Randall #03 - Sherwood Ltd.

by Anne R. Allen

  “Oh no. Ooh no…” Rosalee wagged a finger as if scolding a child. She stomped toward Henry and Alan, who had been retreating toward the inner office. “What are you guys trying to pull? Is this one of those scams? I’ve read about this stuff. You say you’re going to publish a book and then you charge an arm and a leg for the editing. No way. That book is fine like it is. I refuse to change one word. No way am I doing any more writing. That thing is done.” Rosalee’s lower lip trembled with dramatic grief. “The most perfect day of my life and you’re ruining it!”

  “I assure you, there’s no charge for editing, Ms. Beebee…” The Professor gave me a pleading look. “Perhaps Ms. Randall can explain the publishing process…?”

  I put on my Manners Doctor smile.

  “Why don’t I show you the market square and the old manor house, Rosalee? The town center is lovely. They don’t allow cars because the roads are so narrow. You’ll feel as if you’re walking back into Robin Hood’s time. I’m sure everybody can wait until later to discuss business.”

  Rosalee’s sunny smile returned.

  “Yeah. Let’s go! My boyfriend is picking me up at seven, but maybe we could go for a walk first? Get a little something to eat?”

  Boyfriend. This woman had already acquired a local boyfriend.

  “Oh, yes, do take her for a walk, Miss Randall,” Henry said with enthusiasm. “We’ll discuss the particulars on Monday. I’ll get Miss Beebee’s things out of the boot of my car. I need to be off to Nottingham. I’m already late. Emily—my wife—won’t like it if I miss tea.”

  “All sorted, then,” said Alan. “I’m off, too. I’m expected at home.” He looked as if he might actually be eager to return to his “ball and chain.” Whether this was due to Rosalee’s unexpected boyfriend or her aggressive manner wasn’t clear, but Rosalee didn’t appear to have fulfilled his expectations. Perhaps she had exaggerated her interest in him in order to land her contract.

  Or perhaps she was as outrageous a liar as Alan Greene himself, and the Baron had met his match.

  Chapter 34—Cuddly Predators

  Rosalee bounced back from her fit of pique as soon as we were outside.

  “This place is awesome!” she said, gazing toward the river. “You’ve got to show me everything.” She grabbed my wrist like an eager child. When we were out of earshot of the factory, she stopped, squeezed my arm and burst into laughter. “Those guys—they’re so Monty Python! How can you be around them without bursting into hysterics? I don’t know how you do it. But then, you know how to pretend to like people when you don’t. I mean, that’s what manners are about—right?”

  I said nothing, which didn’t seem to concern Rosalee. Her patter didn’t leave much room for response. The woman hardly stopped for breath.

  “I can’t believe how totally boring those guys are,” she said with a giggle. “I met that Alan Greene guy in a forum for Robin Hood fans. Alan said his grandfather was Richard Greene, some guy who played Robin Hood on an old-time TV series, but do you think he has booked me on one TV show? No. Not one. Why have a grandfather who’s a hot shot TV star if you can’t even get somebody a spot on daytime talk?” She sighed. “I guess he thought we were going to hook up or something. He was all over me in the car. I had to move to the front seat with the old Hobbity guy when we stopped for gas.”

  I wondered if Rodd Whippington knew his new protégé considered him an “old Hobbity guy.” Her move to the front seat might explain why he felt he had to mention his wedded state back at the office.

  “As if!” Rosalee pulled the zipper higher on her jogging suit to mask the lush contours of her figure. “And you know, I Googled it and book editors make about as much as, like, trash collectors. Who needs that? I’ve got to find an English guy who can support me.” She skipped along the river walk in her pink and silver running shoes, giving friendly waves at startled passersby.

  So Alan Greene had told Rosalee he was an editor—no more implausible than his other stories. And claiming Richard Greene as a grandfather—that probably got him a few online conquests. I wondered how many Google-search personas the man had.

  Rosalee went on. “Alan isn’t as good-looking as his picture, anyway, and I didn’t get a good feeling about him. First impressions are so important, aren’t they? Besides, my other English boyfriend Colin is a sales rep for a double-glazing company. They put windows in old buildings. He says he makes pots of money. I guess he would, since old buildings are the only kind they’ve got around here. Oh, look—photo op!”

  As we rounded a corner and caught a glimpse of the town square, Rosalee pulled out her camera phone and clicked a photo with hardly a pause in her monologue.

  “Colin talks like that: ‘pots of money.’ I’m going to stay with him in his cottage in this village called Puddlethorpe. It’s too sweet for words. I met him when he was visiting California. He’s into cowboys. Isn’t that cute? I’m into English outlaws and he’s into American outlaws: gunslingers and stuff, like Jesse James.”

  I had never thought of gunslingers as cute, but perhaps that’s what they had become, like Robin Hood and his band of thieves: once-fearsome predators, now reduced to cuddly entertainment for small children, like plastic dinosaurs and plush tigers.

  The Mary Ann Evans tea shop was closed. I peered inside, thinking of Peter and that idyllic day when I had almost fallen in love with him.

  Rosalee was right: first impressions were important. I had to remember my first impression of Peter had been that he was a rapist and a possible murderer. It was important to keep that thought firmly in my mind, in spite of my fervent wish to be proved wrong.

  We found a pub in a narrow street off the central square, called The Green Man—full of noisy diners. After snapping a few more photos, Rosalee pulled me inside and insisted we order a mixed grill for two and sticky toffee pudding for dessert. It was a huge amount of food, but since what little money I had left would just about cover my share, I figured I’d better make the most of it, so I dug in.

  Rosalee didn’t stop talking, even when she chewed, which meant I heard a good deal of Rosalee’s woeful history during the course of the meal. She was one of seven children, most of whom abused various substances, spouses and/or both. Several were incarcerated. Her mother had been a failed country singer, and the various fathers and stepfathers universally cruel. I thought I recognized some of the descriptions of abuse from a movie I’d seen on the Lifetime Channel, but luckily, I wasn’t required to do anything but nod.

  Rosalee went on to relate how she had escaped the horrors of life with the Beebees by joining a traveling Renaissance Faire, where she sang with a female singing group called the Madri-Gals. There, she confided, she’d met a “real vampire,” which was how she got the idea for her book.

  I wondered how soon Rosalee would discover that her “other boyfriend” Alan Greene was more of a real vampire than anything with fangs and a cape.

  Chapter 35—The Witch and the Gunslinger

  “I also had this friend who was a witch,” Rosalee told me in a stagy whisper as she dug into her sticky toffee pudding. “She’d been with the RenFaire forever. She taught me how to cast spells on bad people, and brew teas that can cure, like, practically everything.” But, she assured me, she was still, “like, a God-fearing Christian and everything,” and “totally not into gay marriage or abortion and disgusting stuff like that.”

  I stifled myself with pudding, telling myself Rosalee was a product of her culture. But the bigoted remark brought back worries about Plant. My anxiety about him simmered beneath my thoughts all the time, along with my growing anger at Silas. Maybe the man was busy giving money to libraries and women’s shelters, but he had an obligation to me too.

  I tried to pay attention as Rosalee went on to tell how she’d married a fellow RenFaire cast member, who had given her an “excellent education.”

  Unfortunately, the husband had recently died, apparently of something impervious to witchcraft.

  Descr
ibing her husband’s demise sent Rosalee into a fit of weeping so dramatic that it brought worried stares from the pub’s patrons. I tried to soothe her as I asked for the bill, hoping to escape without more drama.

  When the server arrived, Rosalee snorted back tears, insisted it was her treat and pulled out a fifty-pound note. But as she set it on the table, a portly man in a cowboy hat came down the aisle and waved the money away.

  He spoke in an exaggerated Texas drawl. “Let me cover that, little lady.” He slapped down a bill of his own and leaned in to give Rosalee a kiss.

  “You’re here!” She kissed him back with fervor.

  The man had to be close to sixty. I had the unkind thought that if he was indicative of Rosalee’s taste in men, perhaps the late husband had simply died of old age. Rosalee’s own age was hard to determine, given her matronly shape and wardrobe, but I was pretty sure she wasn’t much over thirty.

  Finally the man turned to me.

  “Howdy, ma’am, I’m Cole. Cole Younger.” He touched his hat in a gesture purloined from the oeuvre of John Wayne.

  Rosalee grabbed his hand.

  “Colin, don’t do that cowboy thing with her. She’s American. Cowboys are totally over back home. She’s the Manners Doctor—you know, like east coast debutantes and stuff? I told you about her on the phone.” She turned to me. “His name is really Colin Fullilove. Isn’t that a sweet name?”

  Cole/Colin pouted like a scolded child.

  “Oh, come on,” Rosalee said in a teasing voice. “Talk with that English accent, Colin. You know it makes me totally hot.”

  He gave a feral growl and squeezed her hand, then turned and spoke to me with a clipped BBC accent.

  “Sorry. I’ve been to a weekend round-up in Sheffield. I belong to a historical re-enactment club. We specialize in American cowboy legends. I attended one in Bakersfield, California last year. That’s when I met my sweet Rosalee.” He gave Rosalee’s shoulder a pat, letting his hand slide down a little too far, making it obvious he hoped to get her to a more private venue as soon as possible.

  Rosalee gave him an ardent look.

  “It was in California City. The Gunslinger Round-up was moving into the park there, and the Elizabethan Pleasure Faire was moving out, and I heard this cowboy talking in an English accent and fell in love on the spot.”

  “So are we off to Puddlethorpe then?” Colin said, his eyes on Rosalee’s cleavage.

  Rosalee beamed at me.

  “Puddlethorpe is that little village I told you about. His house—it’s like out of a fairy tale. He sent me all these pictures….” She clicked buttons on her phone. The screen showed an image of a rose-covered cottage right out of a Disney fairy tale. “Fairy Thimble Cottage. That’s what it’s called. Isn’t it adorable?”

  I couldn’t help feeling a pang of jealousy. It was a far cry from a nook in a pornography warehouse.

  Rosalee pressed the phone to her heart. I could see she was a woman in love. But not with Colin.

  “Are you coming back to Puddlethorpe with us, Doctor Manners?” Colin spoke in a tone that made it obvious he hoped I wasn’t. “Time for us to be moseyin’ on home.”

  I accepted a ride back to Threadneedle Street, where Rosalee picked up her luggage. The filling meal had made me sleepy. I wanted nothing more than a quiet evening in my Wendy House with the copy of Ivanhoe Davey had lent me.

  But as I walked by the office, I could see that was not to be. Henry and Alan hadn’t gone home after all. They stopped me as I walked by the door.

  “Come in here, Miss Randall,” Henry said in an ominous voice. “There’s something we must to talk about.” He pointed at the chair opposite his desk. His face was flushed and sweaty. “We have a problem.”

  I sat, although I was not in the mood to deal with Henry right now.

  “Rosalee won’t be a problem, really,” I said. Her manners are awkward, but she means well…”

  Alan, who was perched on the edge of Henry’s desk, loomed over me like some desert buzzard, waiting for the wounded cowboy to die.

  “The problem isn’t with Rosalee, Duchess,” Alan said. “It’s with you.”

  I looked up into his little rat face with disbelief.

  “What sort of problem could you have with me?”

  Henry harrumphed. “We can’t publish your book, Miss Randall. You have no contract with this company. Time to get along back to America.”

  Chapter 36—Honor Among Thieves

  Henry tossed a print-out of my manuscript onto my lap. “There is no reason for you to stay here. We’re not going to publish this.”

  I wanted to get up and run, but my legs felt too wobbly to hold me up.

  “What are you talking about? I signed a contract. It had Peter’s signature on it—and yours.” I clutched my manuscript to my chest as if it were a sick child. “If you’ve lost it, I’ll be happy to show you my copy.”

  “Really?” Henry’s voice relaxed a bit. “Well, I suppose if you have a copy of a valid contract….” He turned to Alan Greene, like an actor looking for his prompter.

  I finally managed to stop shaking.

  “Yes, I do. And you owe me two thousand dollars, by the way…”

  Henry looked chagrined, but Alan’s mocking expression didn’t change. He leaned down so close I was afraid his spit might land on my face.

  “Sorry, Duchess, but I don’t believe you. Nobody, not even one as randy as Peter Sherwood, would pay good money for that bit of bangers and mash.” He pointed to the manuscript and said in a mocking, sing-song voice: “Good Manners for Bad Times? What is this, nineteen-bloody-forty-three? This company can’t afford to print something that won’t sell to anyone under the age of eighty.”

  I managed to stand and plunked the manuscript back on the desk in front of Alan.

  “No, it is not 1943, but the reason this country survived that horrible time is that the English all worked together. Working together takes good manners. Without them, you’re on your own.” I turned to Henry. “And Mr. Weems, I’m sorry that you’ve misplaced your copy of my contract. Mine is in my…”

  That’s when I remembered where I’d put the contract—in my computer case. Which Davey had sent to his friend in Newcastle. I felt my face flush.

  “Yes?” Alan’s tone dripped mockery. “Where is this supposed contract?”

  “It’s…with Davey,” I said, backing toward the door. “I’ll go see if he’s in.”

  “It can wait.” Henry called, returning to his usual dithery mode. “I’m terribly late. I must get to get back to Nottingham…”

  I ran as fast as I could from the office.

  Alan Greene had finally retaliated for the bucket incident. And in this, as in everything else, it looked as if he was going to get his way.

  I was grateful to find Davey, Liam and the Professor congregated in Davey’s lair. Liam strummed his guitar while the three of them worked on a bottle of whiskey and a six pack of beer. Much was curled on a pile of dirty underwear at the foot of Davey’s futon.

  I walked in and immediately burst into tears.

  “Duchess, whatever is wrong?” said the Professor. “Has someone hurt you?” He reached into a pocket of his wheelchair for his phone. “Shall I call 999?”

  I shook my head as I sniffed and worked on controlling my rage.

  “Davey, did you send my computer to your friend in Newcastle?”

  Davey nodded and offered me a beer. “Good English ale this time,” he said. “None of that Tesco piss. Liam bought it at the offy.”

  “While Davey nicked us the bottle of whiskey,” Liam said with a laugh.

  I tried to ignore the last remark. Thieves. I was living in a den of thieves. Best not to dwell on it. I needed to find my contract.

  “Davey, did you send the case, too?”

  “Of course. It was well padded, that case. I’m afraid I can’t guarantee anything, Duchess. He’s a bit erratic, and…”

  Tears stung my nose again. I plunked down
on the futon and roared.

  “I hate Alan Greene!”

  Liam’s music stopped.

  Much nudged me with a cold nose.

  Davey picked up an empty beer bottle by its neck and peered out into the hallway.

  Liam offered me the bottle of purloined whiskey, along with a grimy glass.

  I shook my head. He was being generous, of course, but I’d never learned to like straight alcohol. Besides, drinking wasn’t the wisest thing to do when one was about to be thrown out into the streets of a foreign country without a penny.

  “I know it won’t actually help, but it will seem to, and that’s half the fight.” Liam grinned as he poured a good three fingers of whiskey in the glass. “Come on, Duchess. We may have the manners of cave men, but we’ll never get disgusting like the bloody Baron.”

  It was true. Davey and Liam and the Professor had always treated me like a lady. I took the glass and, after a brave gulp, told them of my meeting with Henry and Alan and how Alan called my book bangers and mash—apparently Cockney slang for “trash.”

  “That wanker is looking for a good beating,” Liam said. He strummed an ominous chord.

  “I say we slit his throat,” said Davey, brandishing the bottle again. “And let him bleed out slowly…”

  Chapter 37—Shagging the Devil

  “Murder’s a bit untidy,” said the Professor. “Although I have no doubt the world would be a better place without the Baron. But first we might ferret out what’s wrong with Henry. I’ve already put in time editing your book. The company will be out the amount I’ve been paid, contract or no contract. I can’t fathom why Henry would waste the money.”

  “And you have Peter’s word,” said Liam. “That’s as good as a bloody contract. Whatever people say about him, Peter’s never gone back on his word to his mates.” He played another guitar riff in a minor key. “I don’t know what the bloody hell going on with Henry. He weren’t such a bad bloke, before the Baron made his entrance.”