18
how not to open a door—a literary encounter— daniel’s patience goes up in flames—a bucket of cold water—not strictly ballroom—an immovable object
When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies?”
In the attic, that is where.
Or, rather, madness crouches on an old sofa in the attic, and when disturbed by A.U.N.T. agents searching for a mysterious secret weapon, it leaps forth with quixotic energy. There is no reasoning with it, no soothing it, and apparently no getting close enough to whack it round the head and subdue it.
“Simple, you said,” Alice complained to Daniel as they sped along a corridor. “Easy.”
“What is your point?” Daniel replied tetchily.
“My point? That would be the screaming madwoman with a flaming torch chasing us.”
They glanced over their shoulders and, upon seeing again the tangle-haired woman in a filthy nightgown bearing down upon them with uncanny speed, they increased their own pace.
“How was I to know we’d encounter someone like that in the locked attic of a Gothic castle?” Daniel asked. “Really, madam, I find you overly fastidious.”
“Now I know this mission has been too much for you!” Alice retorted. “No agent in their right mind would consider it possible to be overly fastidious.”
He frowned at her. She frowned in reply.
Alas, this state of relationship was entirely different from how it had been even five minutes ago, before the graceless moment that saw them confronted by the madwoman. Searching the upper floors of Starkthorn Castle, they had been entirely companionable.
For example, they had assisted each other in picking door locks.
(And if their hands had touched each other briefly in doing so, why, that was just an accidental consequence of professional behavior.)
They had explored shadowy, barely furnished rooms.
(And if Daniel’s fingers, firmly brushing a scattering of dust from Alice’s shoulder, had continued to linger at the nape of her neck—and her fingers in turn had stroked their knuckles against his thigh—one can only attribute this to the innocent effects of physical proximity.)
They had stopped to discuss their search route, marking off room numbers in Daniel’s mental map.
(And if they had caressed each other’s faces while doing so, that was due to—um—oh yes, the poor lighting in the corridor, requiring them to feel as well as listen to their speech.)
Finally, they had reached the last door and, after unlocking it, had paused outside to—to—
Oh, fiddlesticks. They had grasped at each other with such an abrupt and complete rejection of professionalism that A.U.N.T.’s Code of Conduct burst into hot, metaphorical flames between them as they kissed. Daniel had pushed Alice hard against the door, his lips bruising hers, his hands hauling up the layers of her skirts, while she’d clutched at his hair so he could not relent. With a careful degree of ungentleness, he had breached the gap in her drawers, and she had invaded the front of his trousers, and he’d pressed her harder against the door, causing her to knock the handle, the door to thrust open, and them to stagger through it, still holding and clutching and kissing, whereupon they had immediately become diverted by the question of what the hell was that screeching?
For two people who had read Jane Eyre, the answer really ought not to have been a surprise.
Now, skidding around a corner, they entered a wide, well-lit corridor. Music swamped them, and laughter tumbled from a double door opened farther along. Instantly, they halted.
“The dance,” Alice said in horror.
Turning on their heels, they reared back from the madwoman as she waved the flaming torch at them.
“The devil,” Daniel said disapprovingly.
“Aaaaarrgghhh!” contributed the madwoman.
Trapped, both agents drew their guns in a synchronous movement, aiming at the woman’s heart.
It was a tense moment, requiring only dark sunglasses and a more dramatic kind of music playing in the ballroom in order to flip the narrative into something closer to a thriller than has thus far been its tone. Alice’s tranquil layers knotted up in her digestive system as she strove not to flutter her fingers—arms—entire body.
This should never have happened. She’d been unprofessional. She’d lost focus on the mission, falling instead into obsessing over Daniel’s strong, competent body—and, more especially, the way he employed that body to touch her as no one ever had before. Prior to meeting him, she’d felt only mild desires: to obtain secret information, to thwart criminals, to find a Latin edition of Utopia. Now it seemed as though her entire being was comprised of longing. Even in this moment, facing down the madwoman in the corridor, her senses kept veering to Daniel beside her. The height of him made her feel dainty. The trusting calm of him made her feel powerful. She was not just Alice pointing a gun at some raging threat; she was part of a couple—a mission team, a friendship.
At that dangerous thought, she winced. Alice Dearlove, Agent A, did not have friends. She had associates. The fact that, not five minutes ago, this particular associate had been slipping his hand into her underwear signified nothing more than an overenthusiastic enactment of their mission cover. Most certainly, it did not signify any involvement of her heart. Agent A possessed no heart.
The aching in her chest region was probably indigestion.
“Good gracious!” came a sudden high-pitched voice, sending a shudder through her awareness in much the same way fingernails down a chalkboard might have done. From the corner of her eye, she noticed Frederick Bassingthwaite standing nearby, dressed in orange velvet, his mouth even more agape than usual.
“Why are you holding Evelina at gunpoint?” he asked.
Neither agent looked away from the madwoman, whose wary expression upon Frederick’s arrival suggested she retained at least some glimmers of sanity.
“She is threatening us with the flaming torch you might notice in her hand,” Alice explained.
“Of course she is,” Frederick said with a tinkling laugh. “That is what we hired her to do.”
The madwoman bared her teeth.
“She is our resident Lunatic,” Frederick continued blithely. “One can hardly own a properly decent Gothic castle without keeping an Attic Lunatic. We also have a Mysterious Scar-Faced Man lurking in the cellar, and the famous medium Mrs. Zhu comes in quarterly to refresh our ghosts.”
Alice’s eyes narrowed as she attempted to process this information. “So this woman is—?”
The madwoman held out her free hand in the offer of a handshake. “Muriel Happely,” she introduced herself in a polished voice. “You may have seen me onstage in the Adelphi Theatre, playing Desdemona. Prince Edward himself called it ‘a tour de force of suffering,’ and it is generally agreed that he meant my performance, not the watching of it. I hope you have enjoyed your immersive experience of Evelina this evening.”
“Enjoyed,” Alice echoed with the hollowness of someone for whom all inner dictionaries have self-combusted in despair.
Ms. Happely withdrew her hand, which not only had gone ignored but hadn’t even encouraged the slightest lowering of guns. Her smile wavered slightly at its edges, but she’d clearly dealt with critics before. “Thank you for watching! Please do consider leaving a review in the guest book before you go home.”
Alice turned her head to look at Daniel. He met the stunned gaze with one of his own. If Mrs. Kew could have seen them at that moment, she’d have thrown away her sugar canister and just handed them a whole pot of black tea.
“Tremendous!” Frederick declared. “Kudos to you, Evelina, it was a master class in dramaturgy! That will be all for now.”
“Actually,” Ms. Happely said, “while I have you, Mr. Bassingthwaite, perhaps we might discuss the small matter of my outstanding wages, which—”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Frederick interrupted, dismissing the question with a wave of his hand. “The check is in the mail!”
“Arrrghh!” Ms. Happely gave the flaming torch one last maniacal shake, then turned and ran back along the corridor, hollering as she went. Slowly, the agents lowered their weapons. Alice smelled something acrid; noticing a scorch mark on her bodice, she brushed at it and—
Abruptly, Daniel caught her hand in his. “Mrs. Blakeney,” he said in a taut voice. “You have been harmed.”
“It’s nothing,” Alice assured him, but as she looked up her blood chilled at the sight of his expression, so still, his eyes gone silver with fury.
Oh dear, she thought.
“Starkthorn Castle is proud to offer the best, most authentic entertainment,” Frederick was saying cheerfully. “An elevated heart rate, a singed bodice, and as many thrills as you—eee!”
The butt of Daniel’s pistol slamming into his temple caused him to squeal for the short duration of his passage to the ground, a journey that ended in unconsciousness. The agents regarded his heaped form with cool distaste.
“I think you are supposed to say something pithy at this moment,” Alice advised.
Daniel frowned slightly. “Such as?”
“The jig is up,” came a voice behind them.
Turning, they saw Miss Darlington stride along the corridor with a vigor surprising in one so encumbered by lace, pleats, puffs, and pearls that the fact of her even remaining upright was remarkable. Her walking stick tapping against the floor sounded eerily like a matronly tsk-tsk. Behind her lumbered Jake Jacobsen, who might have been described as her shadow were it not for the considerable substance of his body. And behind him came Mrs. Rotunder, bringing up the rear with a dress whose bustle made her own rear seem enormous.
“Surely it would be more appropriate to say the jig is down,” Alice countered, “since Frederick is on the ground.”
Daniel lifted his hand with the gun in it and pressed the thumb knuckle against his brow, where a headache lurked menacingly. “I believe Miss Darlington is referring to our cover being blown,” he said.
“I am indeed,” the pirate lady confirmed. “You made a good effort, but to be proper, after rendering Frederick unconscious you should have immediately robbed him.”
“We were just about to,” Alice tried—but Miss Darlington shook her head pityingly.
“It’s no use, dear. There’s also the fact you did not join in the melee in the art gallery.”
“And you take your tea without sugar,” Mrs. Rotunder added.
“And you don’t stand like pirates.”
“Or know about the Great Peril.”
“Or have enough luggage.”
“Or ever tried to assassinate any of us.”
“And neither of you wears perfume.”
“Not to mention getting frisky on the floor of your bedchamber instead of the bed,” Mrs. Rotunder concluded. “A pirate would never!”
“Er.” Miss Darlington very overtly did not look at her husband. “Exactly right, Gertrude. Shocking behavior! Besides, young lady, I realized what you were the moment I saw the butterfly on your hat. As if a pirate would be caught dead with such ridiculous headwear.”
She nudged Jake, who laughed obligingly. (And such was the degree of his love for her that he didn’t look, not even for the merest second, at her purple, ostrich-feathered, lace-swathed turban.)
Alice and Daniel exchanged a weary glance. Then, as one, they raised their guns at Miss Darlington.
She rolled her eyes. “Dear me, how tedious. This illustrates what I was saying before, Jake.”
“What’s that, my dear?” Jake asked, smiling tenderly at her.
“If only the authorities trained their operatives to have a sense of imagination, they might enjoy more success in overcoming piracy. As it is, these poor two souls were sent here like lambs to the slaughter. Note them standing there before us, wretchedly vulnerable.”
“Madam,” Alice said, “please note we are aiming guns at you.”
“Yes, yes, but those guns have not contained live bullets since an hour after you arrived in the castle. We are pirates, ‘Mrs. Blakeney.’ Most of us have been dealing with spies and secret police for decades longer than you have been alive. You did provide us with much entertainment, however, so we won’t kill you—”
“You have attempted several times to kill us!” Alice protested.
Miss Darlington bristled with outrage. “We most certainly have not. That would be uncivil—and worse, boring. Besides, why would we want you dead? I am sure your superiors will pay a fine ransom to have two such expert operatives returned to them.”
Alice raised her chin proudly. “Our organization does not pay ransoms.”
Beside her, Daniel sighed. “You probably should not have mentioned that,” he murmured.
“You definitely should not have mentioned that,” Miss Darlington said with a grin. “Jake, do me a favor and tie them up, then put them in a cupboard somewhere so I can enjoy a glass of sherry in—oh look, they’ve run. How amusing!”
Indeed, Alice and Daniel had tossed aside their useless guns, leaped over Frederick’s body, and plunged without hesitation into the nearest available escape route: the ballroom.
And stopped, instantly overwhelmed.
A paso doble was being played with vigor by a band of Spanish musicians Jane had kidnapped for the event. Pirates strutted and swirled in pairs around the polished floor, their jewels and sword hilts glinting in the chandelier light, their frothy skirts creating a maelstrom of color that seared across Alice’s vision. She took a deep breath, trying to steel herself.
I can do this, she averred silently. I am a profess . . .
The words disintegrated within the turgid swirling mass of color and sound. For one terrifying moment she herself became nothing more than a blur of light, guitar strums, bright twirling dresses, nameless and without reason.
Then pain grasped her, hard and sharp. Looking up dazedly, she saw Daniel’s brief, unemotive smile. He held her hand so tightly, their fingers turned scarlet.
“Miss Dearlove?”
She gave him a brisk, professional nod.
Letting go of her hand, he began to remove his jacket. Alice tugged on the emergency release ribbon of her skirt. The heavy, layered material parted, revealing a ruffled, red satin petticoat beneath and, peeking out from under its flounced hem, high-heeled ankle boots embroidered with libra, an incantation phrase to help her maintain her balance. Even just the sight of those boots made her feel stronger. Kicking the skirts aside, she raised her chin to face the ballroom with determin . . .
No, still with a vast, trembling sense of overstimulation. Fiddlesticks.
Then Daniel grasped her hand again. As she swung around to face him, he pressed his other hand firmly against her upper back.
Their eyes met. Chandelier light flashed between them, and the music beat fast, imperative.
“I never thought I’d say this, but shall we dance?” Daniel suggested.
“I fear there is no hope for it after all,” Alice said with a regretful wince.
He shrugged one shoulder. “Frankly, they had it coming.”
They smacked their heels against the floor, bringing them into rhythm with the music. Daniel smiled, and a whole paragraph of interesting French literature burst through Alice’s heart.
“Stop!” shouted Jake Jacobsen as he lurched into the ballroom. “Police!”
Pirate heads instantly turned. But the musicians, in indomitable Spanish fashion, sensing a moment of passion, intensified their playing at once. Daniel danced Alice backward across the floor. Mr. Rotunder rushed at them, waving his wooden arm. Without even glancing the pirate’s way, Daniel lifted Alice’s hand in his, while at the same time lowering his other hand to her hip to spin her.
The red petticoat swooped around her legs. She thrust out with her free arm and effected a brisk karate chop to Mr. Rotunder’s neck. As he stumbled, she spun again beneath Daniel’s arm, brought her foot up, and planted its bootheel with force against the pirate gentleman’s midriff. He went down with a thud (and a clatter) that shook the floor.
Alice completed her spin and Daniel caught her, turned them together, and danced them through a gap in the crowd. Mrs. Etterly attempted to stop their progress, but Alice kicked backward, her bootheel smacking into the woman’s legs. Then she and Daniel spun, and he applied a fist to Mrs. Etterly’s waist (causing him more pain than the lady, due to her whalebone corset). She crashed against Mrs. Ogden, who staggered in turn, her hefty bustle taking down two other nearby pirates.
Daniel and Alice spun again. They clasped hands and fixed a center of focus within their calm, mutual gaze. Dancing around the heap of fallen ladies, they made for an open door at the far end of the chamber.
Bloodhound Bess rushed behind them, sword raised. Daniel, sensing the woman’s approach (possibly due to her furious hollering), released Alice and turned.
“Pardon me,” he said disapprovingly, then grasped Bess’s wrist, twisted, and caught the sword as she dropped it. He flipped the grip around his hand with unthinking professional grace before thrusting the blade’s point into the polished wooden floor. The blade shuddered. Bess did not have even a moment to react before Daniel tugged the puffed brim of her headdress down over her eyes and shoved her away.
A second later he had turned back, taken hold of Alice, and propelled her into a new spin. Arm extended, fist coming into play, she felled two more pirates, and they hit the floor in time with a fervid beat of music. Daniel gathered her to him once more, and Alice locked her hand with his. Tap tap went her heels as they skipped forward. The sense of overwhelm had gone. Old training routines took possession of her nervous system, and she felt like she could dance the night away.
“I’ve never known a woman as competent as you,” Daniel told her over the rushing, rollicking music.
Alice thrilled at this effusive compliment. “You also are proficient to an admirable degree,” she replied.
He lifted her, and she set her arm around his shoulders, and as they turned in a mutual dream of absolute professionalism, her outflung legs knocked Essie Smith, Lysander Smith, Millie the Monster, and a passing waiter all to the ground. The light swirled, shimmering with a thousand tiny reflections of crystal and glass, stirring the scene into one of fairy glamour. The music spiraled toward a crescendo. It was a perfect moment.
Finally Daniel set her on her feet and they fled the ballroom into the corridor beyond. Behind them, voices roared as a counterpoint to the music as the pirates realized the chase was on.
“Left,” Daniel said tersely.
They turned a sharp corner. Servants carrying trays of champagne glasses hurried aside, their loads trembling perilously.
“Right,” Daniel said. They turned another corner. “Left,” he ordered almost immediately. Descending a narrow, shadowed stairwell, they did not dare glance back as the sound of pursuit raged behind them. It was surprisingly tuneful. Apparently the pirates were not only making chase but had brought the musicians with them.
Arriving at the foot of the stairwell, they paused briefly as Daniel consulted his mind map. “Left,” he said, and they set off down a long corridor.
“Is that room ahead of us what I think it is?” Alice asked, noting a closed door.
Daniel flashed her a smile. “I thought about how Jane was carrying books when she reappeared after taking the weapon from storage. And I realized the one place we’ve not yet searched is—”
“—the library,” Alice joined him in saying.
They increased their pace. A furious clatter of shoe heels, curses, and drumbeats echoed from the stairwell as the pirates gained on them.
“Faster!” Daniel urged.
“Hi-yah!”
Suddenly, Miss Darlington’s maid, Competence, leaped from a side corridor into their path. Grim-faced, she wielded a broom in each hand.
Daniel and Alice halted before her. They stared dumbstruck as she spun her weapons with such ferocity they seemed to blur. Her feet jumped back and forth beneath her plain black dress, and the long yellow feather on her mobcap swooped. Finally she stopped, setting the brooms at a sharp angle to cross each other, and displaying a fierce grimace between them.
Daniel stepped forward calmly and punched her in the face.
She dropped with a clatter of broom handles to the floor.
“How cliché,” Daniel said in disapproval.
Alice raised an eyebrow at him.
“What?” he said defensively. “It was pithy.”
“I believe it should also have been witty.”
He gave her a look so expressionless, so impeccably bland, Alice very nearly swooned. But she’d already made a mess of this mission and was determined to be more sensible from here on. Daniel Bixby’s cool self-control would not be the focus of her attention, any more than his deep-seeing eyes, or his magnificently honed physique, or those forearms, which—
No, the important thing was the Queen’s life (and completing the mission with distinction) (and staying alive) (and the thick, dark lashes fringing Daniel’s—no! the security of the realm). Stepping over Competence’s semiconscious body, she continued on toward the library, Daniel close behind.
“Stop!”
“Fiends!”
“Blighters!”
Alice glanced back as she ran and saw the pirates had spilled in a jumble from the stairwell into the corridor. Their shouts were not directed at her and Daniel, however, but at each other as they wrestled and shoved to get precedence. Weapons were drawn, hats flew. A shuttered lace fan shot down the corridor, sparks flying. Daniel opened the library door, stepped back in a gentlemanly manner to allow Alice precedence, then entered behind her, turning to lock the door. Shadowy quiet filled the scene.
Alice had come to an abrupt halt, her breath vanishing.
A red-haired, fashionably dressed woman stood in the middle of the room, cradling an infant in one arm. The other arm was extended before her, a pearl-handled revolver in her lace-gloved grip. She pointed it directly at Alice’s heart.
“Cecilia Bassingthwaite,” Alice said tonelessly.
The woman raised one fine, terrifying eyebrow.
And the pirates began to thump against the library door.