by Lynn Kurland
She went immediately into the library. Connor sat there before the fire, poring with furrowed brow over a Gaelic version of Thomas the Tank Engine.
“Interesting book?” she asked.
He looked up at her and shrugged. “There are fewer letters in my language.”
“You weren’t at the castle today,” she said briskly, putting her hands on her hips before she thought better of it.
He looked as shocked as she had ever seen him. “I was there this afternoon.”
“Were you?”
“Aye, I was. Don’t you remember?”
She rubbed her eyes, then sighed. “I’m sorry. It’s been a long day.”
“You should go in to supper,” he said, folding up his book and sending it into oblivion. “I should likely come, as well. The saints only know what Fellini will be about.”
“He’s probably still recovering from this morning,” she said. “I kept him busy at the castle this afternoon, but I didn’t follow him when he left.”
“I should have done so,” Connor said. “I would have, but you bellowed at me to leave and I thought it best to comply.”
She blinked. “Did I? Bellow at you?”
He lifted one eyebrow. “Can you not remember it?”
“Opening night is two days away,” she explained.
“Will this condition of yours grow worse?”
“It always does.”
“The saints preserve us,” he said, with feeling. He rose and nodded toward the door. “Let us be away. Supper will do you good.”
Victoria made her way to the dining room. It was packed to the gills. Mrs. Pruitt had apparently been forced to feed the King of Denmark and Gertrude in the kitchen, due to the new company, but the rest of the cast and Victoria’s family found places at tables. She contented herself with a plate on her lap while she sat on a chair set up against the wall. She looked around to see if anyone else was as on-edge as she was.
Her parents were quiet, but not unsettled. Jennifer was listening, with glazed-over eyes, to Michael going on about heaven only knew what. Thomas and Iolanthe were as they always were: delighted beyond measure to gaze deeply into each other’s eyes and ignore everyone around them.
No one seemed to be worried that Granny was gone or that James MacLeod had disappeared in like manner. Victoria felt as if she were in a terribly written play, portraying a character that she loathed and living for the moment when she could get offstage.
She choked down lukewarm vegetables and tried to keep a stiff upper lip. Everything would be okay. Jamie would show back up from wherever he’d gone. Her granny would pop back in the same way.
One could hope.
She was working on very dry bread when the door to the dining room burst open. She fully expected to see one of the ghosts burst in to put Michael to shame. But it wasn’t a ghost. It wasn’t even an actor.
It was James MacLeod.
Dressed in head-to-toe Elizabethan gear.
“Wannabe,” Cressida said with a sniff. “The local costume shop hasn’t got a clue and he hasn’t got a talented bone in his body.”
Victoria heard a crash. She realized as she stood up in surprise and felt something squish beneath her shoe that the crash had been her dinner landing on the floor. But before she could say anything, Thomas had risen and gone to welcome Jamie into the dining room. Victoria wanted to begin the grilling right then, but she was distracted by the food on her shoe and the necessity of cleaning it up. Mrs. Pruitt arrived with a dish towel and helped her. It was just as well, as Victoria found herself without the presence of mind to do it.
Jamie was back.
And Thomas didn’t look at all surprised to see him.
Victoria leaned back against the wall, having given up any thought of eating. “Thomas knows something,” she murmured.
Connor grunted. “I daresay.”
“Did you know him when he was remodeling Thorpewold?” she asked out of the side of her mouth.
“Aye, you know I did.”
“Why didn’t you do him in when you had the chance?”
Connor snorted out a half laugh. “I should have.”
“If you have the chance again, don’t be such a gentleman. But let me use the thumbscrews on him first. I have a few answers to pry out of him.”
“As you will, lady.”
Jamie wasted no time ingesting quite a substantial dinner. Victoria considered while Jamie inhaled. Why did Thomas look so unsurprised? Had he expected Jamie to return? It wasn’t possible that her brother had done his own hopping in and out of fairy rings.
Was it?
She let that percolate for a moment or two in her head, then dismissed it out of hand. This was Thomas she was thinking about. He was great with money, great with power tools, and spectacular with a pair of crampons on his boots, but anything to do with a sword? Ha! He would probably trip and impale himself on it, thereby saving his foe the trouble.
She turned her attention back to the known quantity. Jamie wasn’t wasting any time with his meal and she was grateful for that. She was chafing at the bit to know what he’d found out.
Unfortunately, her actors were dawdling over their damned desserts. She tapped her foot impatiently. When they showed signs of lingering over coffee, she reached over and thumped her brother on the back of the head. He scowled at her as he rubbed the spot, but the wordless communication did the trick.
“Well, good night everyone,” Thomas said, rising. “A family conference in the sitting room?”
Her family rose, and Michael rose along with them. Victoria strode over to him.
“Good night, Michael,” she said with a smile. “I’m sure we’ll see you in the morning.”
He looked primed and ready to protest. Victoria opened her mouth to speak, but found that unnecessary.
“Sit down, you bloody bugger,” Connor said sternly from behind him.
Michael shivered, then sat. “You don’t have to be nasty about it,” he groused. He looked at Victoria. “I suggest you don’t use that tone with me again.”
“Pre-performance stress,” Thomas said, shaking Michael’s hand.
“Whatever,” Victoria said, brushing past him and Thomas both and heading toward the sitting room. She got there first so she could stake out her territory and have a good place to pace at the back of the room.
Her family took an inordinate amount of time lingering outside the sitting room. She tapped her foot, counted to ten, and scowled.
“They live to torment me,” she said to Connor, who had joined her near the wall.
He lifted one eyebrow. “I can believe anything of your brother, but your parents seem quite lovely. Especially your mother. She has your grandmother’s eyes.”
“She has you under her spell, as well, I see.”
He went so far as to duck his head a little. “Aye, likely so.” Then he cleared his throat roughly. “Both she and your granny have been very kind to me.”
Victoria studied him. It seemed preposterous that she should be entertaining such thoughts at a time like this, but she found herself unable to restrain them.
“Was no one kind to you before?”
He lifted his head with a snap and looked at her darkly. “Daft wench, I’m a warrior, not a bairn. What need have I for kindness?”
“I see.”
“I daresay you do not.”
She folded her arms over her chest. “Connor MacDougal, you’re a fraud.”
“A fraud? How dare you—”
“You’re right. You aren’t a fraud.”
He nodded stiffly. “I accept the apology.”
“You’re a marshmallow.”
“A . . . a what?”
“Marshmallow. It’s something that’s very soft in the middle. Some people even call it food.”
His eyes were very wide. “You compare me to food?”
“I didn’t call you a haggis now, did I?”
He began to splutter. She would have given him a more t
horough explanation of why she considered him soft inside, but she was distracted by the entrance of her family. The Boar’s Head Trio came in first, taking up their places against the back wall. Thomas came in and claimed a prime spot on the couch without delay. Jennifer followed him, scanning the room until her gaze fell on Connor. She walked over to him in a daze. Victoria watched as her sister stopped before him, then looked up at him and gaped.
“Jenner,” Victoria said sharply, “nothing to see here. Keep moving.”
“Vikki,” Jennifer whispered, pointing at Connor, “do you realize—”
“Yes, I realize,” she hissed.
“But . . .”
“Look,” Victoria said impatiently, “buck up, will you? For pity’s sake, Jennifer, too much time fondling fleece and fingering baby yarn has ruined you. You were, before your descent into baby-clothes madness, a professional violinist and a damned good actress. Dig up some of that professionalism and put it to good use.”
Jennifer shut her mouth and looked for a chair. It was occupied by Fulbert. She squeaked, then looked around desperately for somewhere else to sit. In the end, she collapsed next to Thomas on the couch. Victoria supposed she was probably safer there.
Jamie came in and sat down with a flourish in a soft chair near the hearth.
Victoria waited, but the door was shut and no more family was entering. “Thomas, where are Mom and Dad?”
“I figured this wasn’t a conversation Dad could handle,” Thomas said, looking back over his shoulder at her. “Io’s tired as well, and Mom offered to get her upstairs. It’s just us here.”
“And the ghosts,” Jennifer said faintly.
Thomas put his arm around her. “That won’t be the weirdest thing you hear tonight, Jenner. Hang on for the ride.”
Victoria shot Connor a brief look of disgust before she went to sit down in a chair across the coffee table from Jamie. “I’m dying to hear what happened.”
Jamie smiled in satisfaction. “Well, the first thing to tell is that the gate works.”
“The gate?” Victoria echoed. “What gate?”
“The time gate in Farris’s fairy ring,” Jamie said simply.
Victoria wondered if it was possible to tell from just looking at Jamie whether or not he had lost all his marbles or just a few of them. She glanced at Thomas.
“Are you buying this?”
“I’d buy quite a bit if it explained where Granny had gone,” Thomas said easily.
“But time travel!” Victoria exclaimed. She looked at Jamie. “This is time travel you’re talking about, isn’t it?”
“Aye, it is, Mistress Victoria,” Jamie said. He smiled. “Perhaps a little proof would sit well with you.”
He pulled coins out of a purse at his belt, then drew a dagger from his boot. He put all his booty onto the coffee table, as well as a sheaf or two of very new-looking parchment with very antique-looking writing on it.
“Interesting,” Thomas said, leaning forward. “Where did you go and what did you see?”
“The fairy ring leads to Elizabethan England,” Jamie said. “At least it did for me, but I was determined to bend its power to my will. Where it would take someone else is anyone’s guess. My desire was to go where your grandmother had gone and off I went.” He stroked the ruff around his neck. “Hence my sixteenth-century gear. I canna say I cared overmuch for the food. Or perhaps that was merely because I was in Renaissance London. The food is better in the country.”
“It cannot be worse than medieval Scotland,” Connor muttered.
Jamie looked at him and laughed. “Nay, it was not, Laird MacDougal.”
Victoria wanted desperately to interrupt and ask how the hell James MacLeod would know anything about Renaissance country food or medieval chow, but she couldn’t get her mouth shut and a useful swallow down before Jamie was off again, describing the delights of Renaissance London. And then he sobered.
“I must bring the disappointing tidings that I did not find Mistress Granny,” he finished, “though I looked diligently for her.”
“But you think that’s where she went,” Thomas stated.
“Aye, wouldn’t you?”
Thomas nodded wisely.
Victoria suppressed the urge to bludgeon her brother with questions, as well. Who did he think he was, nodding in that knowing way as if he’d experienced time travel for himself?
Time travel?
Ha!
“That simplifies things,” Thomas said.
“That simplifies things,” Victoria echoed, finally finding her voice. “What do you mean by that?”
“It means now we know where to go get her.”
“Go get her,” Victoria wheezed. “Go get her?”
“Yes,” Thomas said easily. “We follow Granny back to Elizabethan England, get her, and come home.”
Victoria’s first instinct was to reach over and thump her brother on the head to restore good sense to him. But then she realized what Jamie had said.
Elizabethan England?
Despite herself, she was intrigued.
She looked over her shoulder and motioned for Connor to come and sit next to her in the hard chair by the fire. The Boar’s Head Trio was also soon seated there in front of a fire that did nothing to warm the room. She wouldn’t have been surprised to have seen Shakespeare make an appearance.
But maybe that was asking too much.
“Even so,” Jamie said, “it will not be an easy journey. We can assume your grandmother is there, but finding her is a different matter entirely. We’ve no idea where she would have wandered off to.”
“Well, at least we know where that gate leads,” Thomas said, leaning forward with his knees on his elbows. “It’s a start.”
“It would have come as a shock to her, doubtless,” Jamie said, stroking the fabric of his shirt. “Wandering unknowing through that gate and finding herself in Shakespeare’s London.”
London. Victoria shivered in spite of herself. Modern-day London was rough enough. How in the world would her grandmother survive London in any other century? She looked at Thomas. “I’m hearing all this, but I can’t quite believe it.”
“Life’s weird,” he offered.
Jamie yawned suddenly. “Forgive me. I’ve had a very long se’nnight. We should speak more of this on the morrow. There is much to be discussed and many plans to make.” He looked at Thomas seriously. “The gates can be very unpredictable. Even I, who have extensive experience with them, have found them from time to time to be unresponsive to my will. There is very real danger involved in this journey.”
Victoria saw that Jamie and Thomas were still speaking, but she couldn’t hear their words any longer. Her mind was reeling with two things she’d just heard.
Jamie had extensive experience with time gates and even he, who had used those gates apparently quite a bit, thought the journey was a dangerous one.
Maybe time travel wasn’t as improbable as she thought.
It was the second item that clamored for her attention, though. If the trip was as dangerous as it sounded, it would be better made by someone with the least amount to lose.
Jamie had a family and he had already risked his life once to investigate. Her dad probably wouldn’t get the gate to work for him because he was a confirmed skeptic. Thomas and Iolanthe were expecting a baby in the fall and there was no way Thomas could leave Iolanthe now.
They needed an unentangled person to go. Someone who knew something about Elizabethan England. Someone who could blend in, don an authentic-looking costume, and pull it off. Someone who could at least get by with the language.
Someone like her.
Jamie yawned again and rose. “I am weary. Let us converse again on the morrow and make our plans.”
He left. Jennifer followed. Victoria looked at Thomas suspiciously, but decided that the interrogation could wait. She had things to think about and her own plans to make.
“I’m going to bed,” she said, crawling to her feet.
“ ’Night, all.”
Connor rose and followed her.
“MacDougal, you can stay,” Thomas said.
“Aye, I could,” he agreed.
“Manly talk,” Thomas offered. “You might enjoy it.”
“I don’t trust Fellini,” Connor answered crisply. “I will go stand guard outside Victoria’s door.”
“Of course,” Thomas said.
He sounded like he was trying very hard not to laugh. Victoria cursed him thoroughly under her breath as she nodded to Connor and went to get ready for bed.
She managed to get in and out of Mrs. Pruitt’s guest bathroom without incident and quickly escaped to the library.
Connor was sitting inside in his accustomed place before the fire. She took the seat opposite him.
“Well?” she asked. “What do you think?”
“’Tis madness,” he said promptly.
She smiled. “And my having this conversation with you isn’t?”
He looked at her gravely. “Perhaps there is more to it that we suspect.”
“‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’”
“Hamlet,” he said.
“The very same.”
“Mayhap he knew of what he spoke.”
“But London, Connor,” she said faintly. “A trained private investigator could spend years looking and never find her.” She leaned her head back against the chair. “I can’t talk about this anymore. I can’t even think about it.”
She would think about it plenty when she had some privacy, but not now. She’d already made up her mind about going. What she didn’t need was Connor talking her out of it.
She looked at him sitting across from her, the firelight playing across his face, and felt for the first time in her life as if she truly had a friend. She smiled. “Do you still want to do me in?”
He grunted. “Did I ever?”
“Yes, you did, and that isn’t an answer.”
“Go to sleep, Victoria.”
“You’re hedging.”
“You’re vexing me.” He looked at her, clear-eyed and peaceful, clearly unvexed.
“Thank you.”
“For what?” he asked.