Chapter 10
Ten
Sam took a bow in his brother’s place for a workshop successfully concluded without any howls of displeasure or writers with pitchforks storming the stage and came to a pair of conclusions.
The first was that mystery writers were frightening.
He’d spent the past two hours watching that collection of souls doing exercises on putting themselves fully into character and suspected that what they’d actually been doing was cataloging all the ways they could take their weapons of choice and do him in.
At least with actors, he knew the swords weren’t sharp, the knives were collapsible, and the fighting choreographed.
With that lot, he wasn’t certain of anything save his brother had a stronger stomach for the unknown and unsaid than he did.
The second was that Mistress Harriet Delphinium Brewster deserved every good thing he could see to for her.
She’d begun the morning by participating in the first pair of acting exercises he’d shamelessly purloined from classes he’d taken himself and with an enthusiasm that he suspected was meant to distract from any speculation about his own credentials.
After that, she’d found him not only breakfast, but delicious snacks that she’d insisted he eat during the morning.
Between her effusive praise and Mistress Collins’ taking over the stage and distracting the attendees with the minutiae of submitting their three-pages for his further perusal, the morning had been a success.
He listened to the announcement for luncheon from the back of the wee dais in the front of the ballroom and looked at his comrade-in-arms.
“What is that three-pages business?”
“People are submitting the first three pages of their novels for your perusal after which you’ll choose those who’ll attend the retreat next week.”
“Next week,” he echoed faintly.
“You’re taking over an enormous manor house in the country with these fortunate souls where you’ll reside with them and polish up their fiendishly clever plots and dashing characters.
” She looked at him carefully. “I think you’ve already chosen most of the people who’ll be attending.
There are just a couple of spots left to fill from these submissions. ”
He looked at her in alarm. “And do I know which souls I’ve already chosen?”
“You’d have to ask Miss Collins.” She shrugged. “You might be cooped up in a house with the Fabulous Four, you know.”
“The saints preserve me,” he muttered under his breath before he dished out a few more smiles and waves to the last of the morning’s rabble leaving the room.
He jumped a little at the feel of his phone buzzing in his pocket.
Modern communications were miraculous, to be sure, though at times he wasn’t convinced it was an improvement over sending a page to another part of the castle with a message.
But if it meant Theo had finally found that modern means of communication, he was all for it.
He opened his phone to find a desperate, come now! from Callum. There was nothing from Theo, but perhaps the trip had been more taxing than expected. He blew out his breath, consigned his brother to a particularly toasty part of the underworld, then looked at Harriet.
“Is there anything on the schedule for the afternoon?”
“Just appointments to pitch books to agents and editors, but I don’t think you need one of those.”
He looked at her carefully. “Do you have one for yourself?”
“I’m sleeping in an agent’s spare pajama set,” she said easily. “I think I can just leave my non-existent novel on the edge of the sink for her to read in the bath. Did you need to do something else?”
“I was thinking about a little trip to Stratford. We could pop by Anne Hathaway’s house on the way back, if you like.”
She considered. “Will French fries be involved at any point during this journey?”
“Chips,” he said with a smile, “and absolutely. ‘Twill be my treat as thanks for this morning and our reward if we survive the journey north.”
She looked at him in surprise. “Are you being followed there as well?”
He blew his hair out of his eyes. “’Tis a bit more complicated than that, but definitely not dangerous else you wouldn’t be coming along. I’ll tell you on the way.”
She patted him on the arm. “Don’t worry. If you end up dueling, I’ll be your second.”
He sincerely hoped it didn’t come to that, but with the way his week was going, he honestly wouldn’t have been surprised. He smiled at Harriet, then prepared to make excuses to Theo’s agent for his upcoming absence.
Forty-five traffic-filled minutes later, he was driving past the eminently functional if not modest theater where he trod the boards. It was far less grand than the places Derrick Cameron held court, but he was happy enough with his lot in life.
He was less happy to see the front of the theater boasting what looked to be the entire cast of A Midsummer Night’s Dream with signs and foul humors. He didn’t take the time to read anything, though he had to admit things had been scrawled with an elegant hand.
“Wow, those are some cutting remarks,” Harriet said.
“Do tell,” he said grimly.
“There were several things about cankerblossoms, villains, and cowards.” She glanced at him. “Not directed at you, more just general complaining about the vicissitudes of the acting lifestyle.”
“’Never did mockers waste more idle breath,’” he muttered. “They didn’t see us, did they?”
“I don’t think so—wait, Sam,” she said, putting her hand on his arm. “Can you flip around and drive back by?”
He was honestly too flustered by hearing his proper name from her to execute any sort of decent u-turn, so he took another ten minutes to find a different block to use as a means of getting back on the road that led to the theater.
He wasn’t particularly keen to read what was being said, though at least they were quoting Shakespeare. It could have been worse.
“See anything else interesting?” he asked.
“I saw a sign the first time that said, Samuel McKinnon is out of time, but I can’t find it now.”
He almost ran into the very expensive Audi in front of him, but managed to stop just in time. “What?”
“Samuel McKinnon is out of time,” she repeated. “Is that strange?”
He hardly knew where to begin with that. “That’s my mum’s maiden name that I use on stage, actually.” He absolutely didn’t want to speculate on what sort of time that lad might think he was out of.
Harriet peered out the window for a bit longer, then shook her head. “It’s definitely not there now, so I could have been imagining it. I thought the guy holding it up looked familiar, but I’m probably imagining that, too.”
He suspected she wasn’t, but all that did was convince him that he needed to keep her very far away from Stratford in the future. He would be investigating that sign and its maker all on his own.
“I’m still a little confused about this situation,” Harriet said carefully. “If this is the troupe you act with, why aren’t you picketing as well?”
“It’s complicated,” he said, which hardly began to describe it, but perhaps that was just the rest of his life clamoring for attention.
“You don’t have to explain,” she said. “I’m being too nosey.”
“You aren’t,” he said quickly. “Besides, you’ve run away from ghosts with me. That alone earns you a few details.”
“I won’t repeat them.”
He suspected that was the absolute truth. Besides, it wasn’t as though he was going to tell her things that would cause her to bolt from his car and run away very quickly. He gathered his thoughts into something that sounded reasonable, then dove in.
“When Theo and I left home, we decided to try London for a bit to see what the city could offer. He took up his pen and I decided to try my hand at acting.” He shot her a brief smile. “My father is a big fan of the Bard, so I already knew quite a few soliloquies.”
She smiled. “Handy.”
“Very,” he agreed. He thought it wise to neglect to mention that his father tended to mutter Shakespeare’s finest thoughts whilst exercising his guardsmen in the lists, but his sire was nothing if not elegant whilst about the conducting of his affairs.
“Through a bit of chance, I found this particular company with good reviews but in need of a bit of sterling to truly get themselves off the ground.”
“So you found them that money?”
“Discreetly,” Sam said, “though our stage manager recently found out I know the man who is funding our troupe behind the scenes.”
She studied him for a moment or two. “You know the man, or you are the man?”
He shot her a look. “You frighten me.”
She patted his arm again. “I haven’t begun to frighten you.”
He imagined that was true, and if she didn’t stop patting him, he thought he might just have to ask her out on a proper date and see where his and Theo’s rules stood after the evening was over.
“But you don’t need to give me specifics,” she added. “Let’s just say that you had some spare change in your pocket, you found an acting company that needed some financial support, and you enlisted the services of a bag man.”
“He calls himself The Chauffeur,” Sam said, “which is every bit as unsettling as it sounds.”
“What it sounds is complicated,” she said slowly.
“It has certainly become that way,” he agreed.
“To make matters even more so, the owner of the company decided last year that he wanted to retire. He installed our former director as impresario, and that lad hired a different director that no one cares for to take over artistic duties. That left our stage manager caught in the middle of everything and shrieking for aid every chance he has.”
“And since he knows you have access to the purse strings, he’s endlessly calling you?”
He looked at her. “’Tis completely mad, isn’t it?”