The Presence Part 7

David smoothed back his freshly washed dark hair and shut the refrigerator. "Wow, we sure have made this home. Do you think it's still all right if I delve into the refrigerator?"

"Yes, I'm sure," Toni said. "It is our food in there. There wasn't a thing in the place when we arrived, except for a few tea bags!"

"Hey, I know. I'm going to whip up a really good breakfast. Think Laird MacNiall will like that? You know, Toni, you're going to have to be careful when making things up from now on. This guy turned out to be real, and you have his ancestor being a murderer! From now on, invent characters that are n.o.ble and good."

"Hey, Oth.e.l.lo was n.o.ble, and he killed his wife," Toni said.

"That breakfast doesn't sound like a bad idea," Gina said.

"We should make Toni cook," David said.

"No!" Kevin protested, standing in the kitchen doorway. "We'll definitely get kicked out if we do that." He grinned, taking the sting out of his words, and surveyed the kitchen. "Imagine this place if we had a few more funds! I'd love to see baker's rows of copper pots and pans and utensils."

"It's not our place anymore," Gina reminded him.

"Soft yellow paint would bring in the sunlight," David mused.

"How the h.e.l.l can you be so cheerful this morning?" Gina asked him.

"I'm eternally and annoyingly cheerful, you all know that," Kevin said. "Things will work out. Hey, whoever made the coffee did a full pot, right?" he asked, moving to the counter.

David closed the refrigerator door and leaned against it, looking at Kevin. "Think that Scottish lairds like eggs Benedict?"

"Shouldn't we do something with salmon?" Kevin countered.

"Good point," David agreed.

"I'm glad you two can worry about breakfast," Gina murmured. "What are we going to do?"

"We're going to sit down like the good friends we are and figure a way out of this," David said flatly. "Where's your husband, Gina?"

She shook her head. "He wasn't in the room. He's out somewhere...walking, playing in the stables, Lord knows."

Thayer came walking into the kitchen, bearing the newspaper from Stirling, the nearest major city. He set it on the table, offering them all a grimace. "Good morning, we can at least hope."

"Maybe, but only if we start over with the coffee. Gina, did you make this?" Kevin asked, tasting the brew. "What did you use, local mud?"

"It's strong, that's all," Gina protested.

"So, what do we do?" Thayer asked.

"We'll wait for Ryan and then figure out what we can do. Of course, we have until Monday before we need to worry about where we'll sleep!" Gina sighed. "I should call the travel agency in Stirling and start canceling the arrangements for tonight."

"Sixty people at twenty-five a pop--pounds sterling," Thayer said woefully. "My place in Glasgow is small, but if we buy a few pillows we'll be fine."

"We all quit our jobs," Kevin reminded him.

"And we can get new ones," David said.

"There has to be some recourse here," Toni said.

"Toni has been talking to Laird MacNiall again," Gina warned, trying to keep emotion from her voice.

"I wasn't fighting with him!" Toni protested.

"Well, you didn't exactly offer him warm and cuddly Southern hospitality," David reminded her.

"I'm not Southern!"

"You could have faked it," Kevin said.

"Actually, you are from the south--the south side of D.C.," David offered.

She glared at him. "Look, I had a conversation with him, and he wasn't miserable at all," Toni said.

David gasped suddenly and walked around to her, looking down into her eyes. He squeezed her shoulders. "You didn't...I mean, Toni, we're in trouble here, but you don't have to.. .you don't have to offer that kind of hospitality, no matter how dire things are looking!"

"David!" she snapped, feeling a flush rise over her cheeks. "I didn't, and I wouldn't! How the h.e.l.l long have you known me?"

Gina giggled suddenly. "Hey, I don't know. In the looks department, he's really all right."

"What she really means is," Kevin teased, "if it weren't for Ryan, she'd do him in a flash."

Gina leveled a searing gaze at him. "The breakfast better be d.a.m.ned good."

"Look!" Toni said. "I talked to him but I didn't sleep with him. He was in my room, but..."

"What?" David demanded, drawing out the chair at her side and looking at her, his dark eyes very serious.

"It seems that I was in his room, so I moved into the next one," she told him. "We had to talk and we were both cordial, okay?" she said.

"You just talked to him.. .without..."

"Being b.i.t.c.hy?" Kevin asked bluntly.

"Dammit! I was polite."

"Okay, okay!" David said.

That was it. She was offering no further explanations of how she might have gotten into a cordial conversation with the laird. "And now I'm thinking that if we ask really politely, maybe he'd let us do tonight's performance so that we can recoup some of our losses."

"She's got a good idea there," Thayer said.

"Omelettes!" Kevin said suddenly. "Salmon and bacon on the side. So who gets to ask Laird MacNiall if we can do the tour tonight?"

"Toni," David said, suddenly determined. "She has to ask him. She's the one who's talked to him."

"Toni? Oh, I don't know about that," Thayer protested. He looked across the table as she glared at him. "Sorry! But you seem to have a hair-trigger temper with the guy. It's kind of like sending in a tigress to ask largesse of a lion!"

Toni groaned. "I don't have a hair-trigger temper. Ever. He was very aggravating last night, and I thought that I was defending us."

"You were," David a.s.sured her.

"All right," Gina said. "Toni, you ask him."

"Ask him what?"

They all jolted around. Bruce MacNiall was standing in the kitchen doorway with Ryan. This morning, he was in jeans and a denim s.h.i.+rt. Apparently, he hadn't been sleeping. His ebony hair was slightly windblown and damp.

"I've got to get dressed," David said. "Excuse me."

"I might have left the water running," Thayer murmured. "I'll be right back."

"Got to plan the menu!" Kevin said, hurrying for the door. "Mr. MacNiall...Laird MacNiall, we're going to cook a great.. .uh.. .brunch. In thanks for your hospitality, whether intended or not."

Ryan, staring at all of them as if they'd lost their senses, came striding in, heading for Gina and Toni. "The countryside! My G.o.d, I thought I'd taken a few good rides, but you should see the sweeping hills! There is nothing like seeing this place through Bruce's eyes!" Ryan loved both horses and free s.p.a.ces. His work the last several years as a medieval knight at the Magician's Court right outside Baltimore had seldom allowed him a chance to spend time with his beloved animals that wasn't part of training in closed in s.p.a.ces. He must have been happy.

"Why don't you tell me about it upstairs, sweetheart?" Gina said, rising.

"Why upstairs?" Ryan demanded.

"Toni wants to talk to Laird MacNiall," Gina said. She rose, caught hold of his s.h.i.+rtsleeve and dragged him along with her, smiling awkwardly as she pa.s.sed Bruce MacNiall.

Toni was left alone at the table. Bruce was aware that his arrival had caused an exodus, and he was evidently somewhat amused. Especially since it had been so very far from subtle.

"They're afraid of me?" he queried.

Toni inhaled. "Well, it seems that we're all realizing that you do actually own this place and that we have been taken."

"Good," he said, striding toward the counter.

Toni winced. "The coffee is a bit..."

He'd already poured a cup and sipped it.

"Like mud. It will do for the moment," MacNiall said. He turned and leaned against the counter, looking at her. "What are you supposed to ask me?"

"Well..."

"Well?"

He might be in jeans and tailored denim, leaning against a counter with a coffee cup, but she could well imagine him in something like a throne room, taking pet.i.tions from his va.s.sals.

She stared at him a minute, determined that she wasn't going to be so intimidated. They weren't living in the feudal ages, after all.

"We had booked a large tour group for tonight. We don't want to have to cancel."

"What?" His question was beyond sharp. It was a growl.

Maybe she shouldn't have been quite so blunt. He had slept in a chair in her room last night, but that hadn't made them bosom buddies.

"Look," she said impatiently, wondering what it was about him that goaded her own temper so severely. "You know that we're really in a mess here. And if you take a good look around, you'll have to admit that you owe us."

"I owe you?" The words were polite, but it was quite evident that he found the mere idea totally ludicrous.

So they were right! she thought with a wince. She was quick to become defensive and then offensive with the laird. But she had gone this far with a brash determination. There was little to do other than play it out.

"Yes," she said with conviction. "We've worked on walls, done masonry, fixed electric wiring.. .scrubbed on our hands and knees! Quite frankly, we're more deserving of such a place--at least we've put love and spit and polish into it. How you could own such an exquisite piece of history and.. .let it go like this, I can't begin to imagine."

She could see the outrage and incredulity slipping into his eyes. Though he didn't move, every muscle in his body seemed to tense, making his shoulders even broader.

Inwardly she winced. Great, she thought. So much for playing it out!

She was supposed to be talking him into allowing them to operate their tour, not offending and angering him.

"So now you're an expert on maintaining a Scottish castle," he said.

She stared into her cup. A sudden and vivid recollection of falling into his lap came to mind. Her fingers against his flesh, pressing into his.. .lap. The easy way he rose and simply deposited her down...

Last night his behavior had been courteous--and kind. She realized then that she was attracted to him, and somewhat afraid of him, as well. And her hostility toward him had everything to do with her inner defense mechanism.

Ryan suddenly burst back into the kitchen. Toni was certain that he hadn't been far away, that he'd been listening in.

"Toni isn't explaining this very well," Ryan said, turning toward her with a fierce frown. "We really did do a lot, and not just cosmetic work. We did some structural work, as well. Honestly--"

"Yes," Bruce said, staring at Toni.

Her heart quickened.

"Pardon?" Ryan said.

"Miss Fraser wasn't particularly eloquent in her plea, but I do see that you've done a lot of labor here. And I quite understand that you're in a bad position. Your group can come. Apparently you're going to need the money." He poured his coffee down the drain and exited the kitchen.

Ryan stared at Toni in amazement. Then he bounded toward her, drawing her from the chair, grinning like a madman. "Yes! Yes!"

Gina came in behind her husband. They hugged one another, dancing around the kitchen.

In a moment Thayer was back in, and then David and Kevin. They were so pleased, Toni wondered if they realized that they hadn't gained anything but a single night. And though it would keep them from sleeping on Thayer's Glasgow apartment floor for the next week, it would far from recoup their investment.

"We're going to cook up the best breakfast in the world," David said.

"We might want to start by brewing a new pot of coffee," Toni told them, and she couldn't help a grimace toward Gina. "Laird MacNiall just dumped yours down the sink."

"Really!" Gina said.

"So your coffee sucks!" Ryan said cheerfully, kissing her cheek. "You're still as cute as a b.u.t.ton."

"Get out of here, the lot of you," Kevin said. "Shoo! We have to cook."