Roses in Moonlight

chapter 5





Samantha put her bag up on the counter and looked at the girl behind the desk. She had unpacked, watched a bit of television, then spent an hour or two looking over the list of interesting sights Lydia had made her. She was a little surprised that nothing had appealed to her, but maybe she had eclectic tastes not shared by her hostess.

She had already seen a bit of what York had to offer on her way from the train station. She had gawked at the York Minster on her way to her hotel—the outside, at least—but she hadn’t been at all tempted by any exhibits on torture through the ages. She wanted open spaces, no blood, and no crowds. She wouldn’t have expected York to be so busy so early in the day, but maybe lookers at historical artifacts liked to get an early start.

The girl smiled at her. “How can I help you?”

“I’m trying to decide what to do with my day,” Samantha said. “Do you have any suggestions on what to see? Maybe something out of the way?”

The girl considered. “If you’re keen to get out of the city, you could try Castle Hammond. The earl has very lovely gardens which are open several days a week.”

That sounded promising. She couldn’t say she was a big garden looker, but maybe that was just because she’d never had the chance. Her forays into tourist-like things had generally been limited to standing in museums and being uncomfortable as she watched her mother bully poor, unsuspecting curators into letting her fondle things not available to the ungloved fingers of the general public. She had also spent her share of time being excruciatingly embarrassed when her determined parent had brought out the long knives for directors of exhibits who showed a bit of spine. Maybe gardens would be a breath of fresh air.

“Does the family still live there?” she asked, wondering how that worked. Letting people walk through her house was something she didn’t think she could ever do. Then again, perhaps nobility did whatever it took to keep the lights on.

The girl nodded. “It’s unusual these days, but they do.” She looked behind her counter, then pulled out a brochure and handed it to Samantha. “This should tell you what you need to know to get there. It looks like the house is open today as well.”

Samantha took the brochure, thanked the girl, then walked out of the lobby. The hotel was small but centrally located. She’d already checked room prices and been slightly surprised by how expensive it had been. She supposed she would work it off eventually.

She waited an hour for the bus, having just missed one of them, but that didn’t bother her because it gave her a chance to people watch for a bit. It was possible that she had spent too much time locked in various back rooms, looking over textiles, but it seemed to her that the people around her had an appalling amount of freedom.

Which, she supposed, she had at the moment as well.

The journey out to the castle was lovely and she felt extremely adventurous deviating from Lydia’s list. That she should find that out of the ordinary probably said more about her than she was comfortable with.

Two hours later, she had finished a tour of the gardens and found herself wishing for at least a hood to pull up over her head to shield herself from the rain. She supposed it should have occurred to her that there was a reason she’d been almost alone in the gardens except for some guy with green hair that matched his green running shoes, but she’d been too busy concentrating on what she was seeing to pay attention to the weather.

And honestly, she’d been a little unnerved by the green-shoed guy. He’d had a notebook and obviously been sketching the various specimens of flora and fauna to be found in the earl’s garden, but in spite of the fact that he seemed unobtrusive, she’d been nervous. Again, too much time allowing her imagination to run wild.

She left Mr. Green Twinkletoes seeking shelter near a hedge and ran back along paths and up to the front door. She stood under the shelter of an awning and knocked. A butler-ish-looking sort of man with silver hair opened almost immediately. He didn’t step aside to let her in, though, which she found to be slightly unnerving.

“May I come in?” she asked.

“I’m sorry, miss,” he intoned. “The house is closed today.”

She blinked in surprise. “Is it?” She would have pulled out the brochure to double-check, but she’d made good use of that hour she’d spent waiting for the bus and was fairly confident she had the whole thing memorized. “But you’re supposed to be open today.”

The butler looked as if he might have liked to say something else, but in the end, apparently discretion won out. He simply shook his head.

“I apologize for the inconvenience,” he said, sounding genuinely sorry. He looked over her head. “I see the bus still waiting to take on passengers. I’ll send someone out to make sure it’s held for you, if you wish to return to town.”

Well, there didn’t seem to be any arguing to be done. She nodded, then turned and walked out to where the bus was indeed being held apparently thanks to the efforts of the teenager who had sprinted past her to make that happen. She thanked him on his much slower return trip, then got back on the bus. She collapsed into a seat with a sigh, then looked out the window at the rain. She was very grateful she wasn’t going to have to either wait out in the rain or walk back. There were just some things she wasn’t prepared to do just for the sake of having a look at local culture.

“I heard there was a theft.”

Samantha wasn’t an eavesdropper by nature. She had learned early in life that when people were talking in whispers, sometimes it was just best not to know what they were discussing. Unfortunately for her, the ladies behind her obviously had a different idea of what constituted a decent whisper than she did.

“Of what?”

“Lace.”

Well, now that was a different story. Too many years of being on the hunt or being responsible for the care of delicate and valuable textiles had left her with her ears perking up involuntarily whenever that sort of thing was discussed, no matter how quietly. She put her head down and forced herself to read the bus ticket she was still clutching in her hands, but it was impossible to concentrate when such salacious details were being discussed.

“What sort of lace?”

“Can you keep a secret?”

“Of course!”

So could she, really. She gave up pretending to read and started listening in earnest.

Voices were lowered, sort of.

“I heard,” said the first voice, “that it was a piece of Elizabethan lace, stolen right out from under the earl’s nose.”

“No!”

That had been her reaction, too, because the thought was just so shocking. What sort of person would steal Elizabethan lace? And right out from under the earl’s nose? It was appalling.

“’Tis true,” the first woman whispered. “Worth a fortune. I suppose the thieves will try to sell it somewhere, but who’ll buy it?”

“Someone with a fortune, I imagine,” the second woman said in hushed tones of awe. “How’d you hear?”

“My sister’s niece’s flatmate heard it from the woman at the chemist’s who’s the sister-in-law of a woman who belongs to the same garden club as the woman who manages the gift shop at the castle. Very hush-hush, though. Don’t spread it about.”

Samantha frowned slightly. She wasn’t sure how reliable that rumor could possibly be, but it was difficult to deny that something had been up at the castle. Maybe there was some safety in assuming the report was true.

But if it was, she seriously doubted the earl would ever see his precious lace again. Her mother was forever complaining about those who made it their business to buy and sell antiquities to anyone but serious scholars. Those who stole the same for profit weren’t even fit to breathe the same air as the rest of them.

As for herself, she could honestly say that despite her education and the years spent dusting her mother’s antiquities, she would be just as happy to never see another piece of anything to curate. She couldn’t even say she was particularly fond of the Elizabethan era. The only reason she’d written her thesis on the glories of late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century handwork was because it had irked her parents to have her veer from what they’d told her to do. A tiny rebellion, but one she’d engaged in willingly.

If she’d had her choice, she thought she might have liked to have investigated a few medieval things, but that was probably out of reach now. She had the feeling the best she could do was simply ignore the whole subject of history and any expertise she might have had in any facet of it and for a change simply be Sam who liked castles and wanted to hide behind the obscurity of house-sitting for absentee employers for the summer.

She wasn’t sure what the alternative was, but she was fairly sure it would require her to do things she wouldn’t want to do.

The ladies behind her moved on to other subjects and she moved on to deciding what her evening should look like. She had to admit she was rather uncomfortable being by herself, but when the alternative was hanging out with Dory, she would take solitude every time.

She happily walked back into her hotel an hour later and flopped down on the bed where she could contemplate the rest of her day. She looked up at the ceiling for a minute or two, then reached for her bag and fumbled around in it until she found her notebook. She pulled out Lydia’s list on it and glanced reluctantly at the suggestions for the day, most of which she’d already discarded. The list hadn’t changed.

She checked her watch. It was only two, which left her more free time than she actually wanted to have to fill up.

That was, she decided, perhaps the oddest sensation she had ever had. She had spent the whole of her life having her days filled for her, her life plan decided for her, every moment of every day already spent for her before she even woke up. No one had ever asked her what she wanted to do, not her professors and certainly not her parents. She was the daughter of Louise Theodosia McKinnon and Richard Olivier Drummond. Of course she would follow in her mother’s footsteps. Her father’s shoes were, as everyone knew, just too big to fill.

That wasn’t to say that anything had been handed to her. She’d done the work to get where she was and she was unfortunately quite good at what she did. She’d been approached by several prestigious museums with substantial offers for her to come ply her trade on their collections. Naturally she hadn’t been able to accept. Her mother had needed her. Samantha was convinced her mother had frightened off her potential employers, but she couldn’t prove it.

Not that any of it mattered now. She pulled out the decision she’d made as she’d flown over that great big ocean and examined from all sides as if it had been a priceless treasure that only she had access to.

She was going to make a change. A big change. For at least the summer, she was going to try on something else, a new her, a her who didn’t know anything about antiquities or textiles or overbearing and controlling parents.

She was now Samantha Drummond, artist and free spirit.

If she’d owned anything made from cotton, she would have put it on. As it was, she would just have to make do with polyester until she’d sold her first painting and could afford something in a natural fiber. She might even buy a pair of Birkenstocks. She was sure that her new wardrobe would not contain anything either brown or gray.

With those happy thoughts to keep her company, she freshened up, then left her room and went downstairs to ask for the nearest art-supply store. Directions in hand, she faced the lobby door and marched boldly into her future, repeating her newly made affirmations.

She was never going to have another thing to do with fabric or lace or actors’ costumes. She would take her extensive knowledge of lace patterns and construction details and put them aside for use only in a pinch—or if some actor had paid her a staggering sum to paint his portrait and she felt like recalling them. She was never going to agree to alter a costume on the fly, repair blown-out trousers, or stand near an outlet with a glue gun at the ready to reattach anything shiny to any of her father’s more outlandish outfits.

And she was never, ever going to have anything to do with anything of an Elizabethan nature again.

She opened the door and walked out into the world. She had an entire afternoon in front of her and lots of beautiful things to think about sketching. There was no time like the present to get started on her future.

• • •

Seven hours later, she stood on the edge of the group gathered near the York Minster, hoping she wasn’t making an enormous mistake. Her hotel was only a few minutes from where she stood, so she supposed she could run all the way back if she had to without getting mugged in the process. She looked critically over her fellow ghost walkers, but didn’t see anyone who looked suspicious. There were mostly couples of varying ages, a pair of college-age guys who looked fairly skeptical, and a trio of women her age who had obviously already enjoyed several after-dinner drinks and were ogling a tall, very handsome man who had obviously avoided their bar. He was seemingly impervious to their overt attempts at flirting with him, which she found rather attractive. If she’d been interested in a guy, which at the moment she most definitely was not. Transitory relationships were not something she was interested in.

She hovered on the edge of the group as the guide, dressed appropriately in black, introduced the subject and got them started with the shivers. The trio was already squealing, which she found particularly annoying. She wished her Elizabethan ghost from Newcastle would make an appearance and shut them up, but she supposed she shouldn’t hold out any hope for it. She wasn’t altogether certain she hadn’t imagined that entire episode. She had been rather jet-lagged, after all.

Ten minutes later, she found herself walking next to the only unattached male in the group, that attractive man who’d been unimpressed with his admirers. Two men in two days. It had to be some sort of record for her. She tried not to gape at him in an obvious manner. She only caught shadowy impressions of his face given where they were walking, but that was enough to leave her rather relieved the night was cool so she didn’t have to fan herself.

“Believe in any of this?” he asked.

She considered his accent. Canadian, maybe. She would have to listen a little more. Just to use it as an academic exercise, of course. She smiled politely. “Of course not. Do you?”

He shrugged. “I’ll reserve judgment until after the evening’s over.”

“What made you come to York?” she asked.

“Backpacking through the British Isles,” he said easily. “Off on holiday while the exchange rate’s tolerable. What about you?”

“I’m house-sitting,” she said. “Friends of the family.”

“From America, are you?”

She lifted an eyebrow. “From Canada, are you?”

He laughed briefly. “Might be.”

Samantha commanded herself to remain unaffected, but that didn’t work as well as she would have hoped. What was it with the men in England? It was the second time in as many days that a guy had turned her brain to mush.

She reminded herself that giving a complete stranger any details about herself was idiotic, but she supposed he would have figured out where she was from soon enough anyway.

“Chilly out tonight,” he remarked.

She nodded, then pulled her jacket around her, because it did seem a bit chilly all of the sudden. Too much paranormal activity, apparently.

And she was not, she was absolutely not seeing an Elizabethan gentleman out of the corner of her eye in every deep shadow she passed.

She looked up at the man walking next to her. “Do you believe in ghosts?”

“Seems like as good a reason as any to take the tour, eh?”

She studied his face by the light of a streetlamp the next time they paused and wondered if she was destined to spend her summer meeting for the briefest of moments men who were just too good-looking for their own good. He reminded her a bit of the man she’d seen before in Newcastle, but she couldn’t figure out why. Similar cheekbones, she supposed, though there was an aura about this guy that was much less reserved than the one at the Castle.

She looked around again for her sixteenth-century shade but saw only the group she’d started the tour with along with the three rather inebriated and now very irritated girls who were obviously annoyed at being displaced.

Samantha considered. Samantha Drummond the textile historian would have backed away immediately and let them have at her Canadian friend, but that wasn’t who she was any longer. She was Sam Drummond, artist, and she didn’t give way to drunks in stilettoes. She lifted her eyebrows archly, then continued on with her companion.

She was just in the process of looking for something pithy to say when her phone beeped at her. She supposed she was going to have to answer eventually, though she’d been ignoring the text messages all day. She excused herself, pulled up the message and read it, then suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. It was a good thing Dory had an unlimited text plan otherwise he would have bankrupted himself already. He was starting to have his messages loaded with more exclamation points than letters, though, which probably should have worried her.

Off on an errand for the Cookes, she typed. Will let you know when return.

She sent it, turned her phone off, then shoved it into her pocket, ignoring how even that made her a little nervous. She had no doubt if she pushed Dory too far, he would call her parents and let them know she was being uncooperative. Then again, he was probably typing up a report on her on a daily basis, so a frantic phone call wouldn’t make things any worse. Her mother had a big exhibition coming up and her father was up to his ruff in his summer Shakespeare season. They wouldn’t have time to do anything but send her brief and pointed emails warning her to behave. Those she could delete easily enough.

By the time she reconnected with her surroundings, the tour had moved on. She supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised that even that small hesitation had cost her the company of that very attractive Canadian man. Those completely sauced girls obviously knew a good thing when they saw it. She honestly couldn’t blame them. She looked around her casually, on the off chance there was a stray specter with a rapier loitering around, then, seeing none, carried on.

After being properly chilled and thrilled by all sorts of things she fully believed were true, the tour wound up and she realized that she was not exactly as close to her hotel as she might have wished to be. She turned her phone on, ignored the dinging indicating half a dozen texts, then wondered if merely beaning a thug with her phone would be enough or if she would have to use her bag as well.

“What about an escort for our friend here?”

Samantha looked up to find the Canadian hunk standing there, not doing much at all to fend off the groping of his person that was being perpetrated by his admirers. But at least he was trying to be as gallant as possible.

“Thank you,” she said, feeling rather relieved. “I wasn’t looking forward to getting back to the hotel alone.”

“No problem,” he said, staggering just slightly as one of the girls draped a bit too hard. “Let’s go, then, ladies. Lead on, Miss, ah—”

“Samantha.”

“Miss Samantha.” He nodded away from where the tour had ended. “After you.”

She went, grateful that she had at least a decent sense of direction. That came, she supposed, from all the years she had spent in museums without a map. Perhaps she didn’t have all that many skills—especially considering how many she intended to ditch instead of carrying into her future—but she could definitely tell east from west in a sixth-sense sort of way.

She found her way unerringly to her hotel, feeling rather less than comfortable at the sensation of being followed by three giggling women who were probably going to mug that Canadian tourist the first chance they had. She couldn’t blame them, she supposed. If she’d had the guts to indulge in a fling, she might have been tempted to fling with that man there.

She stopped in front of the doorway, then looked at her escort.

“Thank you so much,” she said politely.

“No worries,” he said easily.

Samantha started to thank him a bit more but found herself distracted by the man that had walked behind that little group. She wasn’t one to let her imagination run away with her, but he looked like someone she wouldn’t have wanted to meet in a dark alley. The look he shot her chilled her to the bone.

“Ah,” she said faintly. “Um, I think . . .”

The Canadian looked at her, then over his shoulder. “What is it?”

Samantha shook her head. “Nothing.” She started to explain, then shook her head. “That bald guy over there just gave me the creeps when he looked over here.”

Mr. Canada frowned, then shrugged. “Maybe we’re too loud.”

That was her thought as well. Maybe that unpleasant man had been looking with disapproval at the bimbos who were making a serious ruckus, not her.

He nodded politely. “Well, if you’re safe now, we’ll be on our way.”

“Yes,” Samantha said, “thank you. Very much.”

She walked inside the door and was happier than she likely should have been to have it shut behind her. Maybe she had just had one too many paranormal experiences over the past two days and she’d gotten paranoid. There weren’t ghosts following her and there weren’t random tourists giving her the evil eye.

She was just an understandably cautious woman living for the summer in a country not her own, traveling on her own. It was only prudent to keep a weather eye out for strange things, so she didn’t get caught up in them.

She ran up to her room and quickly locked the door behind her. She was actually very relieved to find everything as she’d left it, though she had to laugh a little at the thought of anything else happening. She was a nobody off on an errand that no one could possibly care about. It wasn’t as if she’d stolen a piece of Elizabethan lace and had half the countryside out looking for her.

She put herself to bed, then set her alarm for a reasonable hour. She would see what of the sights she could on her way south, then get back to Newcastle and get on with the new her.