Chapter One #3
Imogen didn’t care. She was simply grateful for something that resembled food, no matter its temperature.
She drank, waited for some of her brain fog to recede, then propped her chin on her fist and tried to concentrate on the scenery.
She watched the coast, wondering if there might be a spot of sand there for a good stroll.
There looked to be a decent amount of sand.
There also looked to be an enormous castle out there.
She suspected she was either still dreaming or she had wandered into a dream.
She was fairly sure she was seeing things that couldn’t possibly exist in real life.
She rubbed her eyes and looked again out the window. The castle was still there, though it was going to be out of frame soon. She looked at Tilly.
“What is that?” she asked, pointing with what she realized was a shaking hand.
Tilly frowned. “What is what?”
She waved her hand toward what she was seeing and only succeeded in rapping her knuckles smartly against the window. She sucked on them. “That out there.”
“Farmland.”
“No, over there,” Imogen said. “By the ocean.”
“Oh,” Tilly said, peering thoughtfully into the distance. “That’s Artane.” She looked at Imogen and smiled. “It’s a castle, Imogen. You might want to get used to them if you’re going to be crawling over them for the next couple of months, looking for the good stuff.”
“But it’s enormous.” Imogen had another look. “At least it looks enormous from here.”
“It looks enormous from there as well,” Tilly said dryly. “We could rent a car and go, if you like.”
“It’s probably just a shell, isn’t it?” Imogen asked, hardly daring to hope for anything different.
“Oh, definitely not,” Tilly said. “It’s been owned by the same family for the past eight hundred years. From what I’ve seen, they’ve managed to hold on to quite a bit of history over the years, which is a polite way of saying I don’t think they’ve thrown anything out.”
“You’ve been inside?” Imogen asked in surprise.
“Years ago. I guess you can take that to mean they do let the public in now and then. Stephen de Piaget is the current lord, I’m fairly sure.
I had a class from him at Cambridge. I’m not sure I can parlay that into a personal tour, but I could try if you like.
Who knows what you might find inside the walls? ”
“I’ve been sent on a mission for the unusual and quirky,” Imogen said, “not just the regular old medieval stuff.” She tried to ignore the regret she felt over that.
To her mind, medieval was medieval and it was all amazing.
To actually be in the same room with things that had been used by others centuries in the past .
. . well, how could she not get excited about that?
Quirky was great, but so was an original sword forged hundreds of years ago.
When she had her own projects and wasn’t beholden to the whims of a director who wasn’t her, she would look for authentic over odd.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t in charge and her director was, she had to admit, one of the worst in the business.
He was in charge of not just a medieval period piece, but a medieval period piece with music.
Dancing knights, singing swords, she had no idea what else he wanted, but she knew it had to be quirky.
And given that she’d been given a big, fat promotion on this project, she was going to deliver quirky if it killed her. Which it just might.
“I should have just googled quirky medieval stuff,” she said, wondering how much of what had been going on in her head she’d said aloud. Tilly didn’t looked shocked, so perhaps she’d managed to hold on to her complaints more successfully than she’d thought.
“At least you’re not having to look for locations.”
“Oh, I’m supposed to keep my eyes open for that as well,” Imogen assured her. “And provide lots of unusual stuff that looks medieval but doesn’t cost medieval.”
“Well, that’s what happens when Max Davis is writing the checks,” Tilly said with a sigh. “He likes to be really hands-on about it all. At least he’s safely tucked away in Manhattan until after New Year’s.”
“He is, but Marcus is coming over in a month to see how things are going.”
Tilly swore. Imogen understood. Marcus Davis was a royal pain in the backside, the son of a producer with unlimited funds, a man who thought he should be in front of any camera at all times.
The guy lived his life worried about presenting his best side for whomever might be looking his way.
With a camera in their hands, of course.
Or a phone. Or just an admiring audience comprised of souls who had no sense of pitch.
The thought of that was almost enough to make her wonder if her sister could put her on another puddle jumper and send her off into Podunkville where she could lose herself in a field of something tall and not have to deal with giving Marcus Davis the tour of future locations.
Never mind facing the moment where she would have to tell him that no, she really didn’t want to date him. It wasn’t going to go well.
She yawned. When that didn’t help, she yawned again.
Artane had gotten itself too far behind them for her to gape at it any longer, so she supposed it would be all right to close her eyes.
And once she did, she realized she was going to miss the rest of the scenery.
She would have to catch it with Tilly in the car when they traveled south.
She realized there was something that was bothering her, and it wasn’t just the raw spot on her forehead she now had thanks to too much contact with the window. It took her far longer to figure it out than it should have, but when she did, it was almost enough to wake her up.
How had that blond guy known which train she was supposed to be taking?
She tried desperately to attach enough importance to that to keep herself awake, but it was hopeless.
Sleep beckoned. She was fairly sure it had a comfy, overstuffed chair and a plaid blanket right there, calling her to in a way she couldn’t resist. She fought the urge valiantly for a few more minutes, then decided that if there was one thing she knew, it was when to throw in the towel.
A little nap, then on to being brilliant at finding all sorts of odd and quirky medieval items.
She could hardly wait to see what she might find.