Much Ado In the Moonlight (37 page)

He understood why Fellini liked performing so much.

But when the curtain pulled together and he stood in a huddle with his fellow actors, watching tears of relief course down Victoria’s cheeks, he found that he was almost tempted to do the same. Victoria turned to look at him.

“Amazing,” she breathed.

He laughed. He simply couldn’t help himself.

“Heaven help me,” she said with a laugh of her own, “Connor MacDougal just laughed. I think it’s time for a swoon.”

“After everyone’s gone,” Jennifer said, throwing an arm around her sister. “You were brilliant. Connor was, well, there are no words to describe it. I’ve never seen Hamlet done better.”

Connor would have thought she was exaggerating, but she was equally quick to point out that Thomas had flubbed several of his lines but that she loved him anyway, so Connor found himself with no choice but to take her words as she spoke them.

“Vikki? Gideon’s dad wants to come backstage.” Megan was peeking under the curtain. “He especially wants to meet Hamlet.” She smiled at Connor. “Hi, Laird MacDougal. You were wonderful, by the way.”

Connor would have nodded in thanks, but he was too startled. He looked at Victoria. “What now, Captain McKinnon?”

“Well, you certainly can’t shake his hand. Say hello from a distance. Claim a cold, or strep, or the plague.”

Connor grunted. “Not amusing.”

“Yes, but necessary.” She slipped through the curtain and soon was calling his name.

Connor looked at Thomas. “Your aid, McKinnon?”

“For the man who drove my sister to madness? Anything.” Thomas pulled the curtain back and waited.

Connor found himself looking at the Earl of Artane, a rather unassuming man as earls went, but then again, the man likely wasn’t training with a broadsword every day.

“Megan told me that there was a bit of a muddle with some of the cast having transportation difficulties,” the earl said, all smiles, “but I daresay that was fortuitous. A fabulous performance, sir, I must say!”

Connor bowed low. “I thank you for that, my lord. But it is Mistress McKinnon who deserves the credit. There is not a better director in all of the Apple.”

“The Big Apple,” Thomas whispered from behind him.

“Manhattan,” Connor clarified, remembering suddenly what Victoria had called it more than once. “And I daresay England has never seen her like.”

“My dear,” the earl said to Victoria, “you are truly a treasure. I don’t suppose there might be time in your schedule tonight to discuss what you’ve done in the past. We didn’t have nearly enough time this afternoon.”

“I would love to discuss it,” Victoria said. “If you would give me half an hour to close up the set?”

“Of course.” Artane looked up at Connor. “Truly a pleasure, sir. I don’t think I’ve enjoyed a performance more.”

Connor bowed again, unable to think of a single reply that would have done the compliment justice. He retreated back behind the curtain and kept himself out of the way as the crew arranged scenery and weatherproofed it. Sound and lights were put away, along with the accompanying gear. Once that was all finished to Victoria’s satisfaction, she came to stand near him.

“Well, that’s over,” she said with a sigh.

“Are you content?”

She smiled. “I can’t talk about it tonight. Let me humor Megan’s father-in-law, have something to eat now I’m certain I won’t immediately throw it back up, and then get a good night’s sleep. I’ll know tomorrow what I thought.”

“Shall I wait for you?” he asked. “In the library?”

“Do,” she said. “I won’t be long. Well,” she amended, “that may not be true. It depends on the earl. Thomas said he might be looking for a theater company to fund and I can never say no to conversations of those sorts.”

“I’ll wait,” he said.

“I’ll be there eventually.”

He watched her walk off with her brother and sister and stood on the edge of the stage, continuing to watch them as they left through the gate. Victoria turned back once to wave, then went on her way.

“I think that performance definitely could be considered wooing verse.”

Connor looked at Roderick, who had come to stand next to him. “Think you?”

“I do. Well done, indeed. The garrison is, I believe, speechless to a man.”

“Hmmm,” Connor said thoughtfully. He bid Roderick a peaceful night and left the castle himself, slowly making his way toward the inn.

He went in through the front door and walked over to the sitting room. He put an ear to the door and listened for a moment or two to the conversation going on therein, but found that his emotions were so strong, he simply had to have privacy before they overcame him and unmanned him in the eyes of all.

He went into the library, stoked up a fire in the fireplace, and sat in his accustomed chair.

He never wept. He never allowed himself to even entertain regret. But there, in the dark, he couldn’t help but consider shedding a tear or two for what might have been.

And for the radiant, gifted woman he might have shared it with.

By the saints, she was luminous.

He would have given anything to have called her his.

Victoria
walked up the way to the castle, feeling as if she’d been doing it all her life, not just the better part of the summer. It was hard to believe that her run was over and she had no further reason to remain in England. The earl had made vague noises about having her do something else at the castle at his expense, but he’d said nothing definite enough for her to count on. Connor would now go back to his hauntings; she would soon go back to her rehearsals. He would remain in England; she would go back to Manhattan. All that had happened over the past two months would be relegated to memory, and life would go on. Only she suspected she would have a hard time going on.

Then again, what else was she to do? Connor was a ghost; she was a mortal. There wasn’t exactly a manual for dealing successfully with this kind of relationship, even if Connor had been interested in any kind of relationship.

She paused, blew out her breath, and suppressed the urge to walk immediately to a handy wall and bang her head repeatedly against it until she found sense again.

She entered the bailey to find Connor sitting on the stage, staring off thoughtfully into the distance. She took a deep breath. She’d seen him the night before in the library, but she’d been so tired, she’d hardly managed to tell him good night before she’d fallen into bed and passed out. Now was the chance to tell him how wonderful he’d been, tell him of her plans to do a little sightseeing, then see what he thought of her heading back to Manhattan in a couple of weeks.

Unless he wanted her to make good on her promise to let him haunt her for a month.

Heaven help her.

She crossed the dirt to stand in front of him. “How are you?” she asked.

He pulled himself away from his musings and looked at her with a faint smile. “I’m still not quite sure what it is I think.”

“Stardom does that to a person,” she said, hopping up on the stage to sit next to him. He was wearing his hose and tunic from the night before, as if he couldn’t quite bear to change it. Victoria smiled. “I think you have a new calling in life.”

“Me?” he answered, looking surprised. “What?”

“Actor. Your Hamlet was truly breathtaking. I could watch you do it every night for years.”

He shifted. “Thank you. Your Ophelia was heart-stopping, as well.” He paused. “I must admit to being baffled as to why they did not wed, those two.”

She shrugged. “Circumstances, I suppose.”

“Circumstances,” he repeated quietly.

He glanced her way.

And her heart almost stopped.

“It seems a poor reason to forgo something that seems so perfect,” he said slowly. “Think you?”

She swallowed convulsively. She had the feeling that he wasn’t talking about Shakespeare any longer. “There were things they could not change,” she said, feeling a little desperate. “He was a prince; she was below him in station. A world of convention stood between them. It was impossible.”

“I care not for that word.”

“I’m not a big fan of it, either.”

He swung his feet back and forth under the edge of the stage and looked down at the ground.

Then he looked at her.

“I want you.”

She would have fallen off the stage, but she had already done that years ago in school. Instead, she clutched the wood and hoped it would help her world stop spinning.

“You what?” she managed.

“You heard me.”

“I want to be clear on what you mean.” She paused. “You want me to do what? Direct you on stage? Find you a publicist? Scream for you for a month—”

“I want you,” he repeated slowly. “In my bed. In my life. At my side from dawn to dawn and all the hours between them.” He paused. “I believe the term for it is marriage.”

She felt tears well up in her eyes. One of them fell down her cheek with an authenticity Cressida could never have matched on her best day.

“Marriage?” she whispered.

“Aye.”

She looked at him simply because she could not look away. And then she put her face in her hands and cried.

He let her weep. She would have tried to make the downpour as quick a one as possible, but once she got going it was hard to stop. She bawled like a baby until she had no more blubbering to do, then she dragged her sleeve across her eyes and looked at him. He was smiling grimly.

“Is it so terrifying a thought?”

“No,” she sniffed. “But Connor, it’s impossible.”

He looked at her for several moments in silence, then hopped off the stage. “Come with me.”

She got off the stage much less gracefully, but managed to land on her feet just the same. “Where are we going?”

“To talk to your brother.”

“Are you going to ask his permission? My dad’s at the inn as well, you know, though apparently he and Mom are headed to London with Megan tomorrow for more sightseeing, so if you—”

“I’ll talk to your father later. ’Tis your brother I will have answers from now.”

“Answers? Answers to what sorts of questions?” She was already out of breath and she supposed it would have been convenient to blame it on the fact that Connor was striding down the pathway with very long legs and she was running to keep up. In truth, she suspected it was just because she’d never been proposed to before. By the one man whose proposal she would have accepted.

And the one man she could never have.

“Questions about several things,” Connor said briskly. “Questions about some of the inhabitants of Thorpewold over the years.”

“What do those questions have to do with us?”

“You will soon see.”

Victoria trotted alongside Connor as he made his way to the inn. He walked through the front door; she ran into it. She backed up with a curse. He appeared instantly back through the door.

“My apologies.”

“See,” she said crossly, “it wouldn’t work. I’d be nothing but a bruise.”

He stopped and looked at her. “Your eyes are leaking.”

“It’s the flowers. They make me sneeze.”

“Then let us be away from the garden. Open the door, love, if you will.”

She obeyed, then froze halfway over the threshold. “What did you call me?”

“The first of countless endearments if you’ll but stir yourself to hold to our current course.”

She folded her arms over her chest. Actually, she hugged herself so she wouldn’t shatter into a million pieces. “Say it again.”

“Move your fetching arse,
love
,” he said impatiently, “before we find Thomas and Iolanthe napping where I daren’t disturb them.”

She opened the front door. “You know, you could use some work on your love language.”

He grunted at her as he strode into the inn. “Keep up,” he instructed.

And so she did, past an incredulous Mrs. Pruitt at the reception desk, in and out of the kitchen very briefly to find the Boar’s Head Trio looking equally as surprised, and back into the sitting room, where Iolanthe was stretched out on the couch groaning and Thomas was hovering.

Victoria would have been groaning too with that nursemaid attending her.

“Good grief, Thomas,” she exclaimed, “give the poor woman room to breathe.”

Thomas scowled at her, but he ceased with his hovering and sat down on the arm of the couch. “That was quite a night last night, wasn’t it? Are you here for a debriefing?”

“Not exactly,” Victoria said.

“Post-performance letdown?”

“Connor has a question or two for you.”

Thomas paused, then looked at them both assessingly. “Well,” he said. “What is it?”

Connor looked at Victoria and gestured to the empty chair next to the couch. “Sit. My love,” he added.

“Oh,” Thomas said, drawing the word out for quite a while. “So, that’s how it is.”

“It’s your fault,” Victoria said promptly.

“Hey, I just sent you here to torment him,” Thomas said with a grin. “I didn’t intend for you to fall in love with him.”

“Maybe you should have thought about that before you started meddling,” Victoria said.

The look Connor gave her made her quite relieved to be sitting down.

Connor sat, as well, and looked at Thomas. “I’ve questions to put to you.”

“I think I may hesitate to give you answers,” Thomas said frankly.

Victoria watched Connor open his mouth, no doubt to retort with something nasty, then he stopped, took a deep breath, and looked at her brother with what he obviously thought would pass for a pleasant expression.

“Please,” he said simply.

Thomas blinked in surprise. “Hell,” he said finally.

“Nay, I’m hoping for somewhere else,” Connor said. “Now, in order to make that so, I need you to tell us your tale.”