by Lynn Kurland
He had almost reached the entrance to the inn when the front door burst open and an older woman of goodly character and steely determination leaped out, feather duster in one hand and a look of purpose in her eye.
“There’ll be no noxious flies in my entryway,” she said with a final thrust of her duster. “Be off with ye, ye wee fiends!”
Then she paused, feather duster still at the ready, and looked about purposefully.
As if she looked for something other than flies.
Ambrose did the only thing he could: He flattened himself behind the door and waited until Mrs. Pruitt, the innkeeper hired to see to things in the owner’s absence, made a quick search of her garden, then reluctantly retreated back inside her domain.
He heaved a sigh of relief and quickly contemplated his next action. He could, of course, use the front door. He did that often. Indeed, the inn was, for all intents and purposes, under his direction; he was certainly free to enter and leave it when and where he chose. But tonight he would take a different path—
And hope to heaven that Mrs. Pruitt would be so weary from her daily tasks that she would leave the kitchen empty for the night.
He tapped his foot for what he hoped was long enough for any and all innkeepers inside to have put themselves to bed, then tiptoed around to the back of the house and peered into the kitchen window. All was dark inside. He sighed in relief, then walked through the door, lit candles with a flick of his wrist, and stoked up the shiny black stove with another negligent movement of his hand.
He drew up a chair to the stove with a sigh, reached out and plucked forth a cup of ale from thin air, then sat back and prepared for an evening spent contemplating the happy events that would no doubt transpire when his granddaughter, several generations removed, arrived from America later in the month. She was feisty, to be sure, and headstrong, but since he found those traits to be quite acceptable in himself, he couldn’t see why he should begrudge her the same in her own person.
The back door opened and shut with a bang. A man stood on the rug, stomping his feet and blowing on his hands. “Cold out, still,” he groused. “One would think that by the end of March we might have a had bit of relief from the chill.”
Ambrose pursed his lips. “You’ve lived in England for four hundred years, Fulbert, and I daresay you’ve complained about the weather for at least that long. Why do you continue to expect it to be warmer than it wants to be?”
Fulbert de Piaget threw himself into a chair and conjured up his own cup of hot ale. “Hope springs eternal,” he grumbled. “Or some other such rot.”
“Hope may spring eternal,” Ambrose conceded, “but spring comes when it wants. Be grateful you grew to manhood in this soft, southern country. In the Highlands, March is still hard with ice and chill.”
“Which is no doubt why you Scots are of such foul and ill-seated humors,” Fulbert said.
Ambrose had scarce opened his mouth to instruct Fulbert on the finer points of Scottish character before the back door opened and his own kinsman, Hugh McKinnon, peered in hesitantly.
“Is she about?”
Fulbert pursed his lips. “Who?”
“Mrs. Pruitt,” Hugh said, his teeth chattering. “Who else?”
“Haven’t seen her,” Fulbert said shortly. “She’s likely off tidying up her aspect to better impress her sweetheart here.”
“The saints be praised,” Hugh said as he entered the kitchen, shut the door behind him, and took up his place by the fire. “I wish you’d just get on with it, Ambrose,” he said. “Have yer meetin’ with the poor woman and be done.”
“Aye,” Fulbert said, turning a jaundiced eye on Ambrose. “You promised the good Mrs. Pruitt a parley and you’ve yet to keep that promise.”
“I will speak with her when I have the time,” Ambrose said, through gritted teeth.
Fulbert grunted. “Be about finding that time as soon as may be. The woman’s beginnin’ to ruin my sleep with all her gear beepin’ and squealin’ at all hours.”
“She’ll tire of hunting us,” Ambrose said confidently.
“Perhaps,” Fulbert conceded, “but she’ll never tire of hunting you.”
“I have to agree,” Hugh said with an uneasy nod. “She certainly has the gear for a goodly bit of paranormal investigating. It seems that every fortnight that big brown UPS lorry brings her something new to use.”
“Well, we’ve no need to worry about that tonight,” Ambrose said. “I’m quite sure Mrs. Pruitt has gone to bed—”
The door behind them, the door that separated the kitchen from the dining chamber, squeaked.
“Eeek!” Hugh said, then vanished.
Fulbert tossed back his ale and vanished, as well, without further comment.
Ambrose extinguished all but a single candle, but didn’t have time to vanish before the door made another squeak. He looked over his shoulder, hoping against hope that his ears, and those of his companions, had been mistaken. But, nay, that was no errant noise.
The door was eased open another finger’s breadth and a foul instrument of investigation was pushed through the crack. Ambrose recognized it for what it was: a ghostly Geiger counter. The beast made little clicks, lights ran up and down its sides, and its two little metal arms jumped, as if in anticipation of discoveries to come.
Ambrose cursed silently. Was there no peace to be found any longer in this world?
The counter began a bit of sniffing just inside the chamber, held by a hand that was surely more suited to seeing to guests and preparing fine repasts than tormenting poor, hapless shades. Unfortunately that hand, and the woman it was attached to, had to concern itself with things that surely didn’t concern it.
Namely him.
The door was flung open suddenly and into the kitchen leaped Mrs. Pruitt, dressed in head-to-toe black.
Ambrose jumped in spite of himself. He hastened over to stand by the back door where perhaps Mrs. Pruitt wouldn’t sense his presence.
“I know ye’re in ’ere,” Mrs. Pruitt said, waving her implement of torment about. She used her flashlight as well, to good effect. “Show yerselves, damn ye!”
Ambrose hopped up onto a handy work table. Mrs. Pruitt and her torch investigated every corner of the kitchen, finally coming to a purposeful rest before the door. Her counter was clicking and the lights were blinking in a fashion that was quite alarming. Ambrose stared at it in horror as it came even closer. The little arms waved frantically.
Apparently too frantically, for the entire contraption soon gave one last, great noise, then fell suddenly, and blessedly, silent.
Mrs. Pruitt slammed the thing down on the table a time or two, peered at it, then pursed her lips.
“Must ’ave been a bit o’ sour wind from under the door,” she grumbled.
Ambrose breathed a sigh of relief.
“Coward,” came a voice from beside him.
Ambrose squawked in spite of himself, then turned to glare at Fulbert, who had appeared next to him on the table. “Can you blame me?” he whispered in irritation.
“You gave the woman your word. I heard you fix the bargain with her yourself.”
“Damn me, but I never said when!”
Mrs. Pruitt tossed her contraption into the rubbish bin, turned, and stalked from the kitchen with a curse. Ambrose watched her go with a great sigh of relief.
“I’ll tell her you intend to woo her,” Fulbert said with an unwholesome look in his eye, “and then we’ll see how things progress . . .”
Ambrose wondered if wringing Fulbert’s neck would give him any peace. Then again, the man was his sister’s husband—and if that wasn’t enough to convince a man that there were just some things in the world, and out of it, that were simply beyond a man’s comprehension, he didn’t know what would be. He likely couldn’t just up and do damage to the man without there being hell to pay at some point in the future.
“I’ll show myself to her in my own good time,” Ambrose said firmly. “Until t
hen, we should concern ourselves with our next task.” He leaped athletically down from the work table and took up his place again by the fire.
“Matchmaking,” Fulbert said with a snort, coming over to draw up his own chair. “I’m beginnin’ to think it isn’t a dignified occupation for a man of my stature.”
“Then find something else to do,” Ambrose said pointedly.
“I would, but you’d never manage any of these marriages without my aid and then where would I be?”
“Well—”
“Unraveling your disasters, that’s where I’d be,” Fulbert continued in a superior tone, retrieving his mug from its invisible storage place. “Now, who is it this time? The name escapes me . . .”
“You know very well who is coming.”
Fulbert took a deep pull of his ale. “I’ve been trying to forget.” He looked at Ambrose over the rim of his cup. “Go ahead. Spew out the name.”
“Victoria McKinnon, and do not dare disparage her.”
“Disparage her?” Fulbert echoed weakly. “I wouldn’t dare! But, by the saints, must we be involved with that particular McKinnon wench? I remember Mistress Victoria from young Gideon’s wedding to that granddaughter of yours, that Megan MacLeod McKinnon.” He shivered. “As if Megan wasn’t bad enough, wedding me nevvy and ruinin’ him for decent labor, now we’ve another of your descendants to be tormented by—”
“Don’t you talk about me wee granddaughter thusly!” a voice bellowed suddenly. Hugh McKinnon appeared, his face red, his sword grasped in his hand, the business end pointed toward Fulbert’s chest.
“I won’t say more about Megan,” Fulbert grumbled, “but that Victoria—”
“Do not malign her, either!” Hugh thundered. “She’s a spirited gel—”
“Hugh, she’s a bleedin’ garrison captain!” Fulbert exclaimed.
Hugh squirmed uncomfortably for a moment or two, then scrunched his face up in his most determined expression. “She’s . . . er . . . focused.”
Fulbert leaped to his feet, sending his chair toppling backward. He drew his sword with a flourish. “And I say she’s impossible! Spending her life trying to keep those flighty actors and dancers in proper form . . .” He snorted. “Foolishness. Damn me if I couldn’t wish for just one wench who’s for a bit of bloodshed—”
“I’ll give ye all the bloodshed ye want, ye pompous Brit!” Hugh vowed, giving Fulbert a healthy shove.
Fulbert took a firmer grip on his sword. “Whey-faced skirt-wearer.”
“Whey-faced,” Hugh echoed. “Whey-faced!”
They raised their swords as if they intended to do damage with them. Ambrose cursed. He was all for a bit of proper exercise when circumstances warranted, but now was not the time and the kitchen was not the place.
“Take it outside,” he bellowed.
Hugh hesitated in midswing; Fulbert paused before he cleaved Hugh’s skull in twain. They looked at each other, shrugged, then tromped out the door with word or two of pleasant conversation between them.
Soon there came the sound of a mighty battle from the back garden. Ambrose wanted to believe that would be the end of it, but he knew better. He began to count silently. He expected that he wouldn’t reach a score before the kitchen door would burst open—it did at ten-and-six—and a be-curlered, hastily garbed Mrs. Pruitt would come racing through the kitchen with her video camera at the ready—which she did, clutching her pink robe to her breast and nearly putting out an eye as she dashed across the wooden floor. She rushed out the back door.
Ambrose sighed as the sounds outside changed in tone. Bloodshed? Aye, there might be a bit, and not just Mrs. Pruitt tripping over garden implements.
Curses and screeches mingled outside. Ambrose tipped back in his chair, waiting for what was to come. The curses ceased abruptly and the screeching became the low murmuring of a woman who was reviewing her videotape and finding it completely lacking the kind of paranormal activity she had intended it to capture. Ambrose was unsurprised several minutes later when Mrs. Pruitt marched through the kitchen and cursed her equipment thoroughly as she continued on her way into the dining chamber.
Hugh and Fulbert came in not far behind her, with swords sheathed, and heads shaking.
“Parley with her,” Fulbert said to Ambrose.
Hugh nodded nervously in agreement.
Ambrose sighed. “I will. Soon. After this next bit of business is finished. I should have been preparing for that long before now, but the winter was quite pleasant in the Highlands—”
“It always is,” Hugh agreed wistfully.
“And I lingered when I should have labored. Now, I’ve much to do and little time in which to do it.” Ambrose took a long pull from his mug. “Fortunately, we know all we need to about the lad up the way.”
“Do we?” Fulbert mused. “I’m the first to choose interesting rumor over tedious fact, but I must ask meself how much of what we know about him is true.”
Hugh gaped at him. “What’s there to know?” he managed. “Connor MacDougal is unpleasant, impolite, and dangerous.” He looked at Ambrose. “I wonder why it is we’re sending such a sweet, delicate gel as my Victoria into that lion’s den.”
“Sweet?” Fulbert choked. “Delicate? Have ye gone mad—”
“Be that as it may,” Ambrose interrupted firmly, “’tis the match we’re determined to make. I daresay in the end, there will be several things we’ve misjudged about the pair. Well,” he added, “I daresay I will not be surprised, but others will no doubt be so. In the end, all will be well. Now, for the present, we’ll rely on rumor to guide us with regard to the laird up the way and I’ll be about a bit of digging into what our dear Victoria is combining. We’ll rendezvous here in a fortnight and make our plans.”
“That is ample time,” Fulbert agreed.
Ambrose frowned at him. “Ample time for you to remain hereabouts with Hugh and make no trouble.”
Fulbert opened his mouth to argue, which forced Ambrose to produce one of his fiercer scowls. Fulbert contented himself with muttering into his cup. Hugh looked ready to protest as well, but Ambrose cowed him with a similar look. Hugh folded his arms over his chest and stared into the fire with a scowl of his own.
Satisfied that his companions would remain where they had been instructed to, Ambrose bid them a firm good-night, dispensed with his chair and cup, then turned and walked out of the kitchen. He made his way through the dining chamber, through the entryway, and up to his own bedchamber, the one that always remained empty even when the rest of the inn was full and more guests wanted to stay. No one ever seemed to want to spend the night there in that bit of sixteenth-century splendor, though he couldn’t understand why not.
Well, whatever the reason, it gave him a place to rest and he suspected he would do well to be well-rested for what was to come. There was still much to do, many details to ferret out, and many plans to be laid which would need to go undetected by the man and woman in question.
There were games afoot, and he could scarce wait to be about the playing of them.
Chapter 1
Something foul was afoot and Victoria MacLeod McKinnon didn’t like the smell of it.
It wasn’t dinner; she was fairly certain of that. She sat at the beautifully distressed farm table in her brother’s equally beautiful house in Maine and enjoyed a supper of wonderful, if not overly healthy, delights designed to tempt the most discriminating palate. Victoria looked up from her dinner steaming on the table and admired Thomas’s dining room, overlooking as it did the Atlantic ocean in all its tumultuous glory. The smell of salt air seeping in through the kitchen skylight mingling with dinner should have left her refreshed and contented at the same time. The peaceful, tastefully decorated interiors should have soothed her. The thought of an entire weekend with nothing more to do than relax in such choice surroundings should have left her with her only regret being that she could not stay longer.
She sniffed.
There it was again. Somet
hing that said there was something quite rotten in Denmark.
As it were.
Victoria looked at the Brussels sprout on the end of her fork and suppressed the urge to shove it down her brother’s throat.
“I fail to see what is so funny,” she said, waving that particularly plump sprout threateningly at him.
Thomas, the cook, decorator, and benefactor extraordinaire, only shook his head, seemingly unable to stop smiling. “I just can’t help myself.”
Victoria pursed her lips. “You offered me your castle, if you remember,” she said pointedly. “You gave me money to pay for putting on my next play there. You are covering every expense associated with this production and not even demanding any part of the receipts in return. Why is it when we discuss any of it, you seem to suddenly be overcome by uncontrollable fits of giggles?”
“Your brother has spent too much time at high altitude,” her father said from where he sat next to her. “He’s damaged the appropriate humor sensor centers of his brain.”
“Oh, John, it isn’t that,” Victoria’s mother said with a laugh. “Thomas is just happy. He’s going to have a baby.”
“No, Mom,” Thomas said, reaching for his wife’s hand, “Iolanthe’s going to have a baby. I’m just the giddy father-to-be.”
Victoria submerged her sprout into as much cheese sauce as was available on her plate and ate it before she thought better of it. Giddy hardly described her brother and his bride, but demented described her own mental state at the time of the phone call she’d received inviting her up into her brother’s love nest. What had she been thinking, to say yes?
It was familial guilt, pure and simple. Her mother had invited; Victoria had capitulated. She’d been lured up to Maine on the pretext of having a little rest and relaxation before diving headfirst into her next production. A restful weekend away from the rat race was what her mother had termed it. Victoria had been suspicious, but she hadn’t seen her parents in a month and her brother in longer than that, so she’d given in and reluctantly accepted the invitation.