Much Ado In the Moonlight (20 page)

“She described a very tall, exceptionally handsome Highland laird,” Helen continued, “youngish but in full command of his surroundings, who was graciously allowing my daughter to use his castle for her production.”

“I daresay your son seems to think he owns the bloody place,” Connor said, grasping for something to say. Exceptionally handsome? By the saints, were these McKinnon wenches going to forever keep him off balance?

“We know better, now, don’t we?” she said with a smooth smile. “I can see that my mother didn’t quite give you the credit she should have for graciousness.”

“Your mother is kinder to me than I deserve,” Connor managed. “She is a lovely woman.”

“She is.” Helen looked at him for a moment or two longer, then smiled again. “Thank you for watching over Victoria. She needs it, though she’ll never admit it. I can see why it would be easy for her to rely on you.”

And with that she left him behind, walking on as if she hadn’t a care in the world. Of course, it wasn’t hard to leave him behind, given that she had fair frozen him in his tracks.

Yet another McKinnon wench to admire.

Surely the world would end soon.

He managed to get himself within several feet of Victoria’s family without being noticed. He listened to them discuss the possibilities, the concerns, the complete improbability of their grandmother being kidnapped. Then Victoria’s sire apparently wearied of the discussion, for he broke away from the group and started to tramp off over the farmer’s field.

Thomas caught him by the arm.

“Don’t, Dad.”

“Don’t what?”

“Look at the flowers in that grass. See how they form a ring? You shouldn’t step inside that.”

Lord McKinnon looked at his son as if he’d never seen him before. Connor shared his sentiments precisely. Had Thomas gone completely daft? Had marriage to Iolanthe MacLeod been
that
taxing?

“Why not?” Lord McKinnon asked.

“Just trust me,” Thomas said.

“What’s there? Poisoned oak? Snakes? Aggressive spiders?”

“Nothing so commonplace. Just stand back and let me look around for another minute.”

Connor watched as Thomas walked about the flowery ring, studying it here, bending to look at it there, as if he actually found something interesting about weeds growing in a circle.

“Daft,” Connor muttered to himself.

Thomas finished with his inspection, then came to put his hand on his father’s shoulder. “Let’s go back to the inn. I have a friend to call who might know something about this. Actually, he’s a relative of Iolanthe’s. Let’s have him come look at this place before we go trampling all over it.”

Connor pursed his lips. Yet another MacLeod in the vicinity. Obviously, he was going to be troubled by them far into his afterlife.

He watched as the entire troupe headed back toward the inn. Victoria seemed to lag behind just a little bit. In time, she was walking a goodly distance behind her family and next to him. She looked up at him.

“Will you keep me company in the sitting room again tonight?” she asked.

“Nay.”

She looked up in surprise. At any other time, he might have been somewhat gratified by her look of disappointment. “Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry. I obviously misunderstood—”

“I won’t sit up with you because you need to sleep and you cannot sleep sitting up in a chair in that sitting chamber. Find a bed, Victoria, and make use of it. You do your granny no service by driving yourself thusly, though I do understand why you do it.”

“I don’t think I can sleep,” she said quietly.

“Come now, woman,” he said sternly, “must I threaten you with a proper haunting to force you to obey?”

She smiled wearily. “No. No, that’s incentive enough.”

He walked on with her, trying not to be overly gratified by her reaction.

The rest of the afternoon passed slowly, as did supper and the final sorting out of the chambers. It was well after dark before Victoria settled into the Boar’s Head Inn’s finely paneled Elizabethan library. Connor watched her go in, then waited an appropriate amount of time before he poked his head through the door to see that she slept.

She lay there with her hands folded over her chest, staring up at the ceiling, not having snuffed out the faint lamp-light first.

He found her in like condition through the first two watches of the night. An hour or two before dawn, he sighed, then walked through the door to sit down in one of the leather chairs before the hearth.

“Bloodshed or haunting?” he asked, resigned.

She turned her head to look at him. Even by the weak light of the lamp he could see that her eyes were quite bright, as if she had tears to shed.

“Am I to be involved in either the bloodshed or the haunting?”

“Normally, I would say you aye, but I fear it would keep you awake. I’m disappointed in your lack of mastery, Victoria McKinnon. You’ve troops to marshall on the morrow. A commander is not at his best when he’s bleary-eyed.”

She smiled. “You’re right.”

“I generally am.”

“Then tell me of hauntings,” she said, with a yawn. “I don’t want to hear about your life until I’m awake to enjoy it. Bore me with screams of terror.”

He hadn’t begun but his second tale before he realized that she slept. He stoked a fire with a flick of his wrist and watched her by that light.

By the saints, if he’d had a pair of wits to cast at each other to form a single thought of self-preservation, he would have taken himself and fled for his keep whilst his heart was still intact.

What if he was the match for her?

By the saints, ’twas a mighty thought.

But he couldn’t bring himself to think on it more. So he sat and watched her through what was left of the night. Let her think on him as a distraction, or a useful guardsman, or even as an unwanted protector.

Let her think on him at all and it would be enough.

Victoria
suspected the sitting room might be full of one too many Highland lords.

She sat in a chair and looked around her, wondering how it was that two months ago she had been living a perfectly normal existence in Manhattan, thinking about Shakespeare and reminding herself to buy enough Raid on the way home to take care of her perennial cockroach problem, yet now she was sitting in the cozy sitting room in an Elizabethan inn, surrounded by men—some of whom were actually alive—who would have been at home on a medieval movie set.

She first considered the man sitting across the coffee table from her: James MacLeod, Iolanthe’s grandfather. Maybe
Grandfather
was just a title of respect. Iolanthe called him
my laird
just as often, so maybe it was a Scottish thing Victoria just didn’t get. He was certainly too young to really be her grandfather, so maybe
Grandfather
was what you called a man who looked as if he wielded a sword every day just for fun and probably would have been just as at home if he’d been using it to do business with. He simply reeked of medieval lairdliness. If she’d been casting a
Braveheart
kind of movie, James MacLeod would have been her first choice for the star, regardless of whether or not he could act.

Weird.

Next to him sat her brother—no, never mind there about the Highland lord thing, though she had heard Iolanthe call him
my laird
on more than one occasion. That could be chalked up to morning sickness, no doubt. Thomas was tough enough, she supposed, but he had certainly never wielded a sword and she seriously doubted he’d gotten in any more fights than his barracuda lawyer Jake had gotten him out of. Fisticuffs? Victoria snorted. This was her brother and she knew just what a weenie he could be when he ran out of butter and sour cream.

Besides, a good look at him presently was enough to put the last nail in the coffin. He was wearing an apron and trying to convince Iolanthe to eat the oatmeal he’d made her. And given that just the sight of Thomas’s attempt at breakfast made Victoria want to puke, she suspected Thomas’s continued flirtation with domesticity wasn’t going to fly with his wife.

And it certainly disqualified him for lairdship.

But behind the couch, in a little lairdly row, stood Ambrose, Hugh, Fulbert, and Connor. All with their arms folded over their chests, all with thoughtful frowns on their faces, all looking as if a mere command from them would send lesser mortals scurrying to do their bidding.

Well, Fulbert looked as though he would have preferred to be sitting rather than standing, but he was doing his part.

“’Tis most interesting,” Jamie MacLeod was saying. “She simply vanished without a trace.”

“Leaving behind things she normally wouldn’t have,” Thomas said, with a look that spoke volumes.

Victoria wished she knew what books he was referencing. She revisited her plan containing ants and stakes. Iolanthe would survive it if he were in the hospital for a day or two, recovering from his interrogation session. There was something spooky going on.

And it had nothing to do with ghosts.

Jamie stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Well, I canna say for sure until I see the area—”

“Just a minute, if you don’t mind,” she heard herself say. “I’m a little confused here. Are you some sort of private investigator?”

Jamie smiled at her. “Nay, I’m not. I’m merely kin of Iolanthe’s. But I have some experience with the strange happenings in Scotland.”

Victoria could believe it. And since he seemed less than interested in telling her what those strange happenings might be, she could see that she would just have to tail him until she found out for herself.

Jamie rose. “Now, if Thomas would humor me—”

“Sure,” Thomas said. He turned to Iolanthe, who was curled up in an overstuffed chair, looking as though she’d much rather be in bed. “Will you be okay? I can leave the oatmeal here . . .”

She waved him away. “Take it, I beg you. I canna bear the smell of it.”

Thomas hesitated, then gave in. “All right. I’ll take this back to the kitchen and meet you guys outside.”

Victoria crawled to her feet. “Should I go get Mom and Dad?”

“No,” Thomas said quickly, shooting Jamie a look full of meaning. “I mean, let’s let them rest for the morning, shall we?” He smiled at Victoria. “Don’t you think?”

“I think a lot of things,” she began, “and one of them is—”

Thomas held up his hand suddenly. “Quiet,” he said urgently.

Victoria frowned. Was he having second thoughts about the oatmeal? Poor Iolanthe. “Thomas,” she said with a gusty sigh, “let’s just get—”

“Wait. I think I hear something.”

“That’s your wife moaning. Let’s leave her in peace.”

He tiptoed, oatmeal in hand, over to the door. He put his ear to it, then jerked it open suddenly.

Michael Fellini came sprawling into the sitting room.

Thomas reached down and helped Michael to his feet.

“Why, Michael,” he said in a friendly voice, “what a pleasant surprise.”

Michael brushed himself off stiffly. “I’m here because I was concerned that Victoria might be troubled over her grandmother’s loss.”

“How kind of you. Were you just going to knock?”

“Yes, that’s it,” Michael said quickly. “I was just about to knock.”

“Well,” Thomas said, putting his hand on Michael’s shoulder, “I’m sorry I opened the door so fast. That must have been a little embarrassing—you know, leaning on the door so hard before knocking that you fell right into the room.”

Michael huffed and puffed and came close to passing out from lack of oxygen. He looked at Victoria. “I was just concerned about
you
.”

“I’m fine,” she said, frowning. What in the world was he up to? “I appreciate the concern. Maybe you should just go practice your lines.”

“I know my lines,” Michael said.

“Then get your stuff together.”

“Why?”

“Mr. MacLeod needs a place to stay. We’re going to have to find another place for you and Denmark.”

Michael opened his mouth to protest, but Jamie stepped forward and extended his hand. Michael’s jaw continued on its downward course, rendering him, thankfully, quite speechless.

“Good of you,” Jamie said, shaking his hand firmly as he towered over Michael. “I’m James MacLeod. I’m here to help out with the search for Victoria’s grandmother.”

“Mr. Fellini is a very famous drama pedagogue,” Thomas said, “as well as a very accommodating human being. He’s already given up one room for me.”

“Kind of him to make yet another sacrifice,” Jamie said. “You didn’t hurt yourself falling into the sitting chamber, did you, Master Fellini?”

Michael apparently was incapable of shutting his mouth. Victoria watched, deeply suspicious, as he finally managed to get hold of himself long enough to leave the room and head back up the stairs, ostensibly to inform the King of Denmark that they were being kicked out yet again.

He did cast one last quite furious look back down the stairs, which he didn’t realize would be seen until he connected gazes with her.

He wiped all expression of his face.

She realized that she was very grateful he had been with her when her granny had disappeared. She would have suspected him of foul play otherwise. She wasn’t sure she didn’t suspect him of it anyway.

She watched him disappear upstairs and cursed herself under her breath. When would she cease to be bamboozled by people? She was a hard-boiled, hard-bitten, steely-eyed New Yorker. She was not taken in by shysters.

Handsome, talented, big-agent-card-carrying actors aside, apparently.

“All right,” Thomas said in a low voice, “I’ll make my kitchen run and meet you all out in the garden. Try to keep Dad out of this, Vic, would you?”

“Why?”

“It would be too much for him.”

And with that cryptic statement, he made tracks for the dining room. Victoria couldn’t imagine why they might find something her father couldn’t handle, but maybe Thomas knew more than she did.