A Midsummer Night's Romp (13 page)

“Oh, Gunner . . .” I swallowed hard, trying desperately to think of something to say. “I . . . I just . . .”

“She simply would rather dine with me than you.” Paul emerged from the RV with two covered plates, and a basket of rolls. He set them all down on the table, and cocked an eyebrow at Gunner. “I'm sure no more need be said.”

Gunner looked from the plates to me. His eyes, those pretty blue eyes, were as cold as polar ice. “No, nothing more need be said.”

“Wait,” I said, standing up. Earlier panic turned to despair in my gut at the sight of Gunner's cold expression.

“Don't bother, my dear.” Paul blocked me from going after Gunner, although I hadn't the slightest idea what I would say to the man if I did follow him. “I think the facts have been made clear to him at last. He won't be pestering you any longer.”

“Gunner, wait.” I shook off Paul's confining hand, my mind warring a battle of desperation and self-loathing.

Gunner stopped and looked back. “Yes?”

“There's . . . I don't want you to think . . . it's just that . . .” I swore to myself, wanting more than anything to explain it all to Gunner—from Sandy's horrible
betrayal, to my plan to save others, right on down to the fact that I had a hard time keeping my hands off him—but the memory of Sandy had me clamping my lips closed. That and the knowledge of what he'd think of me should I tell him the truth.

“It's just what?” Gunner asked, his voice as arctic as his eyes.

“I'm sorry,” I finally managed to say. “I'm just . . . sorry.”

“Indeed,” was all he said before he resumed his trip back to his castle.

My stomach gurgled, warning me that swallowing all that emotion was going to have dire consequences if I didn't relax.

Paul, smirking at Gunner's back, pushed me back into the chair. “There, now. We can have a quiet dinner without any further interruptions, just you and me, and your fascination with archaeology . . . and archaeologists.”

He gave me a smile that I was fairly certain he thought was seductive, and whipped the covers off the plates with a flourish. Rich, hearty scents wafted upward. I stared down at what was probably a nice coq au vin, but appeared to me to be a nauseating blob.

“Bon appétit.”
He lifted his untainted glass to me. It was a banner of both my failure and my triumph of sorts. “And can I add that it's been a long time since I had such a charming dinner companion?”

My throat hurt from keeping things down when they wanted to come up. I fought my stomach, almost shaking with the effort to sit in the chair.

“Now, then. I expect you have a good many questions about what it is I do. But first, a bit about my background. I went to the University of Exeter more years ago than I care to admit.” He gave a light little laugh and shoveled a forkful of food into his mouth. “I was named promising
young archaeologist for three years in a row during my college years—which no doubt was why Monsieur Claud-Marie snatched me up as soon as I graduated.”

My stomach turned over on itself a couple of times. I focused on breathing, taking one little sip of water to see if that would help the situation.

“I headed up a dig in Turkey my first year with CMA, and was responsible for leading the team that uncovered the temple at Ankara.”

The water was a mistake. My innards all seemed to lurch to the left. I turned to the side, panting slightly in hopes that it would ease the nausea.

“You're not eating, my dear. Is something the matter?”

I opened my mouth to excuse myself, but things started moving of their own accord, so I leaped to my feet and dashed around the front of the RV, hoping to make it away from the row of vehicles before my stomach unloaded itself.

“Are you all—oh.” Paul stood at the front of the RV. “Erm . . . yes. Just so. I can see you are unwell. I had no idea. . . . You should have told me. . . . Perhaps it would be best if we put off dinner for another night?”

I looked up from where I was on my hands and knees retching into the still-warm earth. With the back of my hand, I wiped a tendril of slobber from my lips, and said simply, “Good idea.”

To my relief, he didn't stay around and try to help me—although I was willing to bet if I puked up my guts in front of Gunner, he would have at least offered to get me a glass of water. Paul simply wished me well, and took off at a fast walk, heading in the direction of the archaeology team.

It looked like Fidencia would get her fancy dinner after all, I thought with a wry twist of my lips. Assuming she forgave Paul.

What the hell was I going to do now that I had clearly failed my one goal? Despondently, I staggered back to my tent, brushed my teeth, brushed my tongue, brushed my teeth again, and then lay down on my air mattress and wished I were dead.

“Self-pity,” I told the tent rails, “is never as satisfying as you think it's going to be. Dammit. I'm not going to get any sleep until I go fix at least one thing I've screwed up.”

All the way to the castle I lectured myself, pointing out that people who had intended on conducting an illegal act upon another person—no matter how well-intentioned—did not get to claim finer feelings toward those they've hurt. “Which means, you idiot, that it's only right and proper for you to apologize to Gunner for hurting his feelings, but no, you don't get to feel noble about doing it. You shouldn't have hurt him in the first place. Own your mistakes—that's what Dr. Anderson always said.” I took a deep breath, marched up eight stairs, and considered the castle's wide double doors. “Awkward. How are you supposed to enter a bona fide castle? Do I knock? Is there a doorbell? Will there be a butler, and if so, do I have to tell him I want to apologize to Gunner because I was an ass?”

I faced the doors, took a deep breath, and then, before I lost courage, opened one of them and poked my head inside. “Hello?”

In front of me was a large room that pretty much fit all my ideas of what a grand hallway should be. Across the big stretch of black-and-white tile stood a fireplace large enough to roast the tent that Cressy and I inhabited. There were also several antique-looking chairs, banners, crossed swords on the walls, and murky paintings of indistinguishable scenes—pretty much everything that you'd expect to see on a movie set of a medieval castle. There were also blue rope barriers with little signs at
various spots. “Clearly the tourist section of the castle. Hmm.” I entered the hall and, after a quick look around for any directional signs (
This way to the master of the house's hunky brother
would have been handy, but, alas, did not appear to have been installed), began my search.

I tried to keep myself to the public rooms as much as possible, feeling for some reason that it made my presence less intrusive, but after going through four rooms with no sign of life, I branched out and headed down a hallway that had been roped off.

From there, it was simply a matter of following my nose. Little wafts of onion and garlic kept me pointed in the correct direction until I rounded a corner and found myself at the entrance to a surprisingly small kitchen. Seated at a table that had been pushed up against one wall were Gunner, Cressy, and Salma, all of whom bore identical expressions of surprise when I came to an abrupt halt.

“Oh. Here you are. Um. I'm sorry if I'm trespassing, but I wanted to explain about earlier.” I summoned up a smile for all three of them. “It was nice of you to check on me, and I thought it was only right that I explain what happened.”

Gunner set down a fork loaded with salad. His face, which had been wearing a happy expression, iced over. “I think the explanation of what happened is fairly clear. You preferred to have dinner with Thompson rather than us.”

“No, honestly, I didn't. I don't. He's . . . he's . . .” I stopped, aware that once again I was about to bare my conscience, and that would never do. I might be a horrible person and a coward to boot, but I didn't have to let Gunner know all that. “Oh, it doesn't matter what Paul is. What does matter is that I asked Cressy to tell you I was not having dinner with you, when I should have had
the balls to do it myself.” I paused, distracted. “I really hate that expression. Why do balls signify courage? Women have just as much courage as men. Why isn't it ‘I should have had the uterus to tell you'? Why are balls the standard of bravery?”

“Ovaries,” Cressy said around a mouthful of garlic bread.

I waited for my stomach to lurch at the sight and smell of it, but it seemed to have settled down. In fact, I felt the faintest gurgles of hunger around the edges. “‘Ovaries' is better. You should have had the ovaries to tell Gunner that you'd rather have dinner with Paul than us, although honestly I don't know why you would. Do you fancy him?”

“Cressida!” Salma said, dabbing at her lips with a napkin. “You know better than to ask such a personal question. No doubt Lorina had a perfectly sound reason for preferring dinner with Mr. Thompson, although I will admit I'm hard put to imagine what that could be.”

My courage—in the form of ovaries or balls—fell in the face of Salma's gentle chastisement. I felt lower than a worm's belly at that moment, especially since Gunner was still considering me with that frozen nonexpression. “It's . . . there's . . . I have this plan, you see . . . and . . .” I stopped, aware that they were all staring at me. With a sigh, and shoulders that slumped a good two inches, I waved a wan hand. “It's a long, long story, and not one I can tell.”

“So in fact you came here to explain why you chose to spurn my invitation to dinner, but have no intention of actually presenting an explanation except to say that it's a long story and not one you can tell?” Gunner's voice, which before had reminded me of warm brandy sipped by a log fire on a cold winter's night, was now sharp and flinty and clipped. He reminded me of an upper-class character on any BBC drama.

“Yes, I guess that's what I'm doing.” Wearily, I rubbed a hand across my face. “I feel awful, and I want to apologize to you. To you all, but especially Cressy for using you as a messenger. I am truly sorry. I'll leave you now so you can get on with your family dinner.”

If I was hoping that they would stop me as I turned and left the kitchen, demanding that I stay and have dinner with them (or at least sit and chat while they ate) amid declarations that all was forgiven, and everyone was happy with me again, then I was in for a sad, sad reality.

No one stopped me as I left the room. No one said a word. No one chased me down as I found my way out of the castle and stomped my way across the grass and dirt to the tent camp. And two and a half hours later, when Cressy stumbled over my legs, cracked her head on one of the tent struts, and fell onto her air mattress while trying to get a shoe off, even then she said nothing to me.

Good job,
I told myself a short time later. Cressy had fallen asleep almost instantly, the soft, steady sound of her breathing reassuring in a fundamental way.
Good job not only blowing your entire plan to smithereens, but also alienating just about everyone you've met. Not only do Gunner, Cressy, and Salma hate your guts, but Paul no doubt thinks you're a weirdo, and Fidencia would gladly hang your scalp from her belt. Way to triumph, Lorina.

I groaned aloud. What was I going to do now that I had failed my plan, failed Sandy and all those potential other victims out there? I had to come up with another plan pronto. I gnawed my lip as I tried to find some way to get the sample I needed from Paul without resorting to drugging him, but my brain just whirled around miserably, not at all focused on Paul, but on Gunner, and how I had damned myself in his eyes.

I shouldn't care about his eyes, pretty though they are,
I argued with myself.
I don't need his approval, and just because he's the only man I've ever been comfortable with doesn't mean there's any sort of a future with him. Far from it—one of these days he's going to discover that I'm not a photographer, and then where will I be? Elbow deep in it, that's where. No, my girl, you stay away from him, and stick to Paul like glue. If I hang around him enough, I'm sure to think up some way to get the proof I need.

And if you don't think of something?
my brain asked, going right to the source of that particular worry.

“Oh, shut up,” I said aloud, and rolled over, ignoring a sleepy query from the other side of the tent.

“I
don't know how much more of this I can take.”

Salma turned from where she was watching Cressy. “I told you that I'd be happy to drive her to her lessons.”

“No, not
this
.” Gunner waved a hand at where a group of four women were cantering around an arena, on command periodically veering aside to take a low hurdle. One of the four was his daughter, so happy she almost danced when they arrived at the stable. It was a happiness that was contagious, but which sadly faded when Cressy was elsewhere. “I don't mind this. This is nice. This is Cressy having fun, and telling me I'm the best dad ever, and sending selfies of the two of us standing in front of some slobbering horse or other. This I like. What I don't like has been the last five days of hell.”

“Ah,” Salma said, returning to watch the action in the arena. “You mean the television show.”

“Yes. I thought it was going to be different. I thought I'd be able to get some time in doing actual digging. I didn't know that I'd be stuck babysitting a . . .” His lips tightened. He wouldn't say what he wanted to say about Lorina. He might not be a nobleman like his brother, but he had been raised to be a gentleman.

“A woman who knows nothing about the subject?” Salma finished.

He shot her a quick look. The tone of her voice was pure innocence, which instantly made him suspicious. “A woman who has lied to me since the first minute I saw her.”

“I understood that she made it clear from the beginning that she had no archaeological experience.”

“That's not what I'm referring to.” He made an abrupt gesture. “She's an irritating woman, and it's annoying to have to spend so much time on camera with her explaining various aspects of the dig.”

“That producer said that you two were quite the hit, though,” Salma protested in her gentle fashion. “He said you had obvious chemistry on-screen, and that viewers were saying how much they loved your sections.”

“Bah.” He waved the idea of viewer opinion away. “We have chemistry, all right. Doing the pieces for the camera is like acid eating away at my skin.”

“It would be unfair of you to expect Lorina to have any expertise in front of a camera,” Salma pointed out. “She is obviously more at home on the other side of the lens.”

“Bollocks,” he said shortly. “She's no more a photographer than my broken ankle is. That's the first thing she lied to me about.” He took a deep breath. “And it wasn't the last.”

“Perhaps
that
is what is really irritating you.”

Gunner swung around to face Salma. She was
considering him now with a slight smile, her pale blue eyes expressing faint amusement. “You mean my ego?” He shrugged, and applauded when Cressy took a turn alone going over a series of three low jumps. “I've been turned down by women before, Salma. I don't really give a damn if Lorina prefers another man to me.”

“Now who's telling an untruth?”

“Stop it,” he said, not bothering to look at Salma. He didn't want to face the hurt that seemed to lace every interaction he'd had with Lorina for the last five days. The only time he had any respite was when he was chauffeuring Cressy to and from her lessons, and even then, her joy and general state of happiness was affecting him less and less.

“Very well, but before I leave the subject alone—one that you brought up—I'd like to point out that it's not wise to always believe what your eyes see.”

He pursed his lips for a few seconds. “Are you referring to the fact that Lorina is spending an inordinate amount of time with Paul, a man she professes to want to be with, yet obviously can't wait to get away from?”

“That, and the fact that you appear to be a coldhearted man who hasn't the graciousness to accept an apology, and yet I know for a fact you are just the opposite.”

That startled him into spinning around again to face her. “It wasn't just me she insulted that night she didn't bother to come to dinner!”

“She sent her regrets via Cressy, so we were not expecting her.”

“The very fact that she dumped us—you and Cressy as well as me—in order to have dinner with that weasel in human form proves that she has no finer feelings to hurt, as you are implying I have done.”

“You don't know what her feelings are, though, do you?”

“I know she can't wait to get away from me in order to hang around that bastard Thompson,” he snapped, and was instantly contrite. “I'm sorry, Salma. I have no quarrel to pick with you. It's just . . .” He rubbed his head much as Lorina had done a few days before, when she had unexpectedly appeared in his kitchen. “I'm not sleeping well, and this business with the filming is wearing me out.”

“Yes, I imagine a painful conscience is not a pleasant thing to bear.”

“
I'm
not the one who has anything to be sorry about,” he protested. “
I'm
the victim!”

“Pfft.” Salma stood and clapped lightly when Cressy and her classmates paraded around the arena before riding to the stable block. “When you stop acting like an adolescent who's had his feelings hurt, and start acting like a man who is interested in a woman who quite clearly is just as interested in him, then you'll be able to sleep at night.”

“Haven't you heard anything I've said?” Stiffly, Gunner got to his feet, and with the assistance of his crutches, hobbled after Salma toward his car. “Lorina can't stand being with me. The second those blasted TV spots are filmed, she's off to watch Thompson dig at his trench. That's not a woman who is so smitten that she would invade a man's house just to tell him she can't explain why she dumped him.”

“Isn't it? It seems to me that it would take a great deal of courage, testicles and ovaries notwithstanding, to face a man in just such a situation. It also bespeaks a sensitivity and concern for the goodwill of the man in question. You simply have to ask yourself why she would do so if she didn't care what you thought about her.”

“Ha!” he said without a shred of mirth. “That's all part of the mysterious front she puts out, no doubt to
snare unwary men like myself who love a challenge. She lures us in with promises of hidden depths to reveal, and a vulnerable, damaged psyche in need of protection, not to mention the tantalizing secrets that she is no doubt keeping. Oh, it's all there, and it snared me good and proper, but I won't have it anymore—do you hear me? I refuse to be intrigued and protective and tantalized.”

“Yes, I can see that you do. Cressida, my dear, you were splendid. Your seat seems to be coming along quite nicely.”

Cressida, with a saddle slung over one arm, and a bridle flung over the opposite shoulder, bounced over to them. “Thanks, Gran. I didn't think I'd get the chance to do the triple combination today, but Madame Leigh said I did so well yesterday that she'd let me try one of the low ones. And it was a blast! Gunner, are you sure you wouldn't like to get a horse? I'd be happy to take care of it while I'm here this summer.”

Gunner, who had been crutching slowly toward them, didn't answer for a minute. He hadn't once forgotten the mysteries that seemed to wrap around Lorina, but perhaps Salma was correct. Perhaps he should look beyond the appearance of Lorina to what she truly was.

“No,” he said aloud, answering his own question.

“Balls,” Cressy said in response, flinging the tack into the back of his car. “I didn't think you'd do it. Madame Leigh says there's a nice jumper for sale, too.”

“Hmm?” He held the door open for Salma before limping his way around to the other side of the car. “Oh, no, no horse. Not until you're done with school; then we can talk.”

“Really? Yay! That's only a year away. Mom says I have to go to the University of Alberta, but if I went to school in England, then I could live with you and could take care of a horse.”

Cressy prattled away happily during the drive back to the castle. Gunner listened to her with half his attention, the rest being focused on what he'd say to Lorina the next time he saw her.

As that turned out, it was a lot sooner than he imagined.

“There you are!” He'd just put away the car when Roger loped toward him, trailing Tabby and Matt and their accompanying equipment. “We've been looking all over for you. We've had an exciting find, and Sue wants you and Lorina to explain it to the audience.”

Gunner glanced at his watch. “Isn't it rather late? Couldn't we do it in the morning?”

“Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today,” Roger said sagely, despite the fact he was somewhat out of breath.

Tabby grinned at Gunner. He rolled his eyes.

“All right, but I hope Sue isn't going to make this a lengthy piece. I intend to spend the evening with my daughter at the local cinema.”

“I'm sure you'll be done well in time for your movie. Tabby! You and Matt go with Gunner. I have to meet with costuming about an idea I had regarding slaves. . . .”

Gunner watched him go, slowly turning toward the field with the trenches. “I suppose Sue will be there.”

“Bound to be,” Tabby answered, giving him a little shove. He hobbled the few feet to where the scooter stood, and sat down heavily on it. “You know she never misses a chance to be there when you're filming. I think she fancies you.”

Matt snickered.

“I hope not. She could do better than a bloke like me.” The scooter bounced over the lumpy earth, jarring more than just Gunner's teeth. He didn't know whether it was seeing his brother and closest friend, Elliott, so head over
heels in love with his new wife, or whether there was something in Gunner that had slowly been changing over the years. Or hell, it could just be something about Lorina that had him thinking that maybe Elliott had it right.

Maybe it was time to think about giving up the carefree days of his youth. After all, he was a man with a seventeen-year-old daughter, one who was impressionable. He had a sudden vision of a few years hence, stumbling home from yet another casual encounter only to find Cressy in the same situation. Was that the sort of message he wanted to give her? He had to be a role model now, and the thought that his Cressy, his bright, shining, happy girl, could stagger home doing the walk of shame made him grind his teeth.

He'd be damned if he let her follow in his footsteps! It behooved him to get, as the Americans said, his act together while he could still influence Cressy to the good.

It was with such noble intentions that he bounced his way across the field to an open trench. Clustered around it were Sue, the other two sound- and cameraman teams, whose names he could never remember, Paul Thompson, Lorina, and a couple of diggers who looked hot, tired, and dirty.

He didn't fail to notice that Thompson was as fresh as if he'd just stepped from a shower in an expensive hotel.

“There you are!” Sue called loudly as he pulled to a stop. “We've been looking everywhere for you, you silly man. Didn't you hear us call for you on the radio?”

“I was watching my daughter take her riding lesson, so I didn't have the radio with me,” he answered, getting off the scooter and maneuvering to the other side of it so as to force Sue to drop her hold on him. Unbidden, his eyes went to Lorina, but she was on her knees next to the trench, using a small toothbrush on a bit of stone. “What's the big find?”

“It's so exciting! Let me do a short piece to introduce it,” Sue said, pointing dramatically to the trench while smiling at the camera that Tabby obligingly turned on. “As our viewers remember, four days ago we uncovered the first signs of the large building buried under this field, and several outbuildings, including one that was snuggled up right next to Ainslie Castle itself. Following that was the excitement of the skeletons of seventeen poor souls that we found in the trench we'd put in the grove. The last of those skeletons was taken out earlier today, which is why we decided to take a peek at what was in this trench. About an hour ago we found some plain tesserae, and Paul Thompson told me that he had hopes that we'd uncover a painted mosaic. And now, his hope has been fulfilled. Take a look at what Paul found just a short hour ago.”

“Mosaic, eh?” Despite himself, he was interested. One of the things that he'd hoped for was proof of a Roman villa on the grounds of the castle. Local history had claimed there was once a fort, but Gunner had hoped for a more personal building, one that had housed a family, not a group of soldiers bent on subduing the population by force. “That sounds unusual for a fort. Ah, yes, I see what you mean. That is outstanding, truly outstanding.”

Paul moved aside to reveal an uneven surface about a yard wide, made up of small, roughly square stones that had been painted in what once must have been glorious blues, greens, and reds. The colors formed waves and swirls, clearly meant to depict an aquatic scene.

Sue signaled to Tabby, who stopped filming. “I think my introduction set up a segment for you to explain to Lorina the importance of painted tesserae over the plain ones, and then Paul can take over with the more technical talk. Tabby?”

Carefully, Gunner sat down at the edge of the trench,
swinging his legs into it before cautiously making his way over to where the mosaic was exposed. Paul and the diggers moved out of the way, standing behind the film crew. Gunner cocked an eyebrow at Lorina. She was still on her knees on the ground next to the spoil pile, frowning over the piece of stone.

“Lorina, if we could have your attention for just a few minutes, we'd all be ever so appreciative.” Sue's voice was acid, but Lorina didn't seem to notice it.

She glanced up, blinked twice, and said hurriedly, “Oh, sorry. I was just . . . sorry. Yes, of course.” She jumped down into the trench and, without even so much as sending a look his way, squatted next to Gunner, donning the expression that he'd come to think of as her pliant face. It was devoid of expression, no doubt intended to leave the viewers to believe she was stupid and needed to have everything explained to her. It irritated Gunner, who knew full well that she had as sharp a mind as anyone there—sharper, if her deceptions were anything to go by.