Chapter 3 #2
She tore her gaze away from him to look at Dory, who was still complaining that she wasn’t going fast enough. She pointed behind him and tried to speak, but realized fairly soon that while her mouth was moving, nothing but garbled babbling was coming out.
And then she watched the Elizabethan type lean over and flick Dory on the ear.
Dory leapt up, looked around him, then frowned fiercely. He looked at her.
“Who did that?” he demanded.
She felt a shiver start at the back of her head and work its way quickly down her back.
She had spent her share of time with things of a vintage nature, watched more than her share of ghost-hunter shows, and been sure that the shadows that seemingly moved just out of her line of sight hadn’t been just her bangs tricking her, but she’d never imagined she would actually see—in broad daylight, no less—a . . . well, a ghost.
“Well?” Dory snapped.
She took a deep breath, then pointed at the reenactment guy standing behind him.
Dory looked over his shoulder, but the only other person within ten feet of him was the dark-haired man who had sent her pulse racing.
That man glanced at Dory in a way that sent her escort sitting back down without comment.
Samantha wasn’t surprised by the dirty look Dory sent her way, but she found herself completely unaffected by it, for a change.
She was simply too busy gaping at the Elizabethan ghost standing there, looking down at Dory as if he’d been a bug.
She had to admit that in that, she heartily approved.
“What in the hell are you pointing at?” Dory demanded.
Samantha curled her fingers into her palm and dropped her arm down by her side. “Don’t you see him?”
“See what?”
Well, if he couldn’t see that guy standing right there in all his Renaissance glory, she wasn’t going to waste her breath talking about it.
“Um,” she began.
“You’re jet-lagged,” Dory said briskly, “and I’m done here. Hurry up before I leave you behind.”
She turned back to her exhibit, though she supposed now that she was wallowing in her independence, she would have to do something about the jerk behind her. After all, it wasn’t as if her parents could send her to her room for being rude to him. She was certainly old enough to run her own life.
She was beginning to regret not having come to that conclusion long before now.
She tried to read the exhibit information but couldn’t help surreptitious glances over her shoulder.
Those turned out to be not nearly enough.
She finally had to turn sideways and watch the spectacle.
The man dressed in Elizabethan gear that Dory couldn’t see had apparently only just begun his work.
He pestered Dory, tugging on his hair, blowing down the back of his neck, then finally rolling his eyes and delivering a smart cuff to the back of Dory’s head.
She was surprised to watch Dory fall off his bench and go sprawling, but perhaps there were things about ghosts she just didn’t understand.
The exertion did seem to affect Mr. Doublet adversely, though.
The shade put his hand on the pillar and gasped artistically for breath, but since that wasn’t anything she wasn’t used to from her own father, she didn’t think much of it.
Far more interesting was what was left of Master Mollineux.
He crawled to his feet, then whirled around, his face contorted in fury.
“Who did that?”
Samantha opened her mouth to enlighten him, then realized there was nothing to enlighten him about. The man with the ruff flicked the lace at his wrists, sent a thoroughly supercilious look her way, then vanished.
She almost sat down hard enough to break the glass behind her.
Dory stopped turning in circles, no doubt looking for someone to blame, smoothed his hair back from his face, then swept the occupants of the room with a disgusted look and started for the door.
“Ten minutes or I leave you behind,” he threw at her as he left.
Well, if he was going to be that way about it, she just might have to linger for a bit longer than she’d intended to.
She leaned to her right to look around the pillar in the middle of the room, on the off chance that she’d missed something, but no one was there. She supposed she shouldn’t have expected anything else. Not only was she in England, she was in the bowels of a very old castle.
Along with her endless supply of mysteries and romances, her great-aunt Mary had been a connoisseur of all things paranormal.
She had instilled a curiosity in Samantha that Samantha was sure would be her undoing at some point.
She had just never thought she would have something of her own to report on.
She turned back to the exhibits, but the truth was, her mind just wasn’t on them.
She was too tempted to ease over to where she’d seen her spectral rescuer working his magic on her primary tormentor.
She glanced over her shoulder again, but there was nothing there to be seen.
The only thing left in the room was a gorgeous man who was working his way over to her.
She reached for a free brochure to fan herself because she was fairly sure she’d just seen a ghost, not because she was looking at the poster boy for Gorgeous Guys, Inc.
He was a careful reader, that much she could say about him.
She was having trouble making sense of what was in front of her, but he didn’t seem to be having the same problem.
She didn’t bother to point out to him that he was starting at the wrong end of the bank of display cases, because obviously he didn’t care.
She managed to get through two displays—and yes, she was counting—by the time he’d done six and they’d met in the middle.
She’d stopped fanning, mostly because the wrinkled piece of paper she held in her hand had simply given out under the strain.
She took a deep breath and looked at the man standing next to her.
He was watching her with a grave expression on his face, as if he waited for something pithy to come out of her mouth.
“Do you believe in ghosts?” was the best she could do.
He seemed to consider. “Why do you ask?”
“Because . . . well, never mind.”
The man looked at her from the most amazing pair of green eyes she had ever seen. She wished suddenly that she’d gone ahead and sprung for that guidebook. At least that might have left her with something else to use to keep herself from perspiring.
“Did one frighten off your escort?”
She looked at him in surprise. “How did you know?”
“It’s a castle,” he said easily. “Nothing should come as a surprise here.”
She would have smiled, but he was a stranger and she didn’t want to look like an easy mark—on the off chance he wanted to steal her wallet, of course.
Because she couldn’t quite understand why a man that good-looking would be in the middle of a castle museum.
Even more baffling was why he would be talking to her.
“Are you a tourist?” she blurted out before she thought better of it.
He smiled a very small smile that was so charming, she found herself smiling in return.
“No,” he said with consonants so posh he had to have been either very well educated or some sort of upper-crust type, “just a student of history. Had a free day and thought this might be interesting. And you?”
“Ah,” she said. “I’m just a tourist.”
“And your boyfriend?”
“He isn’t my boyfriend,” she said quickly. “Just someone I know.” She almost added unfortunately, but thought that might have been too much information.
He only lifted his eyebrows briefly, then nodded. “Have a lovely visit,” he said, then he turned and walked away.
Samantha was slightly surprised by the abruptness of his departure, but since that seemed to be the state of affairs with the men in her life during the past half hour, she supposed she couldn’t expect anything else.
She sat down on the bench surrounding the pillar in the middle of the room and tried to regroup. She attempted it until the room filled with foreign-speaking tourists and she realized she wasn’t going to get any serious thinking done.
She managed to get out of the castle and catch a bus back to the Cookes’ without seeing Dory. She could only assume he’d stomped off in a huff and was intending to punish her by his absence.
Lydia answered the door at her knock. “Have a good morning, love?”
“It was interesting,” Samantha said, because there was absolutely no way she was going to talk about what she’d seen. She was almost convinced she’d imagined the whole thing.
Lydia smiled. “You know, Samantha, I was just wondering if you might be up for a little errand tomorrow.”
“Will it require my traveling long distances?” Samantha asked hopefully.
Lydia laughed a little. “Actually, I was hoping you wouldn’t mind nipping down to London and delivering something to a colleague for me. I’d go myself, of course, but Edmund and I start rehearsals soon.” She smiled apologetically. “You know how that goes.”
“I do,” Samantha said, and boy, did she ever. Her father’s stage career had been all consuming for him. Even the university lived in fear of conflicting with his theater schedule.
“There is no hurry, actually, about your arrival,” Lydia said. “I’ll give you a phone number to ring when you reach the city. I hadn’t intended for you to do this, but I thought you might want to—what’s that phrase you have?”
“Get the heck out of Dodge?” Samantha supplied.
“That’s the one,” Lydia agreed. “I can suggest a place or two of interest, or you can just wander without a plan.”
“Oh,” Samantha said, feeling something akin to unease take hold of her. “No plan? I’m not sure that’s wise.”
Lydia smiled gently. “Then let me choose for you, just this time. Castles or gardens?”
“Castles.”
“Medieval or Renaissance?”
“Medieval,” Samantha said reverently. “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”
“Then I’ll book you a couple of spots to stay, suggest a well-preserved medieval relic or two, then send you off in the morning to the station. I’ll get you a key to the house as well, of course. You’ll need to get back in when you return, won’t you?”
Samantha nodded. “I’ll pay you for the hotels—”
Lydia shook her head. “Of course you won’t. You’re doing me the favor of running an errand for me. The least I can do is cover your travel expenses. You can see to your meals, if you like.”
“You are too generous.”
Lydia shrugged, as if she were a little uncomfortable with the thanks. “Not to worry, darling. I’ll go make your arrangements.”
Samantha thanked her again, then made her way up to her room to consider what to take. The entire place was comfortingly free of Elizabethan specters and obnoxious New Englanders both, which was a bonus as far as she was concerned.
Now, if she could have perhaps encountered an extremely handsome guy wearing Middle English sayings on his shirt—and no doubt knowing what they meant—she might have considered that things were truly looking up.
Maybe tomorrow, if she was lucky.
She considered what to take, then decided she would pack as light as possible.
Money for food and some ID were probably enough.
And as far as clothes went, she wouldn’t take more than would fit in her rather small backpack.
After all, it wasn’t as if she would be seeing the same people all the time.
She went to pull her backpack down off the wall and get ready to go.