Much Ado In the Moonlight (25 page)

Jamie came in and sat down with a flourish in a soft chair near the hearth.

Victoria waited, but the door was shut and no more family was entering. “Thomas, where are Mom and Dad?”

“I figured this wasn’t a conversation Dad could handle,” Thomas said, looking back over his shoulder at her. “Io’s tired as well, and Mom offered to get her upstairs. It’s just us here.”

“And the ghosts,” Jennifer said faintly.

Thomas put his arm around her. “That won’t be the weirdest thing you hear tonight, Jenner. Hang on for the ride.”

Victoria shot Connor a brief look of disgust before she went to sit down in a chair across the coffee table from Jamie. “I’m dying to hear what happened.”

Jamie smiled in satisfaction. “Well, the first thing to tell is that the gate works.”

“The gate?” Victoria echoed. “What gate?”

“The time gate in Farris’s fairy ring,” Jamie said simply.

Victoria wondered if it was possible to tell from just looking at Jamie whether or not he had lost all his marbles or just a few of them. She glanced at Thomas.

“Are you buying this?”

“I’d buy quite a bit if it explained where Granny had gone,” Thomas said easily.

“But time travel!” Victoria exclaimed. She looked at Jamie. “This is time travel you’re talking about, isn’t it?”

“Aye, it is, Mistress Victoria,” Jamie said. He smiled. “Perhaps a little proof would sit well with you.”

He pulled coins out of a purse at his belt, then drew a dagger from his boot. He put all his booty onto the coffee table, as well as a sheaf or two of very new-looking parchment with very antique-looking writing on it.

“Interesting,” Thomas said, leaning forward. “Where did you go and what did you see?”

“The fairy ring leads to Elizabethan England,” Jamie said. “At least it did for me, but I was determined to bend its power to my will. Where it would take someone else is anyone’s guess. My desire was to go where your grandmother had gone and off I went.” He stroked the ruff around his neck. “Hence my sixteenth-century gear. I canna say I cared overmuch for the food. Or perhaps that was merely because I was in Renaissance London. The food is better in the country.”

“It cannot be worse than medieval Scotland,” Connor muttered.

Jamie looked at him and laughed. “Nay, it was not, Laird MacDougal.”

Victoria wanted desperately to interrupt and ask how the hell James MacLeod would know anything about Renaissance country food or medieval chow, but she couldn’t get her mouth shut and a useful swallow down before Jamie was off again, describing the delights of Renaissance London. And then he sobered.

“I must bring the disappointing tidings that I did not find Mistress Granny,” he finished, “though I looked diligently for her.”

“But you think that’s where she went,” Thomas stated.

“Aye, wouldn’t you?”

Thomas nodded wisely.

Victoria suppressed the urge to bludgeon her brother with questions, as well. Who did he think he was, nodding in that knowing way as if he’d experienced time travel for himself?

Time travel?

Ha!

“That simplifies things,” Thomas said.

“That simplifies things,” Victoria echoed, finally finding her voice. “What do you mean by that?”

“It means now we know where to go get her.”

“Go get her,” Victoria wheezed. “Go
get
her?”

“Yes,” Thomas said easily. “We follow Granny back to Elizabethan England, get her, and come home.”

Victoria’s first instinct was to reach over and thump her brother on the head to restore good sense to him. But then she realized what Jamie had said.

Elizabethan England?

Despite herself, she was intrigued.

She looked over her shoulder and motioned for Connor to come and sit next to her in the hard chair by the fire. The Boar’s Head Trio was also soon seated there in front of a fire that did nothing to warm the room. She wouldn’t have been surprised to have seen Shakespeare make an appearance.

But maybe that was asking too much.

“Even so,” Jamie said, “it will not be an easy journey. We can assume your grandmother is there, but finding her is a different matter entirely. We’ve no idea where she would have wandered off to.”

“Well, at least we know where that gate leads,” Thomas said, leaning forward with his knees on his elbows. “It’s a start.”

“It would have come as a shock to her, doubtless,” Jamie said, stroking the fabric of his shirt. “Wandering unknowing through that gate and finding herself in Shakespeare’s London.”

London
. Victoria shivered in spite of herself. Modern-day London was rough enough. How in the world would her grandmother survive London in any other century? She looked at Thomas. “I’m hearing all this, but I can’t quite believe it.”

“Life’s weird,” he offered.

Jamie yawned suddenly. “Forgive me. I’ve had a very long se’nnight. We should speak more of this on the morrow. There is much to be discussed and many plans to make.” He looked at Thomas seriously. “The gates can be very unpredictable. Even I, who have extensive experience with them, have found them from time to time to be unresponsive to my will. There is very real danger involved in this journey.”

Victoria saw that Jamie and Thomas were still speaking, but she couldn’t hear their words any longer. Her mind was reeling with two things she’d just heard.

Jamie had extensive experience with time gates and even he, who had used those gates apparently quite a bit, thought the journey was a dangerous one.

Maybe time travel wasn’t as improbable as she thought.

It was the second item that clamored for her attention, though. If the trip was as dangerous as it sounded, it would be better made by someone with the least amount to lose.

Jamie had a family and he had already risked his life once to investigate. Her dad probably wouldn’t get the gate to work for him because he was a confirmed skeptic. Thomas and Iolanthe were expecting a baby in the fall and there was no way Thomas could leave Iolanthe now.

They needed an unentangled person to go. Someone who knew something about Elizabethan England. Someone who could blend in, don an authentic-looking costume, and pull it off. Someone who could at least get by with the language.

Someone like her.

Jamie yawned again and rose. “I am weary. Let us converse again on the morrow and make our plans.”

He left. Jennifer followed. Victoria looked at Thomas suspiciously, but decided that the interrogation could wait. She had things to think about and her own plans to make.

“I’m going to bed,” she said, crawling to her feet. “ ’Night, all.”

Connor rose and followed her.

“MacDougal, you can stay,” Thomas said.

“Aye, I could,” he agreed.

“Manly talk,” Thomas offered. “You might enjoy it.”

“I don’t trust Fellini,” Connor answered crisply. “I will go stand guard outside Victoria’s door.”

“Of course,” Thomas said.

He sounded like he was trying very hard not to laugh. Victoria cursed him thoroughly under her breath as she nodded to Connor and went to get ready for bed.

She managed to get in and out of Mrs. Pruitt’s guest bathroom without incident and quickly escaped to the library.

Connor was sitting inside in his accustomed place before the fire. She took the seat opposite him.

“Well?” she asked. “What do you think?”

“’Tis madness,” he said promptly.

She smiled. “And my having this conversation with you isn’t?”

He looked at her gravely. “Perhaps there is more to it that we suspect.”

“‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’”

“Hamlet,” he said.

“The very same.”

“Mayhap he knew of what he spoke.”

“But London, Connor,” she said faintly. “A trained private investigator could spend years looking and never find her.” She leaned her head back against the chair. “I can’t talk about this anymore. I can’t even think about it.”

She would think about it plenty when she had some privacy, but not now. She’d already made up her mind about going. What she didn’t need was Connor talking her out of it.

She looked at him sitting across from her, the firelight playing across his face, and felt for the first time in her life as if she truly had a friend. She smiled. “Do you still want to do me in?”

He grunted. “Did I ever?”

“Yes, you did, and that isn’t an answer.”

“Go to sleep, Victoria.”

“You’re hedging.”

“You’re vexing me.” He looked at her, clear-eyed and peaceful, clearly unvexed.

“Thank you.”

“For what?” he asked.

“For the lessons in Gaelic. For letting me drag actors into your castle. For standing outside my door and protecting me.” She listened to what was coming out of her mouth and wondered when the stream of very personal revelations was going to end. “For sitting here and being my friend.”

Apparently, the stream wasn’t going to end soon.

“Friend?” he repeated, looking somewhat horrified.

“Is that so bad?” she asked, feeling her eyelids becoming very heavy. Maybe she was sleep-talking. Yes, that would be her excuse.
I was baring my soul late last night, but it was really just me babbling in my dreams.

Would anyone, namely Connor, buy that?

He was silent for so long she wondered if she had fallen asleep truly.

“It will suffice for the moment, but by the saints it will not do forever.”

She realized she was asleep only because her chin eventually hit her chest. She jerked her head back and it snapped smartly against the wooden chair. She forced her eyes to open. It took her a moment or two to focus on Connor.

He was watching her with a smile.

Which he quickly wiped off, of course.

“I’m hallucinating,” she slurred. “You’re smiling.”

“And you’re drooling,” he returned. “Go to bed before you wrench your neck overmuch.”

She nodded and managed to get herself to bed before she fell asleep on her feet. She managed to get the covers up to her ears before she felt herself slipping into oblivion.

“Friends? Ha!” There was the sound of a manly snort accompanying that declaration.

Then again, she could have been dreaming it.

Connor
used a goodly amount of his strength to lock Victoria’s door before he walked through it and made his way to the kitchen. Dawn was still an hour or two off, but he had the feeling there would be deeds afoot.

He was correct, as he assumed he would be. Ambrose, Hugh, and Fulbert were sitting at the table in the kitchen, a cheery fire burning in the Aga behind them, and comforting mugs of ale littering the table. Ambrose looked up as Connor walked in from the dining chamber.

“Connor,” he said with a smile. “We expected you.”

Connor sat down and conjured up his own mug. “And I expected you wouldn’t be sleeping through matters of this import. Well, what have you discussed?”

“Someone has to go fetch Mary,” Hugh said. “I say ’tis our duty to go.”

“And
I
say you’ll make a great hash of the plans,” Fulbert grumbled. “
I
should go alone. ’Tis my century, after all.”

Connor looked at Ambrose to see him stroking his chin in a most James MacLeod-like manner.

“I daresay Fulbert does have a thought worthy of consideration,” Ambrose said, “though he should include me as a creature of that particular age.”

“You’re a Scot,” Fulbert said with a snort. “What do you know of Elizabeth’s London?”

“As much as you, likely,” Ambrose said. “I did my share of traveling and spent my share of time in the London of those days.”

Connor listened to them argue the merits of their particular experiences versus what Hugh, as Victoria’s grandfather might bring to the venture. He drained his cup, then tortured it as he considered the conversation he’d had with Victoria several hours earlier.

Friend.

Damn her, what was she thinking?

She was thinking that he was hardly a man she would look at twice for anything else.

“Connor?”

Connor blinked and looked at Ambrose. “Aye?”

“What are your thoughts on this?”

“My thoughts?” Connor mused. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Victoria vowed to go on her own. Indeed, I would only be surprised if she did not take on this task.”

“And if she does?” Ambrose said. “And I agree with you, by the way, that she will believe herself responsible. If she does make the attempt, will you go with her?”

Connor nodded. “I had already planned to. I daresay she’ll need all the
friends
she can bring along.”

Ambrose looked at him in surprise for a moment or two, then he began to smirk. Not much and only for the time it took him to put his hand over his mouth as if he yawned, but it was enough. Ambrose held out his hand in a calming motion before Connor could remember where he’d put his damned sword.

Propped up by his chair by the fire in the library, apparently.

“Does she consider you such?” Ambrose asked.

“Apparently.”

“I doubt she means it as an insult,” Ambrose offered.

“I—”

“Though it surely wouldn’t trouble you if she did,” Ambrose interrupted quickly. “Of course. And who’s to say that she’ll wish to go? Indeed, it might be quite ill-advised.”

“Who else is to go?” Hugh asked, cupping his hands about his mug protectively. “Jamie has a wife and bairns; ’twas dangerous enough for him to be about the journey once. Thomas is likewise a lad with a family and cannot leave them.”

“Victoria’s sire could go,” Ambrose said slowly.

Connor snorted. “The man is perfectly blind to what goes on beneath his nose. It must be the McKinnon in him.”