16 PRIDE AND PREJUDICE—THE BUTLER HAS IT DONE TO HIM—OUT OF THE FIRE—SUDDEN ACROBATS—INTO THE FRYING PAN—CHARLOTTE GOES WITH ALEX BECAUSE SHE WANTS TO LIVE—MAD HATTING—GETTING IN THE SWING—CHARLOTTE IS A VILLAIN Mrs. Chuke’s character was despised in general society for its sincerity and frankness, and in such a moment as this, she certainly would not depart from it. “Charlotte, darling! How dreadful you look! Your face is all rosy, and what is that sparkle in your eye? Thank goodness I found you before you go completely to rack and ruin! I shall save you, dear girl, from this wicked pirate who kidnapped you!” She eyed Alex darkly. “I didn’t—” Alex began, but Charlotte spoke over him with a confidence plagiarized from Elizabeth Bennet. “You have been widely mistaken in my character, madam, if you think I can be kidnapped by a pirate.” Mrs. Chuke gasped. “Surely you are not admitting to being in his company on a voluntary basis?” “Why not? He is a scoundrel; I am a scoundrel; so far we are equal.” “But pirates and witches, who-do-not-exist-but-if-they-did, are mortal enemies! Think of the League, Charlotte darling! Think of your mother, who even now is ordering caterers for the wedding!” (“Um,” Alex said, blanching, but the ladies ignored him.) “Your reputation will be a disgrace; your name will be constantly mentioned by all of us. Good heavens, Charlotte, you have allied with a pirate!” Charlotte frowned, although in fact she felt thrilled at this opportunity to face a nemesis in the same way Lizzie did with Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Admittedly, Mrs. Chuke was inferior in style and temper to Lady Catherine, and a dusty urban street was nowhere near as romantic as a copse, but it seemed bookworms could not be choosers when it came to real life. “If I had allied with him,” she said, “I should be the first person to confess it. And I do not. Captain O’Riley continues to be my worst enemy.” “It’s true,” Alex interjected with a pleasant smile. “And whatever my connections may be, if the Captain objects to them, that must be everything to you.” “I do object to them,” Alex said, nodding cheerfully. Glancing at him, Charlotte felt a fluttering in her stomach. She knew she shouldn’t have eaten fish for lunch! On the other hand, could it be . . . friendship? At least what she supposed friendship was from reading about it in books. She expected one day she would marry, for such is the general fate of womankind, but having a friend was a dream she had never dared entertain. That Alex might be this made her want to laugh in delight. But delighted laughter was the sphere of girls like Lydia Bennet, and tended to escalate into scandalous behavior, such as running off with scoundrels . . . er . . . Blushing, she lifted her chin, tightened her lips, and glared at the captain, Mrs. Chuke, and a nearby seagull. “Well!” Mrs. Chuke was nonplussed. This was not the response she had expected from Judith Plim’s niece. She muttered a word, and old brown leaves littering the street began to rise, swirling around her ankles. She’d been a witch longer than Charlotte had been alive, and Chosen One or not, the girl would be made, either by wisdom or outright witchcraft, to remember her place. “You are clearly discomposed, my dear. This situation must not continue!” Charlotte opened her mouth to reply, but she was indeed discomposed, and could not immediately recollect how the scene in Pride and Prejudice had continued. So she closed her mouth and pulled out her besom instead. Mrs. Chuke paled. “You would not dare.” Charlotte shrugged. From the corner of her eye she saw Alex lower his face to hide a smirk. He knew she would dare. She felt another surge of delight. “Just put down the broom and come home quietly,” Mrs. Chuke said. “I read the runes this morning, and they predicted you traveling back to London with me.” But her own hand was sliding down toward a secret pocket wherein no doubt she kept her besom. It was time for the Andromeda Choice. The last resort, the worst possible weapon, designed specifically to disarm a fellow witch. Charlotte had always felt it would come to this one day, but her heart did lurch a little. A witch might attack another witch (indeed, it would be strange if she didn’t), but using the Andromeda Choice was like flying a bicycle over a crowded street. Only the wildest person would do it. Click. A cloud of dust burst from the besom. Mrs. Chuke shrieked in horror. Raising her own besom, she activated its broom with an immediate instinct to tidy. As she swept madly at the air, Charlotte and Alex turned to flee. The wall blocked their way. And in front of the wall stood Mrs. Rotunder, arms crossed, jolly black hat feathers swooping in the sea breeze.
Two streets away, Bixby was staring down the barrel of a gun. It was a very pretty gun, with an engraving of tiny flowers on its silver body and pearls set in the handle. Its owner, Miss Dearlove, clutched it with all the delicacy such a weapon deserved. She herself was also very pretty, but that seemed rather beside the point at this moment. “Keep walking into the dark and narrow alleyway, if you please,” she said. Her quiet voice offered no threat—so long as one ignored the words it was actually saying and the loaded gun behind them. It had lured Bixby away from Alex and Charlotte, requesting assistance in finding a dropped shilling; and then humbly begged his pardon as it explained he must do as he was told or else be shot. Bixby had obliged because he feared the woman would start crying if he did not. But allowing himself to be guided into a convenient place for murder went beyond his notions of chivalry. “Forgive me, miss,” he said, since abduction at gunpoint should not prevent one from using good manners. “I’m afraid I cannot do that. May I suggest instead you hand over the gun, and I will allow you to depart unharmed.” Miss Dearlove did not so much blink as wince her eyes briefly shut then open. She bit her lower lip. It made her appear so vulnerable that Bixby would have felt his heart melt if such a thing were biologically possible. Although he remembered her throwing beer mugs at pirates last night in the tavern, he could barely reconcile that image with the timid creature before him now. The simple brown dress, the calm face, and the quiet voice that spoke only when necessary, made him think of book-lined shelves and the Dewey Decimal System of an outstanding library. A man’s instincts (and other things) roused automatically for a woman like this. It was all Bixby could do to prevent himself from offering to buy her a cup of tea and escorting her safely home. Indeed, notwithstanding the fact she was proposing to murder him, he rather thought her entire attitude reminded him of a doe—i.e., gentle and shy—and he could not endorse such a one being involved in dangerous shenanigans like these. Somebody might get hurt, and it would not be him. Smiling kindly, his eyes soft, he reached out to remove the gun from the girl’s anxious, fine-boned grip. Fifteen minutes later he woke on the dirty ground of the alleyway, bound hand and foot, and groaning through a lace handkerchief stuffed in his mouth. His wallet was gone, as were his gold cufflinks. Had someone been on-site with an encyclopedia of nature, Bixby would not have needed them to explain that the true description of a doe was “powerful and unpredictable.” Spitting out the handkerchief, he turned onto his back and laughed.
Mrs. Rotunder had no such sense of humor. Indeed, after spending several days in the company of witches, she could barely remember what humor looked like. Crossing her arms with the self-awarded authority of older women everywhere, she frowned at Charlotte and Alex. “Now, my dears, you know this can’t go on. Not the least because it’s far too clichéd. We are in England, not Verona! Have some literary subtlety and separate, for everyone’s sake.” Irritation flashed through Charlotte’s nerves, sparking a low mutter that caused Mrs. Rotunder’s sable feathers to shake. Alex glanced at her sidelong, excitement in his eyes. She half-expected him to kiss her right there and then. “Madam,” she said, her voice strong with righteousness, “I can assure you the captain and I are not together.” Mrs. Rotunder’s response was to direct a trenchant stare at their joined hands. “This is because I am keeping him under my control,” Charlotte explained. Alex shrugged and nodded complacently. “So you kidnapped him?” Mrs. Rotunder gave a brusque laugh. “And why not?” Mrs. Chuke interjected, striding forward before Charlotte herself could reply. Dust covered her face, but so great was her anger, she did not even notice. “Charlotte would be a witch if witches existed. That makes her just as dangerous as him!” Mrs. Rotunder tsked. “No one is as dangerous as a pirate.” “Ha! Having traveled in your house, drinking that tepid stuff you pretend is tea, and sleeping on a mattress so soft I was in danger of becoming relaxed for the first time in six—in fifty years, I know perfectly well that piratic danger is false advertising.” “Oh?” said Mrs. Rotunder chillingly. There came the long, slow hiss of steel being drawn from a scabbard. “You call that a weapon?” Mrs. Chuke pulled out a fly swatter. Made of black metal. With spikes all over its surface. Charlotte and Alex sidestepped as Mrs. Rotunder whirled her sword in a complicated maneuver. “Shall we go?” Charlotte whispered. They winced as Mrs. Chuke whacked the sword with one hard blow from her swatter. “Probably wise,” Alex agreed. “Aereo,” Charlotte said. At once, they elevated over the witch and pirate, who were too involved with each other to notice their precipitous departure. They crossed the wall and came down to the street on the other side. “Rosemary Road!” Alex said delightedly. “I told you this was a good shortcut.” “Braggart,” Charlotte replied. A small throng of American tourists turned away from a shop window to stare at them open-mouthed. “I say, how did you do that?” one asked with alarm. “There was a ladder on the other side of the wall,” Charlotte said. “We climbed up, jumped down.” The tourists exchanged dubious glances. “She’s only joking,” Alex said. “We’re acrobats with a traveling circus. Trained to leap over high obstacles in a single bound.” The tourists began to murmur excitedly, and several inquired about tickets to the show. Suddenly a woman in a pink turban pointed at Charlotte. “I recognize you! Your photograph was in the newspaper. Wait—didn’t this man kidnap you?” Charlotte smiled tolerantly. “No, not at all.” “That photograph was of her twin sister,” Alex said. “Three minutes younger and not as pretty.” “Ahh.” The crowd nodded. Charlotte stared at him, surprised. “You’d call me pretty?” Strong, fierce, gorgeous, brave . . . pretty. He grinned. “That is the least I would call you, my darling.” The tourists cooed. “You said Miss Dearlove was pretty,” she persisted. “Perhaps this is an adjective you apply to all women.” He laid a hand against her cheek, looking down at her with his particular tender-smile-despite-all-the-sharp-weapons expression, which Charlotte suspected was probably what had earned him his reputation for deadliness in the first place. Several of the tourists sighed dreamily. Charlotte would have done so herself were it not for years of rigorous Plimmish training. “Oh, Lottie,” he said. “You are—” “Stop!” roared a voice from behind the wall. “Kidnapper!” Charlotte glanced over her shoulder. “Was that my one or yours?” “Wicked kidnapper!” came a different voice. Alex shrugged. “It doesn’t seem to matter which.” “She is the wicked one,” retorted the first voice angrily. “Nonsense. He is a pirate; it’s in his job description to be wicked. Clearly he is the worst!” “No one is more wicked than a witch!” There came another sharp clash of metal. The tourists leaped with startlement. Charlotte and Alex took the opportunity to hasten along the street— And stopped abruptly. Miss Plim strode around a corner, sunlight flashing on her spectacles.
Till this moment, Charlotte never knew herself. But now, watching Miss Plim aim toward her like an inevitability, she felt bird wings flap madly against her bones and wind roar through her mind, and she realized that a lifetime of considering herself self-contained had been a lie. Imprisoned was the better word. In fact, she had a vast longing in her—a whole sky’s worth of longing for life and love, rooftops and running wild—and here was Miss Plim now to bring her back to earth. The woman moved with a cool, measured stride. The hem of her black dress swept methodically back and forth against the street; her topknot of hair knuckled the clear, bright sky. And her hand, emerging slowly from a pocket, unfurled with blade, shuriken, eyebrow tweezers. No weapon was more deadly, however, than the look on her face. You are wrong, it said. The way you have been behaving proves just how wrong you are deep inside. Charlotte Pettifer, you are A Disappointment. Don’t listen! screamed Charlotte’s brain. Run away! No, quick, curtsy! Apologize! Promise to be better! argued her body. Caught between the two impulses, Charlotte was unable to make a choice that would not in some way be incorrect. She could not move, could not breathe. Besides, it was too late. Aunt Judith’s presence meant everything was over. The escapade; the kissing in alleyways; the midnight snacks in a lamplit kitchen, hoping Bixby did not catch them. Just as soon as she reached Charlotte, Miss Plim would transform her from an independent woman making admittedly wild choices into once again a proper witch. It would only take a shake of the head, a click of the tongue. In fact, Charlotte could feel it happening already. Jane Austen began chanting: Be wise and reasonable. But alas! Alas! She must confess to herself that she did not want to be wise yet. Luckily, she was in the company of an entirely unwise pirate. “Quick,” Alex said, tugging on her. “This way!” He half-dragged her off the street and through the nearest shop door. As the doorbell tinkled merrily, Charlotte came back to herself—and into near-collision with a peacock. Stumbling back, she ascertained this was not an ironic statement from the universe but in fact a hat the shopkeeper was transporting across the shop. “I say!” the merchant declared, but Charlotte and Alex skidded past and made for what they could only hope was a rear exit behind a curtained door. They found themselves instead in a silk floral jungle inhabited by flocks of stuffed birds. The doorbell tinkled again. “Good afternoon, sir,” came a woman’s voice, the aural equivalent of a bayonet being jabbed into a wagon that is hiding escapees amongst its load. Charlotte’s breath caught raggedly in her throat. Alex grasped a decorative shepherd’s crook that was propped up nearby and began whacking at wings and flowers, papier-mâché beaks and long lace vines, clearing a path through the mad hat jungle. Discovering a rear door, he immediately applied his bootheel to it and the door slammed open at once, not having actually been locked. They rushed out even as Miss Plim stalked into the workroom. “She’ll never stop,” Charlotte cried. “Trust me,” Alex said with a piratic smile. “I’ll keep you unsafe.” They ran down the street, took a corner, and Alex led them to a random door that he opened in the conventional manner of turning its handle. It revealed a large hall crowded with yet another flock of birds—which is to say, people dressed in vivid colors and plumes, fluttering around, their voices warbling through the air. Two long lines of dancers swooped together, then apart, while a group of fiddlers played. They had stumbled upon an afternoon ball, Charlotte realized, and she felt a certain narrative satisfaction. As Alex shut the door and shoved chairs against it, she watched the dancers, evaluating the quality of their muslins. Then Alex tugged on her hand so she spun toward him; grasping her other hand, pulling her close, he grinned. “Madam,” he said. “May I have this dance?” Elizabeth Bennet would have said yes from sheer surprise. Fanny Price would have said no and hidden her face. But Charlotte did not consult either. Instead, she frowned at the pirate, called him a fiend, and let him dance her in long strides across the floor. His smile was a hook, holding her up out of fear. Her hips moved in a manner she had not known them capable of. The two lines of dancers moved apart, with hands connected and arms raised to make a steepled lane. Witch and pirate danced through like shadows in the lamplight, portending night, leaving everyone blinking and enchanted. As they reached the end of the lane, the lines of dancers moved together again, and Charlotte and Alex copied them—hands still clutching, gazes locked. The world seemed to suspend in a haze of noise and color. Miss Plim was gone; Lizzie Bennet was gone; all that remained were Alex’s smiling eyes and the disordered beat of her heart. She did not want to breathe lest she break the spell. Here was some magic greater than witchery. She, Charlotte Pettifer, was participating in a romantic ballroom moment such as Jane Austen herself might have composed—albeit without a dreadful aunt in pursuit. Nor a hero who was utterly devilish, with an earring and a hefty sword, not to mention a pair of boots that on their own would be censored from any decent novel. And alas, she doubted the heroine would be quite as worldly as she herself had become this past week. In fact, she rather suspected she would be the villain in a Jane Austen novel. But Charlotte was surprised to find she did not care. Rising on her toes, she kissed that devilish pirate, and thrilled at the smile she startled onto his mouth. It was an imperfect moment, but she would remember it for the rest of her life. And then the music surged, and they moved apart with the rest of the dancers. Alex held up Charlotte’s hand, and laughing, she spun beneath it. If she was being wrong, at least it was enjoyable. Crash! Chairs scattered as the hall door smashed open under an assault of Latin poetry. The music faltered and the dancers staggered to a confused halt. Charlotte looked up to see Miss Plim inject herself into the crowd. The woman was not running; she did not even appear to be flushed or breathless with the effort of the chase. “It’s time to come home, Charlotte,” she called out in a pitiless monotone. And then she began chanting. “Abi. Abi.” Bodies flung away from her. Hats spun across the room. Charlotte stared in horror. “Come on,” Alex said, grasping her hard and pulling her. They ran for the nearest door. Unfortunately, “nearest” was a relative term, involving a crush of dancers, waiters with trays of lemonade glasses, a row of chairs, and a pirate. Ned Lightbourne leaped seemingly out of nowhere onto one of the chairs, sword drawn. The crowd screamed and attempted to scatter, but as bustles tangled with lace trimmings and gloves snagged in ornate brooches, they quickly became something resembling an exploded wedding cake. Alex and Charlotte stood trapped amongst them, frowning up at Ned. “Don’t make me fight you, old chap,” Alex warned. Ned rolled his eyes. “You know the last time we fought I beat you so thoroughly you were limping for a week.” “You mean the time you beat me at backgammon. I was limping because you danced around in celebration and knocked me off my chair, twisting my ankle.” “Nonsense.” Ned paused, glancing at the crowd quaking in fear as they watched him. “Never mind. O’Riley, you have to stop. This isn’t as simple as an enchanted amulet that, in the wrong hands, could destroy the world. By running off with Miss Pettifer, you’ve annoyed a lot of old ladies. Both groups are tracking you across England, determined to prevent you from spoiling their feud.” Alex shrugged. “Good grief, man, how can you shrug? We’re talking about the Wisteria Society!” The crowd gasped. Alex looked around at them, hands spread so they could see the several weapons strapped to his hard, muscular form. “Do I look like the sort of person to be scared of lady pirates in ridiculous hats?” “You should be,” a waiter said. The crowd murmured agreement. “Oh for heaven’s sake,” Charlotte said testily. “Captain O’Riley and I remain perfect enemies.” To which Ned replied by looking wordlessly at their joined hands. “It’s so I can weaponize her if necessary,” Alex explained. “Exactly,” Charlotte agreed. Glancing anxiously over her shoulder, she gasped as she watched Miss Plim elbowing her way deeper through the crowd. Any moment now, she would be upon them. Alex might not like to fight his friend, but Charlotte liked even less the idea of returning meekly home before she’d had her fill of happiness (and, er, recovered the amulet). She reached for the besom in her coat pocket. Too late. “I’m sorry to do this,” Ned muttered, and lifted his sword.