by Lynn Kurland
“I might be,” Ambrose admitted modestly. “It is my bedchamber he speaks of, after all.”
“Hmmm,” Connor said, faintly impressed. “I approve of your choice of victims.”
“I doubt Victoria will.”
Fellini’s complaints increased in volume until Connor wondered if he would become senseless from lack of air or simply keel over from the memory of his terror the night before.
Unfortunately for that potential bit of enjoyment, Fellini’s diatribe was interrupted by the hasty arrival of one Victoria McKinnon. She came flying down the stairs in what Connor could only assume were her nightclothes, her fiery hair streaming along behind her, her face full of concern.
He was somehow quite relieved he was leaning against something.
“She is magnificent, isn’t she?” Ambrose murmured.
Connor had to take a deep breath. “She screams quite well. For a McKinnon.”
Ambrose chuckled. “I suppose that’s true. But look at the way she commands all around her. Now, there’s a wench for a man with the courage to tame her.”
Connor grunted. That man certainly would not be Michael Fellini. The lout couldn’t manage to get himself past a harmless bit of sport from a womanly MacLeod; how would he ever tame that spirited Victoria McKinnon?
“Michael, what’s wrong?” Victoria asked breathlessly.
“My room is haunted!” Michael bellowed.
“Haunted?” Victoria echoed. “Why, that seems sooo unlikely!”
Connor found himself the recipient of a very pointed glare Victoria managed to slide his way without Fellini paying attention.
“I wouldn’t have bothered with the wretch,” Connor announced to anyone who would listen.
Victoria shot him another look of warning before she turned back to Fellini. “What makes you think your room was haunted?” she asked.
“Something blew down the back of my neck while I was practicing my lines in front of the mirror,” Michael complained. “I’m certain it was a ghost.”
“You know, I’ve heard the inn is drafty,” Victoria said soothingly.
“Not that drafty.”
“I’ll look into it,” Victoria assured him.
“You’d better,” Fellini warned.
And with that, he turned and left both Victoria and Mrs. Pruitt standing in the middle of the entryway. He sailed up the stairs and out of sight.
“I tried to warn him,” Mrs. Pruitt said darkly, “but did he listen?” She paused. “Perhaps I should wait outside the chamber tonight. Who knows what I might see?”
She departed with all alacrity to points unknown. Connor opened his mouth to comment on the whole ridiculous affair, but was interrupted by Victoria turning and glaring at him.
By the saints, she had a look about her that rendered him almost speechless.
If he’d been prone to speechlessness, which he most certainly was not.
“What?” he demanded.
Victoria strode over, a vision of fury. “We had a bargain,” she spat.
Connor drew himself up. “I haven’t broken it.” And he hadn’t. Not entirely. He forced himself to overlook his own bit of breath-blowing up at the keep the afternoon before.
Victoria turned her wrath on Ambrose. “Was it you?”
Ambrose nodded remorsefully. “Aye, granddaughter, it was.”
“How could you?” she exclaimed. “He’s the star of the show!”
Ambrose bowed his head. “I beg pardon. I was in my chamber briefly to gather a few items I might need for the duration. I fear I might have brushed past him whilst looking for something atop the dresser. And a body must breathe, mustn’t he?”
Victoria started to say something else, then checked herself. She sighed. “Actually, I’m the one who should apologize. He has stolen your room, after all.”
“He has,” Ambrose agreed cheerfully. “But I know what he means to you and your play, so I will leave him be.”
Victoria smiled at him, then turned a frown on Connor. “And you? Why are you here?”
What was he supposed to say? That he’d come to look in the polished glass and see if she had described him aright? He’d never been called handsome before and he wasn’t sure he believed it. Damn Michael Fellini for having ruined his opportunity to really learn the truth of it.
“You aren’t here to frighten my actors, are you?” she continued. “You promised you wouldn’t.”
“I vowed no such thing.”
She put her hands on her hips. “I promised you an entire month of screaming in return for you leaving my cast and crew alone. You agreed to that. Live up to your promise.”
And with that, she turned and stalked away.
“You promised me a part in your play,” he growled, before he thought better of it.
She stopped. Then she turned slowly and looked at him. “So I did.”
Connor could hardly believe he’d blurted that bit out, but, by the saints, he couldn’t deny that he didn’t find the idea somewhat pleasing.
Victoria studied him for a moment or two. “There is a ghost in the play, you know, but you’re sort of young for it. You would actually be better as Hamlet, but that’s a pretty big part.”
Connor shifted uncomfortably. “I likely wouldn’t have time for the foolishness of either,” he said gruffly.
“I’ll leave a copy of the script for you,” she said. “Up at the castle, just in case you change your mind. You could start with just the ghost’s lines, if you like. We have an actor doing it right now, but he doesn’t have an understudy.”
“An understudy?”
“Someone who would do the part if something happens to him,” Ambrose offered.
“Yes, but don’t be responsible for that,” she warned Ambrose before she turned and went back up the stairs. She disappeared down the passageway. Connor turned to Ambrose.
“I needed no aid.”
“I never said you did,” Ambrose said with a pleasant smile.
Connor paused, chewed on his next words, and wondered how he might spit them out without choking on them.
“I’ve a bargain to make with you,” he said quickly.
“Indeed?” Ambrose asked with interest. “What sort of bargain?”
“I won’t humiliate you anymore in the lists if you’ll aid me with my reading.”
Ambrose only lifted one eyebrow a fraction. “Reading? Aye, I could do that. In return for your generosity, of course.”
Connor grunted. “I wish no one to know of this.”
“As you will,” Ambrose said easily. “Midnight, in the kitchen?”
Connor nodded curtly, then made for the front door. He paused, then looked back at Ambrose. He wanted to voice some bit of thanks, but it seemed to have a bit of trouble getting past his throat.
Ambrose only waved him on. “We had best be off to other pursuits. I’m certain you have guardsmen to intimidate.”
“And I’m certain you have an innkeeper to avoid,” Connor replied.
“Do you know about that?” Ambrose asked, sounding surprised.
“She mutters as she weeds her garden.”
Connor left the inn before he had to divulge more. Perhaps Ambrose was to be pitied for more than his parentage, what with Mrs. Pruitt dogging his every step. Of course, that was no reason to go soft on him, but perhaps he could spare a bit of mercy when it came to time in the lists.
He intended to go back to the castle and think on all the ways he would terrify Victoria McKinnon before he did her in—something he should have been doing that morning, and would have been doing if he hadn’t been so disrupted in his normal rhythm of murder and mayhem by that comment about his face—but his feet didn’t carry him back to his keep.
Instead, he found himself and his feet loitering near the inn, as if his poor form couldn’t entertain a useful thought or manage to set a proper course for his day.
Besides, the flowers were pretty.
He drew his sword and examined it to make ce
rtain it was still sharp. It was quite tempting to test it upon himself and perhaps cut out those ridiculous thoughts that seemed to have suddenly taken root in his breast. Indeed, he was within a heartbeat of doing so when he was distracted by Victoria McKinnon herself, coming out the kitchen door.
He froze, standing in the midst of a clutch of petunias with his sword upraised.
Fortunately, Victoria continued on her way through the vegetable garden without paying him any heed. Connor resheathed his sword and frowned. Well, the wench was reading—any fool could have seen that—and was likely too distracted to see that he was there. He watched her poring over some sort of something, scribbling now and again, and frowning when it suited her. She felt her way through the vegetables and paused before a garden shed.
Connor tiptoed up behind her and peered into the shed. It was filled to the brim with finery. Connor was vastly tempted to reach in and stroke a sleeve or two. He was equally tempted to reach out and stroke Victoria McKinnon’s long, flame-colored hair.
Instead, he clapped a hand to his head so strongly that he yelped.
Victoria whipped around and shrieked.
Briefly, unfortunately.
“A good attempt,” Connor said, “but you’ve given vent to better. Now, if you’re interested in how I prefer it, I would rather hear a full-bodied shriek that trails off into either moans or whimpers, rather than that business of a little scream cut short before its time.” He clucked his tongue. “Highly unsatisfying.”
She pointed her writing instrument at him as if it had been a sword. “You promised.”
“You are not one of your actors.”
She frowned at him, opened her mouth to say something, then shut it with a snap. She frowned. “You’re right.”
“I generally am.”
She cradled her papers against her chest and frowned at him over them. “What do you need?”
“Need? I need nothing.”
“Then why are you here? I thought this was Hugh’s, um, haunt.”
Connor drew himself up. “I do not limit my roamings to the castle. But,” he said, cutting her off, “I generally do not haunt the chambers of the inn. But I will, whether you like it or not, be visiting the kitchen as it pleases me.”
Aye, there was truth in that. He would probably be loitering in the bloody place all night for countless nights if he was to drive into his poor head some ability to make out letters on parchment.
“I wouldn’t dream of limiting your movements,” she said, straight-faced.
“Save in Michael Fellini’s chamber.”
“I need him for the play. Besides,” she added with only a slight frown, “he’s quite loud when things don’t go his way.”
“He is powerfully irritating.”
“Yeah, well, he was very expensive. I have the feeling he’s still getting over being tired from his trip here.”
Connor was quite certain Michael Fellini was irritating no matter the circumstance, but he thought better of saying so. He folded his arms over his chest and searched for another topic to discuss.
That he wanted to be discoursing with and not decapitating the woman before him was almost unsettling enough to make him turn on his heel and make all haste to another location.
But he didn’t.
The saints pity him.
“Your costumes are not unhandsome,” he said, gesturing imperiously at them.
She blinked, as if she couldn’t fathom what he was saying. “You think so?” she said, stepping aside so he could more easily admire them.
He leaned in closer to peer at them. They were made of far finer stuff than he had ever worn in his day. “Lovely colors,” he said politely.
And then he made the mistake of turning just a hair to look at her.
He was far closer to her than he suspected.
By the saints, a man could lose himself in eyes so blue.
“There you are!”
Connor fell over. He didn’t mean to, but the shrill voice behind him startled him so badly that he stumbled into the shed and ’twas only his natural grace that kept him from sprawling fully upon his face. He caught himself and turned to find none other than that whining miss, Michael Fellini, standing at the shed door.
“I want to talk to you,” Michael said forcefully.
“Well, of course,” Victoria said, looking pleasantly surprised. “What about?”
“The play.”
Connor angled himself so he could view Victoria’s face. Why, the silly wench was looking not only pleasantly surprised but surprisingly flattered! Connor resurrected ideas of doing her in. Surely she had to see past all the show to the man inside, a man who, in Connor’s opinion, did not deserve any of the breath Victoria had wasted upon him already.
“Of course,” Victoria said, smiling. “The play.”
“Yes,” Fellini said briskly. “I have some ideas on how it should be directed. I know we haven’t begun rehearsals here and of course I wasn’t at any of the ones you held in Manhattan, but I have ideas on several things you could be doing differently.”
Connor folded his arms over his chest. Now the wench would let him have his due. Connor couldn’t imagine that having one of her soldiers come and tell her how to lead the battle was going to sit well with her.
The slightest of frowns came to rest upon her alabaster brow.
Connor blinked.
Alabaster brow? By the saints, already he had been affected by these bloody players and he had yet to see them play!
“Differently?” Victoria echoed, her brow creasing more firmly. “How so?”
Fellini launched into an animated narration, which Connor ignored without hesitation. Instead, he eased past the costumes and came to stand behind Fellini, where he could more readily observe Victoria’s reaction.
It also put him, handily, in a place where he might cool the lad off—as it were.
He was just settling in and preparing for a good blow down the back of Fellini’s collar when he caught sight of the glare Victoria was sending him.
“Well!” Fellini exclaimed, sounding offended. “You needn’t look so, well, sensitive about it all. My suggestions are quite well thought-out and accurate.”
She blinked. “Oh, I wasn’t frowning at you.”
Fellini stiffened. “Then at whom?” He looked around uneasily, then turned back to Victoria. “This whole place gives me the creeps. Let’s go back to the inn. At least I know there aren’t any ghosts there except in my room.”
Connor snorted loudly, then clapped his hand over his mouth.
Fellini shivered, then took Victoria by the arm and pulled her away from the shed. “Inside,” he said.
Connor watched, wondering what she would do now. Would she cuff him as he so richly deserved for taking such liberties, or would she simper along behind him?
To her credit, she did neither. She somehow managed to remove her arm from his clutches yet walk with him toward the house at the same time. Connor stroked his chin thoughtfully. Far be it from him to heap praise upon a McKinnon’s head, but he had to admit it took a wench of notable cleverness to appear to acquiesce when indeed she was not.
He leaned against the door frame of the shed and watched them walk to the kitchen door. Fellini went in first, of course. Victoria turned briefly and held her fist out toward him with her thumb pointing skyward.
She went inside before he could decide if he should be flattered, offended, or merely go in search of that erstwhile desire to do her in.
What, by all the saints, had she intended by that?
He scowled. Yet another reason to frequent the inn that night and demand answers from Ambrose MacLeod.
She had smiled as she’d done it, though. He pushed off from the shed and strolled through the garden, giving thought to all the events of the morning.
He found himself somewhat surprised by the pleasantness of them.
And by how many of those recollections included Victoria McKinnon.
Chap
ter 8
Victoria sat in the sitting room with her granny, finding the complete silence of the inn to be a little unsettling. After a week of rehearsals, her actors had deserted her en masse, decamping for Edinburgh. She had, over the course of the morning, periodically suffered flashes of panic, wondering if they might return safely . . . or return at all.
She needed them to return. She’d gotten a call that morning from the ticket agency Thomas had engaged for her. She’d known he’d done it, she’d heard from Ambrose that he’d been running ads in the paper, but she’d had no idea the extent of his business dealings. She was sold out through the first three weekends, matinees included, and booked heavily most of the rest of the nights.
Was Thomas rounding up patrons from far away villages to fill the seats, or had Ambrose and company been making midnight visits to theater aficionados?
But whatever the reason, and because of the apparent popularity of her little ensemble, she was beginning to worry just the slightest bit about the condition of that ensemble.
“Vikki,” Mary said suddenly, putting down her knitting. “I don’t know about you, but the morning seems to be dragging a little. How would you like some tea?”
“I’d love some,” Victoria said. “I’ll go make it.”
“I don’t mind—”
“I’ll never see you again if you go,” Victoria said with a faint smile. “You’ll find yourself monopolized by the Boar’s Head Trio and I’ll still be here at midnight, wondering what happened to you.”
“And you think you’ll make your escape more easily?” her grandmother asked with a twinkle in her eye.
“They are, despite their charm and no offense to you, too old for me. Besides,” she said, doing her best to escape the overly soft chair that didn’t seem to want to let her go, “I’m immune to ghostly charm.”
“Of course, love.”
“I am,” Victoria muttered under her breath as she walked out of the sitting room. She hadn’t seen enough ghosts all week to verify that immunity, but maybe that was a blessing in disguise.
She had the feeling Connor MacDougal could be pretty distracting if he wanted to be.
But she hadn’t seen him in a week, either, which was just as well. She had a play to put on and no time for tangents. No time for coddling terrified actors, either. At least Connor was holding to his word. Michael hadn’t complained once about walking through cold spots or hearing things go bump in the night. Things were going along swimmingly.