One Enchanted Evening by Lynn Kurland

Everard—though with the way Everard was studying the white-garbed faery, he wasn’t at all sure the man would be standing with him.
    “You take the maid,” Montgomery began.
    “Are you daft?” Everard said, wrinkling his nose. “I’ll take the lovely one, or none at all.” He paused. “I’d like a closer look at her, truth be told.”
    “You’ll have it later,” Montgomery said, though he had no intention of allowing the like. “Help me now by putting your cloak over this fair-haired lass so I can carry her inside. But do it carefully ,” he added. He didn’t want to say as much, but he wasn’t entirely certain that her wings, if that’s what they were, wouldn’t pain her if they were mishandled.
    “I want something dear in return for this,” Everard said, draping his cloak over the woman on Montgomery’s left. “I want something very dear.”
    “Name it later,” Montgomery said. He suddenly found himself very reluctant to hand over the dark-haired girl, but he knew he had no choice. He couldn’t carry two of them at once. He would simply have to trust that Everard wouldn’t do much damage to the dark-haired lass before he could return. He lifted the blonde up, then paused just the same. “That one’s hardly responsible for her smell, you know.”
    Everard only scowled at him and kept the lass at arm’s length.
    Montgomery supposed he could ask for nothing else. He took a deep breath, then walked swiftly across the drawbridge and under the gates. He entered the hall to find the occupants too far into their cups to notice him, thankfully, and walked quickly to the stairs that led up to the upper passageway. The stairway was difficult to negotiate with a woman in his arms—especially considering her wings—but he managed it. He gained the upper passageway, hastened to his bedchamber, and found Phillip standing outside the doorway. Phillip was watching him with very wide eyes.
    “Don’t ask,” Montgomery warned.
    “I didn’t intend to, my lord,” Phillip said, swallowing convulsively. He opened the door, then stepped aside.
    Montgomery strode across the chamber and laid the woman down on his bed. He supposed he should have done something to make her more comfortable, but he honestly had no idea what that something would have been. He didn’t even dare pull Everard’s cloak off her, lest he touch something he shouldn’t—such as her wings—and offend her faerylike sensibilities. He could hardly believe he was entertaining the thought of her actually being such a creature with any seriousness at all, but perhaps there were truly things in the world that were beyond mortal ken—
    He rubbed his hands over his face. By the saints, he wanted nothing to do with this. He had affairs of his own to see to, affairs that would require all his attention. He had no use for a pair of helpless lassies who were from . . . well, he had no idea where they were truly from, but he couldn’t deny that something akin to magic had been involved with their arrival.
    The saints preserve him from it.
    “I’ve another one to fetch,” he said, turning suddenly to Phillip. “Guard this one, please.”
    “Of course, my lord.”
    Montgomery left his bedchamber, avoided an encounter with a rather inebriated Gunnild of Sedgwick on his way through the hall, and escaped into the courtyard unscathed. He walked swiftly through the gates, fully prepared to again see that very odd shimmer at the end of the bridge, but he did not.
    He also didn’t see any sign of either Everard or that poor, fragrant faery.
    He cursed himself succinctly, then turned and ran back along the bridge. There was no sign of either of the two in the cesspit, so perhaps Everard had found sense and brought the gel inside the keep. Montgomery could only hope the man hadn’t dumped her in the well to have done with her.
    He found her lying on the floor in front of the fire in the kitchens, apparently senseless and obviously the recipient of a