Much Ado In the Moonlight (33 page)

“Of course, dear.”

Connor looked at Victoria who was rolling her eyes quite vigorously. He shared her sentiments perfectly. Now, if they could have, in good conscience, left Fellini to his fate in Renaissance London, he would have been content. But they couldn’t have, again in good conscience, left him to rot in some madhouse—which was where he would have found himself if he had at some point begun to make any sense to the Elizabethans.

Connor sighed. It looked as if more overacting would be the dish of the day, as it were, for as long as Michael was serving things up on the boards of Thorpewold Castle.

Connor walked along behind the cart, feeling more confident with every step that they had come back to the proper point in time. He had almost decided to run ahead for help when help arrived in the persons of James MacLeod and Thomas McKinnon.

“We’ll carry him,” Thomas said. Then he came to an abrupt halt some ten paces away. “Then again, maybe we’ll watch you keep pulling him. He reeks.”

“Nice to see you, too,” Victoria said tartly. “Yes, we had a successful trip, yes, we found Michael and Granny, and yes, I saw the Globe and met Shakespeare.”

Thomas looked at her in shock. “You’re kidding.”

Connor watched as she suddenly broke into a smile such as he had never seen before. It was one of wonder, disbelief, and elation.

“I did,” she said, sounding almost giddy.

“What did you say to him?”

“Not a thing,” she said happily. “I just listened to him shoot the breeze with Mary. But he kissed my hand.”

“He kissed my hand
and
both my cheeks,” Jennifer put in, grinning. “I think Vikki scared him. She was totally starstruck.”

“I’ll just bet,” Thomas said, looking equally pleased. He gave Mary a big hug. “Granny, good to see you.”

“You too, love,” Mary said. “Thanks for the cavalry. Our good Laird MacDougal was fierce enough to keep all thugs at bay and we’re very grateful to him.”

Connor waved her words aside dismissively. There was so much more he could have done, but it was behind them and he was damned grateful for it. He watched Victoria, Jennifer, and Mary walk ahead while Thomas pulled Fellini. He hung back, to give them time to celebrate their successful mission. James MacLeod fell back to walk along with him.

“How was it?” Jamie asked.

“Difficult,” Connor said quietly. “Frustrating. Dangerous for the women. They were accosted the moment we arrived and though I used my fierceness to its utmost advantage, the ruffians soon saw what I really was.”

“How did you best them?”

“I used what poor strength I have with things from the mortal world and managed to plunge a sword into the leader’s back.” He paused. “’Tis a miracle I didn’t stab Victoria, as well.”

“Let us hope such heroism is not called for again any time soon. Though I daresay you would be equal to it in any case.”

Connor looked at James MacLeod and allowed himself—now that the danger had passed—to wonder. The man certainly seemed comfortable in his modern clothing, but there was something about him that hinted at a life lived in more primitive circumstances. He cleared his throat.

“You aren’t modern, are you?”

Jamie only lifted one eyebrow and smiled. “What do you think?”

“I suspect . . . thirteenth century. Late thirteenth century. Perhaps early fourteenth.”

Jamie shrugged, with another easy smile. “Very perceptive.”

“But you came to the Future.”

“I did. I married a girl from the Future. She had accidently, or fortuitously if you prefer, traveled back to my time. We loved, wed, and planned to live out our lives in my day. But when I escaped death at the hands of my enemies, I saw that there was no reason for me not to come forward with her.”

“Hence your experience with the time gates.”

Jamie grinned. “Och, but that would imply I’d used them but once and you
know
that cannot possibly be the case.”

Connor found himself smiling, as well. “Where have you gone?”

“Where haven’t I gone?”

Connor laughed in spite of himself. “That poor wench you wed. How she must fret.”

“Aye, well, she’s come along on enough adventures of her own. Not so often now that we have wee bairns, but there will no doubt come a day when she joins me again.”

Connor sighed. “It must be a pleasant life.”

Jamie nodded. “It is and I’m grateful for it.”

“How did you find the modern world?” Connor asked. “At first?”

“’Twas startling at first,” Jamie said with a smile. “But I’ve accustomed myself far too quickly to its wonders. I’m equally curious how you have found watching the events of history parade before you in all their glory.”

“Startling at first,” Connor repeated easily. “I wished I could have done more than terrify the occasional Englishman. I was there at the ’45, but the Highlanders were so overwhelmed, there was little I could do. For the most part, I have stayed at Thorpewold.” He paused. “I wish I had traveled more. I could have been more use to my country thusly.”

“We all have regrets,” Jamie agreed. “You were of great service to Victoria just recently. That counts for much.”

Connor nodded, and supposed there was truth to that.

It was cold comfort, though.

“I would trade it all,” he said, half to himself, “for an hour, nay, but a handful of moments . . .”

“I’m sorry for that,” Jamie said quietly.

Connor nodded in acknowledgment of the understanding, then blew out his breath. There was no sense in thinking on it. He was what he was and could not change it, no matter how much he might have wanted to. He continued down the road with Jamie, glad for the companionship and the silence.

It was quite some time later that Thomas and Jamie both managed to get Fellini to the front door. Mrs. Pruitt met them there but refused to allow him inside.

“I will not allow something that smells thus into me fresh-smelling entryway. Take him away and hose him off.” She looked at Jennifer. “Ye don’t smell very nice, either. Nor,” she said, sniffing in Victoria’s direction, “do ye.”

“We could use showers,” Victoria conceded. “Can we come in if we promise not to touch anything and swear to put our clothes into the dustbin after we’ve changed?”

Mrs. Pruitt considered. “I’ll find plastic bags for ye to lay your gear on. Don’t lay anything on the carpets.” She looked at Mary. “Dear Mary, ye look a sight. You may come into the kitchen and I’ll be about fixing ye a lovely tea. How is it ye’re so clean?”

“I stayed with nobility,” Mary said easily, going inside the inn. “Knitting is a passport to all sorts of things, apparently. Do you knit, dear?”

“I tat,” Mrs. Pruitt said. “So easy to tuck into a pocket and work on when time permits. So, they were kind to ye?”

“Young William was wonderful,” Mary said as she disappeared into the dining room with Mrs. Pruitt. “Shakespeare, you know . . .”

Connor watched them go, then looked at the rest of the Renaissance contingent standing stranded in the doorway. “I say we heave Fellini into the bushes and be about our business.”

“Don’t tempt me,” Victoria said. “Thomas, what time is it?”

“A little after noon.”

“I need to shower and get with Fred and see how things have gone.”

“The play’s been fabulous,” Thomas said. “I’ve watched every night while you were gone—just to make certain no one flubbed their lines.”

“Or stuck their fingers up their noses,” Victoria said pointedly.

Connor clasped his hands behind his back. Fingers up noses? Embarrassing and likely career-ending. He wondered which actor in Victoria’s past had made such a grievous
faux pas
and ruined his chances to be her star.

“I don’t suppose you would deal with Michael,” Victoria said with a frown.

“Is he going to be angry he was fetched from Renaissance England?”

“Enormously.”

Thomas smiled. “I’ll take care of him, then. He won’t dare say anything nasty to me and it will be fun watching his head explode from the effort.”

Victoria looked at him closely. “Do you know something I don’t?”

“I think he harbors a secret desire to direct.”

She rolled her eyes. “Heaven help us. Connor?”

Connor found that she was looking at him. “Aye?”

“I’m going to get cleaned up, then head up to the castle. Do you want to come with me?”

Connor realized with a start that everyone was looking at him to see what he would say. Well, everyone except James MacLeod, who was allowing him some lairdly privacy.

He frowned. “I should go up to the castle myself,” he blustered. “To see how my garrison fares.”

“Great,” Victoria said with a yawn. “See you in a few.”

Thomas’s sense of decency apparently was only within reach until his sister disappeared inside. Then he turned to Connor and smiled pleasantly.

“She needs an escort. Apparently, you’re it.”

“You know,” Connor said conversationally, “I can wield a knife from your world. It would make quite a large hole in your chest.”

“Then you’d have to deal with Iolanthe, Victoria,
and
Fellini. I’d go wait for Vic and stay out of harm’s way if I were you.”

Connor snorted. “You have a reprieve, not a stay.”

Thomas made him a little bow. “Good of you. Now, I’ll go find a doctor. Let’s leave the heap out here until we absolutely can’t any longer. I don’t think he’ll get too sunburned. It is England, after all.”

Connor left him to it. He made Jennifer a low bow, thanked her for her company, thanked Jamie for his kind words, bestowed a hearty glare on Thomas, then walked around the side of the inn, where he could wait for Victoria in peace.

The saints preserve him.

He could attempt to fool her kin, but there was no fooling his heart.

He was lost . . .

What
a difference a day made.

Or two, or maybe three. Victoria yawned as she opened the library door and peered into the darkened entryway. She was having the same feeling of jet lag she’d had on her initial arrival in England. Maybe time-traveling was harder on a person than advertised. Jamie never looked anything but perky and well-rested, but she suspected that there wasn’t much that slowed him down. And he probably had spent his time in Elizabethan England frowning away bad guys instead of trying to corral a feverish, whining nutcase. And a bombastic, feverish nutcase at that.

And speaking of that nutcase, Michael Fellini was upstairs recuperating. Bombastically, if anyone cared.

It was enough to drive all sensible guests from the inn. The exodus had already begun the day before. Jamie had left for Scotland, no doubt anxious to be back home amid the heather instead of on the border amid the chaos. Victoria’s parents and her grandmother had gone with him to take in the sights.

Thomas and Iolanthe hadn’t ventured that far. They’d gone on a little sightseeing trip to Artane, a castle on the coast. They seemed to have been unusually eager to see it—and for Iolanthe and her pregnant self, that was saying something. Victoria had wanted to get to the bottom of it, but she’d had her hands so full keeping Michael under control that she hadn’t been able to investigate as she would have liked.

Jennifer had taken a train south to London, no doubt to regale Megan with all sorts of tales Megan would immediately and completely believe without question.

That those tales might be true was really beyond the scope of the argument at present.

Whatever the case, it left Victoria all alone in the inn, and for the first time in her life she wished she weren’t. Alone, that is. Alone with ghosts. Alone with ghosts that were most definitely not going to become anything but ghosts in the foreseeable future.

She paused. Perhaps she wasn’t as alone as she thought. Yes, there he went again. The lunatic upstairs to whom someone had mistakenly given a little servants’ bell.

“Doesn’t anyone down there hear me?” a faint, though surprisingly strong voice called plaintively.

Victoria jumped at a movement to her left. There, in the gloom, hovered Mrs. Pruitt’s face, lit from below by a single weak light, like something out of a spooky movie.

“I think,” Mrs. Pruitt said in a low voice, “that I might have to stab meself an actor.”

“
I
didn’t give him the bloody bell,” Victoria pointed out.

“Dr. Morris told me to,” Mrs. Pruitt said. She paused. “I’m finding the good doctor less attractive by the ring.” She considered that for a moment or two longer. “Distressing, as I found him quite to me taste a few days ago.”

“I thought you were sweet on Ambrose,” Victoria said.

“I’m hedging me bets,” Mrs. Pruitt said.

Then she smiled.

It wasn’t a pretty sight in the glow of the flashlight.

“I might,” she continued, “just have to call the good doctor and have him sedate the patient. For his own good.” She patted her hair self-consciously. “How do I look?”

“Ravishing,” Victoria said promptly. “Even better if you can get Michael to shut up. He’s ruining everyone’s sleep.”

“I’ll call the doctor,” Mrs. Pruitt said, pulling a mobile phone out of her pocket and heading upstairs with it.

Victoria wondered briefly if she intended to bean Michael with the phone, or phone the good doctor and let him do the honors. She stood in the middle of the entryway and listened closely.

The door opened.

Complaints wafted downward.

There was a screech cut artistically short.

Apparently Mrs. Pruitt was wielding her cell phone with great success. Victoria had no complaints. In fact, she was sick of complaints, and considering that’s all she’d had from Michael for the last indeterminate amount of time, she was happy to have him silenced for a bit. Ignoring the fact that a Kathy Bates
Misery
moment might be taking place upstairs, she moved toward the kitchen for a little something to help her sleep.