Chapter 10
Derrick looked up as Emily pulled the door shut behind her. He had to admit he was perhaps rather more grateful to see her than he should admit to. There was something about her ability to walk into any situation and take charge that was unaccountably soothing.
She wasn’t his cousin by blood, but she might as well have been.
They had spent part of their youth together when she hadn’t been in France, she as the granddaughter of Madame Gies, the Cameron cook, and he as the grandson of old Alistair Cameron’s valet.
Never mind that his grandfather had actually been Alistair’s cousin.
When one threw the current laird Robert’s genealogy into the mix, the family tree became very convoluted indeed.
But he was grateful, as he always had been, for family, no matter how distant the connections.
“You look as if you’ve had a difficult day,” Emily said, sinking down on the couch gracefully. “I can watch over your charge for a bit if you’d like to go rest before dinner.”
“Good,” Derrick said shortly. “I’m liable to kill her if I have to have anything else to do with her.”
“What you need, mon cher, is a lesson in manners.”
He rubbed his hands over his face. “I’m sorry, Emily. Thank you very kindly for coming to my rescue tonight. I’m assuming you brought clothes.”
“For you both, though you don’t deserve them.”
He would have smiled, but he was too damned tired to. “I daresay I don’t.”
“Go have a little rest,” she said, pointing to the doorway of the other bedroom. “Behave better when you’ve finished.”
He rose, kissed her hand, then thanked her very kindly before he walked into the other bedroom and shut the door.
He knew he should have snatched what sleep he could, but all he could do was pace.
The things that were currently causing him stress were so many and so varied, there was no possible way he would manage to even close his eyes.
Before he had truly begun to wear a trench into the carpet, a knock sounded on his door.
He walked over and opened it to find Oliver there, gear in his hands.
He took his own pack that he’d given to Oliver on his way through the time gate as well as Samantha Drummond’s that Oliver had obviously collected from her hotel.
“Anything interesting?”
“I just shoved her gear into the pack, mate, I didn’t paw through it.”
“Leaving that to me?”
“You don’t pay me enough for that sort of work,” Oliver said, straight-faced. He started to go back out the door, then turned and looked at Derrick. “Several lads outside are showing more interest in your doings than’s polite, if you’re curious.”
“I was. Thank you.”
Oliver shrugged. “Happy to be of service. Any news about the item of interest?”
“She stashed it.”
“Where?”
“Under a planter.”
“Hope no one thinks to water anytime soon.”
Derrick decided that it was best not to reply.
Oliver nodded toward his arm. “That doesn’t look good.”
“It just needs a wash.”
Oliver walked over, ripped off the sleeve of Derrick’s T-shirt, then sliced the sleeve into a strip with a knife he produced from his pocket. He tied it around the wound. “Shall I ring Lady Sunshine?”
Derrick wasn’t sure he would ever get used to calling his sister-in-law that, which was probably for the best. She never would have answered him if he had.
“Nay,” he said, through gritted teeth, “the throbbing will subside soon enough. A clean shirt will do the trick for the moment.”
“Make it a dark one.”
“I thought I would.”
Oliver frowned at him. “I’ll be around,” he said, starting out the door. “Perhaps closer than I intended.”
“Be careful.”
“I always am. I might sleep for a couple of hours, if you think you’ll be doing the same.”
Derrick supposed he had no choice, even if it meant sleeping on the floor in front of the doorway so Samantha Drummond didn’t escape during the night.
He nodded, promised Oliver he’d text him in the morning, then shut the door and locked it.
He changed his shirt, wincing at the pull in his arm, then decided that perhaps it wasn’t too late to ring someone whose advice he valued.
The phone only rang twice before the call was picked up.
“Ah, Derrick, lad,” a male voice said, sounding pleased. “Schedule’s freed up for a little adventure, is it?”
“I’m afraid not, Jamie,” Derrick said. “I rang you for advice.”
James MacLeod purred. If there was anything he loved, it was to immerse himself fully in the role of elder statesman on whatever subject might come up. “I’m prepared to hear about anything.”
Derrick had no doubts that was true, or that Jamie had heard just about everything at some point in his life. “I’ll be brief,” he said. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard any rumors about Lord Epworth having a piece of lace go missing.”
“What I heard was he had a fit when you broke into his very secure hall and lifted said piece of lace from practically under his nose in fifteen minutes.”
“It was actually eight and a half,” Derrick corrected politely. “It would have been eight, but I had to stop and tickle the Pomeranian under the chin and feed him his favorite doggie treats.”
“I suppose we can all be relieved you haven’t chosen a life of crime,” Jamie said dryly. “Very well, so the lace has gone missing in truth this time. I’m assuming you’re hunting for it?”
“Aye,” Derrick agreed. “It’s just where it’s gone missing that’s presenting a bit of a problem.”
“Tell me about it.”
Derrick could just imagine Jamie settling comfortably in his expensive leather chair in his thinking room, as he called it, and flexing his fingers purposefully.
“In brief,” Derrick said, “it was given to a courier who managed to lose it in Elizabethan England.”
“Interesting.”
“She put it under a planter.”
“Hope it was wrapped well.”
Derrick pursed his lips. “That thought has occurred to me as well.”
Jamie clucked his tongue. “I don’t think I need to tell you how perilous it is to leave two of the same thing in the same place.”
“How perilous?”
“The deviation from the natural order of things might not be so noticeable at first,” Jamie said slowly, “but I’m not exaggerating when I say that the fabric of time becomes .
. . hmmm . . . let’s say it becomes disturbed when things are added that shouldn’t be there.
” He paused. “In some cases, when it comes to individuals perhaps, I have come to believe that those additions were meant to be. But when it comes to tangible things—”
“Bad?”
“They have a way of turning up where they shouldn’t and the result is never pleasant. Do you remember that fellow traveler we acquired during that trip a couple of months ago?”
“Vividly.” They had spent a week on board a Victorian frigate with a C.
S. Forester nut who had heard a rumor about Jamie’s familiarity with time periods not his own and had been determined to test its veracity.
He had followed them back in time, then continued to follow them onto the ship.
It was only when he succeeded in poaching the captain’s sword that they had realized who he was and what he was up to.
And, well, Jamie was right. That sort of thing belonged in its proper time and place.
He and Jamie had had a hell of a time getting the sword back where it belonged.
They had managed, again just barely, to also get the would-be Horatio Hornblower back to the current day, but the man had eventually had to be institutionalized.
Time travel wasn’t for the faint of heart.
“I’d pop back and get it, were I you.”
Derrick could see the wisdom in it. “There’s just one problem,” he said slowly. “I’m not sure that the woman who stashed the lace will come along. And I’m not sure I want her to.”
“Can she give you directions?”
“I don’t think she will, even if she could,” Derrick admitted. “I think I could find it myself. She didn’t venture too far afield.”
“Then what’s the trouble?”
Derrick hardly knew how to voice his thought, but he hadn’t called just to chat. “I was thinking,” he began slowly, “that perhaps if I used a gate to simply go backward a day, just to yesterday, and managed to get the lace back from her before all this madness . . .”
Jamie made a noise that wasn’t quite disapproval, but it was definitely warning.
“Have you ever tried it?” Derrick asked.
“Aye,” was all Jamie said.
Derrick waited, but Jamie didn’t say anything else. It had to have been terrible, else he would have described the experience in minute detail. Derrick sighed.
“Very well, I’ll go back to the proper time myself.”
“Want company?”
Derrick smiled. “I think I’ll manage, though I’ll try to send word if things go awry.”
“I’ll keep an eye on the Tower inmate list.”
Derrick would have laughed, but he didn’t suppose he dared. “That would be very kind.”
Jamie laughed a little. “You’ll be fine, laddie. We’ll go have ourselves a goodly adventure somewhere safe after you’ve restored old Epworth’s treasure to him.”
Derrick thanked Jamie for his help and rang off.
He considered, wished he hadn’t ditched his Elizabethan costume, then decided there was nothing to be done about it.
He would scrounge something out of a rubbish bin, perhaps, and see if he couldn’t find the treasure.
He couldn’t lay claim to many skills, but he had a very good sense of direction.
He would retrace Samantha Drummond’s steps, then see what he could find.
With any luck, he would run across her phone as well.
He told Emily he was going out, then left the suite.
· · ·
Two hours later, he was sitting back on the couch, suppressing the urge to indulge in colorful language.
He had sent Emily home courtesy of Rufus, who also never seemed to sleep, then settled down to brood.
That he hadn’t slept very well in a pair of days most likely contributed to his foul mood.
The fact that the gate hadn’t worked was also adding to his unhappiness.