Connor stopped and frowned at her. "A heavy frying pan? On the fire? Why?"

To clunk you over the head with. She pursed her lips.

"To fry tomatoes in the manner you find so pleasing, no doubt."

Connor looked at Thomas. "A right pleasing wench, your sister. Obviously she knows what is important to a man."

"Ha," Thomas said, apparently before he could stop himself.

Victoria rolled her eyes and turned to take refuge in the kitchen before the men got hungry beyond their ability to carry on. She was tempted to stand behind the door and bean both of them on the heads, but that would defeat her purpose. She would just bean her brother and hopefully render him unconscious and unable to speak. And then she might actually have a moment's peace with Connor, who thought her a right pleasing wench.

That was a step in the right direction.

A million more of those and there might be hope for them.

Chapter 34.

Connor left his own chamber the next morning. It was his own chamber and not Victoria's floor, not because he thought she minded, but because he minded. Beyond all reason, but because he had two good eyes and a very fine sense of discernment, he was drawn to her. Very drawn to her. That did not bode well for his heart.

Witness the day before. After a most pleasant afternoon passed traveling at high speeds in Thomas's car, he had returned to the inn and found himself rendered quite speechless by the sight of Victoria McKinnon. It was difficult to imagine that he could have forgotten how lovely she was, but he supposed he could lay the blame for that on the car. Only his iron control had kept him from dropping to his knee and begging her to be his.

By the saints, he needed to go home.

Besides, as interesting a place as the Future was, the Past had its allures, as well. Never mind that he could not bring one to mind immediately. Who could blame him? Visions of automobiles, hot showers, and bangers and mash competed mightily, and quite successfully, with cold mutton, bathing in a cold stream once a year, and a lumpy mattress that crunched when he rolled over.

He caught his breath in consternation. Was he growing soft?

Nay, say it was not so...

He shook aside his foolish thoughts. He would depart for home the next day. But first, he would seek out Thomas McKinnon and thank him for his generosity. The clothing had to have come dear and though Thomas had magnanimously waved aside any of Connor's promises to repay him, it was right to thank him yet again.

Connor also wanted to express appreciation to Mrs. Pruitt for the many fine meals she had prepared for him. Indeed, the woman had spent a great amount of time each day tending the fire on his behalf. He would miss her fine victuals.

And before he departed, he would give the greater part of an entire day to what his heart desired: looking at, talking with, and, the saints pity him for a weak-spined fool, holding Victoria McKinnon.

By the saints, he found her bewitching.

He pushed away from the wall he'd been leaning against and made his way down the stairs and into the kitchen. Mrs. Pruitt was, thankfully, at the stove. Victoria was, the saints pity him, sitting at the table. He found that once he looked at her, he could not look away.

Her hair was cascading down her back in a riot of flame-colored curls. She was wearing jeans, as usual, and he now understood why she preferred them. He sat down with a plop in the chair next to hers, unable to look away.

Her skin was pale and her eyes bloodshot, as if she had spent the night weeping or being haunted by dozens of irritating ghosts.

"What is amiss with you?" he asked.

She shook her head with a wan smile. "I didn't sleep well."

Well, he supposed if she needed a nap, he could watch her sleep. He'd certainly done it enough times in the... past.

He blinked. Had he?

He looked at her again closely, then drew his hand over his eyes. Perhaps he should be grateful that he was going home the next morning. He was beginning to doubt his sanity.

Mrs. Pruitt set a plate down before him. He smiled gratefully at her, then he applied himself to eating it all before she handed him more. When that was finished, as well, he sat back and looked at Victoria.

Why, she hadn't even made her way through half of her meal!

He finished hers, as well.

Then he rose. "Mrs. Pruitt, my thanks for the tasty meal. Quite satisfactory. A pity I have no need for a cook in my hall at present."

Mrs. Pruitt turned and looked at him, her hand over her heart. "Indeed," she said, sounding pleased. "I appreciate the thought, Laird MacDougal. A high compliment, indeed."

"A cook of your skill deserves no less." He smiled once again, then took Victoria's hand and pulled her to her feet. "Come with me," he said, towing her from the kitchen like an unresisting horse who knew a pasture of high summer grass was over the next rise. Perhaps there was no grass, but there was a stage. Connor suspected it was Victoria's preferred place.

Actually, he knew as much. He had asked Thomas many questions the day before on their outing, and one of those questions had concerned what Victoria had been doing on the stage the day Connor had come to the Future and found her running about with her eyes closed. It had looked like madness to him, but Thomas had been certain it was something to do with plays and such.

Connor had little time and even less patience for frolics, but he supposed, since he was going to be loitering in the Future for the rest of the day with little to do, he might as well indulge in watching a little performance or two.

He found, as he walked up to the castle with Victoria McKinnon's hand in his, that he had grown quite accustomed to touching her.

Today, he reminded himself. But not tomorrow. Tomorrow was for his future, which was firmly placedin the Past.

He rubbed his forehead with his free hand. It gave him pains in the head to think on, truth be told.

He stopped in the bailey of the castle. It was a derelict place, with walls crumbling and no roof for the great hall. But there was a stage there and that seemed to be well built. He supposed there were worse places to linger.

"Why are we here?" Victoria asked.

Connor released her hand and looked down at her. "I thought perhaps you would do something onstage

for me. A bit of a play or some other such rot."

"Rot?" she echoed weakly.

"'Tis a manly term for a frolic. I can't appear too bloody eager to waste my time watching when I should

be training, can I?"

She looked at him for a moment or two in complete silence, then she smiled faintly. "I suppose you can't.

What would you like to see?"

"What can you do?"

"Lots of Shakespeare."

"Well, the Bard did have a lot to say." He paused and looked at her. "The Bard?"

"Another name for Shakespeare."

"Hmmm," Connor said uneasily.

It was tempting to sit down in the dirt and bawl like a bairn, but he did not weep. Well, not unless he

was bleeding from a gaping wound, but under those circumstances, he always claimed any errant tear to

be nothing more than a single drop of sweat. It was the only way to leave his ferocious reputation intact. He gestured to the stage. "Up on the boards with you, woman," he said, anxious to move onto something less unsettling, "and entertain me."

He watched her climb up onto the stage. He supposed he should have looked for a chair, but he suspected he was equal to the task of standing there and watching her perform. After all, how overwhelming could it be to watch a single wench be about her business?

"I'll do, well, there is a nice soliloquy Gertrude has."

"The queen?"

"Yes."

"After Ophelia dies?"

She stared at him for the space of several heartbeats, as if she had just seen a ghost. She nodded finally. "Yes. That one."

He waved her on. "One of my favorites."

Then he realized that he was either going to have to sit down or fall there. Gertrude? Ophelia? Who were they and why did he know them?

"Connor?"

"I am well," he said, planting his feet a manly distance apart and folding his arms over his chest.

"There's a chair behind the stage."

That would work, as well. He fetched it according to her directions, then placed himself in the middle of the bailey, where he could see Victoria best.

And then he wondered at his own foolishness.

She stood in the middle of the stage and began to weave a spell around him with her words, a spell he was certain he could not break and almost as certain he did not wish to.

There is a willow grows aslant a brook, That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream; There with fantastic garlands did she come Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples, That liberal shepherds give a grosser name, But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them: She stopped. Connor could not speak, either. It was as if he had never heard words before. These sank into his soul and left him not so much bemused as silent and heartbroken. Dead men's fingers, indeed.

Connor knew she had begun speaking again, but he could no longer hear the words. The sadness of the tale made his eyes burn with tears. He continued to listen, open-mouthed, as Victoria painted a picture before his mind's eye that left him desperate to stop what he knew had already happened. Ophelia had drowned; Hamlet was soon to be lost as well.

Hamlet?

Connor blinked. Who in the bloody hell was Hamlet?

He dragged his sleeve across his eyes and glared at Victoria. "We'll have no more of that death and mayhem. Do something more cheering. Something that will make me feel anything but a desire to drawn my sword and fall upon it!"

She smiled.

It was as if the sun had shone for the very first time in his life. He caught his breath, then found himself laughing. He knew not what she quoted, but she was having a conversation with herself, playing two parts, blathering on about someone named Bottom and a wench named Titania, and fairies and other amusing creatures.

Fairies? He stroked his chin. He'd known they would have to make an appearance sooner or later.

He sat for the better part of the morning, by turns laughing, contemplating, and forcing himself not to weep. He could scarce believe Victoria preferred telling her players what to do, rather than capering about the stage herself. Well, there was no making sense of what a wench would do without a man to aid her.

And then she began something entirely new.

O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power Dost hold Time's fickle glass his fickle hour...

May time disgrace and wretched minutes kill...

She may detain, but not still keep her treasure

He listened as she leaped from thought to thought, now about time, now about love, now about the vagaries of life. He wondered about the last. Was he in the Future merely as a matter of Time's caprice, or had there been a more solemn purpose? His grandmother's words came back to him and he wondered if this might have been the path she had foreseen him treading.

He wondered if he shouldn't make an immediate return to the Past, where he had obviously left his good sense.

"Anyone up for a drive?"

The masculine voice behind him giving vent to an invitation for one of his preferred Future activities was enough to have Connor on his feet. He looked behind him to find Thomas there.

"Where?" Connor asked, equally as happy for an outing as he was for the chance to escape his troubling thoughts.

"Edinburgh?" Thomas suggested.