Much Ado In the Moonlight (30 page)

And he was far too uncorporeal to be of much use. He spent most of his time glaring at men who took second looks at the sisters. If he could intimidate by his sheer presence alone—which he was certain he could and had done on many occasions in the past—then he would do so and be content with that. He didn’t want to think about what might happen otherwise—especially given that he’d found that out firsthand in their first moments back in time. But he’d conquered that test in his usual fashion.

The saints preserve him should he have to, with his feeble, ghostly strength, keep Victoria and her sister safe.

He turned his mind away from those unproductive thoughts and set himself to watching for danger. He would at least be able to warn the sisters about coming trouble.

A pity he hadn’t been able to do so for his own heart.

Victoria
swaggered down the street with her sister and her... well, her not-friend, and wondered at the strangeness of her life. The sights, sounds, and most definitely the smells of Elizabethan London assailed her from every direction. Oddly enough, it didn’t smell all that different from some parts of Manhattan, especially in the height of summer. The sights, however, were another thing entirely. It was like a Renaissance Faire, only this was real.

And she was taking part in it with a medieval Highlander.

She was tempted to cue
Twilight Zone
music, but she forbore. For one thing, she didn’t want to draw any attention to herself. For another, she didn’t think her poor heart could take any teasing about her situation.

Having feelings for a man who was real but not?

Ridiculous.

But as she walked next to him and listened to him banter with her sister in Gaelic, it didn’t seem quite so ridiculous.

Her father would have had a fit if he’d known. Her mother would have quietly suggested that even though it was most likely Fate putting in its oar, she was probably better off resigning herself to the fact that she’d lost her mind. Her grandmother would only have looked on with raised eyebrows, then suggested a trip to some trendy Manhattan boutique for a funky wedding dress. Thomas would have laughed his bloody head off. She wondered, absently, what James MacLeod—he of the not-so-casual acquaintance with time-traveling gates—would have said.

One thing she did know: Mrs. Pruitt would want to get whatever happened with Connor all on tape.

“Are you picking up any of this?” Jennifer asked.

Victoria looked at her. “Picking up what?”

“Our Gaelic.”

“No,” Victoria said shortly. “I’m concentrating.”

“She’s distracted,” Jennifer said to Connor.

“I’m trying to keep us from getting lost. When was the last time you got directions in pre-King-James-Bible English?” She scowled at her sister. “Go back to your chatting in the native tongue and let me keep us from getting lost.”

“You know,” Jennifer said pleasantly, “you really should be paying attention. We could be talking about you.”

“Heaven help me,” Victoria muttered. But she looked up at Connor and smiled faintly.

He looked at her with something akin to friendliness. Then his expression changed to one of panic. “Duck!” he shouted.

Victoria ducked, but apparently not quite far enough. She straightened up and looked down at her sleeve.

“Well,” she said finally, “now I’ll at least smell like the locals.”

Jennifer wrinkled her nose. “You should wash that off.
Eau de chamberpot
is highly unpleasant.”

“Jenner, it isn’t as if the water is any better,” Victoria pointed out. “Did you see the washing water this morning? I think I would have been better off washing in beer.”

“You would have smelled better than you do now—”

“Duck!”

Victoria shoved her sister over toward the wall of the closest building. Connor leaped aside agilely and avoided the recent drenching Victoria had received. Not that it would have done him any damage. Victoria looked at him and could not believe how real he looked. If she hadn’t known better . . .

She took a deep breath and nodded in a forward direction. It was all that would save her from really losing it. “Down by the Thames,” she instructed. “The Globe is supposedly across the water from St. Paul’s. We’ll make it there if we can keep from getting mugged.”

“Connor will protect us,” Jennifer said confidently. She smiled easily at him. “You’re really intimidating.”

“Aye,” he agreed with a modest smile.

Victoria wondered how it was he could smile so easily at her sister and not at her.

Life was complicated.

The fact that she was a twenty-first century kind of gal traipsing around in Elizabethan England with her equally modern sister and a medieval ghost was proof enough of that.

She was torn between savoring the delights of a Renaissance Faire on steroids and worrying that someone would figure out she didn’t belong and boot her out the front gates. Here, though, it wouldn’t be just an ejection from the festival, it would be a little Elizabethan justice. Time in the stocks? A burning at the stake? A beheading?

Or maybe she would get lucky and just spend the rest of her life in the Tower of London. Were there any time gates in the Tower of London?

She suspected there weren’t.

She happily contemplated that for quite some time as she threaded her way through the crowds and did her best to follow the directions she’d been given. And then, quite suddenly, she found that she didn’t have to follow directions anymore.

“Oh,” Jennifer whispered. “Vikki, is that—”

“Yes,” Victoria said breathlessly. “The Globe.”

She walked forward in a daze. It was yet another in a long line of things that were just too unreal to get a handle on. The Globe Theater. Where Shakespeare had produced a great portion of his plays. Where he had starred himself in numerous productions.

Amazing.

“Victoria?”

She looked at Connor. “Yes?”

“You weren’t moving.”

“I’m absorbing.”

“Aye, well, perhaps you should absorb later. It looks as if a play is about to begin. Do you care to go watch?”

Victoria was horribly torn. What she needed to be doing was looking for her grandmother. Yet there, right in front of her, was the Globe Theater. She might even see Shakespeare on stage.

She chewed on her bottom lip for quite some time.

“I say we go inside,” Jennifer said suddenly. “Who knows who we might see? Maybe Michael got a part. That would at least solve one problem.”

Victoria exchanged a brief glance with Connor, then nodded. “All right, let’s go. It can’t hurt.”

“It can’t,” Jennifer agreed. “Come on.”

Victoria walked with her sister and her . . . friend across to the theater. But as she became part of the crowd, she found she could no longer ignore the reality of her situation. She was looking for her granny in a city of tens of thousands. It was exactly like looking for a needle in a haystack. She found that she could no longer ignore her very real doubts that they would be successful.

“Victoria?”

Victoria dragged her sleeve across her eyes. “What?”

“Crumble later. Buck up now.”

“Why did I bring you?” Victoria asked, blinking furiously. “I could have been happily having a nervous breakdown right about now if you weren’t here interrupting me.”

“Let’s go catch the play,” Jennifer said. “I have a good feeling about this.”

“You don’t smell like chamber pot.”

“I don’t, but I’m assuming everyone in the cheap seats will, so you’ll fit right in. Should I go sit up in the boxes with the somewhat-washed?”

“No, you should come stand with us,” Victoria said. “And you can walk on the outside on the way back to the inn and maybe you’ll be treated to the initiation rite.”

“Can’t wait,” Jennifer said cheerfully. “Let’s go.”

Victoria led the way. She paid, watching her hand as it handed over the coins and wondering why she felt as if she’d never seen it before. So she was hanging out with a ghost. That was one thing. Time-traveling was another thing entirely. Her hand shook as she pulled it back. She clenched it into a fist and tried to give the usher a manly smile as she led her little crew into the theater. She was sure she would get it together very soon—

But not today. She stood at the very back of the crowd standing on the floor of the Globe Theater and couldn’t help a brief, hysterical gasp of laughter.

Good heavens, she was in the
Globe
.

It was truly theater in the round. The stage jutted out into the crowd that was gathered on the floor in the cheap, standing-room-only area. Up above and behind her were boxes in which she could see men and women showing off their Elizabethan finery. But as fine as these accommodations were, they weren’t the ones for the super rich. Those folks were sitting behind the stage. Victoria knew that such was the case, but it was one thing to read about it in a dry historical treatise; it was another thing entirely to look back behind the stage and see lords and ladies wearing clothing that cost probably the equivalent of a year’s wages for all the plebeians standing on the floor.

They were certainly on display and, given that Shakespeare could be enjoyed just as much by the words alone, without any complicated scenery, Victoria supposed they were happy enough in their location.

It beat the floor. In the area for the huddled masses, there were no bathrooms, no garbage cans, and no in-between-the-movie workers to give the place a little tidy-up. Did the stench bother the actors? Victoria vowed to give her cast a serious lecture on the ease of their lives the next chance she had.

“What is this play?” Connor asked from behind her.

Victoria realized she had completely forgotten about him. She’d forgotten about Jennifer, too, so she suffered no pangs of guilt. She looked over her shoulder at him.

“I don’t know yet. How are you doing?”

“No one is screaming yet,” Connor answered grimly. “But the press is rather too close in here. We may yet find ourselves in a delicate situation if someone steps through me.”

“Let’s hope not.” She turned back to the stage. “Oh, here comes someone. Three someones.” She caught her breath. “It’s the Scottish play.”

“What?” Connor said.

“The Scottish play,” Victoria whispered over her shoulder. “Can’t say the name; can’t quote it unless you’re acting in it. It’s bad luck.”

“It’s
MacBeth
,” Jennifer said dryly. “I’m not an actor, so the dictum does not apply to me.”

“
MacBeth
,” Connor said thoughtfully. “Interesting.”

“And it’s beginning,” Victoria said. “Can you two be quiet, please?”

“Can you believe this?” Jennifer said in her best stage whisper. “At the Globe? In the cheap seats?”

“Standing through three hours of play,” Victoria pointed out. “Save your strength; stop using it to converse.”

The play began. Victoria, in spite of herself, felt the magic come over her. Great theater was great theater, no matter the century. But to see one of Shakespeare’s plays in the original venue with an all-male cast . . .

Mind-blowing.

And then Connor laughed.

It was a soft laugh, but it was definitely a laugh and not a chuckle. Victoria turned and looked at him in astonishment. He was smiling.

He was, put simply, drop-dead gorgeous.

Maybe this was why there weren’t dozens of women in his keep. They hadn’t seen what she was seeing.

Lucky for them.

Desperately bad for her.

“What?” she whispered.

He leaned down close to her and pointed to the stage. “Look,” he said, sounding actually quite delighted. “Cast your gaze upon yon witch to the left.”

Victoria turned back around and looked. And she caught her breath.

“ ’Tis an awfully big needle that auld witch uses to stir her pot, aye?” he whispered. “Likely a size fifteen—and bamboo. I daresay she had one in her bag that afternoon. I fear such a needle would snap did it come into contact with a lad’s sternum, but that is my opinion only.”

“Perhaps she was knitting with big wool,” Jennifer suggested.

“Och, I suppose that might be true,” he said doubtfully. “Though I thought she preferred a finer gauge. Well, whatever the case, we now know where your granny is.”

“How did she get this gig?” Jennifer asked. “I thought only men got to act during Shakespeare’s time.”

“She’s Granny,” Victoria said. “How could they resist her?”

“Size four, aluminum,” Connor said wisely. “That would convince me of quite a few things.”

Victoria felt her knees grow quite unsteady beneath her. Her relief was complete and so overwhelming she wasn’t at all sure how she was going to manage to get through the rest of the play. She felt Jennifer’s arm go around her briefly and was grateful for it. She watched the first several acts of the play unfold without truly seeing them. She would have given quite a bit for a chair, but there was no hope of even pulling up a handy bit of floor.

The first chance they had to sneak out, she turned to Jennifer and Connor. “Let’s get out of here and wait for her at the stage entrance. I’m assuming they have a stage entrance.”

“Don’t you know?” Jennifer asked.

“I’ve never been here before,” Victoria muttered as she threaded her way through the crowd.

She waited with Connor and her sister until the play was over, then waited a bit more as the cast and crew left the building. And when her granny came out, Victoria threw herself at her with a glad cry.

“Victoria!” Mary said, staggering in surprise. “Connor, as well. Jennifer, you, too! How did you all get here?”

“The same way you did, lady,” Connor said with a smile.

“Yes, well, that was quite a surprise, wasn’t it?” Mary said, smiling. “I had just gotten up to go stretch my legs, paused to admire those interesting flowers in the grass, and subsequently found myself somewhere I never intended to be.”