by Lynn Kurland
Hugh and Fulbert sat down at the table with hefty tankards of ale and began discussing the strengths and weaknesses of their performances.
“Nay, you were not so bad,” Fulbert conceded to Hugh. “You have that annoying, cloying superiority that so suits Polonius.”
Hugh’s ale sloshed over the side of his mug with the force of him slamming it down. “I beg your pardon! I was playing the part—and quite well, I’d say.”
“And I say you don’t need to act,” Fulbert said, shoving aside his own ale and glaring at Hugh. “And I say as well that if you tell me once more how it is I’m to play Claudius, I will draw my sword and teach you a thing or two about kingly executions!”
Hugh leaped to his feet, his chair crashing down behind him. “Draw your sword and let us see who has more nobility in their breeding!”
“Outside,” Ambrose barked.
Hugh stopped in middraw and looked at Fulbert. “I suppose the garden will suit.”
Fulbert shrugged and had one last gulp of ale. “Well enough, as usual.” He gestured politely to the door. “After you.”
“Nay, you.”
“I insist.”
“I wouldn’t dream—”
“Go!” Ambrose bellowed.
Hugh and Fulbert went. Connor sighed and put his book away. He fussed with his own ale for several minutes before he looked at Ambrose.
“Why did you choose me?”
Ambrose blinked. “Choose you? You mean to play Hamlet in our little company?”
“Nay,” Connor said impatiently. “Why did you choose me for Victoria?”
Ambrose smiled faintly. “Well, she needed a man equal to her in ferocity and determination. ’Twas a certainty no man with those qualities existed in Manhattan. You were the obvious choice.”
Connor glared at him. “Damn you.”
“Damn me?” Ambrose asked in surprise. “Why?”
“Because you’ve thrown us together and now look where we are!”
“You weren’t without choice,” Ambrose said placidly. “Neither was Victoria.”
“She hasn’t made a choice.”
“Hasn’t she?” Ambrose shrugged. “I daresay you shouldn’t decide that until you’ve asked her.”
Connor would have drawn his sword and taken Ambrose to task, but he was too sick at heart. “She has made no choice,” he said flatly. “I daresay what she feels for me is . . . friendship.” By the saints, even saying the word made him want to grind his teeth. “Unfortunately, that is not the case for me.”
“Well,” Ambrose said, “what are you going to do about that?”
“I daresay stabbing you repeatedly each and every day for a few centuries might keep me occupied.”
Ambrose laughed. “As entertaining as that might be for you, perhaps you should consider other alternatives. I wouldn’t discredit Victoria’s feelings—or your own. Why don’t you take yourself off to the keep and see if you can’t discover a way to make both your lives tolerable. Woo her. Befriend her. Make her life better than it was when she came here with only Michael Fellini to love.”
“The saints preserve her,” Connor said grimly. He rose and looked at Ambrose with a scowl. “You and your matches. Have you never considered that some of them might be attempted where they should not be?”
“Aye.”
Connor folded his arms over his chest. “But you’ve no apology to offer?”
Ambrose looked up at him, untroubled. “Are you worse off than you were at the beginning of the summer? Have you not made friendships that you did not have before? Have you not found a purpose to your days that did not exist before Victoria came?”
“I am still lacking a bloody captain,” Connor grumbled.
“Aye, well, there isn’t a man alive or dead equal to that duty, so perhaps that is not a good way to measure your success.”
Connor pursed his lips. It was the best way to disguise the fact that he couldn’t deny that Ambrose was right. He had formed a friendship with Victoria’s granny. He had passed the occasional moment in less-than-unpleasant conversation with Thomas McKinnon. He had even found comrades in the Boar’s Head Trio—a thing he never would have suspected could be possible. He had learned to read. He had discovered that there was a world that existed outside himself and his fury over his own life cut short.
And he had met Victoria.
For that alone, he would be forever indebted to the shade before him.
He grunted. “I’m off to the keep. I have things to see to before the sun rises.”
Ambrose raised his cup. “Until sunset, then.”
Connor left the kitchen before he did the unthinkable and thanked Ambrose for his bloody interference.
He walked up to the keep in predawn calm, surprisingly light of heart and step. His life, such as it was, could have been worse. It had been worse.
He hoped it wouldn’t get worse than it had been.
He walked into the keep just as the sky was beginning to lighten. There was no activity in the inner bailey. Well, except for the man up on the stage, striding about, reciting his lines with vigor.
Connor swallowed his surprise and walked over to the stage to look up at Roderick St. Claire, who was dressed in a rather finely made costume and seemed to be perfectly comfortable exhibiting his acting talents, which were not unworthy.
Roderick paused, then turned and bowed. “My laird.”
“What are you doing?”
“Playing Laertes,” Roderick said, straightening. “How do you find it?”
“Surprisingly good,” Connor said honestly. “I would not be unhappy to be in the same production with you.”
Roderick stumbled backward in apparent shock. It took him several moments to regain his feet, and during that time Connor wondered if he had been that unpleasant to be around for all those centuries.
He suspected that he had been.
Roderick straightened his clothing. “Unfortunately for me, I’ve no connections with any who might be in this business of acting. I would be content with even a few suggestions from one who might know her . . . er . . . his business.”
Connor considered. He considered quite a few things, actually.
He wanted to woo Victoria, the saints pity him. Roderick wanted to meet Victoria. Roderick, in spite of his flounces, was a man of his time and well-versed in the wooing practices of Victorian England. Surely those would translate well enough into modern times.
Perhaps Ambrose’s suggestions weren’t without merit after all.
“I’ll introduce you to Victoria McKinnon,” Connor offered suddenly, before he thought better of it.
Roderick smiled, looking as delighted as Connor had ever seen him. “Would you? Would you indeed? Why, that is simply capital of you, old man.”
“If you give me wooing ideas.”
Roderick gaped for a moment, then shut his mouth with a snap. “Of course. Yes, yes, of course I will. Immediately.” He sat down on the edge of the stage. “Let us discuss where you’ve been in regards to women, shall we?”
Connor’s first instinct was to draw his sword and let it tell the tale, but he did want a few answers out of the fop, so he ignored the insult to his dignity. He hopped up on the stage next to his Victorian compatriot and decided to do his best to answer the question honestly.
“Women?” he mused. “In truth, I’ve no experience with wooing them.”
“But you were married.”
“Aye, but there was no need to woo her.”
“What was her name?”
“Morag McKinnon.”
It took Roderick several minutes to recover from his fit of coughing. “A McKinnon?”
“Ironic, isn’t it?”
Roderick laughed. “Dear boy, you’ve no idea. Very well, so you wed yourself a McKinnon lass, but you had no need to woo her—”
“Her father wished for peace with my clan. I grew weary of his clan trying unsuccessfully to poach my cattle—even though the cessation of that would
have robbed my kinsmen of opportunities to better their killing skills.” Connor shrugged. “It seemed a simple way to end the troubles.”
“No other wenches who fell victim to your charm?”
Connor scowled fiercely—in spite of his vow to be pleasant.
“Ah, I see,” Roderick said quickly. “Never mind. Very well, we’ll move on. I have, as you might imagine, quite a bit of experience in this area.”
“Wooing wenches? Or blinding them with your bright clothing?”
“It works for peacocks, my friend; it worked for me. And yes, I wooed them, as well.”
Connor chewed on his words for a moment or two. “Were you wed?”
“Ah.” Roderick sighed lightly. “Now, there is a tale. I was betrothed, it is true, but she died of consumption a month before she was to be mine. I must admit that it did cause me grief. Indeed, ’tis possible to say that my subsequent life of complete debauchery was due to the loss of the love of my heart.”
“Weren’t you killed in a duel?”
Roderick nodded. “Yes, thanks to yet another episode of debauching. I had been about the business with an enemy’s wife, which perhaps made it more taxing than it might have been otherwise. Of course,” he added quickly, “the wife was more than willing. Indeed, all that passed between us was her suggestion. But I was caught in a bit of a compromising situation.”
“I daresay,” Connor said with a snort. “What happened then?”
“I was called out, as I expected I would be. It was my honor to appear the next day at the appointed place. It was there that I met my end.”
“Are you so poor a marksman?”
Roderick smiled a smile that even Connor had to admire. “Would you believe his second shot me while the lord in question fired early and managed to do naught but serious damage to a tree behind me? And yet,” he said, brushing a bit of lint off his clothes, “I managed to catch the gun my second threw at me and put a ball into my murderer’s gut before I fell.”
“Well,” Connor said with a nod, “that was nicely done.”
“Leaving me centuries to ruminate on my wooing techniques,” Roderick said pleasantly.
Connor hesitated. “And you are not bitter that your life was ended whilst you were so young?”
Roderick shrugged. “Life ends when it does and all one can do is hope that his life has been well-lived. I had love and more than enough of other things. I have no regrets. And fortunately for you, I am here for you to benefit from my great expertise.” He looked off thoughtfully into the bailey. “Indeed, I have often thought I should offer my services to the trio down at the inn. I know they are matchmakers by trade, but surely they could make use of my vast stores of romantic experience. On a strictly case-by-case basis, of course.”
“I’ll ask them when next we meet,” Connor promised. “Now, about these wooing ideas . . .”
“In your case, verse,” Roderick said. “Flowery sentiments. Pleasing words against the feminine ear. Nothing about death, destruction, or sword fights well executed.”
Connor frowned. “In truth? Why not?”
“Because you want to woo the lady in question, not terrify her. I suggest Shakespeare, for a start. I’ll think of other things as we go on.”
Connor cleared his throat. “I might be able to read a few things if you could write them down for me.”
“Indeed,” Roderick said, sounding genuinely pleased. “Well, then, indeed I will, old man. I’ll give voice to a thing or two now, and you let me know what strikes you as something your lady might like. Then I’ll put pen to paper and scratch it out for you.”
Connor nodded, squelching the feeling of pleasure it gave him to be able to say he could actually make out words on the page.
He spent the next half an hour listening to Roderick recite several of his favorite Bardly passages, found several to his liking, and sent the Victorian Fop off to scribble them down so he could learn them more quickly.
He took another look at the keep, then decided perhaps ’twas past time he made for the inn to see what Victoria was about. He hopped off the stage and walked toward the gates. He was intercepted not five paces from them by Robbie McKinnon, the current aspirant to the lofty position of captain of his guard.
Connor frowned. “Aye?”
“My laird, I have been keeping an eye on things whilst you’ve been about your business.”
Connor looked about him and found that, indeed, there was some truth in that. “I see we haven’t been overrun by ruffians.”
“Except actors,” Robbie offered.
Connor started to smile in agreement, then remembered himself just in time. He coughed roughly. “Well, be that as it may, I’ll still expect the keep to be run as I would run it. Discipline. Order. Terror, when called for.”
Robbie put his shoulders back. “Of course, my laird.”
Connor frowned. “Don’t accustom yourself to the position. I’ve still not made my final decision.”
Robbie bowed and scraped and made for safer ground as quickly as possible. Connor supposed he couldn’t blame the lad, given that Robbie was Morag’s brother and had waited centuries before he’d even dared show his face at Thorpewold. Connor shrugged with a sigh. The lad had showed himself well so far. Perhaps it was time to let the past be in the past.
He started down the path, Shakespeare’s words floating pleasingly through his mind.
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds . . .
Love’s not Time’s fool . . .
He returned to the inn, surprisingly contented.
Chapter 24
Victoria looked in the mirror and pinched her cheeks to try to bring some color to them. She was wearing makeup, but she doubted anyone could have told as much, thanks to the pasty complexion she was currently sporting. Being a redhead left her fair-skinned enough as it was, but closing-night jitters had exacerbated the condition beyond reason. She usually had a small case of nerves, but tonight those nerves had morphed into full-blown panic. She laid the blame for that at Thomas’s feet.
Her family had returned to the inn the day before, arriving from their various destinations well-rested and ready to celebrate the closing night of a successful run. Victoria had shared a late-night snack with Jennifer and their grandmother, during which they had spent quite some time determining all the sights in Scotland they would have to see before Victoria had to return to Manhattan to start rehearsals for her fall schedule. They had been joined eventually by the usual suspects and the evening had passed most pleasantly with conversation including a discussion of the state of the National Trust of Scotland’s care of important historical landmarks.
Of course, all those warm and fuzzy feelings had disappeared earlier that morning at breakfast when Thomas had told her that Megan’s father-in-law, the current Earl of Artane, was theater-mad and would be arriving later that day to catch her last performance. It was possible that, based upon loving her show, the earl would be willing to make all her theater dreams come true.
Victoria had thought she just might throw up.
She wasn’t one to get nervous. She’d rubbed shoulders with the rich and the wish-they-were-famous and had no especial regard for deep pockets. But she didn’t have a theater space to return to.
And she was desperate for a reason to stay in England.
She took a deep breath. She didn’t take a second one, though. The last thing she needed was to greet her potential backer with a paper bag over her mouth and nose.
Besides, he was probably just all bluster, anyway. She’d had plenty of people over the years frothing at the mouth with enthusiasm until it came time to pony up the cash. No offense to Megan’s father-in-law, but Victoria had learned never to count her monetary chickens until they’d hatched in her bank account.
She dragged a brush through her hair, pinched her cheeks one more time, then left the bathroom and headed f
or the kitchen. She nodded to the men there lingering over their drinks. Connor rose when she came into the chamber. She paused and looked at him with a frown.
“What?”
“A gentleman stands when a lady enters the chamber,” he said with a pointed look thrown at his companions.
Ambrose popped up immediately, as did Hugh. Fulbert crawled to his feet with a heavy sigh and a hearty rolling of his eyes.
“Oh,” Victoria said. “Well. Thank you. I’m heading up to the castle for a last light check.”
“But, my dear,” Ambrose said, “the curtain isn’t until eight o’clock tonight.”
“Closing-night jitters,” Fulbert said wisely, sitting back down with another gusty sigh. “Be off with ye, then, gel, and do your last check. We’ll keep an eye on things this afternoon for ye.”
“Thank you, Fulbert,” Victoria said, surprised and gratified. “That’s very nice.”
“Parting is such sweet sorrow,” Connor blurted out.
Victoria looked at him with consternation. “Are you sick?”
He scowled. “I’m being polite.”
“Oh. Well, thanks.” She nodded to them, then made her way out of the kitchen, through the garden, and up the way to the castle. Obviously, she wasn’t the only one with a case of nerves.
She took a few deep breaths, because she couldn’t help herself. Everything would be okay. All her actors were in perfect health. She’d been tempted to lock them all in their rooms, but that had seemed like overkill, even for her. They had every reason to want to finish strongly, for their own sakes. Even Michael was back to fighting form. The doctor had been there the day before and given him a clean bill of health. Victoria had spent most of yesterday fetching and carrying for him, just so he didn’t strain himself too soon.
One more day, and then she could tell him to go to hell. Which she would do. Silently. She didn’t want repercussions from Bernie the Bardmaker, after all.
“Victoria.”
She stopped two hundred yards from her destination, surprised to find Michael lurking along the side of the road.