by Lynn Kurland
“What do you think?” she asked.
He dragged his gaze back to hers. “I think you are very beautiful,” he said frankly.
“I meant about Edinburgh.”
“I think there are too many people here. Many more than the last time I was here, but I do not find it unpleasing.” He smiled at her suddenly and took her hand. “I should hold on to you, lest you become lost.”
Lost? She was already lost, lost so far in her feelings for him that she supposed she would never find her way out.
Good grief, how was she going to go on?
She was very grateful, half an hour later, to find herself in a theater with the lights about to go down. It allowed her to weep in peace.
Connor, meanwhile, was patting himself, then cursing, as if the lack of dagger was just too much to be borne.
“If we’re attacked in the dark, I’ll use my hands,” he assured her.
She managed a nod. “I would expect nothing less.”
She felt him turn in his seat and knew he was looking at her. “Ach, Victoria, why—”
“The play,” she said, pointing to the stage. “Look, the lights are going down. And look, it’s Hamlet.” She managed to throw Thomas a glare. “What a surprise. This must be why Thomas made me close my eyes on the way into the theater and wouldn’t let me have a program until now.”
“Is it?” Connor said resettling himself. “One would hope that it would be worth watching. I daresay in a building this luxurious, the tickets come dear—”
And then he fell silent. Victoria snuck a look at him. He was staring at the stage, completely mesmerized. The curtain opened to allow them to see the men of the watch going about their business. Connor smiled in pleasure.
And then the ghost appeared.
And Connor went completely still.
Victoria nodded to herself. He was probably having some sympathy for the watchmen, given that he’d had his own brush with the paranormal up at the castle just recently. She abandoned him to his own devices and turned to watch the play.
She had to admit Hamlet was one of her favorites and the production was shaping up to be a good one. It was often very difficult for her to enjoy other productions, because she spent most of her time critiquing everything that went on up on the stage. Tonight it was different. Maybe it was because the accents were authentic. Maybe it was because the production was actually quite good. Or maybe it was something useful stemming from her new hands-off policy.
Yes, the actors onstage could do whatever they wanted; she didn’t care. She found it quite freeing, actually, to let others go on about their business without feeling as if she were responsible for their actions. Still, there was something that got in the way of fully enjoying that freedom. She realized, with a start, that there was low murmuring going on nearby. She frowned. What idiot was playing Hamlet’s part from the peanut gallery while the real acting was going on up on stage?
Then she realized that the idiot was sitting next to her. She looked at Connor and frowned a bit more. Didn’t he know he was supposed to be quiet? She realized that she hadn’t said anything and Thomas probably hadn’t thought to. She leaned over to whisper to him that he really should button up, when she realized what he was doing.
He was whispering Hamlet’s lines.
In English.
She found, quite suddenly, that she couldn’t move. She did manage to catch Thomas’s eye. He had leaned forward, as well, and was looking at Connor with satisfaction. Then he smiled at her.
“Bingo,” he whispered.
Victoria sat back and kept her mouth shut. Connor groped for her hand and held it as if she were all that kept him from shattering into a million pieces. His fingers gripped hers in a way that was almost painful, but she couldn’t bring herself to say anything. Heaven only knew what was going on inside his head, but she wasn’t about to interrupt it on the off chance it was something good.
Hamlet.
It occurred to her that Thomas had chosen the play with great care. Maybe it would be the thing that would spark Connor’s memories and bring him back to her.
One more thing to thank her brother for, damn it anyway.
She closed her eyes and began to pray.
Chapter 36
Connor sat in the darkened theater with Shakespeare being blurted out on the stage in English and wondered if he could possibly sit still through the torrents of memories that were crashing down over him, wave after wave of centuries of recollections that left him gasping in their wake.
He was listening to Hamlet. In English. Just as he had performed it not two months earlier on the closing night of Victoria’s run in Thorpewold Castle.
That wave receded and another came. There he was, raging over the injustice of his life ending unfairly, wreaking havoc on the Frenchman who had killed him for the sport of it, wanting desperately to leave the Highlands but being unwilling to go at the same time. Loving and hating until he could no longer recognize himself.
The centuries after he’d finally came south paraded themselves before him in glorious fashion, one after another, full to the brim with bad humors and dastardly deeds. He rubbed his neck uncomfortably, wondering how it was that he had popped his head off so often and with such impunity without suffering any kind of discomfort for the deed.
He saw himself arguing with Iolanthe MacLeod. He remembered doing his damndest to force Thomas McKinnon to leave the keep . . .
He paused. He frowned. He leaned over Iolanthe to glare at her husband.
“You promised me a roof for that bloody keep and you never built it.”
“I got married instead.”
“Damn you.”
“Yeah,” Thomas whispered with a grin. “Nice to have you back, Laird MacDougal.”
Connor would have commented, but an entirely new collection of memories swept over him.
He saw Victoria coming into the hall for the first time, Victoria fawning over Michael Fellini, Victoria in the library of the Boar’s Head Inn, sitting in her chair before a fire of his making, looking at him with growing affection in her eyes.
Victoria vowing to save him from death.
Then he viewed Victoria over the past week. He suspected she had spent most of that se’nnight wondering why it was he was so thick-headed. He looked at her as she sat next to him presently.
She had tears streaming down her face.
He couldn’t help himself. He slipped his hand underneath her hair, leaned over, and kissed her.
And once he started, he just couldn’t seem to stop himself.
“Och, and this is hardly the place for snogging, is it?” a very annoyed voice whispered crisply from behind him.
He lifted his head, looked behind him, and glared.
A finely dressed woman of at least eight decades lifted her purse and shook it at him threateningly.
Connor was not about to brawl with an old woman and her bag, so he graciously conceded the battle and contented himself with putting his arm around his lady and drawing her as close as their seats would allow.
“I remember,” he whispered in awe.
“It’s about time,” she whispered back.
He smiled and continued to sit with Victoria, clutching her to him and fighting off the realization of how close he had come to losing her.
He thought a tear might have escaped his eye.
She looked up at him in surprise.
“Sweat,” he bluffed.
“Right,” she said, wearing the first tremulous smile he’d ever seen.
He took her hand in his own and stroked it. He closed his eyes briefly in thanks, then looked down at Victoria’s hand in the dark. By the saints, how many times had he wished he could touch her in death, and there he was, in life, doing just that.
It was possible, he conceded, that another tear or two might have fallen to join the first.
The play went on without him. He couldn’t watch it, didn’t dare look at Victoria, and suspected another look behin
d him would earn him a lump on his head. So he kept his eyes on Victoria’s hand as it grew increasingly damp.
The lights went up for intermission.
Connor dragged the sleeve of his suitcoat across his eyes and popped up to his feet, pulling Victoria up with him. He started for the doors.
“Wha—wait,” Thomas said. “Where are you going?”
“I am going,” Connor said distinctly, “somewhere where I might kiss my betrothed senseless in peace.”
“But the show isn’t over.”
“It is for us.” He looked at Victoria. “We’ll go outside.”
“Hey,” Thomas said with a grin, “I think public displays of affection are against the law here. I guess you’ll just have to wait for us to finish the rest of the play.”
Connor looked at Iolanthe briefly, then back at Thomas. “Your bride is green. I believe the show is over for you, as well.”
“She’s fine—”
Connor stood aside as Iolanthe bolted past him. He smiled. “Keys?”
“Dream on,” Thomas said with a sigh. “Let’s go wait for Io in the lobby. Maybe this is for the best. I really don’t think you should be alone with my sister.”
“Thomas,” Victoria warned.
“In fact, I think it’s my brotherly duty to properly chaperone her. Don’t you agree?”
Connor looked at Victoria. “I would like to kill him. Would that bother you?”
“I couldn’t care less,” she said tartly.
“Hey,” Thomas said, “I’m directly responsible for bringing you two together. A little gratitude would not be unappreciated at this point. Besides, MacDougal, you’re going to need a groomsman.”
“I’ll give that some thought,” Connor said. He put his arm around Victoria’s shoulders and pulled her toward the door. “Let’s collect that poor MacLeod wench and be off.”
“You’re sure you don’t want to finish the play?” Thomas asked from behind them.
“I can think of many things I want to do and not a one of them includes sitting through a play I have memorized. Indeed, I daresay I can do all the parts for you on the way home if you care to hear them.”
“You have a good memory,” Victoria said, sounding rather breathless.
“He has a vast memory,” Thomas said with a laugh. “I’ll bet it spans centuries.”
Victoria looked at her brother, then burst into tears. Connor supposed they were tears of relief. He pulled her into his arms and found that even his eyes had begun to bother him.
“Allergies,” he explained to anyone who was listening.
Thomas grasped his shoulder again in a friendly grip. “I understand completely, believe me. Congratulations and welcome to the twenty-first century.”
Connor stroked Victoria’s hair. “I can hardly believe it,” he said reverently. “ ’Tis a miracle. And listen. I can speak the King’s English as well.”
“Queen’s,” Victoria said, her words muffled.
Connor grunted. “I’ll come to terms with that later. For now, I want to go back to the inn, take a very long walk to the castle, and have some privacy with you.”
“I think,” Thomas said slowly, “that you two really will need a chaperone. I have my sister’s virtue to guard, you know.”
“Thomas,” she said, lifting her head to look at him with warning, “shut up!”
“And you’ll have to convince my dad,” Thomas continued. “You know, Connor, we just barely started to warm him up to the idea of you being a ghost after Vic’s closing night. Now, we’ll have to really dig deep and give him explanations he won’t ever buy—”
“Thomas!” Victoria exclaimed.
Connor patted her back. “He must torment me a little. I am taking his sister away from him.”
“I’m sure he’s thrilled,” Victoria said dryly.
“Actually,” Thomas said with a smile, “I’m mixed about it. You won’t be mine to drive crazy anymore without this big, hulking brute standing up for you. But I’ll probably see you more because Connor will want to come and sit at a table where the native tongue is spoken so expertly. Maybe you can go one step further and buy a house nearby us in Maine.”
Connor had a brief flash of unease come over him. How, by all the saints, would he support Victoria and whatever bairns they had? It wasn’t as if he could raise cattle, grow crops, or raid his enemies’ herds.
“Connor?”
He put the worry aside for later, when he would have the time to give it the proper attention. He looked down into his lady’s beautiful face and smiled reflexively. “Aye, love?”
“What are you thinking?”
“That I am quite possibly the most fortunate man in eight hundred years; for I was the one to, beyond all reason, capture your heart.”
“I’m fond of your grumbles.”
“You’ll have plenty of those,” Thomas interrupted cheerfully.
Connor pursed his lips. “We will not live in the same hall with him.”
“Heaven forbid,” she said with feeling.
“Now, your granny is another matter entirely,” Connor said, remembering how fond he was of her. “She could live with us. Think you she might knit me something with that Fair Isle technique she favors?”
“You’ll never have to buy another sweater,” Victoria said with a smile. “I imagine you’ll be begging her to stop—”
“Oh, look,” Thomas interrupted, “here comes Iolanthe.” He looked at Connor. “If you’re sure you want to go back to the inn.”
“I am quite certain.”
“Not much privacy there.”
“More than here.”
“You think?”
Connor realized he was patting himself for his sword and that it was not there. He settled for a glare that only earned him a laugh. He looked at Victoria. “We will not live anywhere near him.”
“Whatever you say,” she said with a smile.
“I love you,” he said, finding that if he was going to say something, it behooved him to say what was in his heart.
“I love you, too,” she said, her eyes bright with tears.
“Oh, good grief,” Thomas said, pointing toward the entrance. “Let’s get out of here before people start paying you two for the love scene, shall we?”
Connor did not want to let go of Victoria, but he found that he at least had to release part of her to be able to walk comfortably. They made their way to the car and he found himself unable to fit into the backseat. He frowned.
“You should have borrowed a larger car,” he told Thomas.
“We’re an hour away from the inn,” Thomas said, getting in. “You’ll survive.”
Connor very much doubted it.
He clambered into the front seat and spent the entirety of the trip with his arm wrenched around the back of the seat so he could hold Victoria’s hand whilst concurrently being bludgeoned by questions from her brother. He finally swore in exasperation.
“Aye, I remember it all!” he exclaimed. “Would you care for an exhaustive list of hauntings?”
“Ghosts Behaving Badly,” Thomas said with a grin. “Now, there’s a television show for you.”
“I had reason,” Connor said, through gritted teeth. “Though,” he added, craning his neck around to look at Iolanthe, “I humbly beg pardon of you, Mistress MacLeod, for all the grief I caused you.”
“She’s a McKinnon,” Thomas reminded him.
“Not when I was tormenting her.”
“It’s in the past,” Iolanthe said, “but what’s left of supper will be quite present if you do not make haste, husband.”
Connor gave Victoria’s hand a squeeze and quickly returned his own to the front seat. He was no coward, but he had no desire to have Iolanthe puke on him by mistake.
It seemed to take an eternity to get to the inn, but given that he had waited at least that long for Victoria, he could not complain. He helped her out of the car and pulled her into his arms.
What he wanted to do
was crawl into her very soul and find himself completely surrounded by her. He thought the next best thing might be an extended bit of kissing, so he bid good night to Thomas and Iolanthe and started for the castle.
“Don’t you want your sword?” Thomas asked. “You know, just in case.”
Connor frowned. He couldn’t exactly buckle it about him in a fancy, modern suit, so he supposed he would have to carry it in his hand. That left one less hand to hold Victoria with on the way to the castle, but who was he to complain? He looked at his love.
“Wait here.”
He fetched his sword and found her where he had left her, looking so lovely in the moonlight that he could hardly bear the sight of her. He took a deep breath and strode forward—
“Wait,” Thomas said. He returned from inside the inn with an umbrella. “It might rain.”
“There isn’t a bloody cloud in the sky.”
“We’re in England. It rains all the time.”
“Bonk him over the head with it,” Victoria suggested.
“I really think you two shouldn’t be alone,” Thomas said.
Connor frowned at Victoria’s brother. “I will not ravish her.”
“I’ll come along to make sure.”
Victoria elbowed Thomas aside. “Beat it. Get lost. Keep on truckin’. Do all those things before I find my sword, the one that does not collapse, and turn you into a sieve.”
Connor found himself smiling. Aye, this was the woman for him, one who appreciated a good threat as much as he did and almost had the means to follow through on it. He took Victoria’s hand and pulled her away.
“You’ll be safe with me,” he said. “I’ll chaperone us myself.”
“I’m sure you’ll have help!” Thomas called helpfully from behind them.
Connor walked with Victoria to the castle, and could hardly believe he was where he was, with all his memories intact, as if he had lived two lifetimes to their fullest.