Chapter 6 #2
He supposed his current straits had begun innocently enough a handful of years ago thanks to a conversation he’d had with his brother as they’d been lingering over a pair of pints in a cozy London pub.
They’d just returned from a particularly grueling trip to the past and were engaging in their usual discussion of where they thought to lay their heads that night when Theo had voiced the conclusion Sam had been avoiding like the plague.
We have to fish or cut bait.
It had been one of their aunt Abigail’s favorite sayings and one he had agreed with more often than not, but that night it had taken on a different tone.
They’d been doing a merry dance between the centuries for months, always making sure to arrive in the past at a time commensurate with their current ages, then popping back to the Future to try to find somewhere else to stay for a few days.
It had reached the point, though, where they’d both known their lives couldn’t continue on in such a haphazard fashion.
A more permanent arrangement in the Future had seemed like the only reasonable way forward.
That conversation had led to finding aid in trading a great number of medieval coins for current pounds, then buying a flat in London to give themselves a reliable roof over their heads, then allowing themselves to acquire all sorts of other modern amenities and conveniences he never in his youth would have dreamed would make up so much of his current life.
The business in Stratford had been another quirk of Fate that he certainly hadn’t planned on.
He’d been working his way through a bag of crisps and a can of something fizzy on his way out of his favourite London green grocer when he’d watched a sheaf of paper float down and land directly at his feet.
He’d looked around to see which ghostly ancestor had been having him on, found none visible, and decided there was no reason not to be a good citizen and clean up some litter.
Reading the damned thing had been another act of kindness lest the writer of the advert somehow feel he’d been slighted and shed a quiet tear in the privacy of his austere garret.
The billet had turned out to be an announcement of auditions in Stratford.
He’d noted that the date aligned quite fortuitously with his needing to be in the area for the usual business and decided to take a leap of faith.
He’d prepared one of his sire’s favorite Shakespearean soliloquies and marched off to the theater as if he’d had every right to.
He couldn’t deny that he’d been grateful his brother had come along for support and shoved him out on stage when his turn had arrived, but what were brothers for if not to offer aid when it was needed?
Perhaps Theo would enjoy slightly less torture when he arrived than Sam had originally planned, but that was still yet to be determined.
His audition had landed him a very minor role as a guardsman in Hamlet and accidentally overhearing a pair of blokes bemoaning the fate of a rather decent troupe that lacked nothing but funds had turned him into an anonymous impresario.
Derrick Cameron had proved his worth and discretion yet again by providing a man willing to very visibly splash out occasionally on that motley crew of performers with funds drawn from Sam’s own account.
That secretive sponsor’s only requirement had been that he only be referred to as The Chauffeur and that all business be conducted via telephone. Sam had agreed without hesitation and gone back to pretending he didn’t know Derrick whenever they passed by each other on the street.
As for his own treading of the boards, his minor roles had led to major roles and major roles had turned into catastrophic scheduling complications that regularly came close to upending the rest of his life.
Trying to make rehearsals and performances, attempting to fit in visits home whilst simultaneously avoiding family in the current day, and keeping up with the schedule that insane pinboard imposed generally left him running on not enough sleep and too much takeaway.
That weariness had, the year before, led him to being careless which had led directly to not realizing Callum had overheard him discussing the wiring of funds with the Chauffeur.
He’d done his best to leave their manager with the impression that he was simply the go-between, though what Callum believed in truth was anyone’s guess.
It was, as he’d noted before, excessively complicated and needing more attention paid to it than he had the energy for at the moment.
He rubbed his hands over his face and sighed deeply.
Perhaps he should have, at any point during a lifetime of giving free rein to his unquenchable curiosity, shut the door on all things paranormal and retreated into the comfortable, unremarkable existence of one of six sons sired by a powerful medieval lord.
But then his life wouldn’t have included automobiles and mobile phones and still finding himself gobsmacked by some new invention that he hadn’t imagined could exist. He enjoyed getting up on stage and giving life to the same lines in front of an audience that his father had muttered under his breath when he’d obviously thought no one was listening.
He was also rather fond of doing what he could to bring about the happily ever afters of a few sterling souls who needed his aid, though he wouldn’t have admitted that under pain of death.
All of which left him where he was at the moment, standing in a five-hundred-year-old building, five hundred years after its construction and getting lost in reminiscences that certainly didn’t solve any of his current problems Perhaps the best he could do was take care of the day, return with the group, then slip off to Stratford later that evening and see how the field looked.
With any luck, he would find something besides a pitched battle waiting for him.
He shut and locked the window, showered and dressed in record time to make up for too much thinking, then locked up behind him and ran for the stairs. Theo’s gear would be safe enough left behind.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t say the same about his lovely, delicate rescuer who kept lock-picking tools in her rucksack.
He found her about where he’d left her, though she was currently surrounded by those brightly plumed hens and they didn’t look particularly friendly. He resisted the urge to check them all for potential weapons before he simply reached in and pulled Harriet out of their midst.
“Excuse us, ladies,” he said with his best smile. “Preparation for tonight’s mingle, of course. Save me a spot on a comfortable sofa and we’ll chat, yes?”
He was also tempted to issue an invitation for that terrifying quartet to attend a private supper with his brother later in the week, but he forbore.
Well, he might feather his brother’s nest with a few sharp bits later, but what was a ribald jest between brothers now and again if not a show of affection?
He ignored the outraged clucking from the usual suspects, then took his newly minted assistant by the elbow and ushered her out of the inn and down the pavement to where their tour bus was patiently waiting to onboard its cargo.
He put Harriet in front of him as he climbed up the stairs, then looked over her head to make certain the way before her was clear.
“Let’s head to the back,” he said firmly. “I want to keep an eye on this lot.”
She nodded and continued on until they’d reached almost the final row, then she stopped and looked at him. “You take the seat next to the window,” she said. “The view will be better from there.”
Considering he imagined he would be spending most of the trip looking at her and trying to decide how she managed to get a brush through her hair, he imagined he wouldn’t care.
He shook his head. “You’ll need to watch the scenery and make note of potential trouble spots for your new list. Besides, I’ve seen it before.”
That, and he fully intended to be nearest the aisle where he could monitor the movements of all players.
He’d known mystery writers were trouble, but he’d grossly underestimated their potential for mischief.
Who would have thought that all the skirmishes he and Theo had fought where life and death were the outcomes would have prepared his sibling so thoroughly for his life’s work?
He waited for Harriet to sit, then took the place next to her. “Did they trouble you?” he asked quietly.
“The Four Horsewomen of the Apocalypse?”
He smiled. “Aye, those.”
“They just surrounded me and tried to intimidate with meaningful looks alone.”
“One does hesitate to speculate on their weapons of choice,” he said, vowing right then that he wouldn’t allow her a second encounter with that lot.
“Curling iron cords and possibly cutting remarks,” she said with a shrug. “Not all that dangerous.”
He would have been more worried about a knife sliding through the seat into Harriet’s back, but that was exactly why he’d situated them where he had.
Fortunately for his peace of mind, Harriet’s primary tormentors were sitting near the front.
He wasn’t certain what that meant for getting off the bus, but that could be seen to later.
He glanced at his companion to find that she had somehow captured her disobedient tresses in something that almost balanced them atop her head, but her eyes were still that glorious pale blue that he suspected might echo the short trousers he was going to be wearing that afternoon.
Not anything he could share with her, but it made him smile just the same.
“What?” she asked, looking slightly alarmed.
“I was just thinking about your list,” he said promptly. “The one of perils to avoid here on our wee isle. You were going to tell me what was on it, but we were distracted by Theo—erm, my agent’s arrival to our hiding place.”