Much Ado In the Moonlight (10 page)

Roderick gurgled loudly from the back of the hall.

The men dispersed, leaving Connor alone with his thoughts.

Well, his thoughts and Roderick’s complaints.

Connor walked out into the bailey and stared off down the path to the road.

A McKinnon wench.

He should have known.

He got hold of himself and his ridiculous thoughts. He’d been dazzled by her beauty, but now he knew better. She would be easy to frighten into never again returning to the keep. Indeed, ideas on how to terrify her were already clamoring to present themselves to him. All he had to do was sit back and choose the one which would be the most effective.

Aye, he would frighten her and rid his hall of her. He would do it and have not one regret—no matter her beauty, or how the mere sight of her caused something inside him to sigh . . . in relief, or terror; he could not say.

He turned and strode back into the great hall. He wrenched his sword from Roderick’s chest, with the appropriate comment on the fop’s frailties, then resheathed his sword with a mighty thrust and set his heart aright inside him.

Aye, he would do her in and be glad of it.

In spite of her beauty and because of her parentage.

Victoria
walked swiftly down the little road that led away from the castle. This wasn’t what she wanted to be doing. What she wanted to be doing was standing in that great hall again with the sun streaming down inside and that feeling of medievalness washing over her. “This had better be good,” she warned Fred.

“It is.”

“Don’t tell me: more ghosts.”

“No, Michael Fellini, irritated by his accommodations.”

“Oh,” Victoria said breathlessly. She said it breathlessly because she had now increased her walking to a flat-out sprint. The last thing she wanted was to have the star of her show in a snit because he didn’t care for the wallpaper.

By the time she reached the front door of the inn, she was gasping for breath. She was going to have to get more exercise, or join a gym, or something. Apparently the occasional sprint for the subway just wasn’t doing it for her.

“Fellini’s whining loudly,” Fred noted. “Can’t you hear it?”

Victoria decided that more breath-catching could happen later. Right now she had to stop hell before it broke completely loose.

She threw open the door to the inn and strode inside in her best director fashion. Then she came to a teetering halt, confronted by things she hadn’t seen coming.

Well, some of it she should have seen coming. Michael stood there wearing his most formidable give-me-what-I-want-or-I’ll-call-my-agent expression. Cressida Blankenship, her star actress, stood there, a single tear trailing artistically down her cheek as she contemplated the key to what was no doubt an equally inadequate room. Mrs. Pruitt was scowling fiercely at the both of them.

But what she hadn’t expected was to find the geriatric jet-setter who stood to one side, surrounded by piles of designer luggage and carrying over her arm a clear plastic knitting bag full of funky colors and several pairs of knitting needles in materials ranging from steel to rosewood. Victoria recognized the needles—and the woman toting them—only because that woman was her grandmother.

“Granny!” Victoria said weakly, “what are you doing here?”

“She’s waiting in line for me to get my room changed,” Michael said loudly.

Victoria found her gaze helplessly drawn to him as if he’d been a vampire mesmerizing her with a presence that could not be ignored. She felt a little breathless.

Of course, that could have come from her recent bout of sprinting, but then again, maybe not.

Michael Fellini was, put simply, perfection. His dark hair was just a little on the long side, swept rakishly across his forehead in perfection rarely achieved outside of the salon. His face was perfectly chiseled, his eyes a deep, chocolate brown, his mouth sensual and mobile. And that was only the beginning; the rest of him was just as divine.

He was an inch or two under six feet and slender, but somehow that worked to produce a wiry, powerful frame that just begged to be set on stage and admired for lengthy periods of time. He could, by turns, appear kingly, peasantly, crazy, and commanding.

And that was just what she’d seen at the afternoon tea.

She had the feeling she might just see the range of his emotions if something didn’t happen soon. But it was difficult to concentrate fully on Michael because Cressida had begun to make such a loud, weepy fuss over her room and Mrs. Pruitt had become disgusted enough to begin doing her best to shout her down. Granny simply stood there, smiling in sympathy.

Victoria took a deep breath to prepare to straighten everything out when she was distracted by a scream that cut through all the noise like a knife. Mrs. Pruitt, Cressida, and even Michael fell silent.

The screaming continued.

“Gerard,” Fred said wearily from behind her.

Victoria had no trouble imagining just what—or who—had wrung such a noise from him. She swept the collection of troublemakers before her with a single warning glance.

“No more fighting. Cressida, take my room,” she said shortly. “Mrs. Pruitt, give Michael whatever he wants. Granny, I’m sure Mrs. Pruitt has a very nice room—maybe Megan’s—that you can have. I’ll be right back.”

And with that, she turned and ran back through the front door, through the garden, and around to the back of the house where a shed lingered on the edge of Mrs. Pruitt’s vegetable patch.

She wasn’t at all surprised by what she saw.

Gerard was clutching the door frame and screaming his bloody head off. Victoria was tempted to plug her ears, but before she could do it, the squeals of terror reached a pinnacle of shrillness, then suddenly ceased. Gerard slumped to the ground, senseless.

Victoria strode forward, stepped over the body, and looked into the shed.

Hugh McKinnon stood there, fondling finery.

He smiled sheepishly, doffed his cap and made her a low bow, then disappeared.

“What do you think he saw?” Fred asked from behind her.

“A hallucination,” Victoria said firmly.

“Hmmm,” Fred said doubtfully.

She sighed and turned to look down at her unconscious prop manager. “I don’t suppose we can just leave him here and hope for the best.”

“I’ll wake him up.” Fred leaned over and slapped Gerard smartly across the face.

“Fred,” Victoria started to exclaim, but she forwent any more lecture because at that moment Gerard sat up—silently. It was such an improvement, she couldn’t help but smile. “Gerard, how are you?”

Gerard looked around himself wildly, then leaped to his feet. “It’s haunted,” he said hoarsely. “The costumes, the inn, the whole damned island!”

“Gerard,” Victoria said, not having to try overly hard to put a little shock in her tone, “you’re imagining things. Why don’t you go have a little rest and then we’ll talk . . .”

He shrieked once more, then turned and ran away.

Victoria tried to grab him, but she wound up clutching air. She looked at Fred and the horror was real this time.

“What are we going to do?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Hope nothing tears?”

Victoria was half tempted to track down Hugh McKinnon and ask him if he knew how to ply a needle, given that it was his fault she was in this fix, but she had the feeling he wouldn’t make a very good prop manager. For one thing, he would likely spend all his time stroking the costumes and no time making sure that they were ready to wear.

She gritted her teeth. “I’ll deal with this later.”

“I won’t be volunteering later.”

“I didn’t imagine you would be.” She trudged back through the garden to the front door. “Please let this be the extent of the disasters,” she muttered as she went back inside the inn.

Well, the entryway was empty—a big plus—except for Mrs. Pruitt, who was standing at attention by her reception desk.

“His Majesty wants his bags brought up,” she said in a voice that clearly implied she was not going to be the one doing it.

Victoria looked behind her only to find that Fred had conveniently managed to lose himself between the garden and the front door. She sighed and picked up one of Michael’s suitcases. Or tried, rather. What was he toting in there, thousand-page tomes on every aspect of Shakespeare he might possibly need in an emergency?

It took quite a while to get the one suitcase up the stairs. She struggled to haul it down the hallway, realizing too late that the path wasn’t clear. She went sprawling, narrowly avoiding being crushed by Michael’s gear, only to further realize that it was her stuff she had tripped over.

She crawled to her feet, swore, then channeled her irritation into dragging Michael’s suitcase to the end of the hall. She knocked. It took a very long time for the door to open, but when it did she found herself rendered speechless—and not just by Michael and his intensely attractive self.

The room looked as if it belonged behind ropes. It was something straight out of an Elizabethan movie set, only this stuff was authentic. No wonder Mrs. Pruitt guarded the key so ferociously. Victoria suspected the room should have been guarded by National Trust employees with stun guns.

“Michael . . .” she began.

He grabbed his suitcase, dragged it inside, and shut the door in her face.

Victoria stared at the door for a minute or two before she shut her mouth. Well, jet lag could make even the most rational, polite soul turn a little feisty. Michael was obviously suffering from a difficult case of it.

Surely.

She gathered up her stuff that was strewn all over the floor, shoved it into the handy suitcase that had been tossed into the hall as well, then propped the whole mess up against one wall. She would sort it all out later. For now, she had to find her granny, find her granny a room, and figure out what to do with her granny who was currently hundreds of miles away from where she should have been.

She thumped down the stairs and came to a teetering halt in the entryway. Raucous laughter came from the sitting room on her left. Her grandmother was definitely one of the revelers. It was with no small bit of trepidation that Victoria approached and threw open the door.

She was somehow unsurprised by the sight that greeted her. There, sitting around the coffee table and chatting as if they’d known each other for years, were Ambrose, Fulbert, Hugh, and, of course, her grandmother. Hugh was looking a little out of breath—probably from his quick dash back from the costume shed. Victoria frowned at him briefly before turning back to her grandmother.

“Granny—”

“Vikki,” her granny said, rising and coming to envelope Victoria in a hug and a cloud of Wind Song. “You look tired, dear. Come and sit with us. We’re just catching up.”

“Catching up?” Victoria wheezed. “Do you know these three?”

“We just met,” Mary MacLeod Davidson said, “but you know how it is with family. It doesn’t take long to feel as if you’ve known each other for years.”

Really, could the day deliver any more surprises? Victoria felt her control begin to slip through her fingers at an alarming rate.

“Granny, what are you doing here?”

“I’m here to save the day, love. Your mother was worried about you and since I’d had a spat with my Stitch ’n Wench knitting group—you know that Fiona McDonald and how she just can’t wean herself from man-made fibers—I decided that maybe a bit of traveling was just the thing. I don’t know if there’s room enough for me here, though.”

“Our good Mrs. Pruitt will sort it all out,” Ambrose said reassuringly. He stood. “But perhaps for now, you might wish for a walk up to the castle?”

“Why, Laird MacLeod,” Mary said with a flirtatious smile, “what a wonderful idea.”

“Granny,” Victoria said weakly, “you’re related to him!”

“
Several
generations removed, my dear.” Mary patted her hair and smiled. “A handsome Highland lad is always a pleasure to engage, no matter the degrees of separation.” Mary smiled at Ambrose. “We’ll join you in a moment.”

Ambrose, Hugh, and Fulbert all made low bows, gave vent to a handful of appropriate leave-taking sentiments, then tromped out of the sitting room as the crow flew.

That would be through the wall, not the door.

Victoria looked at her granny. “I need a drink.”

“But you don’t drink, love. Come on. I’m anxious to see this castle of yours.”

Well, in this, at least, Victoria found that she had no trouble mustering up enthusiasm. She followed her grandmother from the sitting room through the usual exit of the door.

“Tell me what’s been going on,” Mary said, drawing Victoria’s hand through the crook of her arm as they left the inn and wandered through the garden. “What was all that screaming about?”

“Gerard saw a ghost.”

Mary laughed. “Here? How unusual.”

“Granny, it isn’t funny,” Victoria said, but she had to laugh a little herself. “I had to pay him extra to get him to England in the first place because he saw Hugh McKinnon groping my costumes in the prop room under Tempest in a Teapot. The same thing just happened in the garden shed here.”

“Never mind, dear. I’ll keep your costumes in line.”

Victoria wanted to protest; she knew she should protest, but she couldn’t. Mary MacLeod Davidson was possibly the most delightful woman on earth and while Victoria didn’t have any trouble refusing an invitation to spend time with her brother—her recent trip to Maine aside—she never passed up an opportunity to spend time with her grandmother.

Besides, her granny had once upon a time sewn marvelous costumes for her and her siblings as they were growing up and flexing the muscles of their imaginations. Victoria suspected that those costumes had been the beginning of her desire to do what she did.