by Lynn Kurland
She stepped away from the door and allowed Emily to open it. Derrick thanked their escort, then walked into the room and shut the door behind him with exaggerated care.
“Good evening, Emily.”
“Bonsoir, mon cher,” Emily said, leaning over to exchange kisses on both cheeks with him. “How has your day been?”
“Interesting,” Derrick said politely. “I don’t suppose Cameron would splash out for supper, would he?”
“I imagine he would, since he’s billing you for the room.”
“Unsurprising.” He leaned back against the door and looked at Samantha. “Good evening, Miss Drummond. I suppose the least I can do is feed you before I throw you back out to the wolves.”
“Derrick,” Emily chided, “stop it. This sweet girl here told me she had nothing to do with anything of yours.”
Derrick snorted. “Don’t believe her. She has a habit of prevarication.”
Samantha blinked. “What in the world are you talking about?”
“You,” he said crisply. “Saying you were an artist. You’ve a bloody degree in history and textiles, Miss Drummond, not art. I doubt you’ve ever picked up a paintbrush.”
Samantha felt her mouth fall open. “How do you know anything about me?” She looked at Emily. “Who is he? Some sort of private detective?”
Emily smiled. “The second coming of Sherlock Holmes, rather.”
Samantha would have burst into tears, if she’d been the type to do so. With her mother, she’d never really had the opportunity to. Her mother was a tsunami of personality and activity, leaving her with no chance to do anything but hold on to something solid and hope she survived. Her father, well, her father was who he was. But tears weren’t allowed. Shakes, though, were looking like an appealing option. If they were done artistically, she supposed even her father would have approved.
“This is kidnapping,” she managed, trying to keep her teeth from chattering.
“And theft is a felony,” Derrick shot back.
“Derrick, don’t be difficult,” Emily warned.
He looked like he was ramping up for a good bout of it. Samantha decided abruptly that she’d had enough. They could keep her in that room, but they couldn’t keep her silent. She dug around in her bag for her phone, fully intending to dial 911 or 999 or HELPME; whatever worked.
But her phone wasn’t there.
Obviously she’d dropped it, but she couldn’t think of where. She looked at Derrick. “Did I leave my phone in the car?”
“How the hell do I know where you left your phone?” he said, sounding rather angry.
She thought she might want to sit down fairly soon. The next thing she knew, she was sitting down on the couch with Emily peering intently at her.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I’ve lost my phone,” she said slowly. She ignored Derrick’s noises of impatience and Emily’s concern and ran back through the afternoon and evening’s events. She had, she had to admit, suffered a moment of panic and pulled the embroidery out of her purse and . . . well, that was probably when she’d lost her phone.
Emily pulled her phone out of her purse on the coffee table. She started to hand it over, but Derrick reached out and took it before she could. Emily looked at him in surprise.
“What are you doing?”
“I don’t want her calling anyone until she’s given me the lace.”
“I don’t have the lace,” Samantha managed.
Derrick waved Emily’s phone at her. “At least you admit that you know what I’m talking about.”
She wondered how someone so good-looking could be so stubborn and unreasonable. “Is it your lace?”
“No,” he said shortly. “It belongs to my client.”
“Are you a cop?”
He pursed his lips. “No.”
“Then how do you know anything about it?”
Derrick looked at Emily. “I’m finding it difficult to believe I’m having a conversation with a thief. Tell me why I just don’t rip her bag out of her hands and get back what she’s stolen?”
“I didn’t steal it,” Samantha said.
“No, you were working for other people who stole it,” he said, shooting her a dark look, “which I’m sure you knew.”
“But I had no idea—”
“Ha,” he said triumphantly. “Then you admit you have it.”
She started to protest but realized that maybe there was no point. She took a deep breath. “I had it,” she said. “But I had no idea that I had it. It was hidden inside a piece of Victorian embroidery that I was asked to bring south to London.”
“Unbelievable,” he said with a gusty sigh. “And you didn’t think to question any of this?”
“Why would I?” she asked. “The Cookes are friends of my brother’s—”
“Who has terrible taste in friends,” he muttered. He dragged his hands through his hair and looked heavenward. “At least the lace is safe. We can worry about the rest of it later.” He held out his hand. “I’ll take it and make sure it gets back to the right place.”
“And why in the world would I trust you with it?”
“Because I have been charged by its owner, Lord Epworth, with getting it back,” he said, with exaggerated patience, “and get it back I shall. Now, do the right thing and hand it over before I call Scotland Yard and counter every thing you’ve said.”
“You work for Lord Epworth?” she asked in surprise. “Really?”
“Yes, really,” he said in a perfect American accent. “Relinquish it so I can ring up the poor man and ease his mind.”
She was on her feet without quite knowing how she’d gotten there. She paced a bit, then turned and looked at the other two in the room. Emily was sitting on the couch, the picture of elegance. Derrick was frowning at her, as if he couldn’t decide whether to shout or simply take her bag and get the lace himself. She took a deep breath, but that didn’t calm her nerves any.
“I don’t have it,” she said.
“Of course you do,” Derrick said.
“No, I don’t.”
He folded his arms over his chest. “Prove it.”
She supposed since she didn’t have a phone, there was nothing in her bag that was really worth saving except her wallet, which was uninteresting, and her notebook, which she was just going to display, not hand over. He’d already flipped through her notebook and handed it back to her in the car, so she supposed there was nothing else she had that would shock him. She pulled the strap over her head, then emptied the bag onto the coffee table. Derrick only looked down, then at her.
“Where is it?”
“Probably with my phone,” she said, “which I probably dropped while hiding the lace.”
He blinked. “You did what?”
“I hid the lace,” she repeated slowly. “You know, as in putting it somewhere out of the way?”
“You hid the lace?” he asked incredulously. “Where?”
She gestured behind her, because she had a very good sense of direction. “Back there. In that street fair.”
He swayed. “You hid a priceless piece of Elizabethan lace in a street fair?”
“Under a planter,” she said defensively. “And it was in archival quality plastic, not a paper bag. It’ll be fine.” She paused. “Actually, I’ll admit that the location worried me, because that seemed to be a rougher part of the fair than I started in—”
“What?”
She looked at him. “Where you and that guy were swordfighting. I’d hidden it just before I walked into that group of, well, bad guys.”
He blanched. She had never seen the color disappear from someone’s face like that before. It was, she had to admit, a reaction that seemed a little more than circumstances called for, but then again, it hadn’t been her lace she was hiding.
But she would probably be liable for losing it.
She realized she was swaying only because Emily had caught her by the arm and was holding her up.
“I think what you need, chérie, is a hot bath. Let’s get that started, then I’ll order something for you to eat.”
Samantha went with her because Emily was an irresistible force of manners and chicness and actually the thought of a hot anything sounded good. She looked back over her shoulder before Emily drew her inside a bedroom. Derrick was sitting on the couch with his head in his hands.
She couldn’t blame him for that. She wasn’t exactly sure she hadn’t assumed that very same position when she’d realized what she had in her bag.
She sank down onto the edge of the bed and watched as Emily opened up a suitcase full of clothes and laid things out. Maybe she intended to put on a fashion show for Derrick.
“You have your bath, Samantha,” Emily said, nodding toward the bathroom. “I’ll go keep watch in the sitting room.”
Samantha could hardly believe she had found any sort of ally in a world gone mad. She simply looked off into nothing for a moment or two before she turned to Emily. “Why should I trust you?”
“Because I don’t think you’re a thief.” Emily zipped up the suitcase and set it on the floor. “You look a little lost to me.”
Samantha pointed toward the door. “He still thinks I’m a thief.”
“Derrick can be intense.” She looked at Samantha. “Is that the word I want?”
“I think jerk is a better choice,” Samantha muttered. “I’d say I would reserve judgment, but I don’t plan on being in his august presence for that long.” But while she had answers, she supposed she couldn’t be blamed for wanting them. “Who is he?”
“Just a man.”
She shot Emily a look. “Please.”
“He’s not nefarious, if that’s what concerns you. His cousin is the Earl of Assynt, after all, and he’s a very lovely man.”
Samantha wondered if things could get any stranger. She was being kidnapped by a man who was related to an earl and she was being taken in hand by that earl’s employee. She looked over her shoulder on the off chance there was a ghost there to add a bit more character to the party. She was very relieved to find there wasn’t.
“I’ll leave you your privacy,” Emily said, “and remind our Derrick to find his manners.”
“I’m not going to be here long enough for him to manage that.”
“That is, of course, your decision,” Emily conceded. “I will keep watch, though, if you’d like to change.”
Samantha gestured to the clothes on the bed. “Who do those belong to?”
“You, chérie,” Emily said.
“How . . .”
“I will tell you,” Emily promised, “but perhaps not now. You’re perfectly safe here. I’ll see to it.”
Samantha considered that. At least she could maybe exit the place looking so different that no one would recognize her and follow her.
She was definitely starting to feel as if she’d wandered into some sort of Impressionist painting. Everything around her was starting to take on a sort of splotchy, color-driven, shapeless kind of form. She watched Emily walk toward the door, then waited until the door was closed before she locked it, then looked around for something to put in front of it. A chair seemed rather less substantial than she would have liked, but she stacked a very expensive-looking crystal vase on it. At least that way she would hear it when it crashed. What she would do then, she had no idea, but maybe something would come to her in the moment.
She walked over to the window and looked down. Too high to jump and no ledge to crawl out on. She was stuck.
She headed for the bathroom. Maybe water would help her think. It usually did.
Though she had the feeling that not even a shower to be found at the Ritz could possibly manage to inspire her with a solution to her current problem.
Chapter 10
Derrick looked up as Emily pulled the door shut behind her. He had to admit he was perhaps rather more grateful to see her than he should admit to. There was something about her ability to walk into any situation and take charge that was unaccountably soothing.
She wasn’t his cousin by blood, but she might as well have been. They had spent part of their youth together when she hadn’t been in France, she as the granddaughter of Madame Gies, the Cameron cook, and he as the grandson of old Alistair Cameron’s valet. Never mind that his grandfather had actually been Alistair’s cousin. When one threw the current laird Robert’s genealogy into the mix, the family tree became very convoluted indeed. But he was grateful, as he always had been, for family, no matter how distant the connections.
“You look as if you’ve had a difficult day,” Emily said, sinking down on the couch gracefully. “I can watch over your charge for a bit if you’d like to go rest before dinner.”
“Good,” Derrick said shortly. “I’m liable to kill her if I have to have anything else to do with her.”
“What you need, mon cher, is a lesson in manners.”
He rubbed his hands over his face. “I’m sorry, Emily. Thank you very kindly for coming to my rescue tonight. I’m assuming you brought clothes.”
“For you both, though you don’t deserve them.”
He would have smiled, but he was too damned tired to. “I daresay I don’t.”
“Go have a little rest,” she said, pointing to the doorway of the other bedroom. “Behave better when you’ve finished.”
He rose, kissed her hand, then thanked her very kindly before he walked into the other bedroom and shut the door. He knew he should have snatched what sleep he could, but all he could do was pace. The things that were currently causing him stress were so many and so varied, there was no possible way he would manage to even close his eyes.
Before he had truly begun to wear a trench into the carpet, a knock sounded on his door. He walked over and opened it to find Oliver there, gear in his hands. He took his own pack that he’d given to Oliver on his way through the time gate as well as Samantha Drummond’s that Oliver had obviously collected from her hotel.
“Anything interesting?”
“I just shoved her gear into the pack, mate, I didn’t paw through it.”
“Leaving that to me?”
“You don’t pay me enough for that sort of work,” Oliver said, straight-faced. He started to go back out the door, then turned and looked at Derrick. “Several lads outside are showing more interest in your doings than’s polite, if you’re curious.”
“I was. Thank you.”
Oliver shrugged. “Happy to be of service. Any news about the item of interest?”
“She stashed it.”
“Where?”
“Under a planter.”
“Hope no one thinks to water anytime soon.”
Derrick decided that it was best not to reply.
Oliver nodded toward his arm. “That doesn’t look good.”
“It just needs a wash.”
Oliver walked over, ripped off the sleeve of Derrick’s T-shirt, then sliced the sleeve into a strip with a knife he produced from his pocket. He tied it around the wound. “Shall I ring Lady Sunshine?”
Derrick wasn’t sure he would ever get used to calling his sister-in-law that, which was probably for the best. She never would have answered him if he had.
“Nay,” he said, through gritted teeth, “the throbbing will subside soon enough. A clean shirt will do the trick for the moment.”
“Make it a dark one.”
“I thought I would.”
Oliver frowned at him. “I’ll be around,” he said, starting out the door. “Perhaps closer than I intended.”
“Be careful.”
“I always am. I might sleep for a couple of hours, if you think you’ll be doing the same.”
Derrick supposed he had no choice, even if it meant sleeping on the floor in front of the doorway so Samantha Drummond didn’t escape during the night. He nodded, promised Oliver he’d text him in the morning, then shut the door and locked it. He changed his shirt, wincing at the pull in his arm, then decided that perhaps it
wasn’t too late to ring someone whose advice he valued.
The phone only rang twice before the call was picked up.
“Ah, Derrick, lad,” a male voice said, sounding pleased. “Schedule’s freed up for a little adventure, is it?”
“I’m afraid not, Jamie,” Derrick said. “I rang you for advice.”
James MacLeod purred. If there was anything he loved, it was to immerse himself fully in the role of elder statesman on whatever subject might come up. “I’m prepared to hear about anything.”
Derrick had no doubts that was true, or that Jamie had heard just about everything at some point in his life. “I’ll be brief,” he said. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard any rumors about Lord Epworth having a piece of lace go missing.”
“What I heard was he had a fit when you broke into his very secure hall and lifted said piece of lace from practically under his nose in fifteen minutes.”
“It was actually eight and a half,” Derrick corrected politely. “It would have been eight, but I had to stop and tickle the Pomeranian under the chin and feed him his favorite doggie treats.”
“I suppose we can all be relieved you haven’t chosen a life of crime,” Jamie said dryly. “Very well, so the lace has gone missing in truth this time. I’m assuming you’re hunting for it?”
“Aye,” Derrick agreed. “It’s just where it’s gone missing that’s presenting a bit of a problem.”
“Tell me about it.”
Derrick could just imagine Jamie settling comfortably in his expensive leather chair in his thinking room, as he called it, and flexing his fingers purposefully.
“In brief,” Derrick said, “it was given to a courier who managed to lose it in Elizabethan England.”
“Interesting.”
“She put it under a planter.”
“Hope it was wrapped well.”
Derrick pursed his lips. “That thought has occurred to me as well.”
Jamie clucked his tongue. “I don’t think I need to tell you how perilous it is to leave two of the same thing in the same place.”
“How perilous?”
“The deviation from the natural order of things might not be so noticeable at first,” Jamie said slowly, “but I’m not exaggerating when I say that the fabric of time becomes . . . hmmm . . . let’s say it becomes disturbed when things are added that shouldn’t be there.” He paused. “In some cases, when it comes to individuals perhaps, I have come to believe that those additions were meant to be. But when it comes to tangible things—”