Page 11 of Echoes of the Sea (Storm Tide #2)

What are the chances ‘attic’ is code for ‘green room’?” Kip asked the man portraying the butler upon crossing paths with him in the corridor.

“I beg your pardon, sir?” He managed to look genuinely confused, though he must have understood the question. No one in the industry wouldn’t have known what Kip was asking. “The attic is quite different from Miss Archibald’s bedchamber, which you oughtn’t be asking about as it is.”

“Her bedchamber is the green room?” That couldn’t be correct.

“The green bedchamber, yes. And it’s no place for you, no matter how things might be done in the former colonies.”

Kip arched his brow. “We’re leaning this heavily into character, are we?”

“I hope I am a person of character.” The butler’s eyes narrowed. “Mrs. Jagger and I are hopeful that you are as well.”

“Isn’t the ‘What are your intentions?’ lecture usually delivered by a lady’s father or brother?” That was still sometimes the way it happened nowadays, but it had always happened that way on The Beau .

“ Do you have intentions?” That seemed to alarm the man. “You’ve only just arrived. Us know nothing of you; her knows nothing of you.”

Did that mean Kip was supposed to play the role of eventual suitor who had to earn the approval of his chosen lady’s protectors?

Or was Kip being warned that he wasn’t supposed to take on that role?

Making an actor guess at his part was an annoying way to run a production or site or however he was supposed to refer to this gig.

“Miss Archibald instructed me to fetch a trunk of clothing from the attic,” Kip said, leaning into what he did know of his assignment and his accent, which he thought quite good, despite the repeated criticisms he’d received since arriving.

His fellow actors, he was certain, were all British, yet they didn’t sound the way he would have expected.

“As this is my first day at Guilford, I do not know how to access the attic.” Or if “the attic” was, in fact, an actual attic.

The butler motioned for him to follow as he made his way to the stairs and began climbing upward. That bit of the journey Kip could have predicted.

“What am I to call you?” Kip asked him.

“Call me?” More drawn brows. More admittedly convincing expressions of confusion. “My name, sir.”

“I would be happy to do so once I know what your name is.”

“Ah.” The man continued onward, up yet another flight of stairs. “Marsh, sir.”

On The Beau , butlers had generally been called by their surnames, without including the “Mr.”

Marsh walked with him down the uppermost corridor, one far plainer than any of the others below, directly to an equally plain door. He opened it. “The attic is at the top of these stairs.”

“Thank you, Marsh,” Kip said. “And allow me to reassure you, I have no designs upon Miss Archibald, nor do I have any intention of creating chaos at Guilford. I understand the rules and expectations.”

He’d been in enough productions to know perfectly well that being demanding and difficult was reserved for those who were too valuable to a show to be let go, and that casual romantic entanglements in a cast were usually more trouble than they were worth.

The stairwell was dim but not nearly as poorly lit as the attic, which turned out to be an actual attic. A sliver of light peeked through a partially opened curtain. Kip navigated to it and pulled the curtain fully open.

Even the attic was historically accurate. Though all the furnishings and paintings in the dusty space had the look of furniture from centuries ago, they weren’t worn enough to be actual antiques. Still, why go to the trouble of filling an attic with such precise replicas?

And again, there was no light switch. He hadn’t spotted a single one in the entire place.

No light switches. No outlets. And as his body was beginning to very urgently remind him, no toilets.

If his phone hadn’t been knocked out of his hand in the moments before the storm had knocked him into the sea for an afternoon of forced swimming, he would have texted Malcolm a few thoughts about this “opportunity.”

There were three trunks in the attic. He couldn’t believe the costumes were literally kept in trunks in an attic.

This was, by far, the strangest job he’d ever had, and he’d had a few doozies in his time.

He opened the smallest of the trunks. It had some papers and odd bits and baubles.

Another one, closer in size to what he’d expect, had clothes inside, but they appeared to be women’s clothes.

The third one, then, was the one Miss Archibald had, with annoying subtlety, told him his “character” needed to go grab.

He pulled out a shirt. It was slightly more ruffled than what he’d worn on The Beau , certainly more than the lighthouse keeper’s shirt that he was wearing at the moment, but it was close to the right thing.

The trousers were knee breeches, like they’d worn for balls and more formal scenes, but the knee breeches weren’t his favorite of the costumes.

There were also very thick stockings, which would help with the cold.

He dug through and found jackets and neck cloths, even a pair of buckled shoes.

They were unlikely to be a perfect fit, but it looked like they’d at least be kind of close.

There was a nightshirt tossed in with it all, which should keep people from screaming when they broke into his room in the mornings.

He knew that it had been common practice for the staff of a home to slip into a bedchamber in the morning to relight the fire and make things cozy and comfortable for the people who had money.

And he recognized he was portraying, at least for half the day, someone of that station back in history.

But actually busting into his room without so much as knocking, in the name of historical accuracy, felt like overkill.

And the way both the maid and Miss Archibald had enacted early nineteenth-century panic over the idea of a tattoo would have been entertaining if he hadn’t been left wondering if he was going to lose this job that he didn’t overly want but desperately needed.

Makeup had just covered his tattoos in The Beau when he’d needed to be shirtless, which had happened a lot. A whole lot.

Among the trunk of clothing, he found something wrapped in burlap. He unrolled it. Inside was a book of some sort: parchment sewn together and hand stitched into a cover of leather, tied closed with a leather strap. Kip opened it.

A journal. There was already writing inside, so his character wasn’t meant to be the one writing in it during his summer at Guilford.

It was specifically in his trunk of costumes, so he must have been meant to read it.

Was his character supposed to read it, or was he, Kip , supposed to read it in order to get an idea of who and what his character actually was?

He’d been given so few instructions that he was guessing his way through this first day.

The tourists weren’t even there yet. Why not simply hand over his character description, give him a garment bag or suitcase of costumes, and explain to him how the summer was going to play out?

This adherence to being in character and living in uncomfortable historical accuracy before it was even necessary was already starting to annoy him.

And it was messing with how he talked, even in his own mind.

He was leaning into old-timey Britishisms like corridor instead of hallway, bedchamber instead of bedroom, “I have no designs upon Miss Archibald” instead of “Nah, not feelin’ it. ”

Michael Osbourne would visit at some point in the summer, he reminded himself. One of the biggest names in the industry. And he would visit Guilford knowing he’d discovered talent before.

Kip could endure some irritation in exchange for a chance to get back in the game. He would, of course, make sure Malcolm heard about every single even marginally annoying thing that happened.

He set the journal back inside the trunk and closed it once more.

Thankfully, the trunk wasn’t very heavy.

He was able to pick it up and carry it out of the attic and down the stairs to the corridor below.

Marsh hadn’t hung around waiting for him, which was kind of a relief.

It was too early in the morning and too early in the job to be dealing with drama.

He returned to the blue bedchamber and set the trunk at the foot of his bed. His suitcase still hadn’t arrived.

Kip changed from his current clothes into the ones in the trunk. Again, the costume designer had gone for authenticity over comfort. This was going to be a long summer.

Kip pulled out the journal. He might as well get a start on solving the entirely unnecessary mystery of who he was supposed to be this summer.

12 May 1692

Something is decidedly odd in this place. I feel myself obligated to anyone else who might, in time to come, find himself here. As such, I will record what I have seen and experienced.

“Decidedly odd.” That was certainly what Kip was feeling.

And though the entry was dated 1692, he’d guess the time they were re-creating at Guilford was somewhere closer to 1810.

Miss Archibald’s clothes were pretty similar to what the women had worn on The Beau , and it was set in the 1810s.

The writer of the journal had said it was written for people who would come there later.

Why was he being required to figure out his part by solving riddles?

This estate lies isolated from cities and people, from universities and advancements, and yet I find here extraordinary things I have not experienced at home.

I feel in many ways as though I have left behind a comparatively primitive existence to arrive in a place which far surpasses even the grandest dreams my compatriots have of what might lie in the future.