Much Ado In the Moonlight (21 page)

An alarming trend, to be sure.

She waited outside with Jamie until Thomas rejoined them, then followed the group out the front door—mortal men in front, lairdly ghosts striding behind. She walked behind them all, speculating furiously. There was something fishy going on between Thomas and Jamie, and it was more than a little chitchat over memories of Thomas’s wedding.

But before she could really get herself worked up, Ambrose caught up with her. “Granddaughter,” he said in a friendly fashion.

Victoria pursed her lips. “Who is James MacLeod?”

“Kin of Iolanthe’s,” Ambrose said. “He was at Thomas’s wedding. Don’t you remember him?”

“Sure,” Victoria fibbed. Actually, she remembered very little of Thomas’s wedding. She’d flown back and forth from Scotland to New York twice in less than a month and that during a rather taxing run of
The Tempest
. She remembered thinking that the MacLeod castle was quite medieval-looking and that Jamie must have had buckets of money to keep it up. But other than that, she’d just been too wrapped up in thinking about how the production couldn’t possibly run without her, and worrying about planning productions to come, to really pay attention to anything else.

She paused.

She considered.

Was she too caught up in the theater?

The very thought was almost too shocking to contemplate.

She took a deep breath and let it out. She was no more caught up in her life than anyone else was. She had just managed to overlook Jamie, the very essence of Highland lairdliness, due to jet lag, no doubt.

That Jamie had such a, well, medieval aura about him was something to be investigated another day. Maybe when Iolanthe had stopped spending all her time in the bathroom and was capable of prolonged speech regarding her relatives.

Victoria trailed along after the living as they made their way to the scene of the alleged crime, then found herself standing a little ways off, accompanied by ancestors and, well, Connor.

“Foul deeds afoot,” Fulbert said gloomily. “I’ve little liking for the feel of this place.”

“You’ve little liking for anything that doesn’t resemble a pub,” Connor snapped. “Be silent and let the lads who know their business be about that business.”

Victoria looked at Fulbert, who was fingering the hilt of his sword purposefully. Hugh had backed well out of the way. Ambrose stood next to her, wearing the same sort of easy smile her mother was wont to wear. Victoria frowned at him.

“Is it a MacLeod trait never to panic?” she demanded.

“’Tis a MacLeod trait to possess an abundance of patience,” he said. “All will be well.”

“Do you know something I don’t?”

“Aye, that you should move, lest Connor cut you in two by mistake.”

Victoria whirled around to see Connor with his sword drawn, glaring at Fulbert. “Oh, please,” she hissed, “save it for later, would you?”

He turned his glare on her. “He irritated me.”

“And you’re irritating
me
. Stay on task, would you?”

She turned back to the little tableau in front of her. It was only when Ambrose’s soft chuckles became too distracting that she looked at him.

“What?” she demanded.

He nodded toward Connor. Victoria turned to see that Connor had put up his sword and folded his arms over his chest. He shot her a look of disgust before he turned his face forward.

“I’ve never seen him back away from a fight,” Ambrose said conversationally.

“I did not back away,” Connor said curtly. “I’m humoring the wench here. She’s distraught and not thinking clearly, else she never would have spoken to me in that tone of voice.”

“Of course not,” Ambrose said, sounding as if he’d swallowed something very large and was having a hard time breathing because of it.

Victoria ignored them all and watched the goings on in front of her. Jamie walked here and there, bent now and then to study the grass, then walked some more.

At length, he talked to Thomas, who nodded, then walked toward Victoria.

“I think you can wait for us back at the inn.”

“Wait for you?” Victoria echoed. “Are you telling me I’m being dismissed?”

“Something like that,” Thomas said easily.

Victoria hesitated, looked at Thomas to judge his level of stubbornness, then shrugged. “All right.”

Thomas blinked. “You’ll go?”

“Didn’t you just ask me to?”

“I didn’t think you’d do it.”

Victoria shrugged. “I’ll go. We’ll all go.
All
of us,” she said pointedly.

The Boar’s Head Trio seemed willing enough and started back toward the inn. Even Connor stomped off with a curse or two.

Victoria nodded in a friendly fashion to her brother, then trudged along obediently after her ancestors for quite a distance. Then she let out her most artistic expression of dismay.

“My watch!” she exclaimed. “I must have dropped it along the path. You all go along ahead. I’ll catch up.”

Ambrose frowned. “We can help—”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. You should check on Iolanthe.”

Ambrose nodded. “Aye, there is that. Come on, lads. Let’s be about our business.”

The men started back toward the inn. Connor followed them.

“Not you,” Victoria whispered fiercely.

Connor looked back over his shoulder at her, then frowned. “Not you, who? Me?”

“Of course, you.” She nodded back toward the rise of the hill where on the other side Thomas and Jamie were investigating. “You don’t think I’m going to let Thomas be in charge, do you?”

“I knew there was a reason I hadn’t terrified you to death already,” he said pleasantly as he turned back toward her.

“Well, keep it to yourself and be discreet about this.”

“Discreet?”

“Don’t let them see you. Thomas is my mother’s son, you know. Though I’m not quite sure where Jamie fits in; he’s a suspicious character. Now, if I only knew how to sneak up on them—”

“Follow me,” Connor said, leading off into the grass.

It was only slightly disconcerting to see none of the local flora and fauna show any trace of his passing. Victoria shivered, then plunged into the field after him.

It seemed an inordinate way out of the way, but she realized he knew what he was doing when they made their way through the trees and wound up within eavesdropping distance of the pair of lunatics standing there stroking their chins and discussing flowers in the grass.

“’Tis a proper fairy ring,” Jamie was saying.

“Well, you would know.”

Victoria looked at Connor with wide eyes. He was smirking unpleasantly.

“Prissy MacLeod woman,” Connor said with a soft snort. “No offense to present company.”

“Maybe his wife likes flowers,” she offered.

“Perhaps he has plucked too many and the scent has gone to his head and ruined whatever wits he might have once possessed.”

Victoria took that under advisement and leaned around the tree to better hear what was being said.

“Do you think it’s possible?” Thomas was asking.

“’Tis always possible with these sorts of suspicious bloomings,” Jamie said, stroking his chin thoughtfully. “And we
are
in Scotland, never mind that ’tis so close to the English border that the wind blows unpleasantly foul.”

Thomas laughed. “Jamie, you’re not very tolerant of your southern neighbors.”

“I’d spend more time being tolerant if the Inland Revenue spent less time dipping into my coffers.”

“Coffers,” Victoria echoed. “What a quaint term for it.”

Connor grunted. “His speech is passing medieval, if you ask me.”

Victoria nodded to herself. She would certainly have some questions for Iolanthe when the time was right.

“So, my laird,” Thomas said, jamming his hands into his pockets, “what’s your opinion?”

“There is only one way to know for sure,” Jamie said.

And with that, he stepped quite deliberately into the fairy ring.

And vanished.

Victoria gasped.

Connor gasped as well.

She sat down hard. Connor jumped aside to avoid her and went sprawling. She was almost speechless. Fortunately, it was a condition that never troubled her for long.

“Did you see what I just saw?” she asked Connor.

“He’s a demon,” Connor breathed. He crossed himself for good measure.

“Either that, or a damned good magician.” Victoria heaved herself to her feet. “Come with me while I torture some answers from my brother.”

“Gladly,” he replied, leaping with alacrity to his feet. “Pray allow me to inflict some kind of damage upon him, as well.”

“Wait your turn.”

Thomas turned as they approached. He didn’t look all that surprised, either that she was there or that Jamie had disappeared. Victoria stopped in front of him, folded her arms across her chest, and glared at him.

“All right, spill it,” she demanded.

“Spill what?”

“Don’t be dumb,” she snapped. “Jamie was here and now he’s not. Where did he go?”

Thomas shrugged. “I have no idea.”

“Thomas!”

He put his hand on her shoulder. Connor growled.

“Down, Laird MacDougal,” Thomas said. He looked at Victoria with twinkling eyes. “He’s quite possessive.”

“I’m robbing him of tourists to scare. He’s just marking time until the castle is back in his possession. Now, cough up the details before he really does you some damage.”

Possessive? Victoria tried not to let that word rattle around in her head. Connor MacDougal had all the time in the world and he was killing it by hanging out with her.

Surely.

Thomas put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her away. “Let’s walk. I’ll tell you what you want to know. Well, at least most of what you want to know.” He looked at Connor. “You should come as well, MacDougal. You’ve seen enough weird things in your time not to be surprised by any of this. Besides, I’m counting on you to keep my sister in line. You know,” he said, leaning over Victoria’s head conspiratorially, “she can really come unhinged when it suits her. Has she let you have it yet?”

Victoria elbowed her brother quite forcefully in the ribs.

“I’ve managed to avoid most of her ire,” Connor said easily, “but her cast and crew lives in fear.”

“Hey!” Victoria said, glaring up at him. “You’re supposed to be on
my
side.”

He almost smiled. She could have sworn he had.

He looked at Thomas and shrugged. “Provoke her at your own risk. I daresay I would have to hold you accountable for her suffering.”

“How gallant of you,” Thomas said, with an unwholesome snort of laughter.

“Shut up,” Victoria suggested.

Thomas gave her shoulders a squeeze. “Cut me some slack, sis. Didn’t I get you a great castle for your play?”

“Yeah, full of ghosts dying to do me in.”

“Laird MacDougal doesn’t want to do you in any longer. At least not until after the play’s over. Isn’t that right, MacDougal?”

Connor only muttered under his breath.

Victoria found herself walking back to the inn with her brother on one side and Connor MacDougal on the other.

And it felt perfectly normal.

“I think I’m sleep deprived,” she announced.

Connor grunted. “Now you see the effects of not heeding my advice.”

“She never listens,” Thomas said. “Don’t waste your energy.”

“Aye, I have become accustomed to it. How is it you have dealt with this stubbornness? You managed her quite poorly in the keep yesterday and I wondered if you had been at all successful at the task in times past.”

“Well, generally I just let her grind herself into the dust. She’ll wear out eventually.”

“Can’t you two find anything else to talk about?” Victoria said briskly. “You know, like where my grandmother went and why James MacLeod just vanished into thin air?”

“We’ll get to all that in good time,” Thomas assured her.

Victoria wondered if this kind of surreality was what you felt after you’d flown around the world three or four times and could no longer tell what time zone you were in. She looked at her brother blearily. “I think my life is unraveling.”

“I think it started a while ago,” Thomas suggested.

She felt her eyes narrow. “I think you might have started it all.”

“Me?” he asked innocently. “I had nothing to do with it. But aren’t you glad anyway?”

Well, she was, but she’d be damned if she would admit it. “You have some answering to do,” she said, wagging her finger at him. “You wiggled out of quite a few explanations after you and Iolanthe got married, but that won’t happen this time.”

“Sure,” Thomas said with a smile. “But first, let’s go call Jamie’s wife. She’ll want to know he’s off on a little business trip for a while.”

“How can you be so cavalier about this!” she exclaimed.

“I know Jamie. He’ll be all right.”

Victoria looked at Connor. “Are you this relaxed about it?”

Connor lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I cannot bring James MacLeod back. As I said, there is something different about him.” He looked at Thomas pointedly. “Something unsettlingly, medievally different.”

“He’s a Highlander,” Thomas said negligently. “You’re all sort of a fierce lot anyway, aren’t you?”

“True,” Connor agreed, “but that doesn’t explain several peculiar things about the man.”

“Answers,” Victoria demanded. “I want answers.”

“And you’ll have them,” Thomas answered.

“When?”

“Oh, look, there’s the inn,” Thomas said, quickening his pace. “I’d better see how Iolanthe’s doing.”

Victoria watched him turn his pace into a flat-out sprint. She looked at Connor.

“He’s hiding something.”

“Aye.”

“I wonder what it is?”