Roses in Moonlight (24 page)

“It’s glorious.”

“It’s remote.”

“That’s part of its charm. Is there shopping nearby?”

He looked at her carefully. “Not much.”

“Then it sounds perfect. Why don’t you have any furniture?”

He sighed. “No time and I hate to look for that sort of rubbish.”

She was going to suggest he unbend far enough for at least a stove and a couple of chairs, but his phone chirped at him. He looked at the text, then frowned.

“Excuse me a minute,” he said absently. He dialed, listened, then frowned. “Say that again, sorry?”

Samantha could hear only snatches of the other end of the conversation and Derrick didn’t really have all that much to say. She shifted a little so she could watch him, though she couldn’t help but notice that while he didn’t have his arm around her, he still had his hand on her back.

Honestly, she really needed to date more. The man was going to make her absolutely crazy and she had no experience to counteract it.

“That’s interesting,” Derrick said. “Hold on.” He looked at Samantha. “Richard Drummond is your father’s great-grandfather however many—how many, Oliver?—aye, thirteen generations removed.”

“That’s interesting.”

“He died in the Tower.”

“Terrible.”

“Before he managed to marry and have children.”

Fascinating
was almost out of her mouth before she realized what he’d said. She looked at him in surprise. “Then how can he be my ancestor?”

“That’s a very good question.”

She jumped up, then started to pat herself. “Am I fading?”

“That only happens in movies.”

She pointed a finger at him. “Don’t sit there and look so calm. This is my ancestor we’re talking about! How did he get in the Tower in the first place?”

He looked up at her seriously. “He was accused of stealing jewels. Unset gems. Four dozen of them.”

She swayed. She realized she wasn’t feeling all that great when the world stopped spinning and she found herself sitting on Derrick’s lap. He was still talking around her into his phone, which she found slightly annoying, though at least she could hear the other end of the conversation. That might have been because Derrick was holding on to her and talking on speaker.

“Interesting that we have four dozens gems right here, isn’t it?” Oliver was saying.

“I think it’s worse than that,” Derrick said with a sigh. “I think it’s time for an employee meeting.”

“Oooh, did I win something?”

“Aye, Annoying Git of the Month,” Derrick said sourly. “How’s Peter?”

“Snoring.”

“Rufus?”

“Safely in London. Cameron did us the very great favor of sending a couple of his boys off to tail our Ambleside lads. We’ll see what that turns up. Ewan says you’re all clear where you are. Coming home?”

“I need to buy a round down at the pub, but we’ll be there shortly afterward.” He paused. “Based on what you’ve told me, we may have a new twist here to the case.”

“I can hardly wait to hear it.”

“I imagine you won’t be surprised.”

“Should I start looking for alternatives to modern communications?”

Derrick sighed. “Definitely.”

“Finally,” Oliver said, sounding pleased. “Been waiting to try out some new gear.”

“One could hope. We’ll be home soon.”

Samantha felt him put his phone into his jacket pocket. She considered moving from where she was sitting with her head on his shoulder, then reconsidered. It was cold, but the sunshine was lovely and the sound of the sea soothing.

“Do you think,” she said finally, “that those are the same stones only in two different time periods?”

“I’m not sure there’s another answer,” he said.

“They make me queasy to look at them.” She lifted her head then to look at him. “The second set.”

“Me, too,” he agreed. “You have to wonder, though, why someone would find you in a crowd and plant them on you. Don’t you?”

“Dumb luck?”

He sighed.

“All right, not dumb luck. What are we going to do about it?”

He seemed to consider his words carefully. “I’m not sure
we
are going to do anything—”

She sat up and looked at him in surprise. “What are you talking about?”

He looked up at her seriously. “What I’m talking about is your staying safely behind in the twenty-first century whilst I—”

“Go to hell,” she said crisply.

He blinked. “You mean to Elizabethan England?”

“No, hell.” She stood up and glared down at him. “As in, you. You go to hell.”

He continued to stare at her for a moment or two, then he smiled. He rose, hugged her briefly, then took her hand and towed her toward his car. “Let’s go back to the castle and plan.”

“I’m coming with you.”

“Nay, you’re not.”

She dug in her heels. “Don’t make me go without you.”

He stopped short and looked at her in surprise. “Would you?”

“I might.” She lifted an eyebrow and waited.

“I’ll think about it.”

“I don’t want to drive back to the castle, though. I have thinking to do.”

“Whatever you say.”

“If you’re buying a round, you shouldn’t drink.”

“I never do.”

“Well, now that we’ve gotten that all straight, I suppose you can carry on.”

He looked at her, laughed, then led her over to his car. He opened the door for her, then leaned over and buckled her in. She wasn’t altogether certain he hadn’t planned to do something else, like kiss her, but he seemed to think that imprudent. He only smiled again, then shut her in.

She stared out over the sea and shook her head. Her father had claimed he came from a long line of exceptionally gifted actors, but she’d never been interested enough in tracing her roots to find out who those actors might have been.

A jewel thief?

Her father would be appalled.

And if she survived getting that jewel thief back into circulation, she supposed she would just keep it all to herself. Because any father who would overlook the fact that she’d poached his pride and joy more than once, deserved perhaps, despite his flaws, to have his illusions of illustrious ancestral thespians preserved.

D
errick
looked at the collection of souls in Cameron’s office and wasn’t altogether sure where to begin.

The truth was, the truth was very hard to swallow. His first brush with anything of a paranormalish nature had come when he’d first seen Robert Cameron nine years ago in hospital, lying in a bed with tubes sticking out of almost every orifice. It had taken Cameron quite a bit of time to recover from the knife wound in his back and the way his head had been half bashed in by something no one seemed to care to name. Derrick had wondered what that something had been and how a man could acquire those sorts of wounds in the present day without someone having alerted the police, but as with the wounds themselves, the manner of their earning had been something no one had seemed particularly interested in discussing.

He’d subsequently worked for Cameron for eight years as something more than an employee and something not quite as trusted as family—though perhaps the last wasn’t true. Cameron had trusted him with all kinds of things, but there had definitely been a line drawn at the divulging of too many personal details. Of course Derrick had had questions about Cameron’s past. He had pretended not to think anything of it when he’d gone to various cousins and paid them to forget any even slightly imagined aspirations to the chieftainship of their little clan. He hadn’t mentioned the fact that not only Cameron’s Gaelic but his excellent French had an accent to it that Derrick hadn’t been quite able to place.

But after Sunshine Phillips had arrived on the scene and all kinds of things had happened, Derrick had finally confronted Cameron about things he’d been mulling over for several years.

Such as the fact that Robert Francis Cameron mac Cameron had been born in the year 1346 and apparently somehow traveled through time to take up his place again as laird of the clan Cameron in the present day.

Of course, knowing that had led to knowing things about other Scots in the area, most notably James MacLeod, Jamie’s brother Patrick, and their cousin Ian. Derrick wasn’t sure he wanted to think about how many times and places he’d traveled with Jamie. No one would have believed him. He wasn’t sure sometimes that he believed it himself, not when he was safely in the present day, knocking back a Lilt or watching football on the telly.

He wondered how the others in the room would react. Samantha wouldn’t be surprised, of course, because she had already seen more than was polite of the past. Oliver had come face-to-face with things that he didn’t seem to care to talk about. Peter had heard stories but never experienced anything for himself. Derrick looked over to see the true loose cannon in the room. Ewan was only leaning against a wall, watching him with a smile that held absolutely no hint of a smirk. Whatever that one knew, Derrick hardly dared speculate on. The truth that connected them all was that they knew Robert Cameron.

And that made all kinds of thinking possible.

“Are you going to pace whilst you lecture us,” Oliver said solemnly, “or have a seat?”

Derrick had already seen Samantha seated comfortably by the fire. He supposed there was no reason not to be comfortable himself. He sat, sighed, then looked at the others in the room. He started to speak, then decided that perhaps a visual might be more useful. He put all the exhibits on the coffee table. Two bags of stones, linen tube with one end slit open, and the handkerchief made from bobbin lace.

Oliver looked at him. “And?”

“And it makes me ill to look at those gems,” Peter said, looking away.

Derrick took the second set, the ones that had been sewn into Samantha’s bag, and put them into her purse. He left the others on the table, then looked at his partners, for that was what they would be in this.

“These are, I think, the gems that Richard Drummond is accused of stealing.”

Ewan came to sit down. He didn’t look terribly surprised, but since his usual expression was one of deliberate and usually inappropriate levity, Derrick supposed lack of surprise was an improvement.

“Then how is it you have them?” Ewan asked politely. “Twice, as it happens.”

Derrick supposed there was no point in not being honest. “One set was sewn into Samantha’s bag. We’re assuming that was done by Lydia Cooke.” He paused. “The others, those loose stones there, were wrapped in that cloth, then planted on Samantha in a crowd near the Globe. When we’d gone back to Elizabethan England to fetch Epworth’s lace.”

Oliver only blinked. Peter looked as if he thought he should smile, but he seemingly couldn’t manage it.

“Interesting,” Ewan said. “Why Samantha?”

“Good question.”

Peter looked up from his contemplation of the floor. “Ollie said there was some dark doings with that Drummond bloke. Just hearsay, no trial. Killed him anyway.”

“He died from exposure,” Oliver corrected.

“Aye, exposure to an axe on the green,” Peter said with a snort. He shot Samantha a look. “Sorry, miss.”

Samantha waved away his apology. Derrick thought she looked remarkably well for someone who thought her existence was going to end at any moment. She rubbed her arms, as if she were suddenly rather cold.

“If Richard Drummond didn’t take the gems,” she asked, “then who did?”

“Probably the same one who saw him put in the Tower for the crime,” Ewan offered.

“Then who put those gems in my purse?”

Derrick rubbed his hands together because he was apparently feeling the same chill Samantha was. “That’s a mystery we are going to have to solve. But I think the solving of it is going to require a little heart-to-heart with Sir Richard Drummond.”

“Oy,” Oliver said. He didn’t look surprised, but he rarely looked surprised by anything. “How do you propose to do that?”

Derrick swept them all with a look. “We’re going to break him out of the sixteenth-century version of the Tower of London and ask him.”

There was silence for the space of approximately five seconds.

And then, instead of those men he trusted with his very life—even Ewan, it had to be said—looking at him as if he’d lost his mind and was destined for a Bedlam that didn’t exist any longer, they simply looked at each other briefly, then got down to business.

“I’ll print out the Tower schematic,” Oliver said.

“I’ll make a list of possible gear,” Peter said.

“Will I have to wear tights?”

Derrick shot Ewan a look for the last one. “You aren’t coming.”

“Are you daft?” Ewan asked, looking genuinely astonished. “I’m the only one who can act. Well, unless—”

“Shut up, Ewan,” Derrick warned.

“Then just what in the hell is it you
want
me to do?” he demanded.

“Create believable personas for us to get us in and out of the city without getting us thrown in jail. And find us a safe place to land in 1602 for twenty-four hours.”

Ewan looked as if he was preparing to throw a monumental tantrum. He seemed to reconsider, though, then merely nodded briskly.

Derrick watched his lads—well, and Ewan—doing the third thing they did best, which was to prepare a site for an . . . well,
assault
probably wasn’t a good word.
Visit
was probably a better term for it. Whatever anyone wanted to call it, Peter and Oliver were masters at it. Ewan was more suited to charming people out of their priceless treasures, but he could also be quite useful when it came to planning exit strategies. Derrick couldn’t say he would be particularly interested in having Ewan along for the ride, but he wouldn’t be unhappy to have his advice beforehand.

He looked at Samantha, who was simply watching him, silent and grave. He smiled.

“What is it?”

She shook her head. “Just watching. They’re impressive.”

He nodded. “They are.”

“And your cousin has interesting toys.” She nodded toward the architectural printer in the corner. “Good for plans, I suppose.”

“And large games of naughts and crosses.”

She smiled. “I imagine so.” Her smile faded a bit. “What can I do?”

He knew what he needed but almost hesitated to ask. He rubbed his hands together. “I’m not an expert in Elizabethan textiles, but . . .”

She sighed. “I can put off my leap into artistic endeavors for another few days and play historian if you like.”

“Then let’s invade Cameron’s sanctuary. He has all kinds of books up there on all kinds of obscure things. I’m sure he has a book on costumery.”

“I don’t suppose he has any costumes lying around.”

“I think I might manage to find a few in London.” That was badly understating what his apartment was full of, but there was no point in telling her things that didn’t make any difference at the moment. He wasn’t even quite sure what he had that would have served a woman, so obviously things would have to be acquired on short notice. The sooner he knew what they needed, the better.

He left the lads to their work and walked with Samantha up the stairs to Cameron’s private study.

•   •   •

T
hree
hours and a lovely supper later, he was sitting on the couch with his bare feet on Cameron’s coffee table, trying to stay awake. He honestly wasn’t sure he’d managed it entirely. He rubbed the grit out of his eyes and looked to his right. Samantha was sitting in a chair facing at right angles to his. She had lost her shoes somewhere as well, but she apparently didn’t feel comfortable enough to put her feet on the furniture.

The sea had done what he’d wanted to but never dared, namely pulled several strands of hair out of her braid. She kept tucking those strands behind her ears. He would have asked her to stop, but then she would have looked at him as if he’d been daft.

He wondered what she would have done if he’d simply leaned over and kissed her.

Likely punched him in the nose.

So to avoid having to explain that, he simply sat lounging on Cameron’s sofa and watched her read. She was engrossed, that was obvious. She was also making notes, which he supposed shouldn’t have surprised him.

She glanced at him, then did a double take and smiled. “Nice nap?”

“I couldn’t help it,” he said with a yawn. “Too many nights chasing after a very pretty textile thief.”

She blinked. “Me?”

He smiled, deciding that if she had to ask, perhaps it was best not to wax rhapsodic about her charms lest he indeed give into his first impulse, which was to pull her over to sit next to him and show her just how pretty he thought she was. He sat up and attempted to change the subject.

“Find anything interesting?”

“It depends on the date. What did you guess, 1602?”

“I’m thinking so,” he said. “Someone was talking about Hamlet when we were last there. The first quarto was registered in late July of that year, if memory serves, so I think we can almost guarantee it was being performed.”

Her mouth fell open. “How do you know
that
?”

He put his feet on the floor and leaned forward to rub his face with his hands. He shook off the aftereffects of what had indeed been a very nice nap, then looked as casual as possible.

“I was a bit of a theater buff growing up.”

She closed her book. “Did you grow up here at the castle?”

He started to tell her that those were details she probably didn’t need, but realized hard on the heels of that that he actually did want to tell her a few things. Perhaps it went with the absolute madness of taking her to the shore. To his house that he’d bought with his own money.

“Never mind,” she said with a smile. “Didn’t mean to pry.”

He looked at her in surprise, then winced. “Sorry. I don’t have a very good poker face.”

“No, actually, you don’t. How you talk anyone out of their antiques is a mystery to me.”

He smiled. “I’m actually very good at that sort of thing. Just not about discussing what bothers me.”

“You don’t have to tell me anything, really. Not if it bothers you.”

He studied her for a moment or two. “Do you want to know?”

“I find, actually, that I do.” She looked at him seriously. “How weird is that?”

“Thank you,” he said dryly.

She smiled ruefully. “I’m sorry.” She hesitated, tapping her pencil against her notebook for a moment or two, then looked at him. “I don’t date much.”

“So you don’t know the usual dance, is that it?”

She shook her head slowly.

He considered. “Would you like to come sit here next to me?”

She considered as well, then nodded. “I think I would.”

“Then please do.”

She left her books on the table, then walked around it to sit down next to him. She looked up at him. “What now?”

“We could hold hands.”

“Will you divulge details if we do?”

“I would anyway, but it might make me feel better whilst I’m about it.”

She smiled. “You aren’t serious.”

He lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “I think it would, but I don’t want to force you to do something you don’t want to do.”

“Hmmm,” she said. “Holding hands with a very handsome man in a castle that I think is mostly original, in front of a fire big enough to roast a good part of an entire cow, while I listen to him tell me his secrets? I think I like it.”

He smiled in spite of himself. “You didn’t mention the Vanquish.”

She shrugged. “It’s what you drive, not who you are.”

He closed his eyes, because it was either that or get himself in all kinds of trouble. He held out his hand, was rather too relieved for his peace of mind when she put hers into it, then propped his feet back up on Cameron’s table. He held Samantha’s hand in both his, suppressed the urge to flee—the woman was going to drive him crazy long before he managed to get a handle on what, if anything, he felt for her—then took a deep breath.

“I didn’t grow up here precisely,” he said. “My parents had a house on the estate, because my father was the second cousin twice removed of the laird, Alistair. My mother wasn’t fond of being here but my father never would have moved away. He loathed Scotland, as it happened, but I think he always assumed that one day he would take the title for himself.”

“Really?” she asked, sounding surprised.