Much Ado In the Moonlight (11 page)

“All right,” Victoria conceded, “but only if you’ll limit yourself to a supervisory role. Maybe Mrs. Pruitt can round up some seamstresses for us.”

“I’m sure she’ll help,” Mary said. “She’s a lovely woman, if not a little preoccupied with the paranormal.”

Victoria didn’t bother asking how her grandmother had found that out so quickly. Secrets did not last long around her. “Can you blame her?”

Mary looked briefly over her shoulder. “Given our escorts, I suppose not. Who knows what we’ll find at the castle?”

Victoria was unsurprised to see her grandfathers and sundry strolling along behind them. She looked back at her grandmother. “I was there earlier and I didn’t see anything unusual.”

Then again, she hadn’t been at the castle but five minutes, so perhaps that wasn’t a true test.

The whole situation was unsettling. It wasn’t like her not to be in full command of her surroundings and everything happening in those surroundings.

Then again, she wasn’t usually dealing with ghosts.

Non-Shakespearean ones, that was.

Well, at least the hauntings were limited to old men loitering the inn’s kitchen. Heaven help her if the infection spread to the castle.

Hamlet.

Her conversation with her brother last December came back to her like a bad smell. Hamlet had a ghost in it, didn’t it? Was that why Thomas had been so thrilled?

She felt her eyes narrow. Thomas knew something. She wasn’t precisely sure how much he knew, but she knew he knew something. She would get him for this, purse strings or no purse strings.

“I’m going to kill Thomas,” Victoria announced.

“How nice,” Mary said. “Oh, look, there’s the main road. Which way do we go from here?”

Victoria opened her mouth to say, then found that her input was not necessary.

“This way, dear lady,” Ambrose said, striding up to Mary’s side and giving her a gallant smile. “Allow me to escort you.”

“And me, as well,” Hugh said enthusiastically, popping up on Victoria’s left. “’Tis a dangerous world these days. Two lovely wenches such as yerselves shouldn’t be out without protection.”

“Wenches,” Mary repeated, beaming at Hugh. “I like that. It makes me feel quite adventuresome.”

“Heaven help us,” Victoria muttered. Her grandmother was seventy-five but she didn’t look a day over fifty and her opinion on what constituted a good adventure was something Victoria didn’t want to contemplate. She’d been convinced her granny was satisfied pitting her skills against complicated Fair Isle patterns.

She should have known better.

Grumbling began behind her. That she knew it was Fulbert tromping along behind them and not some other grump of indeterminate age and life situation . . . well, it said a lot about the current state of affairs in her life.

Her granny came to a sudden stop. “Oh, my goodness,” she said, her hand over her heart. “Why, Victoria, this is spectacular.”

Victoria looked at the castle and couldn’t help but smile. “It is amazing, isn’t it?”

Mary nodded, then began to walk again, slowly. Victoria walked with her, admiring Thomas’s castle afresh. It was a pretty remarkable place, even though half of it had been eaten away by the ravages of time. The walls were crumbling, but it wasn’t hard to imagine them being manned in another time by fierce knights eager to do their lord’s will. It also wasn’t hard to imagine the sound of hammer on anvil, of peasants conversing, of men-at-arms cursing and shouting as they trained.

Victoria frowned. She was imagining those things, wasn’t she? She shot Ambrose a look. He was watching her thoughtfully.

“Aye, granddaughter?” he said.

“Do you hear it?” she asked. “That medieval stuff?”

Ambrose listened, then smiled. “I hear many things, lass. Come and let us be about your inspection. I imagine the construction has begun. I can hear the generators from here. I assume you’ll run them from one of the tower chambers during the shows.”

“Yes,” Victoria said, distracted by the sounds layering themselves on top of each other. “I don’t think the audience will hear them and there’s certainly no other way to get power inside the castle without them. Granny, do you hear those medieval sorts of noises?”

Mary patted her hand. “Inspect your workers, love, then we’ll go back to the inn and you can have a nap.”

She didn’t need a nap; she needed a specter-free castle in which to do her play. She walked into the bailey and looked at the place where the stage would be built. Workers were setting up their gear and the area seemed to be quite free of all paranormal activity.

She couldn’t help breathe a faint sigh of relief.

“They’ve worked hard,” Victoria said, gratefully.

“Like as not, they have cause,” Fulbert said. “I wouldn’t want to stay here longer than I needed to.”

“Why not?” she asked.

Ambrose cleared his throat. “Well, there are a few unsavory lads loitering about the keep.
Those
kind of lads,” he added knowingly.

Damn. So, her worst fears were going to materialize. “Ghosts?” Victoria asked.

“Aye, but no one of consequence,” Ambrose said. “Certainly no one whom I would give a second thought to—”

“Aye, but your head might, as it left your womanly shoulders,” a voice growled from behind Victoria. “Draw your sword, MacLeod!”

Victoria whirled around.

That unsettling prop-room numbness started again at the top of her head, but she clamped down on her self-control with all her strength and gave that tingling the old heave-ho. She would
not
faint. There were probably several things one could say about her that might be uncomplimentary, but it could not be said that she had ever swooned. Not once.

Well, that prop room debacle aside, of course.

Oh, and also the first time she’d seen Michael Fellini, but there had been a handy couch nearby and she’d managed to fall gracefully upon it in a lounging posture. That had been less of a swoon and more of a dignified slump.

But this time she wasn’t sure she would manage anything so dignified. First off, there was no couch nearby. Secondly, this wasn’t a sleek, suave New Yorker wowing her with his good looks and easy charm. This was a Highlander standing not two feet from her, his enormous sword in his hands, and a look of death in his eyes.

“Let’s move out of the way, shall we?” Mary said easily, taking Victoria by the arm and tugging.

Victoria backpeddled until she was well out of the way of that very large sword. She came to a stop next to her grandmother, wishing desperately that she’d brought along a chair so she could sit while she grappled with the reality she was facing.

She was used to handsome men on stage, but they were generally not very tall and more of their muscles came from dance than hefting very big swords and swinging them around like thin, lightweight rapiers. She was also used to powerful men whose money she had no trouble trying to solicit for her productions, but their power came from their bank accounts and their ability to control destinies with those bank accounts.

She was not used to men who intimidated by their mere physical presence alone.

She was tall, but that ghost towered over her. He towered over Ambrose, as well. She frowned. That didn’t seem quite fair. Who did he think he was, going after her grandfather—the accustomed number of generations removed—with such lack of care for Ambrose’s age or the measure of respect that should have been accorded him due to that age?

“That’s Connor MacDougal,” Fulbert said from beside her. “He was laird of his clan in life. He thinks he’s laird of this castle in death—”

“I
am
laird of this keep,” Connor MacDougal snarled, “and I’ll thank ye to keep yer bloody English nose out of my affairs!”

Fulbert grunted. “He’s a miserable wretch, as you can hear, but handy enough with a blade.”

“And I’ll show you just how handy, once I’m finished with this mewling babe here,” Connor promised.

Victoria watched, open-mouthed, as he attempted to do just that.

She took stock of her rapidly unraveling situation. She had ghosts down at the inn. She now had ghosts up at the castle. Apparently, she had a very feisty, very fierce,
very
handsome lairdlike ghost who would probably take every opportunity to make her life hell. He would probably also scare away the paying customers. It was for certain he would terrify her actors if they could see him.

Well, she conceded, he might not terrify the women. If he would just put down that sword and smile, he might actually bring in some business.

“He’s quite handsome, isn’t he?” Mary whispered.

Victoria managed a nod.
Handsome
really didn’t quite cover it. Gorgeous, dangerous, breathtaking, partake-at-your-own-risk; those were better descriptions of the man.

Er, ghost.

Victoria could hardly believe he wasn’t real. He had dark hair that hung down to his shoulders and moved with him when he wielded that enormous broadsword. His muscles strained under his shirt and could occasionally be glimpsed doing the same thing under his kilt.

His face, too, was a marvel of creation. Chiseled cheek-bones, a patrician nose, a strong, determined jaw. Victoria had no idea what color his eyes were, but she could say that they blazed with an intensity that made her feel a little weak in the knees.

If she’d been prone to that kind of thing, which she wasn’t.

He carried on an animated conversation with Ambrose in what she could only assume was Gaelic. He did not smile, but that didn’t matter. His sword was enormous, but that didn’t matter, either. There was something about him that was so relentlessly commanding, so unforgiving, so ruthless, that she could only stand and gape at him as if she’d never seen a man before.

Which, after seeing this one, she had to suspect might be the case.

A vicious thrust made Ambrose suddenly jump aside and that startled her into jumping as well.

“Vikki, look at your crew,” Mary said in a low voice.

Victoria collected what was remaining of her wits and turned to find all her workers staring at her uncomfortably. Well, some were staring at her uncomfortably. Others were counting it as a break and apparently looking for either drinks or somewhere to pee.

“Can they hear this, do you think?” Victoria whispered behind her hand.

“I don’t know, but I don’t think we want to find out.”

Victoria made a snap decision. It was of paramount importance that her crew not pull a Gerard and bolt for the front gates, never to return. Obviously, she would have to take matters into her own hands.

She turned quickly to her workers. “Nothing to see here,” she said in her best director’s voice. “There is a rehearsal going on outside the gates. Swords and that kind of thing. It’s echoing in here.”

Those who were not searching for drinks or the bathroom shrugged and turned back to their work.

Victoria turned back to the combatants and clapped her hands together briskly. “All right,” she said, “let’s be finished here.”

Connor MacDougal almost dropped his sword. Unfortunately, he managed to hold onto it long enough to point it at her.

“And who are
you
to tell me what to do?” he demanded fiercely.

“You’re frightening my workers.”

He jammed his sword into the dirt and strode over to stand toe-to-toe with her. “I haven’t begun to frighten them,” he growled.

“Who said you could?” she returned.

“
I
am lord of this keep and I will say what goes on inside it!”

She forced herself not to gulp. She was fairly certain that his sword was fake and that his only weapon was verbal intimidation.

Heaven help her if she was wrong.

“You can say all you want,” she said, dredging up all the courage she had to hand. “Just don’t say it to my crew.”

“And if it pleases me to hear them scream?” he asked smoothly.

“I’ll alert the paranormal investigators to your presence,” she threatened.

“Ha!” he said with a derisive snort. “I’ve no fear of them.”

“I’d rethink that, MacDougal,” Ambrose said with a shiver. “The last thing you want is a gaggle of ghost-hunters keeping you awake at all hours.”

Connor appeared unconvinced and continued to look as if his fondest wish was to do someone in.

Victoria thought quickly. She was accustomed to dealing with men for whom money talked. Could it be all that different with a ghost? All she had to do was determine what his currency was. She suspected he dealt in screams.

“I’ll make a deal with you,” she said. “If you leave my crew alone, I promise to let you haunt me for the same number of days we’re here in your castle.”

He paused and considered.

“
After
the play is over,” she qualified. “And it will be worth the wait, I assure you.”

“Show me.”

Victoria let out a bloodcurdling scream. Hugh and Fulbert hit the ground. Half her workers screamed in sympathy. She looked up at Connor and raised one eyebrow.

“Well?”

“I’ll give it some thought.”

“No, I need a firm commitment.”

“I am accustomed to screams from more than one person,” he said with a frown. “Not to belittle your skill with a shriek, of course.”

Good grief, would the indignities never end? She sighed gustily. “All right, how about we sweeten the deal. Leave my workers and my actors alone and not only will I let you haunt me for an equal amount of time, I’ll see if I can’t find a place in my play for you.”

Hugh and Fulbert protested vociferously. Victoria silenced them with a glare. She turned back to Connor. He was blinking as if he hadn’t quite understood her. Maybe he was surprised. Maybe he was insulted. Maybe she’d had so little experience in dealing with disembodied spirits that she was mistaking his reaction for what was really just a bit of ghostly indigestion.