Roses in Moonlight

chapter 23





Samantha stood in a minuscule apartment in the heart of London and felt as if she were trapped in a dream. So many things she hadn’t expected in a country that seemed a world away from what she was used to.

The morning had started off with a lovely breakfast at Cameron Hall provided by Madame Gies who was every bit as good at cooking as Emily was at apparently everything she touched. Samantha had been grateful for that and a good night’s sleep, as well as another very lovely ride in a screaming sports car to Inverness.

She stood just inside the front door of Derrick’s two-story flat and wondered if it had been the ride in the car that had started the surreality, or it if had been getting to the airport to find a private plane waiting to take them back to London that had done it. It was hard to say.

Peter had indeed gotten rid of their rental car, Ewan had been tasked with getting Derrick’s car back to London—which she supposed served the dual purpose of Derrick not having to drive it himself and Ewan staying out of Derrick’s hair—and she had traveled in yet more luxury south. She loved to fly almost as much as she loved to drive very fast, so the only thing about the trip she hadn’t enjoyed had been the length of it. Far too short.

Peter and Oliver had bid them farewell after they’d landed and gone to headquarters to investigate the supply of necessary toys and she had gone with Derrick to his flat to see what sort of costumes could be drummed up. They were intending to meet later in the day to finalize arrangements, then be on their way.

She hadn’t been entirely surprised to find all kinds of research waiting for them under Derrick’s fax machine when they’d walked into his flat, most of it having to do with Sir Richard Drummond and his activities in 1602. That was apparently courtesy of the laird of the clan MacLeod, James. Derrick had left the sheets of paper where they were, told her to make herself at home, then put in an earphone and begun a spirited discussion with someone—perhaps either Oliver or Peter, or both—about technical details for the upcoming trip. She had decided that she would take him at his word and make herself at home.

Because I like you.

She shook her head at the words and started along the hallway that was just big enough for the stairs on the left and a little corridor on the right. She’d already been in the sitting room, which was crammed full of books on everything from history to fiction. She wasn’t surprised to find that Derrick’s interests ranged from mystery to classic science fiction and fantasy, but then again, he’d collected his fair share of esoteric nonfiction and literary things her mother would have approved of. A man of varied tastes, obviously.

The furnishings in that room were simple, comfortable, and not cheap, though the only antique in the room was a Victorian console table that was suffering the indignity of bearing stacks of papers and paperbacks. Maybe Derrick had enough of the past just associating with his cousin whose birthdate was not a topic for discussion.

She reached the end of the hallway and found she was in the kitchen. It was lovely, actually, and obviously either new or newly remodeled. There were a few green things in the fridge, but nothing substantial. The food in the cupboards stopped just short of survival rations. Obviously, Derrick didn’t eat at home all that often.

The only thing left on the ground floor was a bathroom and a closet under the stairs that was loaded with black bags no doubt containing things she wouldn’t want to investigate in case she broke them. She walked back down the hallway thoughtfully, then went back into the front room to see if there might be anything useful in any of his bookcases. She picked out a book on Elizabethan dance patterns and wandered out into the hallway with it. She made it up half a flight of stairs before she simply sat down and started to read.

“And how do you propose we carry those?” Derrick asked, coming down the stairs.

Samantha listened to him talk, but there was no mocking in his tone, no that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in the way he asked his question. He was apparently very good at getting what he needed to know without being insulting. It was so different from what she was used to with her parents, she could only listen in awe.

He put his hand on her head on his way by, a light touch that made her look up and smile. He smiled in return, then trotted down the rest of the stairs.

“Nay, it’s genius, but where do we stash it?”

She had considered posing as a noblewoman, but the thought made her uneasy. Who knew what Derrick and his partners in crime would want to strap to the underside of her skirts? Then again, if she were a servant, they would probably make her carry lots of things, so she was half tempted to just go as a boy.

She listened to Derrick pace to the kitchen, in and out of the salon, then stop at the bottom of the stairs. He listened for several minutes, frowning periodically, then he shook his head.

“I’m not sure, even after all the alternatives we’ve come up with, that we can pass as Tower guards,” he said slowly. “Nay, I’ve no better idea, short of scaling the walls.” He paused. “I suppose we could try that, if we had something to collect the used darts in—what? Samantha’s purse? Are you mad?”

Samantha was happy to suggest that perhaps whoever was on the other end was absolutely nuts, but she didn’t have a chance. Derrick looked at her and lifted his eyebrows. She made a writing motion, he nodded, then took the stairs three a time. He came back down, handed her a notebook and a pen, then disappeared into his salon again. Samantha made a note or two, then lost interest. She got up and trudged up the stairs.

Upstairs there was a bedroom with a bathroom in it, a small sitting area that looked out over a garden, then another bedroom. She walked in, then actually heard herself gasp.

It wasn’t so much a bedroom as it was a prop room. She wondered what a thief would have thought if he’d broken into Derrick’s house. That he’d set himself up to rob a theater, no doubt. She stood just inside the door until she heard Derrick come back up the stairs. He paused and put his hand over his ear.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Can I go in?”

He looked at her in surprise. “Of course. As if at home, remember?”

Well, if that’s how he felt, she wasn’t going to argue. She walked in, then perched on the edge of a very comfortable couch. In fact, it looked less like a prop room and more like a very fancy green room with dozens of costumes stuffed inside it. There was a table with a lighted mirror pushed up against one wall, racks of costumes, rows of hats, and a stand with an impressive collection of wigs. She left her book and half-started notes on the couch, then wandered around to see what was there. It was interesting to just look for the sake of looking, but she wondered if she might stumble on something they might need for their trip.

To Elizabethan England. During the summer of 1602.

She took a deep breath, shoved aside the improbability of that thought, and started rummaging.

It didn’t take long to find the mother lode.

She had been looking through boxes full of organized things, makeup and prosthetic noses, facial hair and adhesives. Interesting, but not particularly useful. She had set things aside and continued to dig until she’d worked her way around to the stack behind the table. It was the bottom box that when she opened it left her frozen.

She didn’t dare take anything out, because she had a box just like it at her house. It was something she’d packed up the night before she’d come to England, a box that held her old life, the life she had never wanted to have anything to do with again.

Derrick obviously had the same sort of instinct.

“Sam—”

She looked up to find him standing in the doorway. He obviously saw what she had found. His stillness quickly became her stillness as well. She understood that, really. Sometimes there were things about one’s past that one would prefer to box up and not face again.

Derrick didn’t look away from her, but he spoke to whomever was on the other end of the line.

“Ring you back.” He clicked his phone off, then simply stared at her, mute.

She cleared her throat. “May I?”

“No.”

She paused. “Please?”

He didn’t move. “Can I stop you?”

“Yes.”

He dithered. She watched him do it and had to work very hard not to smile. It was so out of character for the very decisive man standing there, she could hardly reconcile it with his usual method of carrying out his life.

He swore suddenly, then turned and stomped down the stairs. Answer enough, she supposed. She was perfectly still until she heard him banging around in the kitchen downstairs. Lunch was apparently on its way, though she had no idea what he was going to find to fix. He claimed to be a terrible cook. She supposed she would find out just how bad very soon.

She spent an hour looking through his past, then carefully placing it all back the way she’d found it.

“Sam, lunch!”

She didn’t want to smile, but she couldn’t help herself. No one ever called her that except her great-aunt Mary, who loved her, and Gavin when he was annoyed with her. Somehow, coming from a man she had just come to like a great deal more than was good for her, it was very lovely.

She walked downstairs and into his minuscule kitchen. He had pasta, salad, and a fierce frown waiting for her. She sat down when he held out her chair for her, then waited until he sat, said grace with a particularly thick Scottish accent, and picked up his fork as if he was seriously considering using it—on her. She tasted, complimented, then pretended nothing had happened.

Derrick cursed, then plowed through his meal with his usual single-mindedness.

“Well?” he demanded after she’d given him half her dinner and there was nothing left for him to eat.

“LAMDA?” she said casually. “As in the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art?”

He grunted.

“Your reviews were good.”

He looked at her in surprise, then scowled at bit more. “Good?” he echoed.

“Amazing.”

“If we’re going to be honest,” he said, “then, yes.”

She laughed. She couldn’t help it. No wonder the man was so good at changing who he was. He’d obviously had years of practice and gotten, yes, rave reviews while doing it.

She got up and started to clear the table. She was happy to have company to rinse while she washed.

“I’m unclear,” she said at one point, “as to why you don’t act any longer.”

He leaned back against the counter and looked at her. “It’s complicated.”

“Life is.”

He looked heavenward briefly, then back off at something in the kitchen, not where she was. “I’d done one season with the Royal Shakespeare Company, as you know. I was set to do Hamlet that next year in a different production when—” He stopped, then took a deep breath. “That’s the part that’s complicated.” He looked at her. “I was blacklisted.”

She frowned. “Just because you were good?”

“Because my costar wanted someone else for the part and she got him, even though he wasn’t better than I was. In fact, he’d spent quite a few years being not better than I was, which made my getting that particular part all the more painful for him.”

“Who was that?”

He looked at her silently.

She considered, then felt her mouth fall open. “Your brother?”

“Aye, damn him to hell.”

She shook her head, because she was fairly sure she hadn’t just heard what she’d just heard. “Did he study acting as well?”

“We were in the same class.”

“How did you pay for it?”

“We had a small inheritance. I didn’t need to use mine.”

She smiled in spite of herself. “Scholarship?”

“Aye.”

She wondered if he realized that when he was rather more emotional than usual, as he was at present, he tended to slip into the native accent, as it were. She wouldn’t have been at all surprised to have listened to him curse in Gaelic.

“Why didn’t you say anything to the director? Or . . .” She shrugged helplessly. “Wasn’t there someone to appeal to?”

“What was I going to say?” he asked. “That someone had spread lies about me and spent so long doing it that no one would have doubted his character or integrity?”

She leaned against the counter, hard. “Your brother again?”

“Aye.” Derrick took a deep breath, then blew it out. “Whilst I had been concentrating on my art, he’d been ingratiating himself with anyone with a bit of power. I shudder to think the lengths he went to. And when Ophelia accused me of things I don’t care to discuss and my own brother agreed with her—with a great show of sadness and regret, admittedly—there was nothing to be done. The director was complicit, but I had no proof. I was no one and the director was very powerful. My career was over, no matter which direction I went in.”

She considered for a moment or two, then looked at him. “Would you ever act again?”

“I would rather stick hot pins in my eyes.”

Well, she could understand that very well. It was a bit like what she felt about historical textiles.

“I’m so sorry,” she said very quietly. “What did you do then?”

“I went home to Scotland a couple of months before Cameron found himself in hospital,” he said without emotion. “Alistair gave me the task of watching over him and there I’ve been for all these years.”

“Does Lord Robert know about your past?”

Derrick shrugged. “I wouldn’t be surprised, though I’ve never said anything and he’s never asked me about it. He’s curious by nature, but discreet.”

“Who was the director?”

He looked at her steadily. “Edmund Cooke, husband and lace thief. And no, I haven’t been lying in wait all these years to have revenge on him. I honestly couldn’t care less. If he winds up before a magistrate, it won’t be because I put him there.”

“And Ophelia?”

“Some damned Yank—”

He stopped speaking. She did too, because his tone was so cold and bitter. She knew she shouldn’t have taken it personally, but with the way he’d said it . . .

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.