Roses in Moonlight (26 page)

She took the towel away from him and dried her hands. “Well, I’d better go keep looking through costumes.”

“Samantha.”

“Thanks for lunch—”

He caught her hand. She didn’t want to let him keep hold of her, but she also didn’t want him to let her go. He turned her around, then pulled her into his arms.

“I didn’t mean to say it that way.”

“I think you did.”

“Your place of birth is immaterial.”

“But I’m sure you want a nice Scottish—”

And that was as far as she got, because he kissed her.

She could safely say that Derrick Cameron was good at several things, but he was best at kissing a girl so she knew she’d been kissed.

He finally let her up for air, which she needed rather badly.

“Is this my day to boss you, or your day to boss me?” she asked when she’d caught her breath enough to speak.

“I can’t remember. You take a turn.”

“Kiss me again, then.”

He did, quite thoroughly, until he suddenly stopped. She looked up into his very green eyes and watched him study her for a moment or two. Perhaps he had suddenly realized that she had spent more time punching dates in the nose than receiving their advances. So to speak. He leaned back against the counter, but kept his hands linked behind her back. She suspected that was his invitation for her to continue to stand in his embrace, so she did.

“Let’s talk numbers,” he said seriously.

“Let’s not.”

“I’d say there’s a zero in there somewhere.”

“Are you talking about men I’ve kissed or men I’ve punched?”

He looked at her, then bent his head and laughed. She wasn’t sure if he was making fun of her or if that laugh was tinged with the hysteria of a man who had just realized the woman he’d been kissing in his kitchen was a . . . well, not as experienced as he might have originally thought, but since it was her turn to call the shots, she decided she would. Call the shots, that was. She pulled away from him and walked away.

“I’m going to go look for sleeves,” she said archly. “You stay here and continue to giggle where I don’t have to listen.”

She stomped off, completely uncaring if he followed her or not.

Well, actually, she did care, so there was something very nice about looking over her shoulder and finding he was following her up the stairs. His hands were clasped behind his back. Maybe he didn’t want them off doing something they shouldn’t.

He stopped her at the door to his green room. “Would you mind if I kissed you again?”

“Are you asking this time?”

“I asked before,” he pointed out.

“I think there were several times you didn’t.”

He slipped his hand under her hair, then bent his head. “Now that you mention it, I suppose that’s true.”

She was actually rather grateful to have a doorframe behind her. It gave her a handy place to lean.

“I don’t date much,” she said, when she could.

“Good.”

“I mean, I haven’t dated much,” she clarified. “A cotillion dance. A few university things. A miserable movie with Theodore Mollineux.”

“He won’t be bothering you again.”

She knew she was too old to feel a little weak in the knees at the sensation of standing in a very handsome man’s arms, but there it was.

“And just what are you going to do about it?” she asked politely.

“I haven’t decided yet. Something commensurate with his gargantuan ego, no doubt. But he will find you singularly unavailable to receive his annoying attentions.”

She felt her smile fade. “Why?”

He looked at her seriously. “Because I like you.”

“Enough to kiss me?”

“That, too.”

“Enough to date me?”

He nodded.

“Why?” she asked, feeling pained.

The look he gave her almost left her a believer.

“Are you serious?” he asked, sounding slightly incredulous.

She nodded.

“I’ll make you a list,” he said. “And whilst I’m about that task, you might decide if you’re interested in dating me.”

“Let me boss you around a bit more, then I’ll decide.”

He smiled, a very small, affectionate smile that finished her off as nothing else could have.

“Very well,” he agreed, “but until you’ve come to your decision about me, perhaps we should get back to work—”

He stopped, but that was because she’d caught him by the front of his shirt and pulled him back to her. She put her arms around his neck, pulled his head down, and did her best to kiss him as thoroughly as she knew how. It wasn’t a very good job, she supposed, but perhaps practice would make perfect.

He pulled away sooner than she would have liked, but that was because his phone was ringing. He pulled it out of his pocket, cursing as he did so. “They’re going to drive me mad.” He shot her a quick smile. “Why don’t you go look for sleeves and I’ll satisfy the rabble? I think they’ll be here in an hour or so.”

She frowned. “You don’t sound happy about that.”

“I’m not,” he said frankly. “It will get in the way of my master plan of spending the afternoon doing other things besides looking for Elizabethan gear.”

She blushed. He smiled, leaned over and kissed the tip of her nose, then turned her toward the room.

“Sleeves.”

She tried, really she did. The timing was lousy, she had an ancestor—a would-be ancestor—who was languishing in the Tower of London, and she was almost dating the man who had every intention of springing him from the pokey.

It was insane.

So was the number of times Derrick dropped down onto the couch next to her, put his finger to his lips, and kissed her very quietly while he was involved in conversations with his partners. She wasn’t sure how many times he pleaded a bad connection, tossed his phone, then laughed a little before he pulled her into his arms and kissed her earnestly, though she thought it might have been several. She could say with a fair amount of confidence that his couch was very comfortable but that she wasn’t making as much progress in what she was supposed to be doing as she should have.

“Where’re you going?” she asked as he got up from where he’d been sitting next to her on the couch, not looking for costumes.

“To take a cold shower.”

“Are you kidding me?”

He shot her a look. “No, I’m not. The lads will be here in twenty minutes. Do
not
answer the door. I don’t want you getting carried off by thugs. I’ll be back in ten.”

She sat there surrounded by velvet gowns, detachable sleeves, a ruff that perhaps shouldn’t have been in harm’s way, and a mobcap or two and considered.

She smiled.

She looked up in time to see Derrick poke his head in the door. He smiled at her but said nothing.

“What?” she asked finally.

“Nothing. Just looking.”

“Looking at costumes isn’t going to do any good.”

“I wasn’t looking at costumes.”

She shooed him away. “You’re embarrassing me.”

He looked at her for a moment or two, then walked over to her and pulled her up off the couch and to her feet. He put his arms around her.

“You know, don’t you,” he began matter-of-factly, “that if I keep this up, I won’t be able to concentrate on what I’m supposed to be doing.”

“What, you don’t want to snog all the way through Elizabethan England?”

“Well,” he began thoughtfully, “what I want and what’s sensible can sometimes be two different things.”

“I agree.”

“You don’t have to sound so cheerful about it.”

She hugged him quickly, then turned him around and gave him a push. “Beat it. I won’t let anyone in.”

He went but shook his head as he did so. She fanned herself with a stray farthingale, then tried to concentrate on what she was supposed to be doing.

It was difficult.

She finally resorted to sitting on the steps and waiting. Derrick appeared, looked at her, then took a deep breath before he opened the door at the knock. She watched as Oliver and Peter tumbled in the front door, laden with black bags that looked very suspicious. They were followed by Rufus, and then by Lord Robert himself. She got up when she saw him. He started when he saw her do it, then held out his hand to her.

“Please,” he said with a smile, “call me Cameron—which you haven’t done yet—and don’t stand on ceremony. I’m just here as one of the lads.”

She was fully prepared to doubt that, but it turned out that nothing could have been truer. She hovered on the edge of the group as they sorted through things poured out onto a large square coffee table in the front room. Derrick was quite obviously the one they all assumed was in charge. While suggestions were made, it was, in the end, his decision they went with.

She jumped a little when she realized Lord Robert was leaning against the wall alongside her. She looked at him.

“Yes, my lord?” she asked politely.

“Cameron,” he said with an amused smile. “Or is that impossible?”

“I don’t think I could ever call you Cameron,” she said. “My lord.”

“You’ll have to work on that, but perhaps later.” He nodded toward the men discussing their upcoming adventure. “What do you think?”

“I think Elizabethan England is a dangerous place.”

“And I think you’re very sensible. You needn’t go along, you know.”

“He might need me.” She heard the words come out of her mouth, then found she couldn’t take them back. “Derrick, I mean. Though I’m not sure how.”

“You might be surprised.” He seemed to be choosing his words carefully. “Will you be surprised by other things?”

She looked at him and considered who she thought he might be. She had borrowed Derrick’s tablet on the flight down and made good use of a genealogy program she’d signed him up for on a trial basis. She had noted the Camerons through the ages, made mental notes of the death dates, then formulated her opinion. She looked at the man standing next to her.

“Do you have a middle name, my lord?”

He seemed to be fighting his smile. “Did Derrick tell you I did?”

“Derrick said he wasn’t at liberty to divulge any of your secrets, though I believe he told me that when he had his bare feet up on the coffee table in your study.”

“As long as that was all that was bare, I won’t kill him for it,” Cameron said mildly, seeming to be rather satisfied with something. Perhaps that Derrick could keep his mouth shut. “I might have more than one name attached to my poor self, ’tis true.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Do you care to guess?”

“Francis.”

He only smiled. “Don’t call me Francis.”

“I never would,” she said. “My laird.”

He shook his head wryly. “Somehow, Mistress Samantha, I think you’ll survive this adventure quite well. Even if it does find itself in Elizabethan England.”

“Did Derrick tell you I don’t want to be an historian any longer?”

He shook his head. “He keeps secrets very well. I just have a decent nose for rebellion in the clan, as it were. Your mother’s preferred era is Victorian, yet your study was not. Perhaps I’m reading too much into it.”

Or perhaps not. Samantha looked at him, medieval laird, modern-day laird, and thought that perhaps Derrick had been very fortunate in his luck of the familial draw. She would have commented on that, but Derrick’s phone rang and he held up his hand suddenly.

“It’s Jamie. He may have something else useful for us.”

Samantha had read Jamie’s notes because she’d been the one to organize them in order and summarize them for the boss. She listened to him start a conversation in rapid-fire Gaelic and smiled to herself at the English words thrown in when Gaelic wouldn’t do.

“Do you know Jamie?” Cameron asked.

She shook her head.

“He’s laird of the clan MacLeod down the way from my hall.”

“Has he been laird once,” she asked, in Gaelic, “or twice?”

Cameron laughed a little, then made her a slight bow. “You, Mistress Drummond,” he said, also in Gaelic, “are a match for that lad over there.”

“Thank you, my laird. But don’t tell him I understand him, would you? I think I might like to keep a few secrets of my own.”

“I imagine you would. And you might ask him about a few of his, namely to do with where he and that rascal Jamie go on blokes’ weekends away.”

She frowned, then it dawned on her what he was getting at. “You aren’t serious.”

“Jamie is the original adventurer,” Cameron said with a shrug, “to the endless despair of his wife, who I understand will kill him if he dares take any of their children with him on his jaunts to places and times not his own. Derrick has been his partner in crime for a year now. I haven’t dared ask him too much about his adventures.” He smiled. “I’d best go see what madness they’re combining.”

Samantha watched him walk away and realized why it was that he and Sunny hadn’t been all that surprised by Derrick’s shoulder wound. Maybe that wasn’t the first one Derrick had earned on his little weekenders through time.

She leaned heavily against the wall, because she was too restless to sit but too unsettled to stand. She could hardly believe she was listening to the men in front of her plan an assault on the . . . well, on the Tower of London.

But it was her life they were saving, so she couldn’t bring herself to tell them to stop. Not that they would have, perhaps. Derrick was determined.

She shook her head. The Tower of London.

They were absolutely insane.

D
errick
fidgeted as he rode through predawn, the
very
predawn London of the twenty-first century. It wasn’t in his nature to fidget, so he took a deep, slow breath, then forced himself to look on the current assignment as nothing more than that: an assignment.

The plan was simple. He needed to get Richard Drummond safely out of the Tower jail and get himself and his companions safely back home. Unfortunately, the more he looked at the reality of what had to happen, the more the plan seemed to complicate itself. And one of the most complicated aspects of it was finding out the identity of that unknown quantity who had planted those gems on Samantha.

He didn’t suppose that person would be looking for her, but then again, perhaps he would be. It had been suggested the night before that it made sense to have her back in approximately the same place so they could use her—and this was what made him extremely nervous—as bait. He had immediately and vociferously balked at that suggestion, but Samantha had merely looked at him, silent and determined, then turned back to the lads to figure out what she could carry for defense and not land in jail herself.

In the end, he had agreed to her coming along only because Jamie had called him and provided him with a safe place to use as a base, a place where Jamie assured him Samantha would be the safest of them all whilst he and the lads went about their business.

That decision made, he’d sent Samantha up to sleep in his bed, then camped in the salon with his lads. At that point, he had supposed there was safety in numbers.

Samantha had spent the day before with a professional historical costumer Cameron had drummed up for him, having a realistic and very elegant Elizabethan mini-wardrobe created for her. Thankfully he’d already had most of what Samantha and Jamie had decided he would need—the very useful laird of the clan MacLeod apparently having nothing better to do with his time than look up little details he promised would make the man and woman—and his presence had only been required first thing to take a few measurements. He had lingered in the shop with Oliver, trying not to frighten the seamstresses. Oliver had, unsurprisingly, found a pile of scraps and had a nap of unseemly length.

They’d regrouped at his flat for a supper he hadn’t cooked, checked their gear once more, then tried to catch a handful of hours of sleep before setting off on their journey.

The immediate plan was to get back to the right time, then get through predawn London to Sir Thomas Mauntell’s house. The Globe wasn’t in exactly a posh part of town back in the day; he could only hope they didn’t get either mugged or murdered before they managed to get across the Thames and at least out of the bear-baiting environment. Money was, as always, something of an issue, though he had been very grateful for the courier that had arrived at his flat the day before with a pouch from Jamie. It had contained a handful of coins, enough hopefully to see them through their trip. Jamie tended to be slightly more pragmatic about money and, it had to be said, romance than he was about more exotic things, so Derrick had been surprised he’d bothered, but he hadn’t questioned the generosity. He would have to agree to journeying to one of the less-palatable destinations Jamie had on his list very soon as repayment.

But once the details had been planned and seen to as thoroughly as possible, Derrick had been plagued by what he still couldn’t figure and that was who had planted those gems on Samantha, and why.

“Three minutes to launch,” Peter said. He looked over his shoulder from where he sat in the front seat. “Think our gear will work?”

Derrick shrugged. “It’s battery powered. Why not?”

Peter looked hopeful. Actually, he looked rather ill, but Derrick couldn’t blame him. He glanced casually at Oliver sitting next to him, but Oliver was in superspy mode, silent and deadly looking.

“Check,” Peter said, fiddling with his watch. “Four twenty-nine and three seconds.”

Derrick looked at his watch, knew Oliver was doing the same, then hoped that the fairly long-range earbuds and mics they all had taped to themselves under their shirts for use later wouldn’t find unexpected static in a different time period. It was a self-contained system they had previously tested extensively in the most rural spot in Scotland they’d been able to find, but he had no idea why it had never occurred to him to ask Jamie to help him see what it would do in the past.

But if it didn’t work, they would do what they always did, which was improvise. He looked at Samantha. She glanced at him, then smiled.

“At least I’m not the servant this time.”

“I’m not sure that’s an improvement,” he said, “but you do look very lovely.”

“And the cloak’s handy for hiding all kinds of things.”

He didn’t want to ask her what Oliver had talked her into carrying. The only thing that made him feel better was that Oliver had spent an hour with her in the salon after dinner the evening before, teaching her how to use those things. Derrick was fairly sure he might regret her having learned any of it at some point, particularly if she decided to use any of her skills on him.

“And here we are,” Rufus said pleasantly. “Give me a wee page when you need me to pick you up.”

“Where’ll you be?” Derrick asked politely.

“‘Pray I’m not in the loo,’” Peter and Oliver quoted in unison.

They’d been saying that in unison for as long as Derrick could remember, though Rufus had never actually said those words. It was just their good luck charm of sorts. It was actually rather reassuring.

Derrick leaned up and put his hand briefly on Rufus’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

“No worries, lad.”

They piled out of the car and huddled together on the sidewalk. Samantha was shivering.

“So, what now?” she asked. “High fives all around, or do we just jump right in?”

Derrick rubbed his hands together. “I say we just jump in. Let’s find the appropriate spot.”

“Do we have to hold hands,” Oliver said quietly, “or just step in together and hope for the best?”

Derrick knew it was a serious question. He looked at Oliver and Peter in turn. “This is the way it works. You step into the gate, thinking about where you need to go as you do so, then the gate opens to that spot.”

“Does it always work?” Samantha asked.

Derrick supposed there was no point in not being entirely frank. “Most of the time.”

“And when it doesn’t?” Oliver looked at him. “What then?”

“We’d better hold hands,” Derrick said. “At least we’ll wind up in the same place that way.”

Peter only swallowed. Mostly.

Derrick nodded in a businesslike fashion, then took Samantha’s hand and walked with her over to where the mushroom ring found itself. He supposed he should have been relieved to have found it still there, but he imagined the gate would work just as well without its defining marker. Then again, gates seemed to spawn that sort of ring around themselves.

“What do we do on the other side?” Samantha asked.

“Hope no one sees us,” he said grimly. “Let’s go.”

He had to admit that the one thing about time traveling that made him slightly queasy was the traveling itself. There was something about those gates that shifted in a way that left him with a vague sort of headache he didn’t care for. It never lasted more than a few minutes, fortunately, but he could have done without it. James MacLeod had the constitution of an ox, for he only ever emerged on the other side of anything with a fierce grin and boundless enthusiasm.

“I’m only touching you, Phillips, because I don’t want to get lost,” Peter said distinctly.

Oliver snarled a curse at him, which seemed particularly appropriate for the moment. Derrick took hold of Samantha and Oliver, then looked at his companions.

“Cheers.”

Samantha laughed. He supposed he couldn’t blame her. It seemed the most sensible reaction possible at the moment.

He walked through the gate, towing his companions along with him, then stumbled out into somewhere that was definitely not modern London.

“Smells like a bleedin’ sewer,” Peter gasped.

“Launch successful,” Oliver said briskly. “Let’s get this done.”

Derrick couldn’t have agreed more. He took Samantha’s hand in his, then got them safely beyond the gate and on their way.

“Derrick?”

He shook his head. There was just something about the way Samantha said his name that left him feeling as if he’d just sat down in front of a merry fire.

“Aye, love?”

“Tell me again where we’re going and how Jamie knew about it. I’m not sure I had a genealogy chart available last night to write it all down.”

What he was sure of was that she needed something to take her mind off what they were doing at present. He looked at the lads. “We’ll make for the river, hire a boat to ferry us across—and hope the wherryman is still half asleep—then disembark and walk quickly to Mauntell’s house. Stick close behind us.”

“And keep a weather eye out for prostitutes and contents of chamber pots,” Oliver said blandly. “Don’t think I didn’t do my research.”

“I never doubted it,” Derrick said. At least the Thames was within throwing distance. With any luck, they might manage to get there without fending off any ne’er-do-wells. He glanced briefly at Samantha. “I’ll tell you how Jamie got his information, though it’s a bit of a story.”

“I have plenty of time.”

He smiled at her briefly. “So you do. It’s a bit convoluted, but this is how it works. One of Cameron’s ventures is a trust for the preservation of structures of note owned—or on the verge of being lost, quite often—by those who don’t want to sell to the National Trust. It’s the Cameron/Artane Trust for Historical Preservation, by name.”

“What’s Artane?”

“A great whacking castle on the north coast,” Oliver muttered from behind them. “Derrick, the girl needs a proper tour after this is done.”

Derrick nodded in agreement, then continued. “I suppose the players aren’t particularly important to name, but apparently an elderly relative of one of the owners seems to spend an inordinate amount of time taking little trips.”

Her expression wasn’t visible in the darkness. “To where?”

“Oh,” Derrick said with a shrug, “here.”

She caught her breath. “Elizabethan London? You can’t be serious.”

“I think she’s a big fan of the Bard.”

“Well,” she said, sounding stunned. “It’s an old woman?”

“Oh, I don’t think I would use
old
as a description of her,” Derrick said with a smile. “She is, from all reports, quite young at heart. I’ve never met her, though I’ve heard quite a bit about her adventures.”

“Maybe she could clear up that Shakespeare/Marlowe debate once and for all,” Samantha said faintly.

“It would certainly do the world a great service,” he agreed. “So, as it happens, Jamie’s brother-in-law Zachary’s wife is related in an extremely roundabout way to this seasoned woman. Zachary introduced her to Jamie and thanks to her efforts, Jamie has spent several years collecting details about our current location.”

“I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.”

“I can’t believe I wore good shoes,” Peter said from behind them.

Derrick had to agree with both statements. Again, if he hadn’t lived through several trips with Jamie to times and locales not his own himself, he would have thought the very idea absolute bollocks.

He promised Samantha more details later because he was starting to get a little uncomfortable. The moon had already set—which boded well for their assault—but it made the current walk dodgier than it might have been otherwise. It took longer than he was happy with to find a boat with a captain who was both awake and sober, but he finally selected a likely-looking lad, promised him a handsome fee after they reached the far side, then made sure that his rapier and the daggers Oliver and Peter were carrying were plainly visible. He laced his English with a thick French accent and made conversation about the mother-in-law he and Samantha were escaping as they rowed across the river. The French weren’t any more popular in London than anyone else, but there was no possible way to pass for a native, so he had considered it the least objectionable of the available choices.

They disembarked without landing in the drink, he paid the man and watched him take a practiced nibble at the coin, then counted himself fortunate that that part of the journey had been accomplished with such little fuss. One thing down, a dozen more to go.

He took a moment or two to get his bearings, then nodded up away from the river. “This shouldn’t take long.”

And that was the last thing he said for quite some time. They spent at least half an hour tromping through a rapidly awakening London and attracting all kinds of stares he’d hoped to avoid.

“Not exactly technologically savvy here, are they?” Oliver murmured from behind him, finally.

“Not exactly,” Derrick said grimly.

Streetlamps would have made things easier, but then they would have been more exposed. Then again, by the time the sky was lightening and the city was fully awake, he was completely lost. He wondered if perhaps he’d been rash in thinking he could memorize an Elizabethan street map and have it possibly resemble what he was looking at from the ground.

“Bobbies at twelve o’clock,” Oliver said, just loudly enough to be heard.

Derrick swore silently. He continued on, but was forced to face the fact that he had quite likely plunged them all into something they wouldn’t be able to escape from.

And then, a miracle.

A woman stepped from the back gate of some grand place as if she’d simply come out for a breath of fresh air. She looked at them, paused, then turned toward the guards. She shooed them on their way with a cheerful story about how fortunate it was to find guests coming right to one’s back gate instead of having to go search for them through all of London. The guards frowned, then continued on their way.

Derrick could hardly believe their good fortune, but he wasn’t about to argue. He found himself herded with his little group inside a high wall and the iron gate shut behind them. The courtyard was reassuringly free of anything but a garden, a fountain, and stables. Not a guard in sight.