Chapter 19
Nineteen
“Didn’t I just see you?”
Harriet found herself interrupted in her planning by the sudden appearance of that very impolite conference guy Sam had taught some manners to in the hallway upstairs. He was looking slightly unnerved, but maybe he was having flashbacks to humiliations and crumpled nametags.
“Well,” Sam said, dragging the word out until Harriet almost suggested that he stop.
“At least you’ve cleaned up. You’ve missed lunch, but there’s a final reception in half an hour. Don’t be late.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it, would we, TD?” Harriet said, taking Sam by the arm and pulling him away before he could stall that poorly any longer. She lasted another ten steps before she thought frowning at him might be called for. “Cleaned up?” she echoed. “What do you think that means?”
“Let’s go find out,” he said, taking her hand and doing the pulling. “Can you run?”
She nodded and was happy to trot with him up the stairs and down the hallway to his room, mostly because she thought she might more easily keep him captive there.
She wanted answers about several things, beginning and ending with what in the world that doorway had been doing out in the forest. Cut brake lines could wait, mostly because she was still trying to wrap her mind around the fact that it had happened to them.
If Oliver hadn’t been watching over them …
Sam opened his hotel room door, then stopped so suddenly that she ran into his back. She looked around him, then realized why.
There on the bed was Sam’s mirror image. Well, the man lying there was filthy and looked absolutely exhausted, but that was undeniably his brother. She looked at Sam and felt her eyes burn.
“Thank heavens,” she said.
Sam closed his eyes briefly, touched her arm, then strode over to haul his brother up off the bed.
“Sorry I’m late,” Theo croaked.
Harriet very rarely found herself speechless, but looking at those brothers who were perfect copies of each other was more startling than she would have expected it to be.
She watched Sam give his brother a rough hug with a few muttered things in French she didn’t catch, then found herself the object of scrutiny by that same brother.
Theophilus de Piaget was, as Francine Collins had indicated, very different.
She would have been thrilled to have had his input on a book if she’d had one to give him.
If she’d met him first, she might have been as overcome by his looks as she had been by Sam’s.
But if she’d had a choice of going out to dinner with one of those two men, it still would have been with Sam.
That said, TD Piaget was her favorite mystery author and she couldn’t help but feel a little proprietary where he was concerned.
She wondered where he’d been that had left him looking as if he had neither eaten nor slept for a week and how she might facilitate at least a snack for him until he could trudge off to find lunch on his own.
“This is Harriet Brewster,” Sam said, pulling her over to stand next to him. “She’s been your assistant this past week, so reward her properly and from a distance.”
Harriet had a handshake from Theo and a smile to accompany it, then watched him look at Sam.
“From a distance?” he asked, one of his eyebrows going up.
“Don’t make me hurt you,” Sam warned.
Harriet smiled politely at them both. “I’ll leave you two to your reunion. Theo, it’s wonderful to meet you.”
“Nay, wait,” Sam said, catching her by the arm. “Theo, you’ll want to have Harriet continue on as your right-hand lad for your retreat. She’s done a smashing job so far and I believe she has questions for you about craft.”
“Of course,” Theo said without hesitation, giving her another smile. “I’d be grateful for the aid, Miss Brewster.” He looked at Sam. “And you’re off to Stratford, I assume?”
“Well,” Sam said, shifting, “’tis a bit more complicated than that. We suspect Harriet’s parents may have strayed off the path near a medieval faire, so I’m going to go do a little investigating and see what turns up.”
Harriet looked to see how Theo was reacting to that potentially perilous situation—he being who he was, after all, and an authority on all things medieval—and watched as he exchanged a look with Sam.
She had no trouble identifying that sort of look because it was the same wordless communication her pairs of siblings had engaged in endlessly.
Obviously Sam and Theo had perfected the art.
Theo nodded slightly. Message apparently received, though she wasn’t about to let that be the end of it.
“I’m coming with you, Sam,” she said briskly.
“But who’ll help Theo with the retreat?” Sam asked, blinking innocently and not at all convincingly. “He’ll be simply lost without you.”
“And for all we know, your parents went for a ramble and decided to shelter in some lovely farmhouse inn for the weekend,” Theo said soothingly. “People do it all the time.”
“Absolutely true,” Sam agreed. “I’ll spend a pair of hours trailing after them, then call you when I’ve located them. You can tell me whether or not I should interrupt their activities.”
“Besides, Sam will travel more quickly on his own,” Theo added, looking at her seriously. “Why don’t you stay here and help me survive the next se’nnight? And just so I know, your parents are here for what, exactly?”
Harriet found herself needing to take a minute to recover from looking back and forth from brother to brother in an effort not to let anything slip by her. She scowled at Sam just so he would know she was onto his strategy, then turned to Theo.
“They’re here ostensibly for a flower show and some hobnobbing with academic colleagues, but I think they actually came to spend as much time as possible at that medieval faire up the road.” She paused. “It’s about an hour and half up the road, but maybe that doesn’t make any difference.”
Sam and Theo exchanged another look. She would freely admit that to that point her life had been made up of standing at an imaginary tennis net, watching two sets of doubles players slapping the ball at each other with terrifying velocity.
She also had to be honest and acknowledge that hugging the sidelines had been less about not wanting to get obliterated in the cross fire and more about being too unsure to simply walk out into the middle of the court and let the sunlight fall onto her unimpeded.
She suspected that reluctance had just come to an end.
She took a deep breath, then stepped forward to stand next to Sam and his brother. Well, perhaps not quite next to them. She stood far enough away that she could keep them both in her sights without having to look back and forth between them.
She lifted her chin—it made it easier to look them both in the eyes, actually—and took another deep, preparatory breath.
“I’m going with Sam,” she announced. “No, don’t look at each other. Look at me and take me seriously.”
Theo clasped his hands behind his back and smiled slightly. Sam frowned at her and folded his arms over his chest. She’d seen him do that before and suspected he thought it made him look intimidating.
Well, it did, actually, but she had taken a step into a place where intimidating poses from a gorgeous man didn’t move her from her purpose. She folded her arms over her chest, wishing she’d had that damned push-up bra for a bit of extra bolstered courage, and frowned right back at him.
“I’m coming with you,” she said.
“No, you are not,” he said shortly.
“Yes, I am.”
“No, Harriet.”
She patted herself. “Where’s a bloody sword when you need one?”
Sam opened his mouth, then glared at his brother when Theo laughed, then started coughing.
“I don’t think you’re going to prevail, brother,” Theo managed.
“Oh, Theo dear, what have you done to yourself?”
Harriet felt Sam pull her aside before the whirlwind that was Francine Collins arriving and taking charge bowled her over.
She couldn’t help but admire the way Theo’s agent turned all her dragon energy into protective grandmother-bear energy and focused it all on a man who looked as if he might need it.
“You’re going to fall down if you don’t sit, my darling boy,” Francine said, pushing him into a chair. “I’ll find food. Don’t go off anywhere again.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Theo murmured.
Harriet looked at Sam to find him watching her with not so much resignation, but what looked like genuine regret. She wasn’t sure what else to do but lift her chin another notch.
“I’m not inadequate,” she said, her voice cracking. She cleared her throat. “I won’t be a hindrance.”
He closed his eyes briefly, then reached out and pulled her into his arms. He wasn’t shaking, of course; she was.
“Of course you aren’t,” he said quietly. “And you wouldn’t be.”
“Then why don’t you want me to come with you?”
He pulled away far enough to look at her. “Because lovely medieval misses should stay safe and warm by the fire whilst their men go out to take care of things that might be dangerous.”
“I still think more of those medieval misses picked up swords than you want to admit.”
He smiled, then pulled her back into his arms and held her for another moment or two. He sighed, then pulled away.
“All right,” he said quietly. “We’ll need to run to London and fetch a thing or two, then we’ll set off and see what we find.”
“London?” she echoed in surprise. “Why? What thing—never mind.” She nodded briskly. “You’re in change.”
“I’ll watch you write that in your notebook a hundred times on our way,” he said with a brief smile.
She smiled in return, then swallowed uncomfortably. “Nothing terrible happened to them, did it?”
“I suspect they’re merely behind a hedgerow, discussing medieval courting mores.”
“The saints preserve you both,” Theo said with a groan. “Here, come sit for a moment and fill me in briefly on what to expect. And why is it neither of you thought to leave me anything tasty to eat?”