Chapter 12
Twelve
Sam looked at the schedule in his hands and noted that the theme for the day was Murderous Implements.
He could only hope that the surprise final lecturer—an unnamed but reputedly very qualified weapons expert—wouldn’t turn out to be Jackson Kilchurn the Fifth, come to lay out the entire collection of his tools of death before selecting the most painful one to use on any errant cousins in the audience.
Theo had claimed it would be someone from Chevington, which was likely even worse.
So many people to avoid, so little time.
He looked at the sticky tab attached to the day’s schedule and found, Escape with Miss Brewster for the day written in a very elegant hand. He supposed if Theo’s agent was giving him permission to scarper off to points unchaperoned, the very least he could do was oblige her.
He considered the possibilities, then texted Harriet. Meet me at the front door?
Already there.
He grabbed his jacket and left his hotel room without delay, forcing himself to ignore the fact that he still hadn’t heard a peep from his brother.
He wasn’t worried.
Not in the slightest.
He trotted down the stairs, then rounded the corner of the vestibule downstairs to find that Harriet was indeed loitering casually by the front door.
He almost stumbled when he saw her, but reminded himself that they were only friends and mature men didn’t stumble over their own damned feet when they saw friends.
“Brunch?” he asked, stopping in front of her. “The pub across the street might be haunted.”
She looked at him skeptically. “Have you verified that for yourself?”
“I’ve heard rumors,” he said, imagining that he could safely leave aside anything he might or might not have seen a trio of centuries earlier. “Shall we go investigate? I’ll buy.”
“You drive a hard bargain.”
He smiled, offered her his arm in a friendly fashion, then found himself casually looking about and wondering from what direction the next disaster would come.
Worse still was wondering why any given thug—or cousin, which amounted to the same sort of lad at the moment—would have chosen the present moment as the right one for a bit of retribution.
They’d been scrupulous about leaving no trace of their passing through the centuries, but perhaps they’d been a bit too cavalier about their situations in the current day.
After all, that situation in Stratford was proof enough of that, wasn’t it?
He’d discussed the finances briefly with Derrick after having found himself disastrously in the same queue for a pint at a pub, but Derrick had just as nonchalantly provided him with the Chauffeur’s contact information and a promise that he was trustworthy and discreet. He had nothing to complain about there.
Unfortunately, he’d done himself no favors by failing to notice that Callum had been eavesdropping on him one night as he’d been transferring funds into the company’s account, but he’d been exhausted from an extremely unpleasant visit to Victorian Stratford and utterly unequal to coming up with a decent lie to cover his tracks.
Callum hadn’t gone so far as to subsequently extort anything but the occasional five quid for lunch, but perhaps that had changed.
In truth, he had no idea who from Stratford might want him gone.
Their former impresario was off in Cornwall, wild swimming every morning and cozying up to the hearth in the local pub every night.
The new owner was a mediocre and uninspiring man whilst their new director was slightly mad, but that was nothing new.
Their current lead actress was definitely vengeful enough to wreak a bit of havoc, but he suspected Aelia wanted to take over the entire troupe, not destroy it.
That left only Callum with motive, opportunity, and the courage to plot and scheme, but even that didn’t sit well with him.
Perhaps the lad Harriet had seen following him truly had mistaken him for Theo. It might behoove him to indeed keep that weather eye out in more places than his usual haunts.
“Sam?”
He dragged himself back to the present and looked at the woman standing next to him. “Sorry,” he said, putting on a hopefully believable smile. “Lost in thought.”
“About ghosts or unidentified men?”
He reached out and opened the pub door for her. “Let’s discuss that after we’ve had a meal, shall we?”
“I brought my notebook.”
He couldn’t say he wasn’t happy to hear that, though he was absolutely going to see what sort of bargain he would have to strike with her to have her list so she wouldn’t use it herself.
He followed Harriet into the pub, then looked around out of habit. He came to a stop so quickly, he almost went sprawling over her. She caught him by the arm.
“New shoes?”
He smiled briefly—and a bit sickly, it had to be said. “Nothing so dire, I fear. I was overcome by the sight of your hair, fair maiden.”
She scowled at him. “I brushed it, which I’m not sure improved matters any.”
He couldn’t say that. It was so ridiculously, riotously curly that he wondered that she managed to get a brush through it at all.
What he did know was that it suited her perfectly and left him dreaming of spring meadows and snowdrops poking their wee heads above the winter leavings to herald the coming delights of spring, a chorus of dancing faeries at the ready to accompany them.
He paused. He was definitely going to have to start writing things down and charging his brother for them.
He’d been eyeing a rather nice Aston Martin over the winter and certainly didn’t intend to plunk down his own sterling for it.
Perhaps he would bill Theo by the letter and see where that left his collection of coins rolling around in the biscuit tin hiding under his bed.
“Sam?”
He looked at Harriet, smiled, then looked over her head at what had brought him to a teetering halt.
In front of him stood none other than Maryanne de Piaget, his favorite cousin and the woman who had been at the heart of his first brush with the reality of traveling through time. In her arms was the lady Anne, surely the most beautiful babe ever to grace Shakespeare’s soil.
And standing next to them looking both protective and not a little amused was none other than Zachary Smith, time-traveler extraordinaire and the current Earl of Wyckham.
Maryanne looked as if she were torn between weeping or shouting at him.
Sam winced and mouthed a quick apology, which was wholly inadequate to the moment but he couldn’t exactly throw himself at her feet and beg her forgiveness for not having come to see her sooner.
Or at all, for that matter. He was absolutely certain it wasn’t the right place to blurt out the excuse that he hadn’t quite decided in which century to live and hadn’t wanted to upset her by showing up uninvited at his own home almost eight hundred years after he’d been born in it.
Zachary opened his mouth, no doubt to say something he shouldn’t, so Sam made cutting motions across his throat that thankfully nipped any unapproved babbling in the bud. Zachary looked at his wife, then back at them.
“Um,” he said helpfully.
Sam would have pretended that he hadn’t seen them, but it was too late for that. He took a deep breath, then stepped up to stand next to Harriet and draw her out of the path to the door. He was unsurprised to find his cousin and her husband doing the same thing.
“Harriet,” he began carefully, “may I present Zachary, Maryanne, and their daughter, Anne. They’re, ah …”
“Old friends,” Maryanne said, blinking rapidly. “How fortuitous to find you here in Bradford today.”
Sam watched Harriet shake both their hands, then he ventured another look at his cousin. He wasn’t sure if she were more tempted to kill him or hug him until he couldn’t breathe, but he wouldn’t have been surprised have her do one right after the other only in reverse order.
“I say,” Zachary said in what he no doubt thought was a decent imitation of an upper-crust English gentleman, “why don’t we find a table and break bread together?”
“Excellent idea,” Sam said. “Lead on, McDuff.”
“’Lay on,’” Zachary said mildly. “Didn’t you study Shakespeare in school?”
Sam sent him a look promise the earl couldn’t possibly have mistaken for anything but his time on their planet growing shorter by the moment, but Zachary only smiled and put his arm around his wife to lead her over to a vacant spot.
Sam realized by the sudden heat on the side of his head that Harriet was boring holes into his skull with her gaze alone.
He looked at her and decided there was no reason not to be as honest as possible.
“Maryanne is actually my cousin,” he said, “though we are indeed very old friends. Zachary came along later and absconded with her. We haven’t decided how to rid ourselves of him yet.”
“Oh, I see,” she said carefully. “You know, I could go—”
“Stay.”
She looked up at him in surprise. “But I don’t want to intrude.”
“You won’t be.” Sam nodded toward the table where his family had already set up camp. “You can keep me from smothering Zachary with what I’m certain will be a very lovely fry up.”
She smiled. “He seems nice.”
Sam pursed his lips and refrained from comment. He actually rather liked Zachary, though he tended to vex him on principle alone. He was, after all, a stickler for tradition.
Within moments, they were seated comfortably and Sam was wondering if he dared go order anything and leave Harriet alone with that pair. He imagined they were accustomed to being discreet, but there was no sense in not laying out a few pieces on the board right off.
“Harriet and I met at the mystery writer’s conference going on across the street,” Sam said before Zachary could take a decent breath and spew out anything that might need to be cleaned up. “Theo had an unexpected emergency to see to, so I’m covering for him until he returns.”
Mary looked at Harriet knowingly. “They do that quite a bit.”