Chapter 27
Twenty-seven
Harriet woke to a noise that sounded as though the entire inn were collapsing around her.
She realized several things in no particular order. One, she’d actually slept at some point during the night. That was something to blush over later when she was certain her husband wouldn’t tease her over the same. Then again, he was worse, so perhaps balance would be maintained.
Second, it wasn’t the inn collapsing, it was someone banging on their door. She looked at Sam who had sat up and was rubbing his hands briefly over his face before he pushed his hair out of his eyes.
“I’m going to kill him.”
“Take your sword,” she croaked.
He smiled and leaned over to kiss her. “You, love, are a proper medieval miss. Look at you sending your husband off into the fray.”
She considered the continued banging on the door. “It might be an emergency.”
“Or Jackson angling for a very speedy journey into the next life,” Sam said grimly. He looked at her, then shrugged. “It could be something dire, of course, but my phone is across the chamber. I’m certain I would have heard a text, which would have been the polite way to alert us to the same.”
She crawled out of bed and almost made it to where their phones were indeed plugged in across the room, but Sam caught her before she managed three steps. He looked at her nightwear and smiled.
“Adorable.”
She realized that she was wearing her father’s pajama shirt, which seemed like the most reasonable thing in the world.
They’d found nighttime attire in a chair next to those lovely desserts they’d been left, which had been a little adorable.
At least that Union-flag t-shirt was long enough to double as a short night-gown for her, which, given the look her husband had just sent her, might earn her a few cuteness points.
“It looks so much better on you than it does on me,” he added.
“Let’s not tell my father.”
He laughed and pulled her into his arms. “I think after a few days with my father in the lists, I should be more careful around him.” He kissed her sweetly, then smiled.
“Excuse me, my love, whilst I go and slay the vexation at the door who I very much suspect is not your sire. Then we’ll turn back to other things, if you’re willing. ”
She nodded and decided that she would claim her blushes were from stress over who might have interrupted their almost-honeymoon and what her husband might leave of him.
The final thing was that medieval men had an entirely different standard for answering doors, namely clothing optional.
“Sam,” she called as she threw him striped pajama bottoms.
He caught them, looked at them, then at her, then shook his head. “I’ll never live them down.”
“You can’t be sure it’s Jackson.”
“’Tis Jackson,” he grumbled. “He can close his eyes if he’s appalled.”
She suspected that would probably be the case, so she pulled her mother’s robe around her, grabbed a slipper, and went to stand against the wall, well out of the way of the door. Sam shot her an approving glance, then wrenched the door open.
“Good, you’re awake. Is your bride suitably dressed?”
Harriet didn’t imagine she was going to do any better than what she had on, so she shrugged as Jackson was invited into their room. He looked them both over then made her a slight bow.
“My apologies, Harriet, for the interruption. Sam, you deserve it. What you don’t deserve, however, is the madness that seems to be going on in Stratford. I think you should come now.”
Sam looked at him in disbelief. “I only bothered you with breakfast!”
“And I wouldn’t be bothering you—well, that isn’t true. I absolutely would have dealt out an exquisite bit of payback to you if your sweet bride had not been involved—which I will still do, believe me—but I think you need to come sort this. Soon. Dressed, preferably.”
Sam pointed toward the door. “Out.”
Harriet caught Jackson’s smile directed at her, and completely missed whatever it was that Jackson said to her husband though she was certain it hadn’t been polite.
Sam looked at her. “Do you mind?”
“Of course not.”
“I am questioning my choice to get out of bed this morning,” Sam said grimly.
She laughed and put her arms around him. “We’re booked for another night here,” she said cheerfully. “Maybe we can get my father to distract Jackson for a couple of days—”
Sam swore. “I am going to kill him.”
Harriet had the feeling the renewed knocking just couldn’t be good.
She was tempted to tell Sam she could answer the door, but she sighed at the look he shot her.
She took up her place against the wall again, shoe at the ready, and had a quick smile from her favorite guy before he opened the door again.
Jackson handed him a note. “Forgot that in the excitement.”
Sam rolled his eyes and shut the door in his cousin’s face. He locked it for good measure, then opened the note.
Harriet considered herself fairly good at reading people—it helped with those magic tricks she hadn’t trotted out for Sam’s inspection yet—but that man there had a poker face that would have given Mac’s father a run for his money.
She had the feeling she knew exactly what he was going to do, though, so she put herself in front of him and brandished her shoe.
He looked at her, considered, then sighed. “All right. Tell me what you think.”
She took the note he handed her and read it. The script looked like something out of an original Shakespearean playbill which made deciphering the words a challenge, but she thought she was getting the gist of it.
“A duel?” she asked, looking at him in disbelief. “This has to be a joke.”
“I suspect not,” he said seriously, “and because of that I suspect I should leave you with your parents whilst the three of you are guarded ferociously by Oliver Phillips. I’ll go see to this annoyance alone.”
She shook her head. “I’ll stay out of the way, but you might need another pair of eyes.”
He blew his hair out of his eyes. “How far out of the way?”
“Very far.”
He put his hands lightly on her shoulders. “Harriet, my love, I’ll allow this, but you’ll stay very far out of the way and behind whatever guardsman I can acquire in the next quarter hour.” He paused. “My rules.”
She attempted a smile, but she suspected it hadn’t gone very well. “And when do my rules come into play?”
“All the other moments of every other day,” he said with a faint smile. “Just not now.”
She took a deep breath, nodded, then brushed a kiss across his lips before she retreated to the bathroom to change clothes. “Do not ditch me,” she warned before she shut the door.
He was busily texting already, but he shot her a quick smile and shook his head. “I wouldn’t.”
“You would, but don’t now.”
He hesitated, then nodded. “Very well.”
An hour later, she found herself standing in the shadows of an outdoor stage, looking at the entire cast and crew of Sam’s current production and wondering just what she’d gotten herself into.
Sam was standing in the middle of that stage, his hands in his pockets, looking utterly bored.
Samuel de Piaget at his most dangerous, no doubt.
Facing him was the man who’d been stalking him in London or so she suspected by the way the man was standing, as if he just couldn’t quite commit to what he was up to.
Actors. What a rambunctious, unruly lot.
And then she couldn’t think any longer. That happened, she supposed, when a woman realized that she had been grabbed by an unfriendly hand and the chills running down her spine weren’t caused by a bit of unusually chilly May weather but instead a very real piece of steel waving in front of her face.
It was funny how swords had a smell. She probably should have known that for the purposes of giving a little realism to her fiction, but, as she hardly had to remind herself more than once a day, she didn’t like blood and gore.
“Cast your eyes here, thou villainous cur.”
That statement came from the guy holding onto her with his sword coming closer to her than she was comfortable with, not from anyone any friendlier. She watched Sam look in her direction, then freeze. She decided two things at that moment.
The first was that despite his sunny nature and easy charm, Samuel de Piaget had nerves of steel.
The second was that after the look he’d given her that was full of the briefest flash of panic followed by something she couldn’t help but accept was an assurance that he would most definitely rescue her, she thought she just might love him.
Well, she’d known that before. She just hadn’t realized until that moment just how much.
Sam looked at the man holding onto her. “Hiding behind a helpless woman, sir?” he drawled. “Is that all your courage allows you?”
The man behind her shifted. Harriet would have flinched, but she didn’t dare. And then things happened too quickly for her to do anything but promise herself a complete melt-down later.
Someone—Oliver or Jackson, she suspected—managed to keep the sword far enough away from her that she wasn’t cut while at the same time giving her mugger a shove into that relatively empty space in the midst of the stage.
Everyone backed away from him as he went sprawling, which she understood, though no one offered to help Sam, which she supposed she also understood.
Mac would need to be consulted as to the particulars, but Harriet couldn’t help but compare the whole motley crew to a freshman acting class too terrified to make a move that might ruin their grades with their demanding director.
And given what was going on in their midst, she couldn’t blame them one bit.
She realized Jackson was suddenly standing next to her with his arm around her shoulders. She looked up at him and gulped.
“Thanks for the rescue.”
He nodded, patted her, then released her. “Stay,” he said.
“Absolutely,” she wheezed. “And what of—”
“He’ll take care of himself. Settle in for the show.”