Chapter 7 #2
She put the note inside her backpack, shouldered it again, and pushed away from the wall.
She wrapped an air of nonchalance around herself and continued into the alleyway as if she had every right to do so.
At least it was still daytime and things weren’t as shadow-filled as they otherwise might have been. It could have been much worse.
She hadn’t gone more than ten feet past the pub before she realized she was looking at the shop she’d been warned about.
The sign over the door promised not only haunted teapots and books, but a plethora of paranormal experiences if one would step right that way and come inside.
It was a testament to how numb to the unusual she’d become that she wasn’t at all surprised when a man dressed in a Pilgrim outfit stepped out of the doorway—
Actually, she wasn’t entirely certain he hadn’t stepped through the door itself, but she immediately chalked that up to some residual jetlag.
She spent a moment or two diligently rubbing her eyes and patting her cheeks to make sure she was fully awake, then looked again at the shop entrance.
Her Puritan door crasher was alternately blowing a feather out of his face and indulging in a bit of half-hearted fisticuffs with another man who had simply appeared out of nothing.
Actually, he looked as if he’d just stepped off the pages of a Scottish history book, but who was keeping track?
It occurred to her that she’d seen someone strolling through the woods who’d been wearing that same tartan pattern—
She took a step back and shook her head sharply. She rubbed her eyes for good measure, then took a deep breath, braced for further study of possible paranormal oddities.
The shop was empty.
Or, rather, the stoop in front of the shop was unencumbered by men in costumes. The store front was just a regular place filled with admittedly unusual offerings, but she was hardly going to argue with the owners who were promising all kinds of paranormal experiences for the right customer.
She was beginning to seriously regret having gotten off the bus.
She heard the noise of quick footsteps before she managed to tear her gaze away from what she absolutely hadn’t seen.
By the time she put sights and sounds together, she realized she was looking at none other than TD Piaget coming out of nowhere—or, rather, perhaps from around the corner of a wooden enclosure she sincerely hoped was hiding garbage cans instead of anything more sinister.
He was missing his trench coat, but maybe it had gotten in the way of his outfit.
He looked as if he’d just stepped off the set of a fancy historical drama where men wore white curly wigs, tight baby-blue-silk knee-length pants, and black, shiny, big-buckled shoes.
Apparently those shoes were trickier to manage than she would have suspected because her favorite mystery writer tripped on an equally mysterious cobblestone that seemed to give way at just the wrong moment, then swore with words she thought she might have identified as French if she hadn’t been so busy coming to grips with the fact that he had just stumbled into her and was now taking her down to those very hard cobblestones with him.
She fully expected to either clunk her head or break something, but somehow he caught her, then did a very artistic bit of spinning so that he was the one who landed first and made a handy barrier between her and a very bumpy street.
“Sorry,” he wheezed, laying his head carefully back against the stone. “Just a moment … catch my breath …”
It took her a moment or two to catch her own before she crawled off him, causing him to wince. She knelt next to him and started to make sure she hadn’t broken him only to find herself distracted anew by his getup.
She was accustomed to adults dressing up in costumes. She was also unfortunately familiar with adults dressing up in vintage costume items. Somehow all that didn’t do anything to prepare her for the close-up view of TD Piaget in full-on Regency gear.
In addition to his silken breeches, he was sporting a frilly cravat edged with lace, sleeves adorned with the same elegant work, and a velvet jacket in the same color as his pants.
If she hadn’t known better, she would have suspected he’d been auditioning for a play where harpsichords and pistols were involved.
She quickly examined the reasons why that might be the case, but couldn’t find one that satisfied.
What in the world was he up to?
He pushed himself upright with a groan. “You all right?”
She nodded, though she suspected he might not be.
His pants were never going to be the same, though what she couldn’t get past was the sight of his wig listing very heavily to one side while at the same time leaving one of the curls falling directly into his eyes.
He blew it out of his eye with enthusiasm, but that didn’t help much.
She was reminded sharply of the guy she’d seen in the paranormal doorway, blowing his feather out of his face, but that was surely just coincidence.
“I’m damp but otherwise unharmed,” she said, pulling herself back to the peculiarity at hand. “Nice get-up you have there.”
He smiled briefly. “Photo shoot.” He crawled to his feet, swayed for a moment or two, then held down his hands for hers.
She let him pull her up, then stepped on something that slipped out from under her and would have sent her sprawling if it hadn’t been for her wig-wearing companion catching her and holding her steady until she found her feet.
She looked down at the cobblestone that had almost turned her ankle and realized it was part of a large circle of lighter cobblestones.
That was odd.
“Can you walk? I’ll carry you if not.”
“I’m fine,” she managed, “but thank you.”
“I wouldn’t think to do otherwise, truly.”
Well, his mother deserved credit for having taught him decent manners, something she didn’t imagine she would ever be able to tell the woman so she settled for a silent acknowledgement of the same.
He took off his wig and stuffed it into his duffle bag only after he’d pulled out his trench coat and put it on. He looked at her, then froze.
“What?” he asked warily.
“Interesting outfit.”
“Research,” he said promptly. “Along with the photo shoot.”
“But you write medieval mysteries,” she said carefully, on the off chance his recent encounter with cobblestones had caused a bit of literary amnesia. “Why are you wearing a Regency costume?”
“I’m testing out ideas for a new series.”
What he was testing out was how convincing he was at fibbing, which was not at all.
Perhaps the rest of her random skills weren’t particularly useful, but she’d grown up in a family of hound dogs led by two of the finest of the breed.
She imagined she would never master either of her parents’ looks of skepticism over tall tales, but she could certainly sniff out a bald-faced lie from across the room.
“I didn’t say I was going to write it,” he added, “just that I was thinking about other eras.” He looked around them, then nodded toward the exit. “Let’s go, shall we? ‘Tis a bit chilly here in the shade.”
She rubbed her arms briskly. ‘Twas chilly, indeed, and damn the man if he wasn’t going to drive her crazy with his speech patterns. She was starting to think that creating his medieval monk’s dialogue wasn’t all that much of a stretch after all.
“Why are you here instead of at the museum?”
Harriet realized he was talking to her and she scrambled to come up with something believable. “Um,” she said, dragging the sound out until something came to her. She looked up at him and smiled brightly. “I got lost.”
One of his pale eyebrows went up. “Funny thing that,” he said casually, “so did I.” He pushed a bit of rather decent lace back from a utilitarian analog watch, frowned, then looked at her.
“I need to run to my flat and change. We’re just up the street if you’d like to come with me, then I’ll see us fed.
I think we’re going to miss the bus no matter what we do. ”
“Well,” she began slowly.
“An early dinner at a decent pub then the train back in time for that very perilous mingle with murderers,” he offered. “Or we could sprint for the group and enjoy what I’m certain will be a delicious if not potentially perilous catered affair.”
“Well, if you put it that way,” she said.
“’Tis hardly worth the effort of further thought, is it?” He nodded up the street. “I’ll hurry into something more discreet, then we’ll find something hot that we’re sure won’t kill us.”
She wasn’t quite sure what to say to that and it had less to do with what they might find in their stew and more to do with the fact that she was looking at a writer of medieval murder mysteries who was gallivanting through sketchy London alleyways in baby blue fancy pants, white socks, and shiny black dress shoes with equally shiny silver buckles.
And she was starting not to find that odd at all.
“Harriet?”
She met his eyes and felt her cheeks grow warm. It was one thing to have her family bellowing her name; it was another to have an extremely attractive Englishman saying the same with an accent that she imagined she could listen to for hours without yawning once.
“Will you come with me? I’d rather you not be wandering the streets of London on your own.”
Considering what she’d seen so far that afternoon she had to agree, but because of what she’d seen she had one question to ask. She wasn’t sure how to phrase it politely, so she simply spoke her mind.
“Are you a bad guy?”
He looked briefly startled, then shook his head. “I’m not.”
“That’s what a thug would say, you know.”
“I took the brunt of our fall,” he pointed out.
“After you knocked me over in the first place.”
“I blame the loose cobblestone. And my heels. And these silken short trousers.”
She considered those, then looked up at him. “It’s a good color on you, though.”