Chapter 6
Six
Sam woke, rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, then sat up and looked around to see what delights awaited him.
He squeaked.
He was surrounded by four creatures who were watching him with the sort of unblinking stares that would have given any respectable gargoyle a run for its money.
He’d woken to a few alarming sights over the years—usually lads with swords pointed at him—but nothing that quite equaled what he was facing at present.
He wondered what it would do to his brother’s reputation if he just tossed his blanket over as many of them as he could manage and ran for the nearest exit.
At the moment, he didn’t give a damn what happened to Theo.
He especially wouldn’t suffer any regret if his brother were forced to take a turn on a sofa that he was certain had been put together by the original owners of the inn.
He’d definitely slept on worse, but he wouldn’t stand in the way of Theo enjoying the same.
“Ah, he’s awake,” a voice said briskly from the direction of a possible rescue. “Ladies, permit the man a moment to breathe. There will be ample time to speak with him later.”
Sam didn’t dare ask Theo’s agent what that meant because he was certain it couldn’t mean anything good.
He thought he’d done a fairly capable job the night before of deflecting and demurring, but he had the feeling that wasn’t going to be enough going forward.
What he needed was to get himself upstairs where he could call his brother privately and leave a detailed message about what fate would await him if he didn’t arrive immediately and out of breath from his haste.
He realized Harriet was standing just behind Theo’s agent, looking as if she might be interested in making a hasty escape as well.
She had a basket of something he hardly dared hope was full of luscious pastries, but a man could dream.
Francine Collins, on the other hand, was regarding him with a look that said she had no intentions of his escaping anywhere.
He dredged up the smile his brother offered when he was trying to be accommodating and gave it to the woman because he was beginning to fear she was far too observant for his brother’s comfort.
“I have brought your assistant, my boy,” Francine announced, glancing at the harpies just long enough to have two of them resuming their perches on various arms of furniture.
“I would prefer to be watching over you myself, but one of my other clients is hysterical from having seen a ghost dressed in a kilt during the night. I will therefore leave you in our good Harriet’s care long enough to see what can be done. ”
“The inn is rather old,” Sam offered. “Who knows what lurks in the shadows, aye—um, yes?” He refused to kick himself, but he was absolutely not at his best and Theo’s agent was looking at him with a very skeptical arch to one eyebrow.
“Well, the specter does seem to have a rather lovely tenor singing voice,” she allowed, “which has mitigated some of the horror.”
Sam could only imagine. He nodded in sympathy because he was very familiar with specters, ghostly singing during the middle of the night, and ancestors in kilts.
Francine swept the perching quartet with another look that Sam had to admit he admired.
“Don’t smother him, ladies,” she warned. “Hard to have him do any speaking if he has no breath for it. You can have at him tonight at the Murdery Mingle.”
Sam nodded as she turned a look on him that said she would most definitely be speaking to him then as well, but with any luck Theo would be doing all the mingling and he would be safely anywhere else.
He gave her another polite smile, watched her abandon him without a backward glance, then looked around the lobby alcove to determine the best escape route.
His—or Theo’s, rather—clutch of admirers followed his gaze, then turned, all damned four of them, swiveling their heads like owls to fix him with their unblinking stares.
He heaved himself up off the couch, retrieved his phone from under a cushion, then put himself in front of Harriet. He was on the verge of revisiting his idea of tossing a blanket at the Quartet of Doom and doing a runner when she tapped him on the shoulder.
“We need to be outside in an hour, Mr. Piaget.”
“Of course.” He nodded politely to the ladies who were making what he was certain would be terrible plans, quickly folded the blanket he’d been given by the concierge the night before, and draped it artistically over one arm of the sofa.
With any luck, Theo’s admirers would find divvying that up to be distraction enough for the moment.
He looked at his newly minted assistant.
“We should hurry, shouldn’t we?” he asked.
“Absolutely.”
He walked off with her until they were at least out of view, then realized that two problems faced him. One, his gear was still in the boot of his car; and two, he had no idea what was on the schedule for the morning.
Harriet held out a basket. “Your agent said these are your favorites.”
He considered, then pulled back one corner of a napkin to reveal things that looked remarkably like scones. He gestured at Harriet.
“You first, of course.”
“I’m too nervous to eat.”
He imagined he could see her fed later, so he helped himself to breakfast. “We’ll find something hot at the nearest pub as soon as we can,” he offered gallantly.
“But what about the field trip?”
He froze. “The what?”
She looked at him as if she truly feared for his wits. “The trip to the Sherlock museum in London,” she said slowly. “The bus leaves in an hour, remember?”
He started to say that he didn’t have time for it, but actually that worked out perfectly because he had a very brief appointment in Regency London that afternoon.
He could find an excuse to leave the group for a bit, take care of his business, then be back on Baker Street before anyone was the wiser.
But none of that would happen if he didn’t fetch his gear and damned if he hadn’t left any possible aids for retrieving the same languishing uselessly alongside his keys inside his bloody car.
“I’m helpless without my schedule which I stupidly locked in the boot of my car, silly goose that I am,” he said, ruthlessly throwing his brother under the bus. “I’m afraid I need to find a locksmith—”
“I’ve got it.”
He started to ask Harriet what she thought she had, but she’d walked away before he could.
He followed her outside, then kept hold of the breakfast hamper whilst she went about the business of letting him into his boot.
He freely admitted he was impressed by her no-nonsense attention to the task at hand.
What he was less impressed by were his brother’s reputedly favorite scones that seemed to be made solely from chaff.
He would absolutely speak to Theo about his eating habits the next chance he had.
He was still chewing, hoping for chocolate bits instead of sultanas and finding neither, when Harriet opened his traitorous boot and stood back.
It was such a novel sensation to be the one being rescued that he hardly knew what to say, though he did manage to stop her before she pulled his duffle bag out for him.
He handed her the basket, retrieved his things, then made her a small bow before he thought better of it.
And once he was there in territory that felt a bit more familiar than his usual interactions with modern-day females, he supposed there was no reason not to continue on with it.
“Thank you, my lady,” he said politely. “Smartly done, that.”
She stared at him blankly for a moment or two, then she blushed. “It was the least I could do.”
He decided abruptly that introducing her to his brother could go quite a bit further down his list of things to do, but having her pretend to be his assistant could remain at the top for as long as possible.
He wasn’t sure why it had never occurred to him just how lovely a blushing faery could be.
He stepped back and gestured to the doorway of the inn. “Let’s go back inside, shall we? I’ll run upstairs and change, then be back in twenty minutes. Don’t become lost.”
“Where would I get lost to?” she asked with a frown.
The possibilities were endless and not ones he particularly cared to think about at the moment.
“’Tis a conference full of mystery writers,” he said. “Just stay where I put you and don’t wander off, aye?”
“Point taken,” she said with a brisk nod. “I’ll take the opportunity to begin my new list of perils.”
He suspected he might do well to see just what her infamous list contained, but the bus ride to London was long enough for that sort of thing.
He supposed she couldn’t get into too much trouble whilst in the lobby, so he left her perched on the edge of a sofa and ran up to his temporary chamber to shower and dress for the day.
It looked as if no one had slept there, but perhaps Harriet was just a tidy gel. He dumped his gear on the floor, then opened his phone to see if he had slept through anyone trying to reach him.
There was nothing from his brother, which he refused to let annoy him.
Popping in and out of the centuries wasn’t as simple as nipping in and out of the local chippy, so perhaps Theo was having himself a little lie-in.
That bit of lazing about had best not last more than another hour or two or there would be hell to pay.
There was a brief, send food and reinforcements from Callum, which was more difficult to ignore.
He would have sent back a tart reply asking why he was supposed to be solving anything, but he had no one but himself to blame for that entire dustup.
He shut his phone, tossed it on the bed, then walked over to the window to have a change of scenery and a bit of a think.