Read Online So Much For Buckingham: The Camilla Randall Mysteries #5 by Anne R. Allen - Free Book Online Page A

to the tuna.
    Buckingham continued to stare at me.
    Okay, maybe he liked privacy when he ate. I went inside and made myself a sandwich with the rest of the tuna.
    I'd been checking my phone every five minutes, but I hadn't checked my email for a few hours. Maybe Plant had sent something. I booted up my laptop.
    Nope. Nothing from Sherwood, either, of course.
    But there were plenty more toxic reviews. On Book Reviews dot Com, Owain Glendower and somebody called Jasper Tudor seemed to have got themselves into a "flame war" with DickonthePig, Libra Rising, and Alfred the Cake. It was horrific, but also pretty laughable. Luckily, they dropped any mention of me early in their Tudor-vs-Plantagenet battle in the comment thread. Owain and Jasper quoted a lot of Shakespeare, and the other two used mostly incomprehensible British slang, but they all threatened each other using obscenities that nearly seared my eyeballs.
    Why did the Internet bring out such bad behavior in people? I closed my laptop and decided to watch the TV news instead.
    I had a TV now—an old DVD-combo hand-me-down from Silas and Plant—plus cable, which would be cut off if I didn't get my royalties soon.
    I poured myself the last of the Chardonnay and took it with my sandwich into the little living room.
    But I nearly spilled the wine when I saw Plant—there on the TV screen. He was wearing his new Ralph Lauren tuxedo. But it was covered with what looked like the world's worst case of dandruff.
    The announcer said there had been an accident—or maybe a bomb—at the Old Vic Theater in London.
    Plant looked relatively uninjured, although his hair was mussed, which almost never happened.
    A reporter asked him about the bomb and Plant said something odd about Richard III. I wondered if he might be in shock.
    The explosion—or whatever it was—had happened on Friday night in London, which would have been early afternoon yesterday in Morro Bay. Just about when I'd been talking to him on the phone.
    Maybe that's why the call got cut off.
    And here I'd thought Plant had simply been cavalier about my distress. I should have known better. I reached for my phone and called him again, feeling awful. He might be lying injured on some hospital bed. The newsman said something about people being treated at a nearby London hospital.
    The phone rang and rang and went to Plant's voicemail, again.
    Should I find the hospital website and call them?
    But that would be expensive, especially since I'd probably be put on hold and use up all my minutes.
    I had to phone Silas. He couldn't be so angry over something that happened twenty years ago that he would have no concern for the man he'd just married.
    I decided to take a chance and dialed Silas's number.
    Voicemail.
    I started to feel panicky. Maybe there would be more information about this bombing, or whatever it was, on British news sites. I went back to my laptop and started Googling.
    The Guardian had a long article about the theater incident, but didn't offer much information I could use. They said only a handful of people had been hospitalized. Most had been treated in some sort of portable clinic. No injuries were life-threatening, they said. The reporter seemed to lean toward calling it an accident.
    Somehow that made me less worried than if it had been a bomb. Plant was probably fine.
    But then why wasn't he answering his phone?
    Maybe something was wrong with it. I checked my email. Plant would certainly have Wi-Fi at the hotel. He'd said something silly about not taking his laptop so he and Silas would have fewer distractions. I hoped he'd changed his mind when the trip changed from honeymoon to theater tour.
    Oh, good. I had one new email. From a U.K. address.
    I started to feel relief. It had to be either Plant or somebody from Sherwood.
    It wasn't Plant's usual email address, but there was his name at the bottom. "Plantagenet O." The "O" must be a symbol for a hug. He'd never used it before, but these were