Unfortunately, a weekend spent in Thomas’s dream house, being forced to watch him be deliriously happy with his equally joyful and barely pregnant wife was, in her opinion, neither restful nor relaxing. She needed to be back in the city, where she could be the captain of her own ship, the mistress of her own fate, the cook at her own fire.
She hated Brussels sprouts, if anyone was interested.
They were Thomas’s doing; she knew that. He was on a health kick. Gone were the days when her brother divided his time among the various pursuits of making buckets of money, scaling dangerous mountains, and eating things full of saturated fat. In the place of that wild man was Homo sapiens domesticus, complete with apron and list of foods appropriate to fix a wife who was in the throes of violent morning sickness. How Brussels sprouts were supposed to help that, Victoria didn’t know. It was no doubt the least of the indignities Iolanthe MacLeod suffered in being married to Thomas McKinnon.
Though Iolanthe didn’t look unhappy. Victoria studied her sister-in-law from across the table and saw only a glowing but rather green beauty who seemed quite content to find herself shackled to a man who had once picked his nose onstage. Never mind that he’d been nine years old at the time. Victoria had written him off as an actor and never looked back.
Obviously, Iolanthe didn’t have the benefit of history to alert her to Thomas’s failings.
No, it was clear that the poor woman was suffering under the delusion that being married to Thomas McKinnon was a good thing. In fact, it was worse than that. Thomas and Iolanthe periodically shared glances that spoke of a truly deep and abiding love—as if they had overcome some great trial to be together.
Victoria snorted. The only trial they’d suffered was that Iolanthe had been unlucky enough to run into Thomas at his castle, where she had apparently taken complete and permanent leave of her senses and married him.
Leaving Victoria with the unhappy pleasure of watching them coo at each other like a pair of bilious pigeons.
Victoria turned away from the nauseating lovebirds and looked at her parents. Things were no less loving there, but considerably less mushy. Her mother looked serene. She was looking serenely at Iolanthe, who was holding her nose and waving away Thomas and the vegetables he was trying to foist off on her. Victoria hazarded a glance at her father. He was looking suspiciously at what was left of Thomas’s vegetables.
Victoria loved her father.
Not that she didn’t love her mother. She did. Helen MacLeod McKinnon was a lovely woman, supportive, enthusiastic, able to sit through very long dress rehearsals without shifting uncomfortably. But despite those virtues, Helen also possessed an abundance of what she termed “MacLeod magic.” Victoria called it like it was: woo-woo business. As far as she was concerned, those MacLeods could keep their second sight and knack for always being in the middle of odd happenings; Victoria would take her father’s solid, staid dependability over the unexpected any day.
“So tell me again what your plan is,” her father asked. “Point by point.”
Victoria gladly abandoned the rest of her sprouts to her father’s searching fork. “Lights and sound left two weeks ago. The costumes are being packed tomorrow. I’ll be back in Manhattan on Monday to make sure they get shipped off properly with the rest of the remaining gear. The actors are all quitting their restaurant jobs to get on the plane a week from Monday.”
“Restaurant jobs?” Thomas echoed. He choked, but apparently saved himself by means of a long drink of water.
Victoria briefly mourned a missed opportunity for just desserts, then decided it was for the best. Thomas was, after all, funding her. No sense in wishing too hard for his demise right away.
“Passports in order?” her father asked. “Actors with up-to-date shots?”
Helen laughed. “They’re humans, dear, not pets.”
“So you keep telling me,” John said, “but I remain unconvinced.” He shot Victoria a look. “Now, you understand that England is a strange place.” He paused and nodded in a knowing manner. “You know. Strange.”
“Dad, it’s not Mars,” Victoria said. “I’ll survive.”
“It’ll be good for her, Dad,” Thomas added cheerfully. “A little fresh air, the idyllic English countryside, a castle just waiting to be used as the backdrop for her latest show. By the way, Vic, what is it you’re doing?”
“Hamlet, you idiot,” Victoria said shortly. “I’ve told you as much a dozen times.”
There went that grin again. Victoria would have flung something at him, but her plate was empty and her father had finished any vegetables that might have made good missiles. She settled for a glare, but that did nothing to remove Thomas’s smirk.
It was that smirk that bothered her. It was a snarky look, full of mischief, full of things he knew that she didn’t. It was a look that, in the past, had always meant trouble where she was concerned.
“Hamlet,” he chortled. “How lovely. And you open, when?”
She rolled her eyes. “Four weeks from tonight. You know that, too. You have tickets for that opening show, and seats on a plane a few days before to get you there. Remember?”
“A month’s time?” her father asked doubtfully. “That’s a mighty tight schedule, missy.”
“I’ll manage.”
“I’m not worried about you; I’m worried about those flighty actors you have. Especially that Felonious guy.”
“Fellini,” Victoria corrected. “Michael Fellini. Don’t worry about him; he’s a professional.”
“He’s arrogant,” her father said.
“He’s gorgeous,” her mother countered.
He’s perfect, Victoria added silently, but her opinion was another matter entirely, and one she had no intention of discussing with anyone at the table.
“The cast will be fine,” she said out loud. “I’ve been rehearsing them into the ground for two months. Besides, they’re on their best behavior. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime for most of them. When else will they get to do Shakespeare in a real castle?”
“Mmmm,” John said skeptically. “Hope you have good understudies. Did Thomas give you enough money for understudies?”
“Thomas gave me more than enough,” Victoria assured him.
And that was true. Her brother had been outrageously generous, footing the bill for accommodations, food, transportation, and salaries for the whole of a month-long run of Hamlet on yonder blessed isle. She still wasn’t sure why, but she’d determined immediately upon hearing the offer that she wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Well, she might cast sidelong, suspicious glances at it, but she wasn’t going to do a full-on inspection.
Not in his presence, while he was awake, that is.
Of course, his money hadn’t covered Michael Fellini’s complete fee, but she’d managed to make that up out of her own savings. Again, another story for another time and one she would never discuss with her parents or her brother.
But she could ruminate about it plenty in private, which she was going to do as soon as she could escape the table.
There was no time like the present. She smiled at her folks.
“I’m a little tired from all this relaxation. I think I’ll head upstairs. Iolanthe, thank you for dinner.”
“And me?” Thomas asked politely. “No ‘thank you’ for me?”
“I thanked you by not jabbing a fork between your eyes.”
Thomas only laughed.
Victoria took her plate to the sink, then fled upstairs before she said anything she would regret to her still-chuckling brother.
She shut herself in her room and tried to walk out her frustrations. She needed to be off and doing, not sitting and waiting for her vacation to be over so she could be off and doing.
She paced from one end of the room to the other, going over her mental lists, checking off the items she had already accomplished and considering the things still outstanding. It was no small feat to move an entire production to
another country. In fact, if she ever second-guessed herself, she might have suspected she was out of her mind. But since she never engaged in that kind of self-doubt, she was unfazed. She knew she could pull this off and do it well.
Her opinion of her skills had not come without price. Whatever good things she could say about herself, she had earned. She was a director of substantial theater, rubbing shoulders with the very gifted, preparing and presenting to the world a quality of art that was equal to anything seen on Broadway.
Never mind that her company performed a very, very long way from Broadway. Never mind that her stage was in a loft above a New Age teashop. Never mind that her prop room was in the cellar next to where vats of things cunningly labeled “herbs” were kept, which left her costumes always smelling faintly like health food store. People could come to the theater, then relax with some chamomile during intermission. It was a great set-up and she was grateful for it.
And now England, with an honest-to-goodness castle to use as her backdrop. Did it get any better than that?
Well, it might, if Michael Fellini would be as interested in her as a woman as he was in her as a director.
But given that there was nothing she could do about that until she had him alone in backwoods England, she turned her thoughts to what she could control. She looked around for something useful to do. Unfortunately, her bags were packed, her bed was made, and the eight-hundred-page treatise on Elizabethan politics she’d brought with her was over and done with. She should have bought that pithy little tome on farthingale construction with her. One could never know too much about the time period.
She sighed. What she needed was a good romance. A good love story was nothing more than research where she was concerned. She had to direct romantic plays from time to time; she might as well know something about how they were supposed to go.
It was a certainty she had nothing of the sort from her own life to draw on.
She sincerely hoped that would change very soon.
“I have,” she said to the empty room, “spent too long in this house.”
She plopped herself down on the window seat and pushed open the window. It was still bitterly cold, but maybe the chill would distract her from her restlessness. She closed her eyes and listened to the sound of the waves rolling in against the shore. It was no wonder Thomas loved his house so much. Even she might be tempted to trade in the traffic noise of Manhattan for this kind of peace.
Then she frowned. There was something more weaving through the wind than just the sound of the ocean. It sounded like music.
Bagpipe music.
Victoria pressed her ear against the screen and strained to listen more closely. Yes, there was no doubt about it. That was definitely bagpipe music. Had Thomas been importing some of Iolanthe’s cousins in from Scotland to serenade him? Did Iolanthe have cousins? There was a cloud of mystery surrounding Thomas’s wife that she certainly hadn’t been able to penetrate. Thomas had promised to tell her all the year before, but he’d seemingly thought better of it . . .
A soft knock sounded, making Victoria jump in spite of herself. Too much imagined bagpiping had obviously started to get to her.
“Come in,” she said, sitting up straight and mentally girding on her armor for battle on the off chance it was Thomas, come to chuckle one more time.
But it wasn’t Thomas who poked his head inside the door; it was Iolanthe.
“Oh,” Victoria said, surprised. “Well. Come in.”
Iolanthe came inside the chamber, a little uncomfortably to Victoria’s eye.
“I didn’t mean to disturb ye,” she said hesitantly.
“You didn’t,” Victoria said honestly. “I could use the distraction from my idle thoughts.”
Iolanthe came across the room and perched on the seat. “Victoria,” she said slowly, “I know we haven’t had much time to get to know one another and mayhap this is an untoward offer . . . but if ye find yourself in need of aid whilst you’re in England, I would be pleased to give it to you.”
Victoria blinked. “Aid?” she echoed. “Why would I need it?”
Iolanthe shrugged. “Who’s to say? There have been times in my own poor life when I could have used the company of a sister.” She smiled. “The offer stands, if it suits ye.”
And with that, she stood, bid Victoria good-night, and left the room.
Victoria stared at the closed door. Aid? What kind of aid? Why did she have the feeling it wasn’t your run-of-the-mill, there’s-the-first-aid-box-for-Band-Aids kind of aid?
She sat there with bagpipe music wafting in the window, and shivered.
She really had to get out of Thomas’s house before she lost her mind. If she could have, she would have grabbed her suitcase and bolted from the house right then. But that might have tipped any number of family members off to just how weird she was beginning to think this whole gig in England was, and that she couldn’t have.
No, she would get herself ready for bed, get in, pull up the covers, and force herself to sleep.
Then she would get up and run like hell the next day, instead of waiting for Monday, and get herself back to the world she knew and understood, where people looked up to her and didn’t dare question her, where she could arrange things exactly the way she liked and watch them be carried off in the same manner. Yes, the theater was the place for her. The script was already written and there was no mystery as to the manner in which the ending was reached.
A particularly poignant bit of music swept through the window and came close to bringing tears to her eyes. Fortunately, she was made of sterner stuff than that, and had no trouble slamming the window shut, hauling together the curtains, and stomping over to the bathroom.
Bagpipe music.
It was enough to make her wonder if Thomas’s house wasn’t haunted. Iolanthe was certainly otherworldly enough to have acquired a few ghostly companions along the way.
With a snort, she shut the bathroom door, dug out her toothbrush, and applied herself to the very pedestrian task of brushing her teeth.
It seemed the most sensible thing to do.
She was sure she had just closed her eyes the moment before she heard Thomas banging on her door, saying something completely unintelligible. Victoria rubbed her eyes and fumbled for the clock. She couldn’t make out the numbers, but she had the feeling they weren’t in double digits.
Thomas opened the door and tossed a phone at her. “It’s for you.”
Victoria fumbled for the phone, then took a moment to figure out which end to talk into before she managed to get the other end to her ear. And then she wished she hadn’t.
There were shrieks in the background.
“It’s Saturday morning,” she said grimly. “This better be good.”
“It is.”
It was Fred, her stage manager. Victoria sighed and dragged a hand through her hair. “What’s wrong?”
“You won’t believe this,” he began.
Victoria could hear the shrieks fading in the background. That, at least, had to be an improvement. “Believe what?” she asked unwillingly.
“That was Gerard,” he finished.
“Why was he screaming?”
“He says the prop room is haunted.”
She was fully awake now. “But it’s a prop room.”
“So I told him.”
“Prop rooms aren’t haunted.”
“I told him that, too.”
Victoria counted to ten. When that didn’t work, she tried counting laid-back-looking sheep. In reality, all she wanted to do was count the ways she could have made Gerard suffer if she’d just been in a different century where thumbscrews and the rack were considered appropriate basement accoutrements. She needed him cataloging tights and doublets, not indulging in hallucinations. She ungritted her teeth. “Where is the coward now?”
“Nursing his nerves with a double-tall double-mocha latte down the street.”
Victoria pursed her lips. Gerard wasn’t importa
nt; he was indispensable. If he wasn’t there to manage the costumes, she was sunk. She sighed. “Will he come back? Does he think,” and she could hardly say the words, “that just the room is haunted? Or is it that just the costumes themselves are . . . um . . .”
“Possessed?”
“Something like that.”
“He was screaming too loudly for me to tell.”
“Then go ask him. Tell him I’ll pay him extra if he gets on that plane and plies his needle for the summer at Thorpewold Castle. Tell him we’re positive it’s the room and not the clothes. Tell him England doesn’t have any ghosts. Tell him anything to get him on the plane.”
“Will do, boss.”
“I don’t suppose he packed up everything before he saw what he thinks he saw, did he?”
“Nope.”
She paused. “What are you doing today?”
“I’m on my way home. Marge has tuna casserole on for lunch.”
Victoria squinted at the clock. “It’s too early for lunch.”
“I need time to recover for rump roast tonight. It’ll leave us enough for leftovers tomorrow as my last meal in the States.”
Victoria smiled in spite of herself. “Is she afraid you’ll starve this summer?”
“She hasn’t heard good things about English cooking.”
Victoria had eaten at Marge’s supper table more than once and suspected Fred would survive British fare well enough. “All right,” she said with a sigh, “I’ll catch a flight home this morning and do the packing myself.”
“Boxes and tape await you. The moving boys will be here Monday morning to cart the stuff to the cargo flight.”
“And the rest of the gear? Lights? Sound?”
“It arrived in England two days ago. It’ll be delivered on Monday to the locations your brother set up.”
“All right,” she said, surrendering. “I’ll see you next week at Thorpewold. Have a good flight. And make good notes of what you find at the castle. I don’t know that I trust my brother’s descriptions.”
“Will do,” Fred said, and hung up.
Victoria flopped back in bed and allowed herself three minutes of enjoyment before she heaved herself out of bed and made preparations to get back to the city.