Roses in Moonlight

  And then once he was finished with his present business, he was going to get on with his life. He had plans to start dating, big plans, important plans that he would see to, aye, just as soon as he solved his current case.

  Never mind that he’d just decided that at the very instant the thought had occurred to him.

  There was a T-shirt thrown over the bottom of the bed. He managed to get it over his head without undue distress, but he supposed that would have to do for any and all grooming efforts for the day. His arm ached abominably, which he found slightly disconcerting. He touched the puncture wound gingerly, hardly daring to speculate on what had found its way inside. There was a bandage there, but he didn’t imagine Sunny had put in stitches. If she’d done more than just put a plaster on it after packing it with her miracle salve, he would have been very surprised.

  He gathered his courage, then got to his feet. He staggered to the door, then leaned against it for several minutes until he thought he could get the door open and continue on.

  He tottered into the sitting room and managed to get to the sofa, but no farther. He sat down heavily, then put his hand over his eyes and simply breathed until he thought he could open his eyes and not have the world continue to spin wildly around him. He squinted at the coffee table in front of him and blinked in surprise. Waiting there was tea, broth, and juice. He suspected that wasn’t for Samantha’s benefit. He wasn’t sure any of it looked very appetizing, but he wasn’t going to be ungracious. Well, any more than he had been already.

  He looked up to find Samantha sitting in a chair at the table, watching him.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  It came out more brusquely than he had intended, but what did she expect? His arm was on fire, his head felt as if it were stuffed with gauze, and there was a piece of Elizabethan lace sitting somewhere under a planter four hundred years in the past and it was that woman sitting over there’s fault.

  “You’re welcome.”

  He scowled. Why didn’t she just stand up to him and give him a right proper ticking off?

  He didn’t want to think about why that bothered him so much, so he simply didn’t. He ate what he thought he could manage, then sat back and tried to ignore how dreadful he felt.

  He needed a vacation. In fact he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a vacation. He was beginning to wonder if perhaps he shouldn’t take a vacation at a charm school.

  His head was pounding, his tum was far from settled, and he thought he might have to soon go have a little lie-down. And still his lace languished in a place where it shouldn’t. He looked at Samantha to find her looking off into the distance where he wasn’t. He sighed, then set his computer on the table.

  “I think I might have to sleep a bit more.”

  “Sure.”

  He pushed his tablet toward her. “Surf all you like, if you want.”

  She nodded but didn’t say anything.

  “We’ll try to go tonight.”

  She looked at him in surprise. “You’re kidding.”

  He wished he were. “I can’t leave that lace behind any longer.”

  “But you’re in no shape—”

  “I will be,” he interrupted sharply.

  She didn’t reply and for some reason that irritated the hell out of him.

  “How did Cameron get my password?” he demanded.

  She looked at him then. “He asked you while you were delirious. He pretended to be the ghost of Christmas future, promised dire retribution if you didn’t cough up the goods, and you blurted it out like a man with a secret.”

  He wasn’t sure he’d ever heard her say so many things in one sentence.

  He imagined his cousin had greatly enjoyed his role as reproving ghost. Perhaps there was something to be grateful for that it had been Cameron in the role and not some damned ghost in truth. In his delirium, though, he likely wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference.

  “Unsurprising,” was all he could manage to say, though he supposed it was a particularly lame comment on the whole situation, a situation that was absolutely untenable. His arm was killing him, which led him to wonder briefly if he shouldn’t have had a proper doctor look at it. His computer had been compromised—with help, apparently—by a woman who was too polite to tell him to get over himself.

  And he still had lace where it shouldn’t have been, but he was honestly not at all sure he would manage to get to it before someone else did.

  He decided that perhaps the best thing he could do was get himself back to bed and rest for the afternoon. He took a deep breath, then pushed himself to his feet.

  He supposed, looking at it in hindsight, it was the deep breath that had been unwise. Perhaps he should have fortified himself with several, as well as a lad on either side to keep him upright. Instead, what he had was Samantha Drummond, doing her best to make sure he didn’t destroy the coffee table.

  She caught him before he fell. He supposed it was just dumb luck that the table was topped with marble instead of glass. As it was, he heard something give under the weight of his knee on it. A porcelain saucer, perhaps.

  “Sorry,” he gasped.

  She put her arms around him and simply held on to him, cleverly avoiding his shoulder. “Breathe,” she suggested.

  He supposed that was good advice. He didn’t want to rest his chin on her shoulder, but in his defense, he was not at his best at present. He patted her back, because his hand was there and it seemed like a friendly thing to do.

  “I think I’m going to be ill,” he wheezed.

  “Please not down the sweater,” she said. “It’s cashmere.”

  “Textile snob.”

  She laughed a little. “If you only knew.” She simply stood there for a bit longer, apparently having to brace herself solidly to keep him from pitching forward onto her. “How are you?”

  “Still considering ruining your sweater.”

  “You know, you might feel better if you didn’t talk so much.”

  He would have laughed, but it was simply beyond him at the moment. Instead, he did as she had suggested and simply breathed until he thought he could make it back to his bed.

  “Better,” he managed.

  She put one hand on his good shoulder, then the other on his chest and held him steady until he could right himself. He was afraid he found it quite impossible to stay on his feet without holding on to her, even with the coffee table sitting between them.

  It didn’t bode well for his evening.

  “I feel better,” he announced weakly.

  “Sure you do. Here, let’s get you back to bed.”

  He found he simply didn’t have the strength to argue with her. It was taking all his energy just to keep his gorge where it belonged.

  He didn’t fight her when she eased around the table, then drew his good arm over her shoulder. He was fairly sure he’d gasped out an apology or two, but it was entirely possible he’d imagined that.

  Samantha stopped him just inside his bedroom. “Bathroom?”

  “Egads, woman,” he gasped, “my dignity.”

  “Which will be more seriously damaged if I have to rescue you with your trousers down around your ankles.”

  He wasn’t quite sure there was any farther south he could travel when it came to his pride, so he nodded, accepted her as a crutch, then stumbled along with her to the loo.

  Five minutes later thanks to sheer determination, he got the door open and managed not to fall into her arms.

  “You look green.”

  “I feel worse.”

  “Back to bed with you, then.”

  He wasn’t about to argue. He managed to get himself flat without ripping open his shoulder, but he supposed that was more Samantha’s doing than his. She peered at his shoulder.

  “I think that might be starting to bleed.”

  “This is my favorite . . . T-shirt,” he managed.

  “I guess you could pretend it’s marinara.”

  He l
ooked at her and did his best not to see two of her. “Had to tell him something believable.”

  “Well, the truth wouldn’t qualify for that,” she said, sounding increasingly far away. “I’m going to call Sunny.”

  He closed his eyes. “Cameron once thought she was . . . a witch.”

  “Is she?”

  He shook his head, which was a very bad idea. “Herbalist.”

  “Want a doctor instead?”

  “Please, nay,” he said. “Just Sunny.”

  “I think that’s wise. I’m not sure how you’d explain this otherwise. I’ll go call her.”

  He made a grab for her arm, which was a failure. She paused at the foot of his bed.

  “What?”

  “Sorry,” he said. “Arse.”

  “Yes, I believe you are.”

  He didn’t bother to argue. He simply closed his eyes and fought the urge to lean over the side of the bed and vomit. He was fairly certain Sunny could fix that by working on his feet, but he wasn’t sure she would be willing to after Samantha got through describing his behavior, which she no doubt would. Damn her.

  He realized with a bit of a start that he was angry, but he couldn’t decide whom he was angry with. Himself, definitely, because he was being rude and couldn’t seem to stop himself. Samantha Drummond, absolutely, because she wouldn’t tell him to go to hell.

  He just wanted to have it all over with so he could get her and that damned piece of lace out of his life once and for all. He didn’t know her, but he was sure he wouldn’t like her if he did. Too mousy.

  Of course, another lad might have called that characteristic gentleness or kindness, but he was who he was. He liked fast cars and brittle women, truly he did.

  He knew he was beginning to drool, but he couldn’t stop himself. All he could do was cling to the last vestiges of thought and concentrate on a plan. He would brush up on his accent when he had a minute, get himself and Samantha Drummond to the appropriate spot, then get in and out of Elizabethan England with a minimum of fuss.

  And then he would be done with everything associated with the ill-advised venture.

  Chapter 13

  There were odd things going on in the world.

  Samantha sat at the table with the afternoon sunlight streaming in the window and contemplated the oddities she had been faced with over the past few days.

  First was Derrick Cameron himself. He was a chameleon, apparently possessing a fairly substantial collection of personae and the courage to make use of them. He was CEO of his own company and obviously trusted enough by Lord Epworth to have been given the task of retrieving a matchless piece of lace. He owned a computer that had lots of things on it that she couldn’t get into, things that looked very suspicious, which only added to his cloak-and-dagger aura.

  But the man also believed in time travel, which in her book cast serious doubts on his sanity.

  She rested her elbows on the table and considered a few more things. Take his cousin for instance, and his cousin’s wife. Robert Cameron was from all reports the Earl of Assynt and looked absolutely like what she would have thought a Scottish lord dressed in a business suit should look like. His wife, Sunshine, was elegant in a midwifey, herbalisty, I’m-so-happy-with-my-hunk-of-a-Scottish-husband-that-I-can’t-stop-smiling sort of way. Their son was adorable, their happiness palpable.

  And their utter lack of surprise or disbelief over where Derrick had gotten his wound unnerving.

  She had watched them get Derrick into bed three days earlier, then listened to Cameron laugh softly over the pajamas Sunny had brought with her. He had accused his wife genially of keeping extra pairs on hand for emergencies such as the current one, had a kiss on the cheek in response, then the two of them had set to examining Derrick’s shoulder.

  Sunny had concocted something, packed the wound, then they had sat down to chat as if there wasn’t a man lying in that bed with a stab wound that definitely should have been seen to by a doctor.

  The one thing she could say for Sunny, the former herbalist and current wife of a Scottish laird, was that she seemed very capable. Her knowledge of herbs, as far as Samantha could tell, was extensive, and her faith in the ability of the body to heal itself with the right help was absolute. By the time she and Lord Robert had dragged themselves off home later that next morning, Samantha had been a believer herself.

  The ensuing three days had fallen into a pattern of sorts. She had slept and used Derrick’s credit card—the number very thoughtfully provided by Emily who had come once or twice to bring her more clothes—to download several books of dubious scholarly quality to his tablet. She had ordered room service and thoroughly enjoyed getting lost in mysteries and romances she would have had to hide under her bed at home.

  Sunny had come to keep watch over Derrick, spelled by Cameron, and neither of them had seemed to think there was anything strange about that. Samantha had spent her share of time with them, chatting about everything from British football to the weather in Scotland.

  She had felt a little disconnected, as if she’d been a statue in the middle of a play going on around her. The play had been very normal, but she had been the odd man out, the odd man thinking about a man who was lying in a bed, recovering from a stab wound, whose doctor had been an herbalist and his cousin not at all interested in calling the cops.

  Very strange.

  She had spent her share of time sitting by Derrick’s bedside, wondering if he would ever wake back up. Sunny’s brew that she forced down him as often as possible had seemed to have the side effect of leaving him completely out of it, but she supposed that had been a good thing.

  The reality of the rest of her existence was perhaps even harder to swallow. She had unlocked Derrick’s phone using his unconscious and unresisting thumb and sent another couple of texts, one to Lydia and another to Gavin, assuring them she was all right but that she’d had a little accident and was laid up, conveniently with friends of the original detective inspector from Scotland Yard. She could hardly believe she was using Derrick’s ploy of fending off the interest of thugs, but she hadn’t known what else to do and she hadn’t really been willing to talk to either Sunny or Lord Robert about it.

  It was, after all, a little difficult to discuss the fact that she was the reason Derrick had gone back in time to Elizabethan England and gotten that hole in his shoulder.

  So she had stayed where she was and done what she could to be useful because the alternative was going outside, empty-handed, to find herself in the care and feeding of men who would probably kill her if she didn’t produce what they obviously thought she still had.

  All of which left her where she was, sitting in a suite at the Ritz, nursemaiding a man who had gotten up earlier that morning and looked as if he might pass out in her arms. How he thought he was going anywhere that day was beyond her.

  A soft knock on the room door had her jumping so abruptly that she almost tipped her chair backward. She put her hand over her heart, got up from the table, and staggered across the floor with the grace of one who had been in bed for three days, suffering from a shoulder wound. She peered out the peephole, then sighed in relief.

  She opened the door and let the adorable Countess of Assynt in as if she had known her all her life. Sunny smiled and shut the door behind her.

  “How are you?”

  “Freaked out.”

  Sunny laughed a little. “I think you’re holding up very well. At least you have a great place to freak out in.”

  “There is that,” Samantha agreed. She nodded toward Derrick’s door. “He’s in there.”

  “Surly and unpleasant?”

  “Both.”

  “Then he must be feeling better.”

  Samantha shook her head. “I don’t think he is, but he’s determined to be up and about. I think he’s crazy.” Well, she thought he was crazy about a lot of things, but she wasn’t sure quite how to broach the subject with Sunny. “I put him back to bed this morning and he’s be
en there ever since, very quiet.”

  “He’s probably plotting something,” Sunny said wisely.

  “I wouldn’t doubt it,” Samantha agreed.

  But she couldn’t bring herself to even bring up the subject of what Derrick might be plotting, because she was fairly sure Sunny had no idea what that might be. She waved Sunny on to her patient, then took to pacing.

  She paused by the window, looked down into the garden, and fortunately for her peace of mind found nothing unusual there. She didn’t suppose that said anything, but a girl could hope. She finally sat down at the table because she had nothing else to do. Unfortunately, that gave her too much opportunity to eavesdrop.

  “I feel fine!”

  There was a pause. Samantha imagined, judging by the tone of the next statement, that a stern look had been delivered.

  “Derrick, you’re being nasty.”

  “I feel nasty.”

  “You just said you feel fine.”

  Swearing ensued.

  “You know, I can call a doctor and then you can answer all kinds of questions you don’t want to about what you’ve been doing over the past few days.”

  “Sunny, you have no pity.”

  “None. Apologize, or I won’t come back.”

  Gusty sighing ensued. “I apologize. I was an unmitigated ass.”

  “Jerk would have sufficed.”

  “People keep using that word when they talk about me.”

  “There’s probably a reason for that.”

  Samantha snorted before she could stop herself. She turned when she heard Sunny come out of Derrick’s room and pull the door shut behind her.

  “Well?” Samantha asked.

  Sunny walked over to the table and cast herself down into a chair with a gusty sigh. “He’s on the mend.”

  “Painfully.”

  “Loudly.” Sunny looked at her. “Are you married?”

  “Heavens no,” Samantha said in astonishment. “Not even dating anyone seriously.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you now: When they start to snarl, that means they’re on the mend. It’s at about that point that my Florence Nightingale impulses have ceased and I’m happy to limit my tending to tossing them the remote and telling them to get their own damned soup.”