Read Online Much Ado In the Moonlight by Lynn Kurland - Free Book Online Page A

sat with her, nursing something in rustic mugs. Interesting, but not exactly what she was looking for. Megan looked over her shoulder.
    “Hey, Vikki,” she said warmly. “Nice nap?”
    “I’ll tell you about it after I don’t want to gnaw your arm off. Where’s the fridge?”
    “Over there,” Megan said, pointing to the far end of the kitchen. “Help yourself.”
    “I thought I would,” Victoria said. She made quick mental notes about Megan’s companions on her way by. She wouldn’t have normally, but the men were wearing authentic-looking period costumes: kilts, rustic-looking shirts, caps tilted jauntily atop heads. Well, at least two of them were in Scottish dress. The third was dressed in something made for Elizabethan nobility, though perhaps not as bedecked with baubles and lace as she might have expected for full-blown court attire.
    She shook her head wryly. Would there ever come a time when people didn’t throw themselves in front of her in hopes of becoming part of her next play?
    She turned her back on the wannabes, opened the fridge, and began looking inside for something edible. She poached some cheese and bread, then looked around for something to go with it.
    “Fruit on the table,” Megan said.
    Victoria frowned at her sister. She sounded as if she were on the verge of laughing. Why? She surreptitiously felt her hair. Was it that traumatized by her unexpected nap? Megan’s hair was just as curly as hers, and presently looked just as napped on. Victoria pursed her lips as she stomped back across the kitchen and put her things down on the table. She reached for an apple.
    Then she froze, her hand outstretched. She looked at the men sitting with Megan. Again, it wouldn’t have been the first time would-be actors had dressed up and put themselves in her path, hoping for an audition. These three certainly looked the part. But it wasn’t that. It was that she recognized one of them.
    Hugh McKinnon.
    The same Hugh McKinnon who had stroked the purple cape and feathered cap in her prop room.
    She sat down. Hard. Fortunately, there seemed to have been a bench put there for just such an exigency.
    “What’s wrong?” Megan asked innocently.
    Far too innocently.
    Victoria chose to let that pass. Instead, she pointed at the red-haired costume fondler.
    “I’ve seen him,” she managed.
    The man dressed in Elizabethan finery snorted. “I told ye, Ambrose, that Hugh would befoul the plans before we even started!”
    “I befouled nothing,” Hugh McKinnon said. He smiled at Victoria. “Good e’en to ye, granddaughter.”
    “Granddaughter,” Victoria repeated, but somehow she couldn’t manage to attach any sound to the word. She swallowed, but that didn’t work all that well, either.
    “Several generations removed,” the other two men said in unison.
    “Aye, weel, that as well,” Hugh said, ducking his head modestly.
    Victoria looked at Megan, who seemed quite at ease where she was and with whom she was sitting. She looked at her own hand to find it was shaking, so she curled her fingers into a fist and hugged herself.
    “He disappeared,” Victoria managed, nodding toward Hugh. “He was in my prop room, groping costumes, then he vanished.”
    “Hugh!” the other Scottish gentleman exclaimed. He stood, turned, and made Victoria a low bow. “My apologies for the disturbance. I am Ambrose MacLeod, your grandfather. Please feel free to call upon me anytime. I’m always about.”
    “He doesn’t sleep much,” Hugh offered. “A bit of a restless spirit, you might call him.”
    The third man gave a mighty snort, then stood and cast his mug into the stove’s belly.
    It disappeared without a trace.
    “I’m Fulbert de Piaget,” he said dourly. “I’m Megan’s great-uncle by marriage. Don’t suppose that makes us relatives, but since I’m always a key player in these escapades, you can call on me as well. But I do care for me afternoon rests, so don’t be about disturbing me