19
a cameo appearance—trapped—mayhem! murder! dust!—personal talk—imaginative regrets— into the dark chambers of dejection returned
Alice’s impression of Cecilia Bassingthwaite resembled the eternal rocks beneath a woodland: a source of little visible delight, but necessary to behold, considering that any moment now the infamous pirate might shoot her dead. Miss Bassingthwaite looked a great deal more vivid than her portrait, although this may have been due to the silvery light reflecting from her gun onto her elegant visage. Alice immediately sensed that, while the pirates she’d been dealing with this week were deadly, Cecilia was deadly serious, and that represented a whole new level of threat.
Behind her, Daniel turned and, upon noticing the pirate, said, “Hm,” in a mild tone.
“Bixby!”
Blinking, Alice dared to glance away from Cecilia to where a handsome blond man arose from behind a desk farther back in the library, his hands filled with checkbooks and gold pens. “What are you doing here?” the man asked, grinning as if they were standing at the counter of a coffee shop, awaiting their turn to rob it.
The thumping on the other side of the door grew louder, causing the man’s grin to tilt wryly in comprehension. “Ah, I see. Cecilia, sweetheart, it’s probably not advisable to shoot Bixby. Alex might be a little put out if you kill his butler.”
“I am no longer in Captain O’Riley’s employment,” Daniel advised, the mild reproach in his voice suggesting that he deemed it entirely proper for Cecilia to go ahead and shoot him under the circumstances.
“Even so.” The man turned his grin to Alice, who rocked on her heels as if she’d been struck by a cannonball of sparkling delights. Were she carrying a purse, she’d hand it over to this fellow without a second thought. His blue eyes glinted as if he knew it very well. “And who is your companion, may I ask?”
Daniel did not take a small, protective step closer to Alice, but he so clearly felt one that the air shifted between them, and the blond man’s smile quirked.
“Miss Dearlove,” Daniel said in a rigid voice, “allow me to present Miss Cecilia Bassingthwaite and Captain Ned Lightbourne of—well—of wherever they want to go, quite frankly. In addition to being a blight on the lawful peace of England, Miss Bassingthwaite enjoys reading and Captain Lightbourne has a talent for dance. Miss, Captain, this is Miss Dearlove, my professional acquaintance.”
“Is that what you’re calling her now?”
Everyone turned to see Charlotte enter the room through a secret doorway in the wall of bookshelves. She threw Daniel such a knowing look it could have been awarded a master’s degree from Oxford University. Behind her came Alex, wincing with caution as he pulled a cobweb from his wife’s hair before she noticed. Upon seeing the occupants in the room, his eyes flashed with an emotion so intense, yet so indescribable, it would have been expelled from university in its first term. Immediately he strode across to Cecilia, his weapons glinting beneath the heavy shadow of his coat, his high, buckled boots thudding against the wooden floor. Without a word, he removed the infant from her hold.
“Ahoy there, Evangeline,” he said, and lifting the golden-haired child, he kissed each tiny, bootie-covered foot emerging from her white lace gown. “Coochy woochy coo.”
Cecilia closed her eyes briefly, shaking her head. “You know we are determined against using baby talk, Alex.”
He grinned at her. “ ‘Coochy woochy coo’ is formal Irish,” he said, and blew a raspberry against Evangeline’s tummy. She laughed and tried to steal his earring.
Suddenly, the library door shuddered violently, splinters flying. Alice found herself being shoved aside by Daniel, less than a second after which the door flung open, crashed against the wall—and, as Mrs. Rotunder began to lead the charge into the room, slammed back in her face. A moment of stunned silence followed, during which everyone in the library stared at the door in wary astonishment. Then the handle turned, and the door glided quietly ajar. Ladies jostled to enter.
“Ahoy!” Miss Darlington declared. Then her eyes widened. “Cecilia!”
“Cecilia!” chorused the other pirates in joy.
(“And Ned,” Captain Lightbourne called out, waving, but everyone ignored him.)
“You brought The Baby!” Mrs. Rotunder said delightedly.
Another scuffle broke out as ladies began to rush toward Evangeline with such babbled cries of coochy coo and itty bitty pretty that even the baby seemed aghast. Ned strode forward to take her before the suddenly pale-faced Alex could draw his sword in a wild, overprotective instinct. Evangeline reached for her father, nestling against his broad shoulder as he murmured soothing words.
“Stop!” Cecilia said in a clear, ringing voice. She raised her gun in both hands, and the ladies staggered to a shocked halt.
“It is so very lovely to see you all,” she said. “However, I require you to step back. Captain Lightbourne and I are here on business, and I will regretfully (but unhesitatingly) shoot anyone who gets in our way.”
“If you’ve come for the weapon,” Mrs. Rotunder said, “you should know this room has already been searched. It’s not in here.”
“Weapon?” Jane Fairweather’s tremulous, high-pitched voice rose from somewhere within the crowd. “Goodness me, what weapon, ha ha?”
Everyone in the room, including Alice and Daniel, rolled their eyes.
“Thank you, Mrs. Rotunder,” Cecilia said, “but I behold with perfect clarity the weapon of which you speak.”
The pirates looked around excitedly. Alice, however, kept her focus on Cecilia. The young pirate had lowered her gun and turned toward the left side of the room. Following her gaze, Alice saw only a wall of books, a purple velvet armchair, and a small round table upon which stood a marble bust of the poet Wordsworth, decorated with a black bow tie. Above it, snagging her vision, a black thread hung untidily from the join line between ceiling panels.
All at once, her thoughts rushed together with such speed they seemed to meet instantaneously. She remembered finding a volume of Wordsworth’s poetry that had been tossed behind the sofa in Jane’s sitting room . . . remembered the marble bust originally being in the storeroom from which Jane and Frederick had removed the weapon . . . and remembered the flattened cake that had so distressed the castle’s butler . . .
Cecilia stepped forward, reaching for the marble bust.
. . . And Alice saw again in her mind’s eye the incongruous smattering of crumbs on the kitchen ceiling above that flattened cake. Even before she understood the vision, she was moving in response to it. Ignoring shouts from others in the room, she bashed into Cecilia just as the young pirate placed a hand on Wordsworth’s noble head. Both women slammed to the floor.
Cra—!
Click.
Huddling protectively atop Cecilia, Alice felt a gentle shower of dust sprinkle onto her back. She tensed, but nothing further happened.
“No!” Jane cried out in anguish.
Tilting her head up, Alice noted one of the ceiling panels had cracked. Then she glanced at Wordsworth, tumbled on the floor. The dangling thread, on closer inspection actually a ribbon, now lay across his face, lending the poet a rumpled mustache that made him appear far more dashing than he’d ever have appreciated.
Bbbrrmmbbbrrmmbbbrrmmmm!!
She ducked her head again—but experienced nothing worse than the sound of Miss Darlington’s strident command: “Give the señor back his drum, Mrs. Ogden!”
“I just thought the moment required a drum roll,” Mrs. Ogden murmured contritely.
“Ahem,” came a soft, polite voice closer at hand.
Alice blinked down at Cecilia. “Oh. Sorry. I do beg your pardon for the inconvenience,” she said.
“It is quite all right,” the pirate replied amiably. “I have the same reaction myself to Wordsworth. But would you mind getting up now? There are several daggers and a baby’s bottle stored in my bustle, and they’re rather digging into me.”
“Of course.” Alice hastened to her feet and assisted Cecilia to stand also, guiding her away from the cracked panel at the same time. Then Ned arrived, touching his wife’s arm.
“All right?” he asked quietly.
“Yes,” Cecilia said, reaching out to stroke Evangeline’s hair before smoothing back a loose strand of her own. She glanced up, directing Ned’s gaze to the ceiling; he maintained a placid expression, but anger darkened his eyes.
“It’s fine,” Cecilia said, laying a hand against his chest. “Thanks to Miss Dearlove, I am well.”
“Miss Dearlove, hey?” Miss Darlington interjected, her eyes narrowing. She pointed her walking stick at Alice. “Just what is going on here, gel?”
Alice looked to Daniel. He frowned slightly, which she interpreted to mean, You might as well inform them of our business, since the only hope now for us surviving the piratic horde is to persuade them you did not just assault Cecilia Bassingthwaite but in fact saved her life—although I do suggest you talk fast and get ready to run. She opened her mouth to convey the gist of this—
“It was me!” Jane interrupted with a desperate shout.
Everyone turned to stare at her. She flushed, nudging her little round spectacles higher upon her nose in a futile effort to hide the crimson wash of emotion. “I lured you all here under false pretenses.”
A shocked gasp burst from the company.
“The weapon does not exist!” she declared.
Another gasp.
“Queen Victoria is safe after all!”
Silence; a few shrugs.
Jane stiffened her shoulders with determination. “I felt certain Cecilia would guess my supposed weapon involved Wordsworth. She and I have long discussed his genius. Debated it. Had sword duels at sunrise over it. When she did not attend the party, I bade Frederick hide the bust away again, in case it became damaged in one of the games. But then word arrived that Cecilia’s cottage had been seen flying nearby. So I brought out the bust once more, reset the plan, and waited for dearest Cecilia to succumb to my murderous trap.”
Cecilia looked at her coolly. “I always knew you to be truly degenerate.”
Jane’s eyes shone with tears as she pressed a hand to her heart. Bemused, Alice consulted her inner manual of Facial Expressions, for she thought the lady looked pleased by Cecilia’s words, and surely that could not be right. But she found the manual burned, mangled, and with a pirate dagger stabbed right through. These people were simply beyond comprehension.
“I knew I could rely on you, Cecilia,” Jane continued. “The very second you took hold of Wordsworth’s noble form, the panel above should have collapsed, along with several weights stored in the crawlspace.” She eyed the ceiling with annoyance. “You’d have been instantly killed—assassinated by me, in front of our peers! I would at last succeed you as the most daring! the most dangerous! the most nefarious! pirate of our Society!!”
Alice waited for the company to gasp yet again, but a taut silence followed this speech. Cecilia’s expression was inscrutable. Ned’s jaw twitched.
“And what if I had been holding Evangeline at the time?” Cecilia inquired mildly.
Jane’s blush reignited. “Why, I’d have stopped you, of course! I would never harm a child. ‘Trailing clouds of glory do we come / From God who is our home: / Heaven lies about us in our infancy!’ ”
Cecilia raised one of those perilous eyebrows. Alice held her breath, anticipating explosions. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw hands grip sword hilts all about the room.
Then—
“Well done, Jane dear!” Cecilia declared with a smile. “Such an excellent scheme! I am naturally glad it’s execution (pardon me) did not succeed, but I cannot fault your inventive planning. And I am truly honored that you’d try to kill me.”
Jane lowered her eyes shyly. “I only ever wanted to be your friend—and murder you, too, of course.”
“Of course,” Cecilia said.
“There is also the small matter of a fortune being on your head,” Jane continued. (“Idiom,” Daniel whispered to Alice, saving her from a moment of significant confusion.) “I am determined the fortunes of the Bassingthwaites of Starkthorn Castle shall be restored, even if I have to sell heirlooms and steal from my guests” (indignant cries of Excuse me? and Well I never! arose from the crowd) “and take up a number of contracts on your life, dearest Cecilia.”
“Completely understandable,” Cecilia replied. “I shall assist you however I can—er, not by offering myself up for murder, you understand, but I can rob a bank or two if that would help.”
She stepped forward, and as Jane opened her arms to welcome an embrace, instead took one hand and shook it. Jane’s other hand flopped awkwardly down, but she smiled as if she was not in that very moment entertaining new schemes for assassination.
Cheers rang out from the crowd. Alice’s brain spun in confusion. The pirates were happy Jane had tried to kill Cecilia? She looked instinctively again for Daniel, needing his steadiness and good sense—only to find him staring expressionless into the middle distance as if refusing to acknowledge the existence of the scene before him.
“This calls for sherry!” Mrs. Rotunder declared.
“Hurrah!” the crowd agreed.
Ned stepped forth and, masterfully avoiding a dozen eager, grandmotherly hands, presented Evangeline to Miss Darlington. She hesitated, looking for all the world like he was trying to hand her a sack of infested opossums. Reaching out, she patted the child’s head, then clicked her fingers peremptorily. At once, Jake was at her side. He took Evangeline in the crook of one massive arm, Miss Darlington set her hand on his other arm, and they proceeded toward the door.
Alice saw Cecilia cast Ned an amused but weary look. Then suddenly, without warning, the red-haired pirate was staring directly at her. Alice’s senses went immediately to battle stations.
But Cecilia smiled. “Thank you again, Miss Dearlove.”
“Just doing my duty,” she replied brusquely.
Cecilia’s smile softened, as if she saw right through Alice’s disguise and rather liked what she found there. Impossible! Alice urgently stamped down the idea and its attendant shadow of longing. After all, A.U.N.T. had worked on her for two decades to ensure she was neither seen nor liked.
But Cecilia went on with ruthless goodwill: “Anytime you wish, you are welcome to visit me and borrow a book from my library.”
Beside her, Ned widened his eyes with amazement. Alice felt the shadow of longing grow stronger, and she suppressed it so definitively this time that the stone-cold look she gave Cecilia made the pirate take a step back. They exchanged polite nods, murmured, “Good evening,” and Cecilia moved away. Alice inhaled with regret relief and—
Crash!
Abruptly the ceiling panel collapsed, sending oak and bricks thundering down. Wordsworth shattered into a thousand pieces. Dust billowed. Alice barely had enough time to inwardly exclaim a fiddlestick before she found herself being yanked back against a hard surface—namely, the full frontal region of Daniel Bixby’s body. As his arm clamped protectively around her, she said a fond farewell to her breathing process, but this was a small loss compared with the gains made by her nerves. They were alive with excitement.
But the dust cleared with a disappointing rapidity, whereupon Daniel released her, murmuring an apology. Everyone proved to be unharmed; indeed, the pirates were regarding the horrifying mess with professional interest.
“Well, that certainly would have been effective had the timing worked,” Miss Darlington remarked.
“I’m impressed,” Cecilia added.
“So all’s well that ends well,” Mrs. Rotunder said, brushing dust from her bodice. “Now we need a new entertainment.”
Silence slammed down with even more terrifying force than the ceiling had done. The pirates turned as one to regard Alice and Daniel.
“Ladies,” Cecilia chided. “Miss Dearlove just saved my life.”
They immediately pivoted to study Charlotte with the same calculating stare.
The witch raised her chin. “Yes?” she asked, fearless.
“We are just wondering, dear,” Mrs. Rotunder said in a genteel, grandmotherly voice, “how much of a head start would you like?”
Charlotte paused to consider this, but before she could reply, Alex drew his brutally long sword, grabbed Charlotte around the waist, and escaped with her into the secret passageway. As the bookcase slammed shut behind them, the pirates shook their heads with disapproval.
“Such manly heroics for the sake of a witch,” Mrs. Rotunder muttered. “And in front of The Baby, too.”
“Now what do we do?” Mrs. Ogden grumbled.
There followed a whoosh of silk and hat feathers as everyone turned again to stare at the A.U.N.T. agents.
“We’ll take a five-minute head start,” Daniel said promptly.
Mrs. Rotunder gestured at the library’s open door. “By all means, Mr. Blakeney. Good evening, Mrs. Blakeney. We wish you well in your endeavors to escape our terrifying pursuit.”
Without looking, Daniel took Alice’s hand. They walked through the crowd, eyes forward, breath in abeyance. Not one pirate moved, but the silence seemed to echo with a promise of screams and drawn swords. Exiting the library, Daniel shut the door behind them, and they immediately began to run.
“To the mission house!” Alice directed.
“No, we wouldn’t get there in our two-minute head start,” Daniel argued.
“But they gave us five minutes.”
Daniel laughed brusquely.
A second later, the library door burst ajar.