Much Ado In the Moonlight (16 page)

“And?” Connor demanded. Damn that Victoria McKinnon. No doubt she had blathered on like the woman she was—

“She wouldn’t give,” Mary said. “I tried guilt, even. Nothing. Nada.
Nichts
. I’ve had to carry on, unsatisfied.”

Connor blinked. “She said nothing?”

“Nothing. But if you aren’t busy later, I’d like all those details myself.”

“Shameless old woman,” Connor said easily.

“Of course.”

He thought he might have smiled. He suspected it might have had something to do with the fact that Victoria McKinnon could apparently be trusted with his secrets.

Astonishing.

“Perhaps you’ll divulge a few of those juicy tidbits later this afternoon,” Mary said. “Let’s go on a picnic. We need to get Vikki out of here. There’s nothing she can do to improve things and she’ll only spend the afternoon worrying if I don’t do something to distract her—oh, damn it, anyway.”

Connor blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“Look,” Mary said, nodding toward where Victoria stood.

With Michael Fellini.

Connor understood immediately.

“I’ll go tell her to buck up,” Mary said firmly.

And with that, she hopped off the stage with the energy of a woman half her age and bounded over to where Victoria was being beguiled by that slippery snake.

“Michael, if you’ll excuse us,” Mary said loudly, putting her hand to her head, “I’m feeling a little faint all of a sudden. I need Vikki to help me back to the inn.”

“I’d be more than happy to offer my arm,” Fellini said gallantly.

“No, I’m sure you have places to go,” Mary said smoothly. “Besides, we’re going to have a little picnic and I can’t imagine that would interest you—”

“A picnic,” Fellini said, sounding as if he’d been invited on an outing by the Queen herself. “I’ll carry the basket.”

Mary discouraged, she hinted broadly, she even bluntly told him he was not wanted. Connor was unsurprised to see that the man remained unmoved.

Unsurprised, but deeply suspicious.

He would have followed them, but at that moment Ambrose strode into the bailey. He spoke politely to Mary and Victoria, then hopped up onto the stage.

“A bit of training, MacDougal?” he asked.

“I might stir myself for it,” Connor said absently. He watched Victoria and her granny leave the bailey. He didn’t like leaving them on their own with Fellini, but perhaps they would fare well enough. Mary MacLeod Davidson was fierce and with any hope, she would keep Victoria on task. The wench was far too friendly with Michael Fellini for his taste.

“Hmmm,” Ambrose said meaningfully.

Connor looked at him sideways. “Eh?”

Ambrose shrugged. “Idle thoughts.”

“Do you have any other kind?”

Ambrose laughed. “Occasionally. But presently, I daresay my thoughts are as they should be. You know, I worry about those two defenseless women being out on their own. Indeed, I think that perhaps I should forgo the pleasures of the sword and accompany them on their outing—”

“I’ll go.” Connor heard the words come out of his mouth and could not for the life of him think of where they had come from. “I’ll go?” he repeated experimentally.

“I don’t know,” Ambrose said doubtfully. “It isn’t as if you have any fond feelings for either of the two. Who’s to say that if something untoward happened, you wouldn’t leave them to a terrible fate . . .”

Connor drew himself up. “I am quite fond of them both,” he said stiffly. “And if nothing else, my honor would demand that I do what was needful.”

“Indeed?”

“Indeed,” Connor said. “Allow me to take a moment to let my sword speak for me and argue that point.”

“As you will,” Ambrose agreed.

Connor found the stage to be a rather handy place to fight. There were boxes stacked here and there, and thrones for Hamlet’s mother and uncle, and even a handy coffin that had been pushed aside until it was needed. Connor leaped about the stage, bounding off various props with relish. It had been centuries since he had felt so at home, or so much himself. Aye, this was the kind of fighting for him, where a daring lad had all manner of natural outcroppings to use for better leverage.

“Oh, look, there they go,” Ambrose said, pointing suddenly at the front gates. “Oh, and there is Fellini, trailing after them, as well.” He turned back to Connor. “But we’ll leave them to their fate, I suppose. This is more manly labor here . . .”

Connor stopped in mid-lunge, pulled back, then resheathed his sword with a mighty thrust. “Perhaps you see it as such, but I do not. What kind of man is it who leaves women to protect themselves when there is breath left in him to heft a sword in their defense?”

He expected to see Ambrose bristle. Instead, the man hastily covered a cough with his hand.

“Too true,” Ambrose said quickly. “I admire you for your convictions. Best be off, then, and see to your charges.”

Connor frowned fiercely, but that seemingly did not impress the former laird of the clan MacLeod. Then again, those MacLeods were a feisty lot, so perhaps it took quite a bit for Ambrose to take notice.

And then another thought occurred to him. Did Ambrose
want
him to go watch over Victoria and her grandmother?

Did it matter?

Connor decided that it did not. Truth was truth and the truth of the matter was he was the better warrior. If those two women were to be looked after, ’twas best he be the one to do it.

“Until midnight then, in the kitchen as usual,” Ambrose said, resheathing his own sword. “I have a new reader or two.”

“Ach, by the saints,” Connor groaned, “no more tales of those American bairns. If I must read any more about the adventures of Dick, Jane, and that bloody hound Spot—”

“Nay, these are proper Scottish tales. Bloodshed. Mayhem. Victory and glory for Highlanders.”

“Then I will be there,” Connor said as he jumped off the stage and strode out the front gates.

He followed the little party to a handy spot in a farmer’s field. Victoria and Mary lugged the basket while Fellini strode about artistically, no doubt studying his surroundings for things to use in his portrayal of Hamlet. Connor was hard-pressed not to draw his sword and indulge in a portrayal of an irritated Highland laird.

He didn’t, only because he couldn’t decide who he should use his sword on first: Victoria because she was staring at Fellini in fascination, or Fellini, just for general purposes.

So he made himself comfortable in the shade of a nearby grove of trees and watched the goings on with disgust. Mary ate, but did not seem to enjoy her food. And how could she, with all that overacting going on right there before her.

Victoria didn’t eat either, but that was because she was too busy gaping at Fellini and hanging on his every word. Connor was tempted to tell her to tuck in properly to her bangers and mash and tell Fellini to go to hell, but ’twas none of his affair, so he kept his suggestions to himself.

Fellini managed to ingest all the rest of their food, yet keep up a steady stream of conversation that left Connor struggling to stay awake. By the saints, the man was irritating in the extreme.

Fellini finally dabbed at his lips with a bit of white cloth, then rose. “Victoria,” he said imperiously, “come with me. I have things to discuss with you.”

Victoria, not looking nearly as irritated as she should have, rose. “Granny, will you be all right?”

“Of course, darling.”

“We won’t go far.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll keep busy.”

Victoria nodded, then followed Fellini off into the distance. Connor stepped from behind the tree he’d recently appropriated as a hiding place, and watched her go. She looked weary. He supposed he understood. After all, how was she to have any energy at all when she had to spend it on those obnoxious actors?

He thought about that for quite a while, then realized with a start that Mary had turned to look at him.

“Connor, come and sit.”

He sighed and unbuckled his sword, then came to sit down next to her on the blanket.

“What an unpleasant afternoon,” he said bluntly.

“Isn’t it?” she mused. “Let’s speak of something else before I go do that man an injury.” She smiled at him. “Tell me how you are passing your days at present. Is it a complete distraction to have Vikki’s company in your hall, or are you managing?”

“It is a distraction from my main purpose of finding a captain for my garrison, but I am managing to conduct searches in spite of it.”

“Must you really conduct a search?” she asked. “Surely men line up for the privilege.”

“One would suppose that to be the case, wouldn’t one?” he asked. “Damn me, if I don’t have to prod them into that line with my sword!”

“It hardly bears thinking on.”

Connor liked Victoria’s grandmother more all the time. Not only did she immediately appreciate the difficulties of commanding a garrison, she possessed the most interesting implements of death he had ever seen.

“What are those delightful bits you have there?” he asked, peering at them closely.

“Knitting needles,” Mary said, holding a pair up for his inspection. “These are steel ones.”

“Do they bend?” he asked, terribly interested.

“They’re not really supposed to.”

“And if they were to strike a rib on their way through a man?” he asked. “How would they fare then?”

“I’m not sure,” she answered, holding one up. It glinted nicely in the sunlight. “I’ve never tried to stick one through a man.”

“A pity. Then what useful thing do you do with them?”

She held up a beautiful sweater fashioned from the colors of water and forest, heather and thistle.

“Lovely,” he admitted frankly. “And quite an interesting use of threads, if I might venture an opinion.”

“Fair Isle,” she said, stroking the fabric. “I like the colors together. It reminds me of the Scottish countryside, somehow. How it used to be before the English cut down the forests.”

“Have you been?” he asked.

“I’m a MacLeod,” she said simply. “How could I stay away? But you haven’t been back, have you?”

He shook his head. “Not since . . . well, not in many, many years.”

“You should go.”

“There is nothing for me there.”

“But what a pity to deny yourself the pleasure—”

“I cannot bear it,” he said shortly.

Mary looked at him long, then smiled gently. “I suppose I can understand. I have lived in places that I’ve loved and not been able to go back, or really even think about them. The loss is too great.”

He grunted in answer. Aye, he had lost much in the Highlands, much more than his own life, and he supposed it might have been because of that that he hadn’t returned. In truth, he wasn’t certain and had no desire to peer into his own black heart and discover the truth.

So he sat and watched Victoria’s grandmother work her magic with needles and yarn and found himself quite mesmerized. She began to instruct him about various techniques and species of yarn. He listened with interest to the manner of creating invisible increases and the technical formula to calculate loft, then he felt himself growing tired. He closed his eyes.

And it was when his eyes seemed the most heavy that Victoria’s grandmother began her true assault.

She was more than making up for her nap in the sitting chamber the week before.

He was fairly sure he answered questions—and Mary seemed to have many of them. He was quite certain he divulged his mortal age of thirty-five and his status as the eldest son of three, the other two being worthless leeches who were content to live off their father’s wealth and not do an honest day’s labor in their lives. He suspected he had told her that he’d been wed at one time and the father of a pair of bairns.

But after that, his eyes grew far too heavy to keep them open and he wasn’t quite sure what he told her.

“Laird MacDougal?”

He woke with a snort and sat up, reaching for his sword. “What?” he said, looking around with wide eyes.

“Vikki has been gone for quite some time.”

It took him a moment to get his bearings, then he realized what Mary had said. “Has she been gone long?”

“Long enough that I wonder why she isn’t back.”

“I’ll go immediately,” he said, getting to his feet. He looked down at her. “Do you have your needles?”

She patted her bag. “Right here. I’ll be all right.”

“We won’t be long, if I have anything to say about it,” Connor said grimly.

It took him only minutes to find his quarry on the far side of a little hill. Victoria had her arms folded over her chest and looked a little bored.

Well, that was something, at least.

Connor approached carefully. It was tempting to draw his sword, but he thought of Victoria’s warning that her actors might leave her without themselves to decorate her stage if they became too frightened. In Fellini’s case, it would not be a great loss, but Fellini’s understudy was almost as arrogant as the man himself, so perhaps there was no point in staging a proper haunting now.

“So, how large a space is Tempest in a Teapot?” Fellini asked.

“Large enough,” Victoria answered. “We have room for what we want to do.”

“Give me dimensions,” Fellini insisted. “For my students, of course. It would help to have an idea of how big a stage they might someday be able to perform on.”

What difference could that possibly make? Connor shook his head. Good acting was what was needful, not pacing off the stage. Was this man as simple-minded as he appeared, or was there a more sinister purpose to his questions?

Connor studied Victoria as she answered increasingly specific questions about her theater. He learned quite a few things he hadn’t known before about Victoria’s troupe; he spent many more fruitless moments puzzling over other things he had no familiarity with.