"A backdrop?"
"My castle. It's yours. I'd even fund your entire cast's trip over here for a month to do your play. By the way, what are you doing?"
"Hamlet" she said, sounding rather breathless.
"Perfect."
"But what about me?" Tiffany screeched. "What about me?"
Victoria gave Tiffany a look that should have put a heavy layer of frost on her. "Your luggage, Tiffany."
"I'm not going anywhere!"
Thomas looked at Tiffany. "Go back to New York, Tiffany."
"I will not!"
"I'm paying the protestors to picket your dad," he said curtly.
She gaped at him.
"It's payback for him taking over my company."
"You were ignoring me," she whined. "I had to get your attention somehow."
Thomas looked at his sister. "Get her back to the airport, please. I consider this entirely your fault."
"I agree," she said crisply. "I was taken in by her charming ways, but I've seen the light. I'll make sure she gets on a plane."
"You will not!" Tiffany protested.
"Don't mess with me, Tiffany," Victoria said, steel lacing her tone. "I know personally most of your favorite designers. I'll tell them you're recycling their clothes in consignment shops. Cheap consignment shops."
Tiffany made inarticulate sounds of horror. Thomas grunted, then left Tiffany in the capable hands of his sister, who really had missed her calling in life. She should have been running someone's army, not keeping two dozen jumpy actors in line. Well, if anyone could get Tiffany out of the country, it would be Victoria. Thomas didn't give her another thought.
He brushed past the women, then trotted up the stairs to the guest room. He grabbed his sword, then made his way back down the stairs and back through the kitchen before he realized what he held in his hand.
What did he need a sword for?
To prod Tiffany into the car with it?
"And just where do you think you're going with that?" Victoria asked, washing up her mug. "Are you going to stab your little girlfriend in apology?"
Thomas stopped abruptly. "What did you say?"
"Your girlfriend, Iolanthe. She was just here a few minutes ago. I'm surprised you didn't see her on your way in."
"Iolanthe was here?" he asked. He could hardly believe how lousy that timing was. "She met Tiffany?"
"I wouldn't worry about it," Victoria said, turning and leaning back against the sink. "Iolanthe pulled a knife on your former fiancée. She can hold her own."
"Where did she go?"
"To take a hike. Literally," Victoria added quickly. "I'm not making that up."
Thomas grunted at her. "Come back when Tiffany's gone, and I'll give you the whole story. I'm sure it will be quite different from the one you brutalized from your helpless little sister."
"You'd be surprised ..."
He left the kitchen and slammed the door shut on the rest of her words. He'd heard more than enough. He could only hope Iolanthe hadn't hiked into his life to hike right back out of it. He stood in Ian's back meadow and wondered where the best place was to start looking for her.
And then, quite suddenly, Duncan was standing in front of him.
"She's in the high meadow," he said quickly. "Lord Charles is there as well."
"What?" Thomas asked incredulously.
Duncan waved away any more questions. "Just follow me and make haste. She can't see me—or anyone else who's there trying to aid her."
Thomas sprinted after Duncan, praying he would arrive in time. How had Charles found the time gates? The very thought of it boggled his mind. How could he possibly have stumbled upon them on his own? Had he been spying on them?
They should have been more cautious. Charles had probably followed them all the way up the road from Artane. Iolanthe had tried to convince him not to go that way. He should have listened.
How, though, had the man gotten all the way to Scotland? Had he used the gate at Falconberg? Jamie had said that was the only gate in England that would transport a person not only through time, but straight to Jamie's backyard. Thomas couldn't believe that Charles had walked all the way from twenty-first century England to Scotland over the past three weeks.
Then again, maybe he had.
Well, the particulars were unimportant. What was important was stopping the man before he finished the job he'd set out to do. Thomas suspected that he wouldn't have another chance to save Iolanthe's life. That was Jamie's other caveat. In all the times he'd used his gates, he'd never once gone to exactly the same spot in time. It was, according to him, a one-time thing.
Thomas didn't want to test the theory.
He blessed Ian silently as he ran all the way to the meadow and arrived there unwinded. Maybe all those endless, brutal hours of training had been worth it. He was in better shape than he had been before Everest. He burst through a little grouping of trees and came to a teetering halt twenty paces from where Charles stood waiting.
With his sword across Iolanthe's throat.
Thomas looked around to see not only Ambrose, Fulbert, Hugh, and Duncan, but every member of Iolanthe's garrison from Thorpewold there as well. Even Connor MacDougal stood there, a ferocious frown on his face.
"So," Charles said conversationally, "you decided to come fetch your little wench yet again."
"So it seems," Thomas agreed. He looked Iolanthe over quickly and decided that she hadn't been harmed.
Yet.
"This time," Charles snarled suddenly, "I have the advantage."
"Do you?" Thomas asked.
Iolanthe flinched as Charles pressed his blade more firmly against her neck.
"Yes, I can see that you do," Thomas conceded quickly. "What do you want?"
"Since I've already discovered the secret of traveling through time, I'll now have the jewels in the fireplace."
Thomas smiled grimly. "So you heard us."
"Aye, talking like a pair of babbling fools," Charles said. "Now, get me the cache in the fireplace, and let me be on my way."
"I will when you let her go. You don't need her now."
"Don't I?" Charles asked with an ugly
