“All the people are assigned a character to ‘play’ during the tour,” Fang told me, showing me a text on his phone.It was from Brother, and included a photo of a crossword puzzle, with a request for help on the circled item.
“I am now DI Mortimer of the CID.None of the others are actual police, and two of my colleagues are insanely jealous.Do you know about those places that hand out lorddoms, and if so, how much they charge?Also, do I have to get the title in my name, or could I get it in the name of Mortimer?I think one or two of the people on the tour would crap their metaphysical pants if I rolled up at breakfast and announced I was now a lord,”I read aloud.I looked up at Fang.
His lips twitched.
“If you tell me I’m like him one more time, I’m going to punch you,” I told him, giving him back his phone.
“Really?”He waggled his eyebrows at me.“Do I get to pick where you punch me?”
“See?”I said, pointing at him.“You’re every bit as weird as me.Mom, did Brother get a costume to go with his alter ego?Because so help me, if he got a Victorian policeman’s uniform and did not get me a street urchin’s outfit, I may well ban him from the reception.”
“Street urchin’s outfit?”Holly asked, having returned to the lobby.“You’re not wearing the dress you showed me?”
“Not for the wedding,” I said, and quickly explained the latest insanity concerning my father.
“Why do you want to be dressed like a Victorian street urchin?”she asked, looking confused.
I gawked at her, outright gawked.“How can you have known me for sixteen years and not known about my lifelong desire to cosplay as a plucky Victorian street urchin whom is swept away by a dashing but slightly dangerous, yet extremely affluent, British gentleman, with whom she later sets up a successful thievery school to benefit all the other urchins?”
“The first is ‘who,’ not ‘whom,’ and who is the affluent—”
“Fang, of course!”I said, giving her a look.
“If Fang is the cohort in your role-play fantasy, then it can hardly have been a lifelong desire, since you’ve only known him as long as me,” she answered, her eyebrows arched.
I arched mine in response, realized how idiotic that probably made me look (my eyebrows are not my strong point), and returned them to their normal position before saying, “There are times when I think you took your Buddhist nun vows far too seriously, Holly Alton-Mayer, and this is one of those times.”
She giggled.“I don’t recall taking a vow to point out when you were exaggerating, but if I did, then I apologize for being so unthinking.Besides, I left that life to be with Marla.”
“You’re still a layperson Buddhist, and more importantly, an instigator,” I told her, giving her another hug.Just seeing her again filled me with so much happiness I worried I might burst out into a song at any moment.“But luckily, it’s one of your charms.”
“I’ve never instigated in my life,” she said, laughing now, stopping only when Fang—who had gone out to the parking lot, no doubt to help whoever needed it—entered the hotel with the tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed man who set hearts aflutter in more locations than I could name.
“Devon!”Holly and I squealed at the same time; then we were in a three-way hug with our old friend, and Fang’s best man.
“I was never that young,” Iain told Kathie as Holly and I did a little jig of happiness at seeing Devon.
“I don’t think I’ve ever hopped around like that for a man, especially one who isn’t my husband,” she answered.
He gave her a long look.“Would ye hop fer me if I was askin’ ye to?”His accent, which was normally quite understandable, went full Highlander.
“That depends.”She leaned in close to him.“What would you be wearing while I was doing all the hopping?”
I stopped my Devon happy dance and sent my aunt a look.“If I can’t PDA with Fang, per Brother’s explicit request, then you have to keep your kinky role-play talk to a dull roar.”I thought for a moment, then added, “All right, I might be interested in this whole hopping and Scotsman scenario, but only because Fang does a really good Scottish accent.So go ahead, but don’t say anything that would shock Mom.”
“Oh, I’m fine,” Mom said, moving off to greet Marla, Holly’s wife, when she entered.“The Picts had a philosophy of live and let live, and I think we as a society have strayed away from that for too long.Marla, what a pleasure it is to see you again.”
“I don’t think the Picts were known for that at all,” Holly said in a whisper.
“Yeah, weren’t they pretty warlike?I suppose they had to be, what with everyone invading England.Devon!Please tell me you’re going to stay in England longer than just a few days.”
We moved over to join the chat with Devon and Fang, but after ten minutes of general catching up, everyone broke for their rooms to get ready for the parties.
“Hen party commences directly after lunch,” I told everyone as they all dispersed into various rooms on the second and third floors.“Fang’s bachelor do will happen when Brother rolls in.Just remember, Devon—”
“No sex workers, I know,” he said with a flash of a grin almost as nice as Fang’s.
“I don’t care who you have at the party,” I said, surprised he thought I’d doubt the man of my dreams.“I just don’t want you to get him in a fight like you have the last three times you had stag dos.”
