16
alice wishes for silence—she gets something far better— they take the plunge (in more ways than one)— poetic interruptus—out of the woodwork—as thick as thieves
For all evils there are two remedies—time and Daniel Bixby’s muscled arms.
Wait. No.
For all evils there are two remedies—time and silence. That was the correct quote, and Alice liked being correct in all things. Almost as much as she liked the tanned skin of Daniel’s forearms when he folded up his sleeves and—
She scowled. Since waking this morning embraced by those arms, she’d found it difficult to think about anything else. Except perhaps the man’s jawline. And his torso. And the way every sweep of his eyelashes seemed to stroke her inside. She tried to counter this with reminders of the mission, but it was really quite amazing how her brain could take “the impending murder of Queen Victoria” and translate it into “the thrilling breadth of Mr. Bixby’s shoulders.”
Besides, silence as a remedy for the evil in this house seemed beyond hope. She and Daniel had excused themselves after breakfast, claiming a desire to rest, only to discover everyone else resting too—i.e., searching the castle for Jane’s secret weapon. Crowds jostled, thumped against walls, and stabbed cushions (as well as the occasional bustle of a passing lady). Daniel did find his pocket watch tucked behind a powder box in Mrs. Rotunder’s bedroom, but since it was stolen from him again ten minutes later, they felt unable to call this a success.
At least no more kissing had taken place. Thank heaven for that! In absolutely no way whatsoever did Alice wish for further kissing. About this, she was adamant.
Daniel’s voice broke through her thoughts. “Do I have something on my face?”
“Pardon me?” she asked rather dazedly.
“You are staring at my mouth.”
“Oh.” She looked away, glaring at the wall of the corridor in which they stood. Several holes had been bashed in it. Farther along the corridor, Millie the Monster was using her sword to rip apart a framed portrait of Beryl Black, as if the secret weapon might have been hidden behind the lady’s painted smirk. Mrs. Rotunder kept trying to wedge her husband’s wooden hand into a gap between floorboards, so as to lever them up, while the gentleman himself dozed in a chair nearby.
“I was thinking about that barricaded room you mentioned yesterday,” Alice lied. “Shall we attempt it now, while everyone is busy? I am wearing my petticoat parachute.”
“Good plan,” Daniel agreed.
They hastened to the castle roof and, climbing onto the parapet, surveyed the hundred feet below them. “That window,” Daniel said, pointing to one nearby.
“Right,” Alice said briskly. As she began unknotting the ribbon for her parachute petticoat, she gazed out across the fields and woods, the vast, lonely sky soaring untouched above them. “Hampshire is so tranquil,” she remarked, a strange dissatisfaction rippling through her mind.
Daniel glanced at her sidelong. “Hm?”
“Do you know Jane Austen lived here?”
“Of course.” He sounded rather offended that she’d even asked. “Now, I think if we angle ourselves during the descent, we should—”
“I wonder how much of an influence scenery like this had on her writing.”
Daniel stood in blank silence. Alice expected him to chide her for not focusing completely on the mission, but then he shifted a little on his feet, as if he experienced the same dissatisfaction as she.
“Interesting question,” he said, his voice low. “If I recollect correctly—”
Alice snorted, since they both knew that of course he did.
“—in Persuasion she used the autumnal countryside to represent Anne and Wentworth’s lost love.”
“I believe you’re right,” Alice said. Then, shaking her head, she forced herself back on track. “We ought to—”
“But,” Daniel interjected, taking a step toward her, “it was in Emma that Austen most excelled at using setting metaphorically.”
Alice’s brain went so fast off track again that she swayed, and only by stepping closer to Daniel could she maintain her balance. “That’s true! Emma is luxuriant with metaphor, allusion, and symbolism.”
“It is the most perfectly constructed novel ever written,” Daniel opined.
Alice almost fell from the parapet with sheer delight. Really, was it any wonder she cherished this man, considering he said such things?
Cherished? Her inner dictionary slammed open, pages fluttering urgently in hopes of an innocent definition for the word. But there was no reprieve from the realization that she harbored feelings for Agent B beyond mere physical attraction. Alarmed, she leaped back on track with a determination so fierce, she probably would have whipped herself with a birch rod, were one present. Shoving a hand beneath the waistband of her bustled skirt, she yanked the ribbon hard.
Her petticoat ballooned instantly, setting her truly off-balance. She stumbled, tilting over the edge of the parapet—
At once, Daniel grasped her, pulling her back against him, wrapping his arms around her waist. It was like being embraced by Michelangelo’s David, only human-size and with no museum security guards involved.
“All right?” he asked. Or, at least, Alice thought he asked it. Hearing was rather difficult over the pounding of her heart.
“All right,” she lied.
His embrace grew tighter, and Alice’s corset stays dug into her skin with little bursts of pain, like love bites. He pressed his cheek to the side of her head. Alice heard his sigh—or perhaps it was her own: a soft, wistful sound.
Then he threw them off the roof.
Angling carefully, they reached the window in seconds, and Alice clutched the edge of its alcove with one hand to hold them steady while with the other she searched her dress pocket for a small knife to jimmy open the window frame. Finding none, she twisted so as to try a different pocket.
“Unngh,” Daniel said in a taut voice.
“It’s here somewhere,” Alice assured him, bending forward to check inside her boot.
“Bloody hell,” he gasped.
“Sir! Language! You are in the presence of a lady!”
“Yes, I am painfully aware of that.” He kicked out, smashing the window frame with the heel of his shoe. Wood splintered, and the window flung ajar. Taken by surprise, Alice lurched forward, and they fell together onto the hard floor of the room.
Daniel had twisted them in midair so he landed first, receiving the brunt of the impact and cushioning Alice from harm—although cushion was perhaps the wrong word, considering the solidity of his body. Lying atop him, Alice told herself to move and got a brusque, itemized reply: (1) My balance is not yet restored. (2) The petticoat is still deflating. (3) He smells so damned delicious.
“Are you hurt?” Daniel asked, wincing behind his crooked spectacles.
“No,” she said. “Did you knock your head? What is my name? Can you recall the date?”
“Time has ceased to have all meaning on this diabolical mission, Mrs. Blakeney.” A flush swept over his face. “We should get up. Now. Immediately.”
“I beg your pardon,” Alice said, realizing she had been practically lounging on him.
“Not at all; my fault,” Daniel answered in a rather strained voice. Clambering to their feet, tidying their clothes, they looked around—
“Egads!” they exclaimed in horror.
If Jane Fairweather’s weapon was indeed present in this room, it could not be detected amongst a clutter of broken furniture, grimy knickknacks, and piles of clothes so filthy they were on the verge of becoming a whole new life-form.
“Hm,” Daniel said.
Alice recognized his tone. “We are here to search, not clean,” she chided. Peering into a box of books, she almost wept at their moldy covers. “My God, these people really are criminals.”
Daniel shifted aside a broken suitcase to reveal a painting of a riverside city. “Bah,” he said with a frown. “Hamburg.”
Alice laughed. The noise so startled her, she clamped a hand against her mouth. Daniel turned to stare at her amazedly.
“Please excuse me,” she gasped. “I have not been amused in years.”
“No, I apologize,” Daniel answered. “I should not have referenced Dickens in such an offhandedly witty fashion.”
“The apology is mine,” Alice argued. “I fear I’m devolving into hooliganism.”
He stepped toward her. “I insist on being to blame.”
She shook her head. “Begging your pardon, but I demand to be forgiven.”
Shadows filled his eyes as he regarded her with an expressionlessness that took her breath away. She found herself moving closer without thinking—and, alas, without looking: she tripped over a candlestick lying on the floor and staggered. Daniel immediately caught her.
“Sorry,” she said, staring up at him.
“I’m sorry,” he said at the same time, holding her close.
And then they continued on with their search for the weapon like exemplary professionals kissed.
The force of their sudden passion sent them stumbling back. They impacted with a cluttered shelf, and a small vase toppled over. Without pausing in his romantic industry, Daniel reached past Alice to set it upright again. He bit Alice’s lower lip. She rose onto her toes to get even closer, and they stumbled again.
Tongues clashing, they moved a coat rack aside . . . swaying into a stack of boxes, they aligned it neatly, each using one hand while the other remained busy thrusting into hair or grasping clothes . . . then they straightened a painting on the wall before Daniel pinned Alice against that same wall. “Why are you doing this?” she breathed as he kissed the dent at the base of her throat and she rearranged a bonnet hanging crookedly on the rack. “There’s no need—no one is here to witness it.”
“By my troth, I kiss thee with a most constant heart,” he murmured, the words humming against her skin, making her sigh. She felt disguise after disguise slide away until she was no more than a shy, unamiable woman who, even long out of childhood, still hugged books and dreamed of having a family. It was a frightening nakedness, and she fluttered anxious fingers against the unrelenting solidity of Daniel’s back. He did not even flinch.
“But—” she tried to say, to no avail. He was kissing her mouth again. He was holding her so near, she could feel the tap-tap of his heartbeat.
Oh God, please, her soul whispered. This one. This man. Mine.
She made one last, weak effort at cynicism: “At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.”
Daniel shifted back a little to cup her face in both his hands. His smile could have unfolded sheets and dirtied dishes. “Doubt thou the stars are fire,” he said emphatically. “Doubt that the sun doth move; doubt truth to be a liar; but never doubt I—”
Crash!
Now was the moment of Alice’s discontent. Daniel pulled her behind the coat rack, into what appeared to be an ancient spider civilization. To have gone from the verge of receiving a romantic declaration to being draped with a veil of cobwebs might have been appropriate, considering Daniel had been quoting Hamlet, but it left Alice rueful.
Less than a second after they hid, a section of the wall flung open, knocking a taxidermied dodo to the floor.
“Bloody hell!” Alex O’Riley strode into the room, brushing dust from his long black coat. “Why must secret passages always be so dirty? God knows they’re used so often in pirate houses, people ought to keep them swept.”
A laugh sounded as Charlotte emerged behind him. It was dry, brief; the kind of laugh that has eyes in the back of its head and just knows when you’re about to do something stupid. “This coming from a man who didn’t realize one has to use a mop with water.”
“Don’t try being supercilious with me, darling,” Alex replied. “We all know who mopped our floors. And that it hasn’t been done since he left, water or not.”
Alice heard Daniel gasp. She gripped his arm to prevent him from leaping out with an offer to commit housework. Alex and Charlotte might be his friends, but Alice considered them as wayward and dangerous as every other pirate and witch of her acquaintance. Furthermore, she suspected Charlotte would take one look at her and know exactly what she’d just been doing.
“Witches tidy,” Charlotte said. “They do not clean. We really must procure a new housekeeper. Perhaps when we return to London we should— Sufflamino!”
Alex jolted to a sudden halt.
“Really?” he said from his rigid posture, one arm reaching toward a sword that leaned against a grimy old bust of Wordsworth. “You couldn’t have just told me to stop?”
“Don’t touch that sword! You’ll probably get tetanus.”
“I can’t touch it, can I? You’ve bewitched me. I can’t bloody move at all.”
“Oh dear.” Charlotte’s voice swayed in rhythm with her body as she crossed to where he was standing frozen. “Poor lad.”
“Lottie,” he murmured in warning.
She ducked beneath his arm and came up smiling. “Alex.”
Suddenly Daniel’s hand clamped over Alice’s eyes—but not before she saw Charlotte grasp hold of Alex’s shirt and tug him out of magic, into her wry smile. Furious, Alice tried to pry Daniel’s fingers away. He was not the master of her, to determine what she was and was not allowed to witness! He was—
Well, he was currently featuring in a mental vision of how precisely he might master her, and it proved a great deal more salacious than a husband and wife kissing. The fact that this vision also included his hand over her eyes only served to make matters worse. Alice began to perspire more than the autumn temperature justified. Finally, as she feared herself on the brink of hyperthermia, Daniel moved his hand away and started pulling her farther into the shadows. She frowned, and in response he put a finger against his lips, then pointed it to the ceiling. Glancing up, Alice realized she could hear shuffling footsteps and voices murmuring beyond the grimy plaster above.
Charlotte and Alex heard it too. They abruptly ceased their marital endeavors and ducked behind the coat rack, almost crashing into Alice and Daniel.
“You again!” Alex hissed.
“I beg your pardon,” Daniel said disapprovingly.
“What are you doing here?” Charlotte asked in a tone that would have seen A.U.N.T. offering her a job at once.
Alex clicked his tongue. “No doubt they’re searching for the weapon in efficient fashion—unlike you, who showed more interest in hanky-panky.”
Upon hearing this phrase, Alice’s inner dictionary opened its pages excitedly. “What does hanky-panky mean?” she whispered to Daniel.
“Witchcraft,” he whispered back.
“Oh.” Alice felt inexplicably disappointed.
“You have corrupted me,” Charlotte told her husband. “You are nothing more than a reprobate.”
“True,” Alex agreed. “And you’re a harridan.”
Alice gasped—but Alex had spoken in a genial tone and Charlotte was gazing at him with an expression Alice believed was Adoration (Female, Type Three: Married/Long-Suffering but Nevertheless Smitten). She began riffling through the aforementioned inner dictionary confusedly, but she was interrupted by laughter rippling out from the shadows behind them.
Immediately, all four drew their guns and aimed into the darkness. In response, a hand emerged, containing a bag of lollies.
“Peppermint?”
Two figures came forward, smiling cheerfully. Alice recognized Essie Smith and her husband, Lysander. They were a pleasant couple, notwithstanding a shared criminal record that would take hours to relate, and Alice felt appalled that they must have witnessed her and Daniel kissing. She tried to recollect if she’d said anything to jeopardize the mission but found only a haze of passion and poetry. Fiddlesticks!
“Have a peppermint,” Essie urged. “I don’t know a pirate who doesn’t love them.”
“Er,” Alice said. Her very soul shrank at the thought of eating something from a bag in which others’ fingers had been rummaging. She glanced at Daniel, hoping he would provide some clever excuse as to why she was exempt from peppermint consumption, but he appeared as horror-struck.
“ ’Scuse me,” Alex O’Riley said, reaching between them to scoop several lollies from the bag and deposit them in his mouth.
“Sh!” Charlotte hissed suddenly. “They’re coming.”
The group settled into cautious silence as a trapdoor flipped open in the ceiling and a ladder angled down. “Allow me to go first, precious petal of my heart’s summer rose,” came Frederick Bassingthwaite’s voice. “I will be your preservation should you fall, although it would mean crushing the very life from this meager but devoted body, a sacrifice I gladly—”
Shoe heels smacked against wood as Jane Fairweather descended the ladder. The hidden group shuffled back even more. Alice felt ripples against her skirts as the pirates reached around her to pick each other’s pockets. Reaching the floor, Jane looked about with shrewd calculation.
“There must be enough saleable goods in here to pay for the new oven.”
The pirates exchanged confused looks. Pay? Alex mouthed; Lysander shrugged in bewildered reply.
Frederick joined his wife. “Whatever you wish, cream of my crop, it shall be—”
“Focus!” Jane snapped. “Where did you leave it?”
Frederick pointed. “On yonder box, dearest.”
The group craned their necks to see more clearly, but Jane snatched the object and hugged it close to her bosom, allowing only an impression of whiteness.
“With this, poetic justice shall be served!” she declared.
“Indeed, it shall be a veritable cataclysm of—”
“Let’s go. We must take it downstairs at once, before anyone notices we’ve disappeared.”
“Of course, dove of my cloudless sky.”
They ascended the ladder, pulled it up behind them, and shut the trapdoor with a thud and a shower of dust.
“Have they gone?” someone asked from across the room.
In reply, guns were drawn yet again. The group emerged from their concealment and stared across the piles of junk.
Bloodhound Bess stared back. She was grinning, albeit only as a consequence of the scar that curved from her mouth to her left ear. Cobwebs draped from her purple hat feathers; dusty sunlight glistened against the long, heavy blade of the sword she employed like a walking stick.
“That was the most outrageous thing I have ever been made witness to!” she pronounced.
“You mean Mr. and Mrs. Blakeney nearly doing themselves an injury snogging?” Lysander asked, winking at Alice as she blushed.
“No. Although I spied them doing so, I have enough intelligence not to bug them about it.”
“Then you mean Captain O’Riley kissing his wife?”
Bess bristled. “No. But you can be sure my mind is a bonfire at the sight of a witch in this room.”
“Then you mean—”
“Jane,” Bess snapped. “I meant Jane. What kind of pirate suggests paying for something?!”
The group murmured in troubled agreement.
“Did anyone see what she took from the room?” Daniel asked.
No one had.
“The obvious solution is to waylay her before she hides the item elsewhere,” Charlotte pointed out with witchlike rationale. Then, catching a vexed glance from Alex, she hastily added, “Not that the item is of any importance. Merely if one was curious.”
“I have no curiosity whatsoever,” Bess said. “However, I must be on my way. I only came up here for—er—” Looking around, she snatched up a stained ashtray in the shape of an open-mouthed bulldog. “This. Yes. Extremely valuable antique. Have a customer wanting this exact—er—thing. Tally ho!”
She backed into a section of the wall, causing her hat to tilt precariously, and kicked out with her heel. Nothing happened; she sidestepped, kicked again, and almost fell through a suddenly opening secret door. The others would have heard her running along the hidden passageway beyond were they not busy making their own excuses to immediately depart. With a “descendeo,” Charlotte summoned the ladder from the ceiling, and there followed a skirmish as Alex and Lysander both attempted to climb it ahead of each other. Essie intervened, peppermints exploded everywhere, and, as all three pirates drew their swords, Charlotte sighed with exasperation and levitated over them.
Alice and Daniel hastily departed by way of the door through which Alex and Charlotte had entered. Racing along a dark passageway, they found stairs leading down, at the bottom of which was a door opening to a service corridor. Following this led them to the entrance hall at the same time Lysander and Essie Smith arrived from another direction; seconds later, Bloodhound Bess and Alex ran down the grand staircase, shoving at each other.
“Ah, there you are,” said a laconic voice. Everyone turned to see Jane stroll in. She was carrying several books and, with a placid expression upon her narrow, bespectacled face, she looked for all the world like a fierce piratic heroine’s dull governess. Frederick followed two paces behind.
“Is everyone having a nice day?” she asked, smiling blandly.
They all stared at her in dumbfounded silence. Then Alex gave an insouciant shrug. “Very nice, very relaxing,” he said, sheathing his sword.
Jane’s eyes widened at the sight of him. “Rotten O’Riley! I did not realize you were visiting us.”
“Oh, I’m just passing through,” Alex answered. “Taking a shortcut to Dublin. Cheerio, then.” He saluted her, winked at Daniel, and ambled away out the front door.
“Good heavens!” Frederick exclaimed. “Do you think someone should run out and tell him Dublin is in the opposite direction before the poor chap goes too far?”
Jane sighed, and Alice recognized on her face the Married/Long-Suffering expression, albeit without any Adoration. “Luncheon is being served, should you—”
Staggering back, she only just saved herself from being trampled by Essie, Lysander, and Bess as they rushed to the dining room. She hurried after them, muttering about having barely any spoons left for stealing. Frederick scampered behind.
“Wait for me, sweetest nectar of my vine!”
Alice and Daniel found themselves alone in the entrance hall. They inhaled—
“Tsk.” A voice echoed through the wide marble space. The breath went out of them wearily.
Charlotte marched down the stairs. “Where did he go?” she demanded.
Alice and Daniel pointed out the front door and she strode toward it, bootheels sparking, voice muttering as she went. “ ‘Hide in the secret rooms and passageways,’ he said. ‘Steal the weapon, easily done,’ he said. Did he mention dust and cobwebs? No!” (A flower vase trembled on a sideboard.) “Did he mention not being able to get a decent cup of tea?” (The vase rose three feet in the air.) “Just as well the man is lovable, or else—”
Crash. Carnations scattered all over the floor.
“Will you leave now, Miss Pettifer,” Daniel asked her sternly, “since the pirates know you are here?”
“Of course!” Charlotte answered so readily, even Alice could tell she was lying. “Oh, and a word of advice,” she added as she passed them. “Married pirates tend not to cling to each other quite so much.”
Glancing down, the agents realized they were holding hands, and hastily snatched them apart. With a laugh so dry it made the Sahara seem like a beach, Charlotte departed. They watched her go, then turned to each other.
“These people are enough to try the patience of an oyster,” Alice said grimly.
“They’re all mad here,” Daniel agreed, making her smile. He lifted his hand as if he would touch the rare curve of her mouth, but lowered it again without doing so. “We should retrace Jane’s steps to see if we can find where she left the weapon,” he said.
“We should join the company for luncheon,” Alice said at the same time.
Their mutual gaze grew heavy.
“We should . . .” Alice murmured.
“We should,” Daniel agreed vaguely.
They swayed toward each other.
Boom!
Smoke billowed out from the dining room. “Ahoy!” someone shouted.
The agents sighed and went to do their duty.