by Lynn Kurland
Victoria found herself with a key in her hand and Megan’s hand on her back, pushing her toward the stairs before she could slow things down long enough to ask just what kind of investigations Mrs. Pruitt was talking about. She would have stopped on the stairs, but Megan was now pulling her.
“Later,” Megan said. “Go take a shower. I’ll meet you downstairs in an hour for dinner and we’ll talk then.”
“Why didn’t we talk on the train?” Victoria asked, hoping she would make it to the shower before she fell asleep.
“You were drooling. And snoring. Not conducive to conversations of full disclosure.”
Victoria managed to stop in front of her room. She looked at her sister. “Full disclosure? What have I gotten myself into?”
“Something it’s too late to get out of. The roller coaster has already left the station,” Megan said with an unwhole-somely amused smile. “All you can do now is hang on for the ride.”
Victoria clutched her key. “I’m going to blame Thomas for this.”
“It worked for me.”
And with that Megan sailed, in a wobbly sort of way, into her room, leaving Victoria standing out in the hallway, wondering what she was supposed to do now.
Key. Lock. Dinner.
“Oh,” she said, non-plussed. “Thank you.”
She was standing in the shower before she realized that the voice hadn’t been her sister’s.
Victoria discovered she had fallen asleep on the way back from the shower only because she woke up in the dark, starving and disoriented. Then again, she’d been disoriented for most of the day, so maybe that was nothing new. But the hunger she might be able to fix.
She felt around for the lamp. After she’d managed to get that on, she sat up and dragged her fingers through hair that was no doubt matted on one side and riotously curly on the other. Well, there was surely no one left awake to see. She dressed in dirty jeans and walked to the door. She paused.
She had heard a voice, hadn’t she?
She left her room before she could think about it too seriously. Obviously, she was having a hypoglycemic hallucination brought on by airline food and exacerbated by no sleep. She would be more rational after raiding the fridge and returning immediately to bed.
She made her way down the stairs, thanks to the night-light on the reception desk tucked back under the staircase. She walked across the entryway and began trying doors. Sitting room, library, parlor; she examined each in turn. They were wonderful, looking as if they’d been plucked from the past and set down in the present with tender care. She closed the door on the parlor and continued her search for sustenance.
It took only one more door before she found the dining room. She walked through it, with its tables already laid for breakfast, then pushed her way into the kitchen.
Megan sat in a chair, toasting her toes against an Aga stove. Three older gentlemen sat with her, nursing something in rustic mugs. Interesting, but not exactly what she was looking for. Megan looked over her shoulder.
“Hey, Vikki,” she said warmly. “Nice nap?”
“I’ll tell you about it after I don’t want to gnaw your arm off. Where’s the fridge?”
“Over there,” Megan said, pointing to the far end of the kitchen. “Help yourself.”
“I thought I would,” Victoria said. She made quick mental notes about Megan’s companions on her way by. She wouldn’t have normally, but the men were wearing authentic-looking period costumes: kilts, rustic-looking shirts, caps tilted jauntily atop heads. Well, at least two of them were in Scottish dress. The third was dressed in something made for Elizabethan nobility, though perhaps not as bedecked with baubles and lace as she might have expected for full-blown court attire.
She shook her head wryly. Would there ever come a time when people didn’t throw themselves in front of her in hopes of becoming part of her next play?
She turned her back on the wannabes, opened the fridge, and began looking inside for something edible. She poached some cheese and bread, then looked around for something to go with it.
“Fruit on the table,” Megan said.
Victoria frowned at her sister. She sounded as if she were on the verge of laughing. Why? She surreptitiously felt her hair. Was it that traumatized by her unexpected nap? Megan’s hair was just as curly as hers, and presently looked just as napped on. Victoria pursed her lips as she stomped back across the kitchen and put her things down on the table. She reached for an apple.
Then she froze, her hand outstretched. She looked at the men sitting with Megan. Again, it wouldn’t have been the first time would-be actors had dressed up and put themselves in her path, hoping for an audition. These three certainly looked the part. But it wasn’t that. It was that she recognized one of them.
Hugh McKinnon.
The same Hugh McKinnon who had stroked the purple cape and feathered cap in her prop room.
She sat down. Hard. Fortunately, there seemed to have been a bench put there for just such an exigency.
“What’s wrong?” Megan asked innocently.
Far too innocently.
Victoria chose to let that pass. Instead, she pointed at the red-haired costume fondler.
“I’ve seen him,” she managed.
The man dressed in Elizabethan finery snorted. “I told ye, Ambrose, that Hugh would befoul the plans before we even started!”
“I befouled nothing,” Hugh McKinnon said. He smiled at Victoria. “Good e’en to ye, granddaughter.”
“Granddaughter,” Victoria repeated, but somehow she couldn’t manage to attach any sound to the word. She swallowed, but that didn’t work all that well, either.
“Several generations removed,” the other two men said in unison.
“Aye, weel, that as well,” Hugh said, ducking his head modestly.
Victoria looked at Megan, who seemed quite at ease where she was and with whom she was sitting. She looked at her own hand to find it was shaking, so she curled her fingers into a fist and hugged herself.
“He disappeared,” Victoria managed, nodding toward Hugh. “He was in my prop room, groping costumes, then he vanished.”
“Hugh!” the other Scottish gentleman exclaimed. He stood, turned, and made Victoria a low bow. “My apologies for the disturbance. I am Ambrose MacLeod, your grandfather. Please feel free to call upon me anytime. I’m always about.”
“He doesn’t sleep much,” Hugh offered. “A bit of a restless spirit, you might call him.”
The third man gave a mighty snort, then stood and cast his mug into the stove’s belly.
It disappeared without a trace.
“I’m Fulbert de Piaget,” he said dourly. “I’m Megan’s great-uncle by marriage. Don’t suppose that makes us relatives, but since I’m always a key player in these escapades, you can call on me as well. But I do care for me afternoon rests, so don’t be about disturbing me then.”
And with that, he turned and walked out the back kitchen door.
Out through the back kitchen door.
Victoria was very glad she was sitting down.
Ambrose made her a low bow as well, then left in much the same way.
Hugh made no move to go. He smiled widely, revealing a rather gap-toothed bit of dental business. “Well, gels, now ’tis just us McKinnons here—”
Hugh . . .
Hugh scowled and remained seated.
HUGH!
He muttered something under his breath, then rose and made a low bow. “I will return. When Ambrose is napping,” he added in a stage whisper.
He tossed his cup into the fire, then walked out the kitchen door in the same manner as the others had in exiting the inn’s kitchen.
Victoria sat at the table with dinner she wasn’t sure she was going to be able to eat spread out in front of her and stared at the place where three men had just recently sat, all looking as corporeal and alive as Megan.
Now there was only Megan, still sitting there in front of the fire. “I think I should b
e going to bed,” she said, stretching. “I’ve got to get back to London tomorrow morning—”
“Don’t you dare,” Victoria commanded. “You can sleep on the train. Right now, I want you to turn around and spill the beans.”
“Beans?”
Victoria blew out her breath in frustration. “The ghosts, Megan!”
Megan laughed as she turned her chair around and drew it up to the table. “I warned you that the inn was haunted.”
“Yes, but I didn’t believe...” Victoria paused. She couldn’t say she didn’t believe her, because now she’d had ample proof to the contrary. “I’m not hallucinating all this, am I?”
“What do you think?”
“I think I saw Hugh McKinnon in the basement of Tempest in a Teapot a week ago. But I didn’t know ghosts were—” she had to take a deep breath before she could finish, “—international travelers.”
“Most probably aren’t,” Megan conceded.
Victoria looked at Megan and felt a sudden new respect for her. Her sister, the ghost-buster. “Did you discover these three on your own?”
“It was sort of a mutual encounter,” Megan admitted. “Though if you were to ask Ambrose, he would tell you that he planned the whole thing.”
“What whole thing?”
“My meeting Gideon here.”
Victoria blinked. “They arranged your marriage?”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far—”
“They’re matchmakers?” Victoria asked incredulously.
“They would certainly like to think so. After all, we are kin. I think they feel somewhat obligated to see us settled well.”
“Well, that stretches even the formidable reaches of my whopping imagination.” She pursed her lips. “Really, Megan. It was just coincidence that you met Gideon here. A happy coincidence,” she added quickly, “but just chance. Not fate. Not matchmaking ghosts.”
“Think what you like,” Megan said airily.
“And Thomas?” Victoria demanded. “Do you actually believe they had anything to do with his marriage? I admit I haven’t had much time to get to know Iolanthe, but surely she was just bamboozled by his pretty blue eyes—without any other kinds of otherworldly convincing going on.”
But even as she said it, she wondered.
Thomas had just happened upon news of Thorpewold going up for sale. He’d bought it, sight unseen. He’d rearranged his life on a whim to take possession of it. Oddly enough, he’d somehow managed to meet his wife while working on it.
Oddly enough.
Victoria got up suddenly, rummaged around for a knife, then sat back down to make short work of dinner.
“You know, I’m getting tired,” Megan began.
“Tough.”
“You’ll be all right by yourself.”
“It isn’t that I need company,” Victoria said, trying her damndest to convince herself that it was true. “It’s just that I want your company.”
“Liar.”
“We haven’t had a chance to catch up,” Victoria continued, feeling rather desperate all of a sudden. “And we won’t have another chance anytime soon, what with you going home tomorrow and me being involved with the play for the summer . . .”
Megan laughed. “All right. I’ll protect you for a while, but then I’m going to bed.”
“I’ll be fine. Especially once the sun comes up,” she added under her breath.
“They’re ghosts, silly, not vampires.”
“Whatever. So, tell me about your disembodied friends—”
“Our grandfathers,” Megan corrected. “Plus Fulbert. He’s Gideon’s uncle.”
“Sure,” Victoria nodded. “Now, are our grandfathers just sort of inn ghosts or do they roam around?”
“Do you mean, are you going to have paranormal peace and quiet in the castle up the way, or are things going to get really interesting?”
“I don’t want a bunch of ghosts scaring away paying customers,” Victoria said grimly.
“Why are you asking me about all this?” Megan asked. “It isn’t as if I can do anything about it. Besides, you might just be hallucinating.”
Victoria paused and considered. “I might be. But you’re here, too.”
“It might be a really powerful hallucination.”
“Matchmaking ghosts do seem pretty far-fetched.”
“Stranger things have happened.”
Victoria chewed thoughtfully on a rather tasty cheese sandwich, managed to get most of it down, then pushed her plate back. She looked at her sister.
“If they’re matchmaking ghosts, who are they matchmaking for these days? You’re happily married. Thomas is, beyond all reason, happily married to that dear, baffled Iolanthe. Is our little sister set to arrive soon and be their next victim?”
“Jenner’s helping Mom with next spring’s line,” Megan said placidly. “I guess that just leaves you.”
Victoria laughed uneasily and without humor. “I hardly need to have a match made for me.”
Though three rather fierce looking ghosts might just be the thing Michael Fellini needed to inspire him to take a good hard look at her and see the woman behind the script.
“Come on, sis,” Megan said. “You’ve had a long day and so have I. Things will look better in the morning. Of course, I won’t be here in the morning to see if things are looking better. You can call me in London if things get really dodgy.”
Victoria washed and put away her plate and knife, then looked around the kitchen one more time before she followed Megan back into the dining room. She could be delirious, but that would certainly be a shocking deviation from her usual policy of taking big gulps of reality in very large doses.
But as she followed Megan back upstairs, she couldn’t help but wonder if indeed there might be a match to be made for her. After all, it was entirely possible that those jet-setting ghosts had seen Michael and decided he just might be the one for her.
Had it been coincidence that she had been invited to that faculty tea at Juilliard where Michael had just happened to be there without a date? Hadn’t she hit it off with Michael in an unexplained way? Hadn’t he thought the idea of Tempest in a Teapot to be the most original thing he’d heard in years? Hadn’t he suggested that they meet for a cappuccino and a currant scone with agave frosting at Tempest in a Teapot very soon?
She paused. All right, so there was that protracted period of time—almost a year—when Michael hadn’t seemed to be able to find her phone number, but he was a very busy man.
Was it mere luck that when Thomas had made her the offer of his castle, she had called to offer Michael the part and had him accept almost immediately? She suspected not. In fact, he’d mentioned that it was uncanny that she should offer him such a plum role when he just happened to have his spring free of classes.
Uncanny.
She nodded to herself. Surely all that could be attributed to matchmaking ghosts up to more serious things than Three Stooges-style antics.
She said good night to her sister and went immediately into her room, then headed for the bathroom. She brushed her teeth, already working time into her schedule the next day for scouting out cozy locales for what she was sure would be long conversations with Michael about Shakespearean metaphors. Once Michael arrived, she would be over her jet lag and ready to make her own match.
Of course, if she really got stuck, she might enlist a grandfather or two, but she would save those big guns for later.
She paused, then shook her head slowly. That she was even contemplating the like said much about her mental state. She was not accustomed to having things around her take on lives of their own. Ghosts had not been in her plans.
Well, at least, not offstage.
She slapped her toothbrush down on the counter. She could handle the ghosts as long as they remained safely in the inn’s kitchen. If worse came to worst, she would make them sign a contract agreeing to stay out of sight and out of her love life.
She went to bed befor
e she could deliberate any longer on the merits of Fate versus Ghostly Interference. She wasn’t sure she believed in either. If there was luck to be had, or love to be won, it would be had and won by her own efforts.
Of that she was certain.
Chapter 4
y laird, my laird, my laird!” “My Connor sat on a rock in the middle of his bailey where the smithy had been several centuries earlier, sharpening his sword. He looked up at the current candidate for the lofty position of captain of his guard and sighed lightly. When would come the day that provided him with a man worthy of such an honor?
Not today, apparently.
At least Robby Fergusson possessed a smidgen more wit than Angus Campbell. Unfortunately, he also possessed traits that were better suited to a sheepdog than a guardsman.
“My laird,” Robby said, bouncing up and down excitedly in front of Connor. “I’ve tidings!”
“Then stand still and deliver them,” Connor exclaimed. “By the saints, man, you’re giving me a queasy stomach watching you skip about!”
Robby planted his feet firmly against the dirt, looked at them a time or two as if he had to make certain they would remain where he placed them, then delivered his tidings triumphantly.
“There’s someone on the road, coming toward the castle.” Connor considered. It could be a stranger, he supposed, but it also could be the lad who had capered about so incomprehensibly several days ago.
Or it could be Vee McKinnon.
Connor looked at his sword, gleaming despite the overcast day, and smiled. Then he looked up at Robby.
“Indeed,” Connor said pleasantly. “Who do you think it could be?”
Robby blinked. “Well, my laird, I’ve no idea.”
“Man or woman?”
“I don’t know that, either.”
“Friend or enemy?”
“Um . . .”
“Mortal or not?”
“Ah . . .”
Connor swung his sword. Robby might have lacked wit, but he didn’t lack agility. He managed to duck before he lost his head, then he took one look at Connor’s frown, and fled.