Chapter 27 #2
She stood in the bathroom the next morning, looking at herself in the mirror. Did it show, that place she’d been? She didn’t feel any different physically, but she was definitely different mentally. She had stood in the midst of history and watched it roll on around her.
She was changed.
She considered braiding her hair, then put the brush down and walked out of the bathroom. No braid, no polyester, no quarter.
Derrick was sitting on the couch simply staring off into space. He looked at her immediately, then blinked in surprise.
“No braid?”
“Elizabethan England.”
He stood up, then walked over to pull her into his arms. He looked down at her seriously. “My turn today.”
“Is it?”
He bent his head and kissed her, so apparently it was.
“You know,” she managed a few minutes later, “you’ve got to stop that. It’s distracting you from stuff I’m sure you should be doing, like deciding what to have for breakfast.”
He smiled, kissed her once more, then put his arm around her and led her over to the couch. “Order whatever you like. I’ll trust you.”
“Well, it can’t be any worse than what we ate on our little trip to the past.”
“Please,” he said with a shiver. “Let’s not think about it.”
“And I think that was the good stuff.” She looked over the menu, ordered something hearty for him and less hearty for herself, then set the phone aside and looked at him. “Well?”
He took a deep breath, then reached over and handed her a manila envelope.
“What’s this?”
“Something Cameron sent over this morning. Faxes from Jamie.”
“Did we change history—” She stopped, then smiled. “No, I don’t imagine we did. Are these reviews?”
“I can’t bring myself to look.”
“If it makes you feel any better, you were astonishing.”
He blew out his breath. “I shouldn’t care.”
She reached for his hand. “You know, it’s a little frightening to think about failing at something you love. But you didn’t fail. You were riveting.”
“You just like me.”
“Yes, and I told you how absolutely amazing you were at least a dozen times last night.”
“I thought that was just to impress the lads.”
She smiled, because she didn’t believe that for a minute. “Where are they, by the way?”
“Off doing what they do. Wreaking havoc, making hay, causing a ruckus. Fetching reviews from Cameron and delivering them to me here with a smirk.”
She smiled and reached for the envelope. She pulled faxed copies of photocopies of what looked to be originals of some kind of seventeenth-century Variety magazine. She found what she was looking for, then handed it to him.
“You left women swooning and men wishing they could wield a sword like you.”
He smiled briefly, read, then slid the pages back into the envelope.
“Nice.”
She laughed a little. “That’s all you can say?”
“It’s what I did, not who I am.”
She smiled. “I said that first.”
“Well, aye, lass, I think you did.” He leaned toward her, then stopped. “If I start that up again, we’ll never get out of here.”
“Are we going somewhere?” she asked.
“I thought we might take a little trip north to Stratford. You should see Anne Hathaway’s house whilst we’re there. Not to be missed.”
“Is there an ulterior motive to this trip?”
“Come along and find out.” He nodded toward her room. “What’d Granny give you?”
“I didn’t want to look yet, because I was afraid of what Jamie would think. But I’ll go get it.”
She retrieved the pack from the dresser and carried it back in to find that Derrick had her bag sitting on the table. He looked up.
“Cameron brought this as well from its hiding place in his safe. I’m curious as to what it contains.”
“Which first?”
“Gems.”
She watched him pull the clear zippered bag out of her purse and lay it on the table. He opened the bag, spilled the gems out, then blinked in surprise. “There are forty-eight.”
She took a deep breath. “I know.”
He considered, then looked at her quite seriously. “I’m not sure, Miss Drummond, that I have told you adequately just how I feel about you.”
She shifted uncomfortably. “Do I want to hear it?”
He took her face in his hands, then kissed her, a whisper of a kiss she barely felt. He pulled back and looked at her. “If I tell you now, I’ll unman myself by a display of unseemly emotion.”
“Then you aren’t furious with me for having Granny give the others back to Lord Walter in 1602?”
“Nay, lass,” he said quietly, “precisely the opposite.”
“Would you have been disappointed if I’d kept them?”
He looked at her, then smiled. “Do you want me the hopefully decent man to answer that or me the pirate to answer that?”
She laughed, then kissed him that time, because she thought she just might love both incarnations. “I already know the answer.”
He smiled. “You made the right choice, one I’m not sure I would have had the courage to make. I’m impressed. I’m assuming that both the linen and the handkerchief are still in the past?”
“I thought it wise.”
“Jamie will be impressed.” He nodded at her pack. “What’d Granny give you?”
“We need gloves.”
“What’s wrong with our grubby hands?”
She shot him a look. “Your archival preservation technique needs some work, but I’ll let that slide just this once. Just try to keep this stuff out of the butter during breakfast.”
Her pack produced a length of lace that would have made a very lovely bridal veil. It made Lord Epworth’s piece of lace look like a placemat. Samantha shook her head.
“I’m not sure she should have sent this home with us.”
“Us? She sent it home with you.”
She looked at him frankly. “Share and share alike.”
He shook his head, but he was smiling. “There’s breakfast at the door. Let’s eat, then we’ll be on our way.”
“By train?”
“Heavens no, lass. We’re taking the Vanquish. If I happen to see my brother, I want him to know I’m driving something that runs.”
She watched him go open the door, then shepherd and eject the staff members who had brought them something to eat. She ate, she supposed, though she spent more of her time looking at Derrick than she did putting away breakfast.
He looked at her with a piece of toast halfway to his mouth. “What?”
She shook her head and smiled. “Nothing. Just seeing if there’s a difference.”
He put the toast down. “Think there is?”
She leaned forward, put her arms around him, then kissed his cheek before she let him go and got up to go brush her hair one more time. “I always thought you were amazing,” she threw over her shoulder.
“Hey, come back here and tell me that again.”
She only looked back, smiled, and continued on.
· · ·
She had to admit, an hour later as they were driving past the outskirts of London, that the Vanquish was a wonderful way to get around.
She didn’t sleep, but she certainly spent her share of time staring aimlessly out the window.
The scenery was all kinds of charming, but so was the driver, so she had to admit she felt a little torn.
She held his hand much of the time, or shifted a little in her seat so she could study his profile.
And she wondered about him, what his life was like when he wasn’t working, what he wanted.
But she didn’t have the guts to ask him any of it.
“Thank you for the list,” she said finally. “Of things you like. Well, you know.”
“About you?” He smiled. “You read it?”
“I did.”
He smiled and continued on. She supposed that the moment to ask him what he wanted out of life was just not the present one, so she settled for simply enjoying the ride, the company, and the scenery.
Derrick’s phone cheeping at her made her jump. He turned it on, then handed it to her. “That’s probably Oliver.”
She looked at the text. “It is. He says the bald guy and the skinny guy are lurking around the theater.”
“Would you ask him if someone could please come babysit my car so no random thug keys it?”
She did, then learned that Ewan had gone north with them and would happily keep an eye on Derrick’s car. She looked at Derrick. “Are you worried?”
“About those thugs?” he asked in surprise. “Well, I’m not sure we can shoot tranquilizer darts into them in this day and age, but no, I’m not worried.”
“Whom do you think they’re working for?”
He shook his head. “You know, this is what I still can’t understand.
You were given embroidery and lace by Lydia Cooke herself.
No one else could have planted it on you.
I thought this pair was after that, but that proved to be untrue, as events have shown.
They’re unabashedly interested in jewels and probably in the jewels Lydia Cooke obviously sewed into your bag.
But why send the jewels off with you if she was sending those two thugs off after you to retrieve them? ”
“Unless they weren’t working for her.”
“But if they weren’t working for her, then how could they possibly have known what you had sewn into your bag?”
She felt her mouth fall open. “Now, that’s creepy.”
He lifted his eyebrows briefly. “Agreed. So, I suppose the question now is, who would be interested in those jewels and might suspect that Lydia was trying to—well, let’s limit her to at least moving them to a different location. Who would know? Who would care?”
She felt something slide down her spine and it certainly wasn’t Derrick’s hand. “Edmund Cooke.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“I thought they were happily married.”
“I’d say that might be assuming too much, but we’ll see.”
“What are we going to do?”
“I am going to crash his rehearsal and chat with him in public. You are going to sit in the car with Ewan and his collection of things he shouldn’t own.” He shot her a look. “Today is my turn, remember?”
She shrugged. “Whatever you say.”
He shot her a skeptical look, then turned back to the road. She considered, then decided that perhaps the occasional romance novel Granny Mary had slipped her might come in handy. She looked at Derrick.
“Hold hands?”
He looked at her in surprise, but didn’t argue. And he left her hand on his leg when he shifted, which was handy, giving her ample opportunity to trace lazy circles on his jeans.
He took her hand and put it back in her lap. “Stop that.”
She reached up and slipped her hand along the back of his neck. He rolled his eyes.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“This will not get you what you want, Samantha.”
“Won’t it?”
He glanced at her, then laughed miserably. “Who are you?”
“Someone who survived Elizabethan cuisine and stood through an entire performance of Hamlet that seemed to last about ten minutes, that’s who. Now, don’t you think I’d be safer right next to you?”
He opened his mouth, no doubt to argue, then sighed. “Very well,” he muttered. “But stop touching me before I run off the road.”
She folded her hands primly in her lap and smiled. “All right.”
He shook his head with a sigh, then concentrated on getting them to where they needed to be. Eventually, he pulled his earphone and mic from off the dash, put them where they were meant to go, then started up the usual drill.
“Peter, how does the area look? Excellent. Ewan, which car park? Aye, that’s close enough.
We’ll watch for you—nay, I’ll not run over you, you ass.
Oliver, thugs under wraps?” He was silent for a moment or two.
“We’ll make for the theater. I’m assuming quarry is there.
” He waited, nodded, then looked at her. “I don’t like this.”
“You’d like it less if your car got stolen with me in it.”
“I suppose you have a point there.” He looked at her briefly. “You know that thing you were doing before?”
“The give me what I want because you can’t help yourself thing?”
He nodded. “Do that again later.”
She smiled, because he was so utterly charming, she could hardly keep her hands to herself.
Fifteen minutes later, she was walking with him along the river, past houseboats, and down to what she assumed was the rehearsal theater for Edmund’s latest.
“How are we going to get in?”
“I thought I’d pretend I was my brother.”
“Well, there is that.”
He got them inside the building with no trouble and inside the theater with only a puzzled frown as their reward. They made it halfway down the aisle before things took a turn she couldn’t say she’d expected, though Derrick didn’t seem terribly surprised by at least part of it.
“Edmund straight ahead,” he murmured. “And, oh, look, there’s Lydia doing her best harpy imitation.”
“No, I think that’s your brother staggering around up there on stage.” She watched him for another moment or two, then shook her head. “He’s terrible.”
“Aye, he is.” He nodded toward the wings. “I think that one there is Lydia Cooke.”
“Could be.”
“I’m not sure this can get any dodgier,” he said grimly. “I imagine you know what I’m thinking about now where you’re concerned.”
She looked around, then froze as she watched a couple get up from where they’d been sitting several seats away from the aisle where she was currently standing. Obviously they’d been watching the rehearsal as honored guests.
“Um, Derrick?”
“What?”
“It just got worse.”
“How’s that, love?”
She pointed. “See those people over there?”
He looked, then froze. “Tell me they aren’t who I think they are.”
“Oh, they are,” she said. She had to take a deep breath. “Those are my parents.”
He swore.
She was fairly sure she had, too.