A Midsummer Night's Romp

by Katie MacAlister

  “I thought there was going to be more to do here. Gunner says he can’t take me into town to get my riding helmet and sign me up for jumping lessons until later this afternoon. Gran is still taking a nap. And there’s not even any cool stuff to watch being dug up. It’s all just dirt so far.”

  “You can help field walk at two,” I told my roommate as she lay sprawled on her air mattress in our tent. I’d heard all about how wonderful her father was for agreeing to let her have riding lessons, and how her mother was dead wrong about him, and what an oddly named friend thought of her having a baron for an uncle, and to be honest, after all that, I was a bit worn-out.

  “Field walk?” She lifted her head and gave me a quizzical look. “I heard them talking about that yesterday. What is it?”

  I held up a photocopied daily schedule. “Evidently it’s where people walk around on the pasture that they’re going to dig in, and look for stuff on the surface. I got shots of them doing it yesterday afternoon when they were out on the small pasture. Today they are going to tackle the big field.”

  “Looking for what, cow poop?” Cressy’s nose wrinkled.

  “I gather that little bits of artifacts and coins and things like that work themselves to the top over time, and before people dig, they comb the ground for that stuff lest it get lost in the digging process.”

  “Oh.” She rolled over onto her stomach, saying into the pillow, “Sounds boring.”

  “Why on earth did you come to an archaeological dig if you aren’t interested in it?” I couldn’t help but ask.

  “Gunner likes it,” she said, waving a hand in the air. “And Mom said I could come here for the summer, so I said it would be fun, but now that I’m here, it doesn’t look that great. It’s nice being in England, though. Also, I thought Uncle Elliott would have at least a couple of horses.”

  “And now the truth comes out—you’re here solely for the horse action,” I said with a smile.

  She giggled. “Have you ever heard of a castle that didn’t have horses?”

  “No, but I’m not conversant with castles. Regardless, I’m sorry there are no horses here, but it was nice of your father to let you have lessons.”

  “Gunner’s cool,” Cressy said with another wave of her hand, which I’m sure she intended to be languid, but there was nothing even remotely languid about her. She fairly teemed with energy. Even now she’d had enough of lying down and leaped to her feet, smacking her head on one of the aluminum tent struts. “He’s much nicer than my stepdad, Steve. All Steve wants to do is ski and snowboard, and things like that. He’s afraid of horses.” The last came out in a bit of a sneer. “I’m pretty sure Gunner’s not afraid of horses.”

  “I’m sure he’s not. Do you mind my asking why, if your dad lives in the castle, you decided to stay in a tent? I’m fairly certain that your grandmother would be more comfortable with a real bed than on an air mattress.”

  “I told you earlier,” she said, spinning around until she located a hair scrunchie. “Gunner said we could stay there, but Gran knew I like camping, so we agreed to be out here with the archaeologists. Gran says they’re interesting, and we can be independent.”

  “Why do you call him Gunner?” I couldn’t help but ask.

  She shrugged, and yanked aside the tent flap, making the whole structure wobble for a minute. “Oh, hi, Gran. I didn’t know you were up. I’m going to see if I can find the old pony and three-legged donkey Gunner told me about yesterday. Then I’ll do the field thing to find Roman junk that’s lying around on the ground. Laters!”

  I emerged from the tent to find Salma seated gracefully on a camping chair, unscrewing the lid on a thermos. “She calls Gunner by his Christian name because my daughter didn’t bother to tell him that he had a child until Cressida was almost ten. Which is a shame for many reasons, not the least of which is he took to being a father extremely well.”

  I hesitated, wanting to know more, but reminding myself that just because I had to work with Gunner on Roger’s project didn’t mean I had to feel empathy for him. On the contrary, the more I could keep him at arm’s length, the better. I knew I wouldn’t be able to hide the fact that I wasn’t a photojournalist from him for long, but I had a faint hope that I’d be able to avoid all technical conversations with him. Despite that, I couldn’t help but ask, “Why didn’t your daughter want him to know about Cressy? She is delightful, if a bit energetic.”

  “She is charming, and wonderful, and I thank god daily for bringing her into my life,” Salma said simply. Then she added a bit more pragmatically, “My daughter is an only child, and unfortunately, my late husband and I spoiled her horribly. We didn’t realize our mistake until she was in her teens, but by then the die had been cast. She decided that Gunner wasn’t worthy of knowing about Cressida until she met her current husband. That was when she changed her mind. I think the fact that her husband likes to travel had something to do with it—at the time, I was caring for my husband as he was dying of cancer, and couldn’t take care of Cressida. There was no one else with whom she could be left, so Clarice suddenly contacted Gunner, told him he had a daughter, and left Cressida with him for six weeks. That was about seven years ago.”

  “I have to say, I have kind of a hard time reconciling the image of the drop-dead gorgeous Gunner, a man who felt it was perfectly fine to flirt immediately after meeting me, with Gunner the responsible dad.”

  Salma poured herself another cup of tea. “He does have a bit of a history with women—that’s true. And perhaps it was disapproval of his lifestyle that kept Clarice from telling him about Cressida. I do not know her reasons why she kept them apart; I simply am grateful that they have found each other at last. Despite what you may think, Gunner is truly an excellent father. He loves Cressida very deeply, and would, I believe, move heaven and earth for her.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” I said, keeping my lips zipped about the fact that Gunner evidently hadn’t changed his ways too much if he managed to proposition me pretty much within minutes of our meeting.

  “He would love to have Cressida on a more permanent basis, but her mother retains custody of her until next year. After that, we will see. I hope Cressida chooses to live here, either with me or with her father.”

  “I can’t imagine what girl wouldn’t want to live in a real castle,” I said with a nod at the building in the distance. “Although to be honest, I can’t imagine anyone preferring to stay in a tent rather than luxury. Still, she seems to have a bunch of energy, so I’m sure she appreciates having the entire castle grounds to explore.”

  “Indeed. I used to worry about her, since her unique sense of enthusiasm is frequently taken for immaturity, but this summer, I began to see the potential that life holds for her. She’ll find her feet, just as I’m sure you will.”

  “Me?” I froze in the act of setting up a second camp chair, suddenly worried that Salma knew the truth about my plan. “What makes you think I need to find myself?”

  She watched me silently for a few seconds before answering. “There’s a sense of excitement about you, an aura of hidden agitation that leads me to believe that you’re undertaking a grave quest. One, I suspect, that you are unsure of completing. Or is it that you’re simply unclear why you’re doing it?”

  I dropped my gaze from hers, damning my inability to hide my emotions. How could she know so much about me after such a short acquaintance? And if she was that prescient, how on earth was I going to live next door to her without her ferreting out every last secret?

  I threw down a red herring tinged with just enough truth to hopefully distract her. “Well, hell. You’ve sussed the truth about me—I’m not really the experienced journalist that everyone thinks I am. They wouldn’t let me shoot everything for my book if they knew the truth, that I’m just a wannabe.” I slid a glance up through my eyelashes at her, trying to ooze sincerity from every pore. “I can only hope
you won’t let others know my secret.”

  “Why would you care if people knew that you weren’t an experienced journalist? Books are written all the time by people with similar lack of credentials.”

  “It’s not so much the lack of credentials. . . .” I bit my lip, hating like the dickens that I was lying to this nice old lady, but I had to keep Sandy at the forefront of my mind. “It’s just that I’m afraid I’ll be asked to explain something and I simply won’t be able to make my brain work. I’ve never done well under stress, and if people are suspicious of me, if they think I don’t know what I’m doing, well . . . then I won’t. And I won’t be able to explain myself. And Roger will kick me off the dig site. I really don’t want that.” My words trailed off in a manner that reeked of pathos, but evidently, there was enough truth to sway her.

  “Indeed, that would be a shame, if for no other reason than Cressida likes you, and will look forward to seeing your book.”

  Guilt zapped me like a red-hot poker, but I summoned a smile. “Thanks, Salma. I appreciate your support. I should get going. Er . . . will you be all right on your own? Can I get you anything?”

  Salma gave me a calm, gentle smile. “My dear, I have been on my own since my dearest Gerald died seven years ago. I assure you that I will be just fine alone for a few hours. I have brought several books to read.”

  “You’re not one of the volunteers? I assumed you were.”

  “I won’t be doing any of the digging, no. I have offered to help clean the finds, though. I think it will be very rewarding to take a dirty piece of pottery and clean it up so one can admire it.”

  “Very rewarding,” I agreed, feeling a sense of relief that she wasn’t going to be participating in the hard work. “And wise to stay out of the hot sun while doing manual labor. Not that you couldn’t if you wanted to . . . oh dear. I put my foot in my mouth again.”

  She gave a little laugh. “Not at all, although I do appreciate your concern. Cressida and Gunner take very good care of me, you know.”

  “I’m sure they do. I’ll see you later, then.”

  She waved me off, and I toddled away to go meet with Paul, my mind torn between chastising myself for misleading such a nice lady and thoughts about what I needed to do next.

  It hadn’t taken much to maneuver myself into sitting next to him during a crew meeting the day before, and a few innocent questions about archaeology that were guaranteed to pump his ego had done the trick—he had gone from polite to mildly flirtatious in just half an hour. I rubbed my ear, thinking of how he’d whispered answers to my leading questions, his breath hot and unpleasant.

  “So everyone is allowed to do this field walking?” I had asked him midway through the meeting, and he’d leaned into me to answer.

  “If they know what to look for, yes. Do you know what to look for, Lori?”

  “Depends what you’re talking about,” I had answered lightly, making myself sick with a false show of archness.

  “I will be happy to tutor you later, my dear. In all things that interest you,” he had breathed into my ear, leaving me even now with a massive desire to bathe my head in antiseptic.

  “You’re doing this for a good cause,” I told myself, and, accordingly, slapped a smile on my face when I stopped outside the last RV in the row. Given the heat that was starting to ramp up, I couldn’t help but be grateful for the shade that the expandable awning cast down over a small card table and a couple of chairs. The latter were occupied by Paul and Fidencia, both of whom were poring over several sheets of paper bearing black-and-white blotches.

  It wasn’t what they were doing that had me raising my eyebrows, but how closely Paul was lurking over the young woman’s shoulder. I had a momentary pang of sympathy for her—the poor girl probably had no idea what she was letting herself in for—but the idea of what he could do reinforced my resolution to end his tomcat ways once and for all.

  “Ah, there you are.” Paul smiled and hastily moved away from the woman. “Fidencia and I were just going over some of the magnetic imaging results.”

  “I can see that. Hi, Fidencia. Nice to see you again.”

  “Yes.” Her tone was as terse as her manner toward me. She flipped back her long, glossy black hair. “Roger told us we must answer any questions you have about what it is we’re doing, so you can document it properly. I suppose I can do that, so long as you don’t need me to hold your hand again.”

  “I never asked you to hold my hand—” I bit off the rest of my protest, not wanting to get into a petty argument for no reason.

  “Girls, girls, there’s no need to get your respective knickers in a twist,” Paul said blithely, helping Fidencia up from the chair. “Don’t worry your head about Lorina, my dear. I’ll be sure to take care of her. I know how busy you are being a liaison, and helping Roger in so many ways.”

  The look Fidencia slid him said she knew exactly what he was doing, but he bustled her off with a smooth manner that must have been honed over the years. “And now, why don’t you take these results to Roger, and point out where I think we should put the first trench of the day. Your trench, if you like. You’ve worked so hard to make things happen, I want today’s first trench to be yours.”

  Fidencia cast me a doubtful glance, but duly trotted off, the papers clutched to her ample chest. Paul waited until she was out of earshot before turning to me. “Lori, my sweet. I’m so delighted that you are going to be here for the next few weeks. It will be a particular joy to fully investigate our . . . acquaintance.”

  I tipped my head to the side the better to consider him, hoping for a coquettish air. I had planned on saying something noncommittal, but instead what came out was, “You are aware of the fact that I could not only see you almost drooling down that poor girl’s front, but could also hear you murmuring in her ear, yes?”

  He had the balls to look surprised and, more obnoxiously, pleased. “Me? Murmur? My dear, how you wound me! How can any woman compete with the vision of loveliness that is you?”

  I bit back a reply about believing him when pigs flew, realizing that he thought I was jealous. Me! I’d have disabused him of that idea except that might just be the tack I needed to worm myself into his graces. Instead, I simpered and murmured something about being grateful for any help he could give me.

  “I can do more than just answer questions,” he said with an oily smile. “Angelica, our resident photographer, has decided to extend her maternity leave by two months, and her replacement cannot stay the additional time. A position of dig photographer is available for two months beginning in October, and if you’d like it, I would be delighted to recommend you to the board.”

  “Me?” I asked, surprised. Was the man really so deranged that he’d offer a job to someone he just met? “But . . . we just met. You don’t know me at all. And you haven’t seen any of my stuff. Er . . . photos.”

  “I watched you photograph the field walk yesterday, and you seemed quite competent. I have every confidence that you are fully qualified, since Roger only hires the best people.”

  My lips tightened involuntarily. Man alive, I was horrible at deception. Even now, I had the worst desire to correct the false impression that Paul had about my so-called employment.

  “It’s for that reason that I don’t need to see your portfolio, and as for the other . . . I pride myself on my ability to assess people quickly, and it’s quite clear to me that you are intelligent, perceptive, and imaginative. In other words, just the person for the job. In addition, I anticipate that working side by side for two months, as we surely would be, your career would grow in a way that would bring satisfaction to all parties. In short, you would be a great addition to the team.”

  “That’s . . .” I paused, unsure of what I wanted to say. I had to keep on his sweet side, but at the same time, I didn’t want to hold up the hiring of someone who was truly qualified for the job. “Tha
t’s very nice of you, Paul. But if you don’t mind, I’d like to think about it, if for no other reason than I had plans for the next couple of months.”

  “Naturally, you may think about the offer, although don’t take too long making up your mind.” He gave me a smile that showed all of his blindingly white teeth. “There are other candidates who would kill for such a chance as soon as they hear about the opening, and the board will be asking me for my recommendations within the week.”

  He waxed rhapsodic for a few minutes, painting a gloriously Technicolor image of life with the two of us working together. But my thoughts were of a more mundane nature, mostly focused on how long it would take me to get the proof I needed before I could get the hell out of Dodge.

  Paul continued his self-aggrandizing speech for a few more minutes before I made a show of exclaiming at my watch, and tossed a quick apology over my shoulder as I ran off. “Sorry, Roger asked me to make myself agreeable to Gunner Ainslie.”

  “My dear, you couldn’t be anything but agreeable, although I fear your attentions are wasted on him. Dare I hope you’ll be able to spare me a little time later tonight? Say, after dinner? Journalists always have a million questions, and I’d be delighted to let you have the benefit of my expertise.”

  I wanted to let the double entendre go without comment, but I had to keep him thinking I was madly interested in him, so I batted my eyelashes, and murmured something about that being just what I’d like most. I escaped at a fast trot.

  It occurred to me as I passed Tabby and Matthew, who constituted one of the three film crews, that I had no idea where to find Gunner Ainslie. Not that I was anxious to see him, I told the knowing little voice in my head that noted how eager I appeared.

  “OK,” I told myself as I walked up and down the paths running through the gardens, “so he’s not as bad as you first thought. Despite his handsome face, and obvious tomcat ways, he appears to be a loving, supportive father.” I took a deep breath, acknowledging that part of me envied Cressy her father, while another part wanted to know Gunner more, despite the fact that he could expose the truth about my lack of photographic experience.