Roses in Moonlight (15 page)

“I think I’m going to be ill,” he wheezed.

“Please not down the sweater,” she said. “It’s cashmere.”

“Textile snob.”

She laughed a little. “If you only knew.” She simply stood there for a bit longer, apparently having to brace herself solidly to keep him from pitching forward onto her. “How are you?”

“Still considering ruining your sweater.”

“You know, you might feel better if you didn’t talk so much.”

He would have laughed, but it was simply beyond him at the moment. Instead, he did as she had suggested and simply breathed until he thought he could make it back to his bed.

“Better,” he managed.

She put one hand on his good shoulder, then the other on his chest and held him steady until he could right himself. He was afraid he found it quite impossible to stay on his feet without holding on to her, even with the coffee table sitting between them.

It didn’t bode well for his evening.

“I feel better,” he announced weakly.

“Sure you do. Here, let’s get you back to bed.”

He found he simply didn’t have the strength to argue with her. It was taking all his energy just to keep his gorge where it belonged.

He didn’t fight her when she eased around the table, then drew his good arm over her shoulder. He was fairly sure he’d gasped out an apology or two, but it was entirely possible he’d imagined that.

Samantha stopped him just inside his bedroom. “Bathroom?”

“Egads, woman,” he gasped, “my dignity.”

“Which will be more seriously damaged if I have to rescue you with your trousers down around your ankles.”

He wasn’t quite sure there was any farther south he could travel when it came to his pride, so he nodded, accepted her as a crutch, then stumbled along with her to the loo.

Five minutes later thanks to sheer determination, he got the door open and managed not to fall into her arms.

“You look green.”

“I feel worse.”

“Back to bed with you, then.”

He wasn’t about to argue. He managed to get himself flat without ripping open his shoulder, but he supposed that was more Samantha’s doing than his. She peered at his shoulder.

“I think that might be starting to bleed.”

“This is my favorite . . . T-shirt,” he managed.

“I guess you could pretend it’s marinara.”

He looked at her and did his best not to see two of her. “Had to tell him something believable.”

“Well, the truth wouldn’t qualify for that,” she said, sounding increasingly far away. “I’m going to call Sunny.”

He closed his eyes. “Cameron once thought she was . . . a witch.”

“Is she?”

He shook his head, which was a very bad idea. “Herbalist.”

“Want a doctor instead?”

“Please, nay,” he said. “Just Sunny.”

“I think that’s wise. I’m not sure how you’d explain this otherwise. I’ll go call her.”

He made a grab for her arm, which was a failure. She paused at the foot of his bed.

“What?”

“Sorry,” he said. “Arse.”

“Yes, I believe you are.”

He didn’t bother to argue. He simply closed his eyes and fought the urge to lean over the side of the bed and vomit. He was fairly certain Sunny could fix that by working on his feet, but he wasn’t sure she would be willing to after Samantha got through describing his behavior, which she no doubt would. Damn her.

He realized with a bit of a start that he was angry, but he couldn’t decide whom he was angry with. Himself, definitely, because he was being rude and couldn’t seem to stop himself. Samantha Drummond, absolutely, because she wouldn’t tell him to go to hell.

He just wanted to have it all over with so he could get her and that damned piece of lace out of his life once and for all. He didn’t know her, but he was sure he wouldn’t like her if he did. Too mousy.

Of course, another lad might have called that characteristic
gentleness
or
kindness
, but he was who he was. He liked fast cars and brittle women, truly he did.

He knew he was beginning to drool, but he couldn’t stop himself. All he could do was cling to the last vestiges of thought and concentrate on a plan. He would brush up on his accent when he had a minute, get himself and Samantha Drummond to the appropriate spot, then get in and out of Elizabethan England with a minimum of fuss.

And then he would be done with everything associated with the ill-advised venture.

T
here
were odd things going on in the world.

Samantha sat at the table with the afternoon sunlight streaming in the window and contemplated the oddities she had been faced with over the past few days.

First was Derrick Cameron himself. He was a chameleon, apparently possessing a fairly substantial collection of personae and the courage to make use of them. He was CEO of his own company and obviously trusted enough by Lord Epworth to have been given the task of retrieving a matchless piece of lace. He owned a computer that had lots of things on it that she couldn’t get into, things that looked very suspicious, which only added to his cloak-and-dagger aura.

But the man also believed in time travel, which in her book cast serious doubts on his sanity.

She rested her elbows on the table and considered a few more things. Take his cousin for instance, and his cousin’s wife. Robert Cameron was from all reports the Earl of Assynt and looked absolutely like what she would have thought a Scottish lord dressed in a business suit should look like. His wife, Sunshine, was elegant in a midwifey, herbalisty, I’m-so-happy-with-my-hunk-of-a-Scottish-husband-that-I-can’t-stop-smiling sort of way. Their son was adorable, their happiness palpable.

And their utter lack of surprise or disbelief over where Derrick had gotten his wound unnerving.

She had watched them get Derrick into bed three days earlier, then listened to Cameron laugh softly over the pajamas Sunny had brought with her. He had accused his wife genially of keeping extra pairs on hand for emergencies such as the current one, had a kiss on the cheek in response, then the two of them had set to examining Derrick’s shoulder.

Sunny had concocted something, packed the wound, then they had sat down to chat as if there wasn’t a man lying in that bed with a stab wound that definitely should have been seen to by a doctor.

The one thing she could say for Sunny, the former herbalist and current wife of a Scottish laird, was that she seemed very capable. Her knowledge of herbs, as far as Samantha could tell, was extensive, and her faith in the ability of the body to heal itself with the right help was absolute. By the time she and Lord Robert had dragged themselves off home later that next morning, Samantha had been a believer herself.

The ensuing three days had fallen into a pattern of sorts. She had slept and used Derrick’s credit card—the number very thoughtfully provided by Emily who had come once or twice to bring her more clothes—to download several books of dubious scholarly quality to his tablet. She had ordered room service and thoroughly enjoyed getting lost in mysteries and romances she would have had to hide under her bed at home.

Sunny had come to keep watch over Derrick, spelled by Cameron, and neither of them had seemed to think there was anything strange about that. Samantha had spent her share of time with them, chatting about everything from British football to the weather in Scotland.

She had felt a little disconnected, as if she’d been a statue in the middle of a play going on around her. The play had been very normal, but she had been the odd man out, the odd man thinking about a man who was lying in a bed, recovering from a stab wound, whose doctor had been an herbalist and his cousin not at all interested in calling the cops.

Very strange.

She had spent her share of time sitting by Derrick’s bedside, wondering if he would ever wake back up. Sunny’s brew that she forced down him as often as possible had seemed to have the side effect of leaving him completely out of it, but she supposed that had been a good thing.

The reality of the rest of her existence was perhaps even harder to swallow. She had unlocked Derrick’s phone using his unconscious and unresisting thumb and sent another couple of texts, one to Lydia and another to Gavin, assuring them she was all right but that she’d had a little accident and was laid up, conveniently with friends of the original detective inspector from Scotland Yard. She could hardly believe she was using Derrick’s ploy of fending off the interest of thugs, but she hadn’t known what else to do and she hadn’t really been willing to talk to either Sunny or Lord Robert about it.

It was, after all, a little difficult to discuss the fact that she was the reason Derrick had gone back in time to Elizabethan England and gotten that hole in his shoulder.

So she had stayed where she was and done what she could to be useful because the alternative was going outside, empty-handed, to find herself in the care and feeding of men who would probably kill her if she didn’t produce what they obviously thought she still had.

All of which left her where she was, sitting in a suite at the Ritz, nursemaiding a man who had gotten up earlier that morning and looked as if he might pass out in her arms. How he thought he was going anywhere that day was beyond her.

A soft knock on the room door had her jumping so abruptly that she almost tipped her chair backward. She put her hand over her heart, got up from the table, and staggered across the floor with the grace of one who had been in bed for three days, suffering from a shoulder wound. She peered out the peephole, then sighed in relief.

She opened the door and let the adorable Countess of Assynt in as if she had known her all her life. Sunny smiled and shut the door behind her.

“How are you?”

“Freaked out.”

Sunny laughed a little. “I think you’re holding up very well. At least you have a great place to freak out in.”

“There is that,” Samantha agreed. She nodded toward Derrick’s door. “He’s in there.”

“Surly and unpleasant?”

“Both.”

“Then he must be feeling better.”

Samantha shook her head. “I don’t think he is, but he’s determined to be up and about. I think he’s crazy.” Well, she thought he was crazy about a lot of things, but she wasn’t sure quite how to broach the subject with Sunny. “I put him back to bed this morning and he’s been there ever since, very quiet.”

“He’s probably plotting something,” Sunny said wisely.

“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Samantha agreed.

But she couldn’t bring herself to even bring up the subject of what Derrick might be plotting, because she was fairly sure Sunny had no idea what that might be. She waved Sunny on to her patient, then took to pacing.

She paused by the window, looked down into the garden, and fortunately for her peace of mind found nothing unusual there. She didn’t suppose that said anything, but a girl could hope. She finally sat down at the table because she had nothing else to do. Unfortunately, that gave her too much opportunity to eavesdrop.

“I feel fine!”

There was a pause. Samantha imagined, judging by the tone of the next statement, that a stern look had been delivered.

“Derrick, you’re being nasty.”

“I feel nasty.”

“You just said you feel fine.”

Swearing ensued.

“You know, I can call a doctor and then you can answer all kinds of questions you don’t want to about what you’ve been doing over the past few days.”

“Sunny, you have no pity.”

“None. Apologize, or I won’t come back.”

Gusty sighing ensued. “I apologize. I was an unmitigated ass.”

“
Jerk
would have sufficed.”

“People keep using that word when they talk about me.”

“There’s probably a reason for that.”

Samantha snorted before she could stop herself. She turned when she heard Sunny come out of Derrick’s room and pull the door shut behind her.

“Well?” Samantha asked.

Sunny walked over to the table and cast herself down into a chair with a gusty sigh. “He’s on the mend.”

“Painfully.”

“Loudly.” Sunny looked at her. “Are you married?”

“Heavens no,” Samantha said in astonishment. “Not even dating anyone seriously.”

“Well, I’ll tell you now: When they start to snarl, that means they’re on the mend. It’s at about that point that my Florence Nightingale impulses have ceased and I’m happy to limit my tending to tossing them the remote and telling them to get their own damned soup.”

Samantha looked at her, then laughed. She put her hand over her mouth, because she wasn’t sure laughing was an appropriate reaction. Sunny was only looking at her and smiling.

“How in the world did you get mixed up in all this?” she asked, still smiling.

“I have no idea,” Samantha said, honestly. “I was just trying to run away from home.”

“Overbearing parents?”

“Academics,” Samantha clarified. “No offense to academics, of course. Mine are just a little . . . intense.”

“Mine are linguists,” Sunny said, “so I understand where you’re coming from. My sister and I were always foisted off on relatives and Swiss finishing schools when they were busy. What about you?”

“I was locked in a museum.”

Sunny smiled. “Poor girl. Well, you’re out now. What are you going to do with the rest of your life?”

Now that her employers were revealed to be crooks, her brother had proven to be useless, and she might possibly be facing jail time if Derrick didn’t stop being a jerk, she had no idea what she was going to do with the rest of her life. She looked at Sunny and swallowed uncomfortably.

“I’m not sure. I would just like to sort of disappear.”

“Cottage on the coast? Small garden? Simple husband?”

Samantha smiled. “How did you know?”

“I think we are a lot alike,” Sunny said. “You might be careful what you wish for, though. You never know what you’ll really get.”

“What did you get?”

“Pantyhose,” Sunny said without hesitation. “Well, Scottish rain as well, which I suppose mitigates the horrors of pantyhose.”

Samantha considered. “I can see how it might.”

“Have you ever been to Scotland?”

Samantha shook her head. “Thought about it now and again, but that’s it.” That was probably an understatement considering all the time she’d spent over the years looking at pictures of Scotland, or borrowing library books about Scotland, or surfing travel sights about Scotland. But that was more than Sunny needed to know.

“It’s a lovely place,” Sunny said. “You would probably like it.”

“I imagine I would,” Samantha agreed, though she very much doubted she would ever make it that far north. At the moment she was mostly worried about making it out of the country without getting arrested.

She looked at Sunny and realized the countess was watching her more closely than Samantha was comfortable with. She searched for something to talk about that didn’t have to do with anything serious.

“You’re an American?” she asked.

“From Seattle. I came over here to visit my sister. Then a set of fortuitous circumstances put me in the same place as Cam and here we are. It’s funny how things work out, isn’t it?”

Samantha supposed in her own life it was less funny than strange, but Sunny didn’t need to know that, either. But speaking of strange, she had a woman sitting across from her who had looked at a stab wound and thought nothing of it. It was tempting to speculate on what else she might think nothing of. Maybe there was no harm in venturing a casual comment or two. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. She looked at Sunny.

“Have you seen odd things here?”

“What sorts of things?” Sunny asked easily.

“Um,” Samantha began, “odd things. Paranormal things.”

“Like ghosts?”

“That’d do for a start.”

Sunny smiled. “Of course. It is England and Scotland after all. Lots of history hanging around.”

“Can you be specific?”

Sunny shrugged. “Our neighbor to the south has a piper who plays whenever his lord is in the mood for a little battle dirge.”

“So?”

“Well, that piper is a ghost,” Sunny said with a smile. “He’s very good.”

“Have you heard him?”

“Yes, and I’ve seen him as well.”

“Interesting,” Samantha said faintly. “Anything else?”

“What sort of anything elses?”

Samantha could hardly believe she was going to give voice to the words, but she had to know. She was starting to feel a little crazy.

“This seems so silly,” she began, finding that the thought sounded less silly than it did absolutely insane, “but what do you think about time travel?”

Sunny’s face was absolutely expressionless. Samantha couldn’t say she was any sort of investigator, but she thought she might be able to put on her Derrick hat and consider the facts of the case. Sunny had been animated before; now she was very cautious.

Something was up.

“I think,” Sunny said slowly, “that there are many things that are possible.” She smiled. “Why not this?”

“Because it’s crazy.”

Sunny shrugged. “Traveling in a plane or talking on a cell phone would have seemed crazy to someone who lived two hundred years ago. Maybe there are just things we don’t understand.”

Samantha decided there was no point in not being frank. “You didn’t seem surprised by Derrick’s shoulder wound.”

“It’s London,” Sunny said. “Lots of things happen in London.”

“You didn’t call the cops.”

“There are some things that are better kept to the family.”

“But,” Samantha blurted out, “he thinks I left the missing lace in Elizabethan England.”

Sunny looked at her blandly. “And what do you think?”

“I think he’s crazy,” Samantha said, but she had to admit she didn’t think he was as crazy as she’d thought him before. “Mostly.”

“Lots of crazy things in the world.”

“He thinks we’re going to go look for the lace tonight.”

“Now, that
is
crazy,” Sunny said with a smile. “He did admit as much to me which is why I gave him my supersecret, frighten-any-bug-left-in-you-out-of-you brew. He’ll be fine. He’ll also sleep until tomorrow afternoon.”

Samantha smiled in spite of herself. “He’ll be furious.”

“With me?” Sunny scoffed. “I’m not worried. I’m also not going to hang around. Give me a call if he starts hallucinating.”

“And just what am I supposed to do until you get here if he does?” Samantha asked, profoundly alarmed.

“
Bean him with his laptop
would be my suggestion, but he was rude to me and I found his apology somewhat lacking so I’m probably not his biggest fan at the moment.” She smiled and rose. “You have our numbers. Call if you need help. And watch as much pay-per-view as you like. Use the personal shopper downstairs if he gets really feisty. He’s picking up the tab, after all.”