Read Online One Enchanted Evening by Lynn Kurland - Free Book Online Page B

suspected she had stepped back in time hundreds of years.
    Tess pulled into a car park that was nothing more than a few indentations in the grass, then stopped the car and turned it off. “Well?”
    Pippa hardly knew where to begin. The castle was, in a word, spectacular. It sat smack in the middle of a small lake that was so still, she might have been looking at a stretch of polished glass. From where she sat, she could only see two towers on each corner, though she supposed there were two at the back corners as well. The crenelated towers and walls were in mint condition, the stone clean and sound. All it was missing was the sound of horses and perhaps a guardsman or two walking along those towers with the business ends of their swords shining in the sunlight.
    She wanted to ask Tess to tell her again about the miraculous stroke of good fortune in winding up with the key to a castle she’d never expected to own, but maybe that could wait. She wasn’t one to believe in magic, but in this, she couldn’t deny that her sister’s life belonged in a fairy tale. And now to see the castle in person . . . Well, it was one thing to imagine how it might be as she’d been slaving away over costumes made just for the upcoming party; it was another thing entirely to see the reality sitting there in front of her.
    “I’d better write this in my diary,” Tess said, sounding amused. “My little sister, speechless.”
    “I’m not sure speechless begins to describe my condition,” Pippa managed. “I can’t believe this is yours.”
    “Neither can I. I pinch myself every time I drive up the way.” She pulled the keys out of the ignition and opened her door. “Let’s go inside.”
    Pippa got out, then paused. “What about Cindi?”
    “Maybe fairies will steal her.”
    Pippa smiled at Tess. “I knew there was a reason you were my favorite sister.”
    “Peaches is your favorite sister, but I know I’m always coming in a close second.”
    “Tess, you’re twins. I love you both equally.”
    “That’s because you can’t tell us apart,” Tess said airily. “You have to spread the love liberally on the off chance you’re sucking up to the wrong one.”
    “And here I was going to tell you that after today, you may have pulled ahead in the race.”
    Tess locked the car. “I deserve it, obviously. We’ll come back to get Princess Pukesalot later. If she wakes up, she can crawl over to the tea shop for something strengthening.” She linked arms with Pippa and tugged on her. “Let’s go inside. I can’t wait to hear what you think.”
    Pippa walked with her sister across the bridge that was indeed very stable and through a gate with three different sets of portcullis spikes hanging over it. She stopped in the courtyard and gaped. There was a garden in one corner, the stables and a smithy along one wall, then a little chapel tucked into the lefthand corner. Tess pointed to the big building dominating the other back corner.
    “That’s the great hall. We’ll go upstairs and put your stuff down, then I’ll let you rest for a bit before the madness starts.”
    Pippa trailed after her sister up the trio of stairs to the great hall, then had to stop on the topmost one. An enormous feeling of déjà vu swept over her—and she was intimately acquainted with all the ramifications of that . She immediately reclassified the sensation as a result of too much rich food at some point in the recent past, then carried on after Tess.
    But she couldn’t shake the feeling that somehow, at some point—no doubt still in a very vivid dream she couldn’t remember—she had walked where she was walking.
    Weird.
    She followed Tess inside a great hall that was just as amazing as the initial view of the outer walls. Tapestries measured in feet, not inches, hung down along the stone walls, and enormous fireplaces flanked the room, set into the wall and sporting gigantic stone hearths carved with scenes of stags and boars. There were