he knew, the woman could be lying. She could very possibly be a decoy some Lowland laird had sent to prepare the way for an assault.

He found himself cranking up the portcullis just the same.

“Are you inside?” he called down.

He heard a faint answer in the affirmative. He released the crank and the portcullis slammed home. Miles thumped down the circular steps. He realized as he retrieved his sword and the torch that he was relieved to find both still in their places. The years had taken their toll, he thought with a regretful sigh.

Well, at least the woman was still alone and not accompanied by two score of armed men. That wouldn't have done much for his mood. His guest was standing just inside the gate. She smiled at him, seemingly a little self-conscious.

“I'm sorry to barge in on you like this. I need a bath and then I'd like to look for my cat.”

“Cat?” His nose began to twitch at the very thought of such a beast. He rubbed the possibly offended appendage almost without thought. “Cat, did you say?”

“You're allergic?” she asked.

“Allergic?”

She looked at him closely. “You know, you sneeze when you smell one?”

“Aye, that I do, demoiselle. If your beastie has wandered into my keep, I daresay we'll have no trouble locating him.”

She laughed. Miles found himself smiling in response. Saints above, he was going daft. He'd just let a stranger inside his gates without demanding to know aught of her business save that she was seeking a missing feline. Her person did nothing to recommend her—especially since it was all he could do to breathe the same air she occupied. But her laugh was enchanting.

Without warning, Miles felt a surge of good humor well up in him.'Twas true he could have remained at Artane and joined in the festivities eventually, but if he had, he wouldn't be standing at his gates with this woman. Beyond reason, he couldn't help but think he'd made the right choice.

He made her a small bow. “Miles of Artane, lately of Speningethorpe, your servant.” He straightened and gave her his best lordly look. She didn't respond. He cleared his throat. Perhaps she merely needed something else to be impressed by. No sense in not making use of his connections. “My sire is Rhys de Piaget,” he said. “Lord of Artane.”

She looked at him blankly.

“You know him not?” Miles asked, surprised. His father's reputation stretched from Hadrian's wall to the Holy Land. And what reputation Rhys hadn't managed to spread, Miles's older brothers Robin and Nicholas had seen to. Surely this woman knew something of his family.

Her mouth worked, but nothing came out.

“Saints, lady, even the lairds in the Lowlands know of my sire.”

She swallowed. “I think I'm really losing it here.”

Miles frowned. “What have you lost?”

“My mind.” She shook her head, as if that would somehow solve the problem. It must not have helped, because she gathered herself together and gave the whole of her a good, hard shake.

Miles hastily backed up to avoid wearing what she'd shaken off.

“Look,” she said with a frown, “I'm confused. Now, am I in hell, or not? Telling me the truth is the least you can do.”

“Nay, lady, you are not in hell,” he said. “As I said before, you are at Speningethorpe. 'Tis in the north of England, on the Scottish border.”

“And you're Miles of Ar-something, lately of this other Spending place, right?”

Close enough. “Aye.”

She shook her head. “Impossible. I can't be in England. I was in Freezing Bluff, Michigan, half an hour ago. I fell into a pond.” She was starting to wheeze. “I couldn't have resurfaced in England. Things like this just don't happen!” Her voice was growing increasingly frantic.

“Perhaps the chill has bewildered you,” he offered.

“I'm not bewildered! I smell too bad to be bewildered!”

He had to agree, but he refrained from saying so.

“England! Geez! And backwoods England at that!”

“Backwoods?” he echoed.

“Backwoods,” she repeated. She looked at him accusingly. “I bet you don't have running water, do you?”

Miles gestured apologetically toward the moat. “I fear the water runs nowhere. Hence the less than pleasing smell—”

“Or a phone?”

“Phone?” he echoed.

“Oh, great!” she exclaimed. “This is just
great!
No phone, no running water. I bet I'll have to haul my own water for a bath too, right?”

“Nay, lady. I will see to that for you.” Let her think he was being polite. In reality, he didn't want her moving overmuch inside. She was sopping wet and he didn't want moat water being dripped all over his hall, sty that it was. Having the cesspit emptied into the moat had seemed a fine deterrent to attackers at the time, but he wondered about the wisdom of it now.

“Look,” she said, planting her hands on her fluffy waist, “I appreciate the hospitality, such as it is, but what I really need from you is a bath, some hot chocolate and a bed, pretty much in that order. Sir Sweetums will have to wait until tomorrow. Things will look brighter in the morning.”

She said the last as if she dared him to disagree with her.

So he nodded, as if he did agree with her.

“And then I'll figure out where the hell I am.”

He nodded again. Whatever else she planned, she certainly needed a bath. Perhaps her wits would return with a bit of cleanliness.

“Garretts never have hysterics,” she said sternly, wagging her finger at him.

“Ah,” he said, wisely. “Good to know.” The saints only knew what hysterics were, but he had the feeling he should be relieved the woman before him never had them.

“You are a Garrett?” he surmised.

“Abigail Moira Garrett.”

“Abigail,” he repeated.

“Right. But don't call me that. Only my grandmother called me that, and only when I was doing something I shouldn't have been. Call me Abby.”

“I like Abigail better,” he stated.

She gave him a dark look. “Well, we'll work on that later. Now, let's go get that bath, shall we?”

Miles watched her march off toward the stables. He smiled in spite of himself. The saints only knew from whence this creature had sprung, but that didn't trouble him. He'd seen many strange things in his travels. He liked her spirit. She made him smile with her bluster and babble.

“Miles?”

“Aye, Abigail?”

“I can't see where I'm going,” she said, sounding as if that were entirely his doing.

“That shouldn't matter, as the direction you've chosen is the wrong one. The great hall is this way.”

She appeared within the circle of his torchlight again. “Great hall? What's so great about it? Do you have central heat? What, no phone but a great furnace?”

Miles didn't even attempt to understand her. He inclined his head to his right. “This way, my lady. I'll see to a bath for you.”

He led her to the hall, ushered her inside and rehung the torch. He set the bar back across the door. That was when he heard her begin to wheeze again.

“Garretts do not faint. Garretts do not faint.”

“I'll be back for you when the tub is filled,” he said, giving her his most reassuring smile. “Things will look better after a bath.”

She nodded. “Garretts do not faint,” she answered.

Miles laughed to himself as he crossed the hall to the entrance to the kitchens. If she continued to tell herself that, she just might believe it.

ABBY SAT IN a crude wooden washtub and contemplated life and its mysteries. It gave her a headache, but she contemplated just the same. Garretts didn't shy away from the difficult.

No phone, no electricity, and no Mini Mart down the street. Things were looking grim. She looked around her and the grimness increased. Had she stumbled upon a pocket of backwoodsiness so undiscovered that it resembled something from the Middle Ages? The fire in the hearth gave enough light to illuminate a kitchen containing stone floors, rough-hewn tables and crude black kettles. Not exactly
Better Homes and Gardens
worthy.

Abby stood up and rinsed off with water of questionable cleanliness. She wasn't sure she felt much better. Even the soap Miles had given her was gross. She decided right then that she was a low fat person, especially when it came to soap. At least she thought she'd just washed with a glob of animal fat. She filed that away with half a dozen other things she would digest later. On the brighter side, though, at least she didn't smell so much like a sewer anymore. She'd splurge on a fancy bar of soap when she got home.

She dried off with a completely inadequate piece of cloth, then looked at what Miles had given her to wear: coarse homespun tights and a coarse linen tunic. Not exactly off-the-rack garments, but they would do. She put the clothes on,
sans
her dripping wet underthings, and found, not surprisingly, that Miles' hand-me-downs were much too large. They might have fit if she'd kept her oversized down coat on under them, but there was no wearing that at present. She kept the tights hitched up with one hand while she dumped her clothes and coat into the washtub with the other. She'd let them soak for a while. She didn't want to wash her leather Keds, but she had no choice. She dunked them in the tub a few times with everything else.

“Hachoo!”

The sneeze echoed in the great hall. Abby dropped her shoes in the tub and ran for the doorway. She slipped and skidded her way out into the large gathering hall. Miles was standing by the wood piled high in the middle of the room, sneezing for all he was worth. He looked at her and scowled.

“Dab cat,” he said, dragging his sleeve across his furiously tearing eyes.

“Where?” Abby said, looking around frantically. “Sir Sweetums! Here, kitty, kitty.”

She saw a flash of something head toward the back of the hall.

“Damn cat,” she exclaimed, taking a firm grip on her borrowed clothes and giving chase. “Come back here!”

“Abigail, wait!”

Oh, like Miles would be any help in catching the spirited feline. Abby scrambled up the tight, circular stairs, almost losing her balance and the bottom half of her clothes.