Epilogue
Derrick paced along the hallway on the bottom level of his flat, from the front door to the kitchen and back again. Nervousness wasn’t in his nature, not truly, but then again, this was something big. Very big. Very important to someone he loved very much.
He heard her coming just as he’d touched the door again. He turned and watched as his wife came down the stairs. It should have been less gobsmacking than it was, that sight. He’d been married to her for six months, after all, and should have been accustomed enough to the sight of her.
Fresh-faced Yank that she was, a girl who had to spend a certain amount of time in Scotland every fortnight or she began to wilt.
He wasn’t sure he was equal to telling her just how much he loved her.
So he decided he would take matters into his own hands and show her—
He ran into her hand as she stood on the bottom step.
“Not on your life.”
He frowned. “I was just going to kiss you.”
“No, you weren’t just going to kiss me and, no, you can’t hug me, either. You’ll wrinkle my suit.”
“It could be put back on the hanger temporarily.”
She blew her hair out of her eyes. “Derrick, really. I’m close to throwing up.”
“That’s why I’m here to distract you,” he said. He smiled pleasantly. “Altruistic, as usual.”
“Self-serving, as usual,” she said, but she smiled as she said it. “If I get through this evening without puking all over his gallery floor, then we’ll talk. Right now, I just need to go get this over with.”
“All right,” he said with a sigh. He pulled his earbud out of his pocket, taped a mic to his cheek, then leaned forward and carefully kissed her on the cheek before he turned his phone on.
“Got you,” Oliver said.
“Here as well,” Peter said. “Rufus in front in three.”
Derrick looked at Samantha to find she was gaping at him. “What?” he asked in surprise.
“Are you taking the lads with us?”
“Of course. Where’s the sport otherwise?”
“Sport,” she said, with hardly any sound to her voice. “Sport?”
“Samantha, my love, you’re about to go to a gallery opening featuring your art. Your brother has knelt in front of you and begged you to give him exclusive rights to sell your paintings and we forced him to reduce his fee to an obscenely low ten percent. I’m in a suit. What more do you want?”
“What are Oliver and Peter planning on doing?” she wheezed.
“Making sure no one fingers anything hanging on the wall and taking copious notes of all the compliments heaped upon your lovely head. What else?”
“Laxatives in Gavin’s foie gras?”
“Caught that,” Oliver said. “Brilliant idea.”
Derrick smiled. “I’m sure they’ll be on their best behavior. You look lovely. I imagine Rufus is outside.”
She stopped him with her hand on his arm. “Do I really look okay?”
“Lovely,” Oliver chimed in.
“Gorgeous,” Peter agreed.
“Shut up, the both of you,” Derrick suggested. He looked at Samantha. “You’re stunning and your carriage awaits. Shall we?”
She took a deep breath, took his arm, then nodded. He locked up behind them, then opened the door for her to get in the back of Cameron’s black Mercedes. Rufus congratulated her on her upcoming success, then got them out into traffic with a minimum of fuss.
Derrick held her hand, then shifted so he could look at her.
She was still looking a little green, but he supposed that couldn’t be helped.
He took her hand in both his own, then stroked the back of it because he knew it soothed her.
Heaven knew it as the least he could do in return for all the ways she’d run interference for him over the past seven months, though he would have done it anyway simply because he loved her.
They had spent the month they’d been engaged in Stratford in a large manor house with several bedrooms. He’d tried to send Oliver and Peter off to actually do some business, but they’d insisted they needed to lounge about uselessly on the off chance that some theretofore undiscovered ruffian appeared and tried to vex Samantha.
Him, they cared much less about. He had apparently been all on his own.
Well, all on his own except for his future father-in-law, who had seemingly been delighted to accept an invitation to take up residence in one of the bedrooms—the one between Derrick’s and Samantha’s, as it happened—an invitation Derrick couldn’t quite remember having extended.
It had been surprisingly pleasant. He had offered Richard the keys to the Vanquish, Richard had complimented him on his performance during rehearsals, and father and daughter had occasionally gone for long walks together.
Derrick had happily accepted the occasional invitation to come along.
He supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised that perhaps it had been Louise McKinnon to be the fly in the soup.
Samantha had come to terms with that without fuss, but she had seemingly enjoyed her time with her father who had accepted a sketch of the original Globe—looking particularly authentic, it had to be noted—with a brisk nod and a rough clearing of his throat. Relationship healed.
And when it came to him, Samantha had been ferociously protective.
She had more often than not been the one to poach his earpiece and mic and work out with Oliver and Peter peace and quiet for him to rehearse.
It had been a novel sensation, that of being looked after for a change.
And she had sat through every one of his performances with tears streaming down her face.
They had married quietly in the village chapel the week after the show closed, with only his family and hers in attendance. Well, he supposed he counted the lads and the MacLeods in his family and she counted Gideon and Megan de Piaget, her great-aunt Mary, and her father in hers.
Cameron had thrown an enormous party for them at the keep, then done them the very great favor of taking his family and camping in Derrick’s boyhood home for a few nights, leaving them the castle itself.
Because he was a Cameron himself, after all.
He had thanked his laird very kindly for the concession a couple of days later, then taken his bride and gotten on with their lives.
Well, they’d spent a month backpacking through the Continent, looking at old things and famous art, but perhaps that was beside the point. Samantha wanted to be in Scotland when they weren’t in London and he had loved her for it.
And so they had set up shop in his flat until they could find something more suitable, he had gone back to work, and she had gotten to arting—along, of course, with agreeing to dispense her expertise in antique textiles.
She had been given her own earphone and mic and proved to be very adept at distracting buyers with discussions of how best to display their new treasure whilst secretaries wrote out eye-watering cheques to Cameron Antiquities, Ltd.
The other half of their life they spent in Scotland in the house by the sea that had slowly accumulated first the necessities, then the comforts.
Samantha’s flawless Gaelic had helped pave her way into the hearts of the villagers, along with periodic visits by her father, who had apparently over the years taken very seriously his own Scottish roots and the need to keep the mother tongue alive.
Derrick supposed what had cemented things for them had been a visit from Samantha’s mother who had swept in like a banshee, offended everyone within earshot, then swept back out again, trailing shards of sharp things in her wake.
Perhaps pity wasn’t such a bad thing after all.
“And here we are,” Rufus said brightly. “Ah, and someone to come get the door.” He looked at Samantha in the rearview mirror. “Break a leg, ducks.”
She smiled sickly and thanked him. Derrick got out first, then held down his hand to help her out. He put his arm around her shoulders very carefully so as not to muss either her suit or her hair, then took her hand and kissed it.
“Surviving?”
“I’ve been popping those antinausea things Sunny gave me all day and they’re just not working.” She looked up. “This isn’t just morning sickness, this is terror.”
“What do you have to be afraid of?” he asked.
She took a deep breath. “I don’t want to make a fool of myself.”
He shook his head. “Sam, whilst I think your brother is a git of the first water, I must admit that he has an uncanny knack for spotting talent, either in this century or those gone by. Would it ease you any to know I never go after paintings when he’s anywhere in the area?”
“You’ve already told me that,” she said, sounding rather ill. “Five times today.”
“There was six. He knows talent when he sees it, damn him anyway. He had no idea until yesterday that you were the artist. If he’d thought you had no talent, he wouldn’t have insisted on the show in the first place.
If learning the artist was his sister had made him uneasy, he would have canceled the show without a second’s hesitation. ”
She looked up at him. “Think so?”
“I know so,” Derrick said with feeling. “I’ve watched him do it before. He once called off a deal as the cheque was being smoothed out in preparation for the signature. He’s ruthless.”
“And I’m only giving him ten percent?”
“Aye,” Derrick said with satisfaction. “Which he agreed to almost without clenching his fists.”
He offered her his arm, then led her to the gallery doors that opened to reveal her brother standing there, looking extremely relieved.
“I was almost afraid you wouldn’t come,” he said.
“Really?” she asked in surprise. “Why not?”
“Better offer,” he said sourly, shooting Derrick a glare. He held open the door and allowed her to proceed inside.
Derrick found himself almost running into Gavin’s forearm.
“You ruthless . . .” Gavin seemed to be struggling to find just the right insult.