26
daniel is tranquil—reflux—alice is tranquil— redux—butlerama—daniel takes a hot bath— all’s well that ends well
No words. He had no words.
He stood outside A.U.N.T. headquarters in the waning light and absolutely could not think of one single word. They had taken away his books—that didn’t help.
They had taken away his heart.
“It’s not safe to see her again,” they’d said, pouring him another cup of tea, not even disguising their movements as they tipped tranquilizer into it—because they were not idiots, giving unpleasant information to a man who could reach over the table and kill them in seconds then sit back down without even wrinkling his suit. Of course they would tranquilize him. Everyone understood this; there had been no need for obfuscation.
“She’s already gone,” they’d said, watching him drink the tea.
Not long after, the medical officers had inspected the empty cup, frowning in bemusement. “Exactly how much tranquilizer did you give him?” they’d asked the debriefers.
“Clearly not enough,” the debriefers had answered from where they lay, bleeding and bruised, on the floor, amongst the shards of furniture. Then, catching sight of Daniel sitting quietly against one wall, waiting for the mess to be cleaned up, they’d whimpered and wailed and had to be carried to the sick bay.
He’d gone on sitting there alone for a while longer. Maybe hours. Maybe days, for all he knew. He’d stared at the white walls, overwhelmed by their vividness, and by the roaring volume of the silence, and worst of all by the snarling, weeping tangle of his own thoughts. Finally, a squad had entered, dressed in black combat attire, guns aimed at him. He’d been handed a book, and the squad had backed out again.
It was a paperback edition of Anna Karenina, and it got him up off the floor, out of the room, and all the way out of headquarters. No one stopped him—no one was in sight at all, but he could sense them behind locked doors, waiting for him to go.
Mrs. Kew met him on the street outside. “Cupcake?” she asked, trying to hand him something pink-iced and so sweet-smelling his olfactory senses nearly imploded.
Daniel just looked at her.
She shrugged. “I’m letting you live because I expect you back here tomorrow morning. New day, new assignment. Understood?”
“Where is she?” he asked.
Mrs. Kew sighed. “It’s my fault. I decided you ought to be assessed after working so long undercover with O’Riley, but I failed to appreciate the depths of your emotional vulnerability. I’ve seen the reports of how you reacted when you thought Agent A was in danger. We simply cannot risk a weapon like yourself misfiring in such ways. It will be desk work for you for a while, young man! Just until we have you back in proper condition.”
“Is she safe?” he persisted, although he dreaded the possible answer. A.U.N.T. was not above pruning anyone who grew the wrong way.
“Tsk,” Mrs. Kew said. “The mission is over. Agent A is gone. Tomorrow I want your heart where it belongs—on the Scottish rumors file I’ll be giving you.”
He said nothing, staring unblinkingly past her shoulder at the untidy shapes of the city.
Mrs. Kew beamed. “There, I was sure you’d be reasonable after all. You’re my star! Get some rest, then back here nice and early! We have a laird to save from blackmail.”
Daniel took a step to leave—
“Wait!” Mrs. Kew cried.
He stopped.
“Dear boy. Please.” She held out a soft, beckoning hand, and Daniel looked at it sidelong.
“Give the ring back.”
She spoke like a sniper with a gun aimed at him—unflinching, and entirely capable of wiping him out. Without a word, he yanked the fake wedding ring from his finger and dropped it into her palm.
“Excellent!” she chirped, bouncing a little on her heels. “Now, what is your plan for the rest of the day?”
“Ma’am,” he said, “I’m going home.”
And before she could smile at him again, he turned and walked away.
It was almost night by the time he stopped. Rain was beginning to shiver through the afterlight, dampening his shirt, chilling him. He did not notice. Standing before a familiar mahogany door, he stared at the gold crucifix bolted to its center panel. His heart sighed, hugging itself, whispering prayers as if they were old, wild poetry. But his brain remained grim and silent.
He ought to knock. Just knock, and it would be done. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. But he was too exhausted to be brave.
Knock. On. The. Bloody. Door.
He lifted a hand, lowered it again. Perhaps he should just leave, go somewhere else, pretend—
The door opened.
Daniel stared at the woman on the other side of the threshold. She was radiant, and not only due to the light from a nearby streetlamp slanting over her rich, bright hair. Holy love seemed to illuminate her from within. Daniel’s pulse beat so hard in his wrists, it hurt.
And then a sudden wash of greenish pallor crossed her face. She held up a finger, and Daniel stopped breathing—waiting, although for what, he did not know. Her throat heaved, and she clamped a hand over her mouth, eyes growing wide. With an urgent, muted sound, she rushed back inside.
“Huh,” Daniel said blankly. “I was not sure of the reception I’d receive, but I did not expect to sicken anyone.”
Alex O’Riley appeared; leaning against the doorframe, he grinned. “Don’t mind Lottie, she’s suffering from what she calls ‘a temporary indisposition.’ ”
“But she looks well,” Daniel said. “Indeed, I have never seen her so—”
“Frightening?” Alex suggested.
Daniel gave him a reproachful look. “Glowing.”
Alex shrugged carelessly, but his eyes bore an unusual sheen of emotion. “That happens, apparently. The problem is, so does nausea, increased sensitivity to everything—and I mean everything—and an unprecedented desire for foot massages. Not to mention the foul temper. Thank God Jane tried to assassinate Cecilia when she did, or else Lottie might just have tried assassinating the entire Wisteria Society. She refused to give up on finding that bloody weapon, but secret passageways and stolen bedrooms are not ideal places for a woman in her condition.”
“Cholera?” Daniel asked anxiously.
Alex rolled his eyes. “No, Bixby, not cholera. You look rather unwell yourself. Why are you here at my door, coatless, in the rain?” He paused, his eyes narrowing, his expression becoming deadly serious—which was not something one generally liked to experience with a notorious pirate, but Daniel felt his breath ease at the sight. Alex took in his wet shirt, dirty shoes, the green stain around his ringless finger. The deadly expression softened into concern.
Damn it, Daniel thought. Don’t look concerned. I have no desire to stand on your doorstep weeping.
“Can I help you?” Alex asked, gruff and tender, frowning and worried.
Daniel straightened his shoulders even more than they already were. “It is possible I may . . . require . . . need . . .” He stopped hard against the limit of his vulnerability. Swords and bombs rattled inside him, demanding stoicism. Insisting on isolation. He clenched his jaw, blinked to focus his vision . . . and a tear slipped down his face.
“Bixby,” Alex said in a tone Daniel did not recognize, never having heard it used with him before. The pirate stepped aside. “Come in. Come in. We’ll figure this out, whatever it is, together. Come in, my friend.”
“I—” Daniel said, overwhelmed. He’d not been surprised by what A.U.N.T. had done. All his life, they’d said he could have no heart and he’d agreed—all of them sure it would be like Snodgrass’s bomb, set to explode at the first grounding. But he’d found that heart, and they’d taken it from him. They’d taken Alice. He’d been surprised every second since by the grief and fear and desperate wishing.
But nothing surprised him more than Alex O’Riley putting a hand on his shoulder, holding him steady while he faced the threshold between service and love.
“Tell him to hurry up!” Charlotte called out grumpily from the interior. “These pickled onions aren’t going to fry themselves!”
It was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness. Miss Agapantha Ketlew moved between white shirtwaists and deep plum dresses, yellow scarves and black stockings, overwhelmed by choice. She had everything before her! It was a feast of fashion, and her heart sprang with hope! She had nothing before her! It was a wasteland, and she despaired.
“If I don’t find the perfect ensemble for attending Lady Mellard’s soiree, my life will be utterly ruined!” she declared.
“Yes, miss,” Alice said tonelessly from behind a stacked load of shoeboxes.
“I’m sure you don’t understand!” Agapantha gave a loud, prolonged sigh. “You probably don’t even know the difference between cerise and pink!”
“No, miss,” Alice replied.
Agapantha turned to share a smirk with her other servant, Mr. Olliver, but he just stared into the middle distance with all the blank professionalism of a secret agent for an underground government valet. His hands were occupied with various shopping bags, but Alice imagined the speed with which he might produce a gun from a concealed holster in the event that she threw the shoeboxes at him and ran for her life.
Which of course would not happen. She was a good, obedient servant. No reasonable person could point to her and say she looked like she was planning an escape (by distracting Mr. Olliver, dashing out the door, jamming it shut with her hair slide, scaling the front wall of the boutique with the help of the grips she had hidden in a secret pocket, then making her getaway across the rooftops. For example).
Certainly no one could produce a map drawn in her hand, detailing how to leave Bath without being caught by any of the agents who shadowed her (heading south to the train station, then doubling back and stealing a horse from the public mews—hypothetically speaking).
Indeed, so tranquil was she, Mrs. Kew must be getting rather bored with the daily reports about Agent A’s dedication to A.U.N.T. duty.
Which is exactly what Alice was counting on.
Nobody stole her books (and her Mr. Bixby) and got away with it.
“Dearlove!” Agapantha snapped, reclaiming her attention. “What do you think?”
Alice blinked at the orange dress held up before her. “Ma’am,” she said without inflection.
“Uuughh!” Agapantha sighed explosively. “This is impossible! I need proper advice from someone who understands fashion!”
Tinkle tinkle.
Alice glanced around at the opening door. She caught her breath.
Ned Lightbourne walked in.
“I do love Bath,” he was saying to someone behind him.
“I am rather fond of the place myself,” came an elegant voice in reply.
Agapantha stared wide-eyed as Cecilia Bassingthwaite entered. Beautiful, refined, the pirate woman moved with the quiet grace of someone who knew that all she beheld could be hers at the merest flick of a finger (which is to say, a finger set against a gun’s trigger). She was outfitted in a gown of deep amber stolen from the very best haute couture provider, and it made the dress Agapantha held up look like a sunburned squirrel in comparison. Her hat was a work of sculptural art.
“One meets the most interesting people in Bath,” she said, smiling sweetly at Ned. He grinned in response.
Alice’s nervous system began to smolder.
“For example,” Cecilia said, trailing her fingertips across a rack of blouses, “there is an interesting gentleman standing outside. Handsome and well-groomed, wearing a very dapper suit.”
“Ah, nothing beats a dapper suit,” Ned replied, picking up a decorative metal glove stand. The shop attendant gave him a wary stare, and Ned nodded amicably to the man.
Alice’s nervous system began sparking.
“I suspect nothing beats this gentleman,” Cecilia mused. “If they tried to, they might not live to regret it.” She removed a blouse from the rack and, stripping it from its wooden coat hanger, let it fall to the floor. The shop attendant gasped.
“Just standing outside the door, you say?” Ned tossed up the glove stand and caught it again.
“Yes, waiting in case any ladies need help crossing the street to the other side, where a cottage happens to be parked.” Cecilia spun the coat hanger around her hand effortlessly. “Charming little house, exactly the sort one would use if one wanted to get themselves a holiday away from town.”
“So, a getaway house?” Ned suggested.
“Dearlove!” Agapantha snapped, shaking the dress so its beaded trim clattered. “Are you listening to me?”
Alice turned back to the girl. “No, ma’am.”
“What? What?” Agapantha gaped at her. “That is complete—”
“The dress is hideous,” Alice interjected dispassionately. “It wearies the eye and suffocates the brain. Therefore I urge you to buy it, as it will suit you perfectly. Now, if you’ll please excuse me.” Swiveling on her heel, she threw the shoeboxes at Mr. Olliver.
“Ahh!” he shouted, arms flinging up in defense. Even before the shoes could tumble from their boxes to the floor, Alice introduced the heel of her own boot to Olliver’s midriff. He bent double just as she lifted her knee, causing a collision between it and his nose, immediately whereafter she elbowed him in the back of the neck. He collapsed atop the shoes, and for a pièce de résistance Cecilia whacked him with the wooden coat hanger.
“Thank—” Alice began, but was interrupted by the shop assistant vaulting the counter in a manner that suggested he’d trained less in ironing blouses and more in secret agenting. Unfortunately, however, he must have skipped class on the day “Dealing with Pirates” had been taught. He was still in midair when the metal glove stand, whizzing at speed across the room, smacked into his face. He joined Mr. Olliver in unconsciousness upon the floor.
“That’s what you get for selling such hideous orange dresses,” Ned said.
“Oh no!” Agapantha cried in horror. Everyone looked at her, fearing she’d been harmed. “It really is hideous, isn’t it? What am I to do? Lady Mellard’s soiree is tomorrow!”
Before an answer might be provided, two shopgirls appeared from the stock room, flicking tape measures like whips. “Goodness,” Cecilia murmured to Alice. “Your organization really does want to keep you.”
“Or kill me,” Alice answered with a shrug.
“Go on outside, dear. Ned and I will handle this.”
“It’ll be fun,” Ned added cheerfully. He snatched the orange dress from Agapantha, threw it at the shopgirls, then pointed to a peach-colored gown displayed on the other side of the room. “That one,” he told Agapantha, pushing her toward it.
“Thank—” Alice tried again to say, but Cecilia was already shooing her away. So she hurried to the door, reached for its handle—
And it opened from the outside.
“Ma’am.”
Alice glanced at the gentleman holding the door ajar for her. “Here at last, I see, Mr. Bixby,” she remarked, surveying his well-dressed form as she walked through the doorway. “I would have got here days earlier.”
He gave her a polite bow. “That is because you are far superior to me in every conceivable way.” Closing the door behind them, he moved to her side, placing his hand against the small of her back as they both scanned the street. At his firm touch, her nervous system ignited in white-hot flames.
“I do not need rescuing,” she informed him. “I was just on the verge of self-rescue when you arrived.”
“Of course.”
“I am leaving A.U.N.T.”
“Oh?”
“Yes,” she replied calmly, as if she was talking about sampling a new breakfast cereal rather than discarding the entire purpose of her life thus far. “They’re planning to destroy my books.”
“Indeed? By happy chance, I myself have left A.U.N.T.’s employment—”
Alice raised an eyebrow.
He shrugged, as if the relinquishment of his complete identity thus far was of no consequence. “I haven’t finished reading Madame Bovary. I wish to get it back. Consequently, I’m free to join you on the recovery mission—if you want, that is.”
“I want,” she said at once, grasping his hand in a sudden fit of reckless passion. A lady passing by noticed and tsked loudly in horrified disapproval. They ignored her.
“I’m sorry it took me a few days to track you down,” Daniel whispered.
Alice squeezed his hand. “I’m sorry I couldn’t escape sooner to find you.”
“Alex and Charlotte took me in. They made me tea—then waited while I remade it properly—then offered to bomb headquarters for me. They . . . listened.” He winced slightly, and Alice guessed all he was not describing—the fear of being left without orders, structure, discipline; the confusion about how exactly to be from now on. She’d experienced it herself. If it hadn’t been for her determination to escape and reunite with Daniel, she might have fallen into a terrifying insouciance. Knowing he’d gone through the same thing made her feel a strange, shadowy pain. Could this be the “empathy” she’d read so often about in novels? Or did she need to visit a doctor?
“After I talked,” Daniel was saying, “they kindly let me scrub their floors and wash their dishes, which helped most of all. By the time I had the laundry folded, I no longer wanted quite so much to slaughter Mrs. Kew and the Academy tutors. I just wanted you.”
Crash!
Something slammed against a wall inside the boutique, causing the door to shudder. Alice did not even notice. All she knew was Daniel.
“We made a plan, Alex, Charlotte, and I,” he said, touching a button on her dress in a way that reminded her of a moonlit room, a list of rules they had broken kiss by kiss. “Alex called in some favors. And here we are.”
“Here you are,” Alice whispered tremulously. She touched his hair, his jaw, as if to assure herself of the reality.
“Of course I am. It would be illogical for me to stay away from the woman I value above all things in the world. You are my prime number, Alice. My eyes are for you only.”
“My heart is yours,” she countered.
He grinned. “You win.”
“Get used to it,” she warned with a crooked smile.
From inside the boutique came another crash; farther along the street, several pedestrians in black coats began to walk toward them. The air grew charged with anticipation.
“Is that Captain O’Riley’s house across the road?” Alice asked.
“Yes.” Daniel rubbed her button between two fingers, and she swallowed heavily. Anyone getting between her and the moment Daniel did the same thing with those fingers elsewhere on her body was going to be very, very sorry.
“It looks like we have a clear path ahead,” she said.
“Look again.” He pointed upward, and Alice noticed then a black shed hovering above them. Suddenly its several doors opened and a squad of butlers rappelled out, bowler hats strapped to their heads and rifles to their backs.
Alice and Daniel began to run.
They reached halfway across the wide street before the butlers landed. Turning, they found several valets converging on them from both west and east.
“Trapped,” Daniel noted dispassionately.
“Oh dear,” Alice said, scratching at a mark on her thumbnail.
And then—
Whack! Thwomp! Smash! They punched, pummeled, spun, and leaped into the air with legs extended horizontally. Noses shattered, knees cracked, heads were smashed together. Several hats were completely destroyed.
“Who is in charge of combat training these days?” Alice asked with exasperation as she tossed a mustachioed butler to the ground.
“I don’t know,” Daniel replied, slamming the heel of his hand into the windpipe of a valet. “But I’m not impressed with their work.”
“They should bring in a consultant,” Alice said while kicking another valet in the groin. “Perhaps a freelance company run by experienced, retired agents.”
“Hm,” Daniel said, intrigued, as he smacked a butler in the face with the man’s own umbrella. “A company also available to civilians? Offering combat training, information analysis, housekeeping advice?”
“Exactly.” Alice absent-mindedly punched a valet. She still could not quite look away from Daniel, so unruffled in his black suit, polished shoes—and with a silver ring in his ear. Her heart gave a hot little shiver at that.
“This service,” he said, straightening his cuffs, and the shiver became a veritable earthquake. “Would it have a base?”
“Perhaps it might be mobile?” Alice said, striving not to march over to him and rip off his cufflinks just so he had to arrange them again. “A townhouse or villa, equipped with a wheel and the latest in flight instrumentation. Something tidy, of course, with plenty of space for bookshelves. Behind you.”
Daniel rammed the butler’s umbrella backward. A valet who had been lunging at him gave a brief cry and collapsed. “It would need to have a catchy name,” he said. “For example, The Bixby Battle Consultancy.”
“Hm,” Alice mused. One of the bleeding men lying around her stirred, and she set her foot upon his chest. “We wouldn’t want it to be another Auntie: dull, conservative.”
“True,” Daniel said. “It should have a name that serves as a bond between concept and action.”
“And I’m not sure why it should have your name when we would own it in equal partnership.”
Daniel stepped toward her. (“Ow!” cried out one of the butlers, whose hand he trod on.) Angling his head to one side, he smiled rather shyly at her. “I was rather hoping the name might belong to us both.”
Stopping a few inches away, he stared at her—not one part of him touching her, and yet his energy pressing against every inch of her body. Alice stared back. Her fingers tapped her thigh and Daniel skipped a breath, as if she’d drummed them directly on his soul.
“Are you proposing I change my name by deed poll?” she asked.
His smile deepened. “Actually, I was proposing marriage. A real marriage, this time.”
“Oh!” She tried to compose a perfect response, but all her inner dictionaries had turned to flowers. “Well, that seems like a reasonable idea,” she managed to say. She held out her hand. “I accept.”
Daniel took her hand, but he did not shake it as she expected. Instead, he held it against his heart. “I love you, Alice,” he said.
“I love you more,” she answered.
The butlers and valets moaned.
Suddenly, O’Riley’s cottage door slammed open. “Are you two coming or not?” Alex called out testily.
“Be patient!” Cecilia admonished from the other side of the road, where she and Ned were leaning back against the boutique wall, arms crossed, watching the fight as if it were marvelous entertainment. “Let them have their romantic moment!”
“They’ll kiss soon and it will all be worth it,” Ned added, grinning. Cecilia smacked him.
“Kissing on the street in daylight is scandalous behavior,” Charlotte said.
“They just beat up more than a dozen men, darling,” Alex pointed out. “I think they’re beyond scandal now.”
Daniel lifted his eyes heavenward. “People,” he murmured disapprovingly.
“Friends,” Alice whispered.
The space between them grew warm and heavy with amazement, hope, love.
Or possibly with the shadow of the A.U.N.T. shed hovering lower. Suddenly, Agent M opened the flight window and leaned out. “Hello down there,” she shouted conversationally.
“Hello, Mia,” Alice called back, not looking away from Daniel.
“So are you going to surrender or not?” the agent asked.
“Not,” Daniel told her, keeping his gaze on Alice. “We’re going home.”
“I’ve got orders to take you dead or alive.”
“And—?” Daniel asked.
There was a moment of silence, then Mia shrugged. “And I don’t get paid enough to kill awesome people. Oh dear, look at you running too fast for me to catch you. And now you’ve disappeared into a maze of alleyways where you’ll never be found. What a terrible shame.”
They lifted their heads then to regard her with surprise, and she grinned in return. The flight window snapped shut.
“Home,” Alice said dreamily, looking at Daniel again. “Where is that?”
“I don’t know yet,” he said. “Shall we find out?”
She nodded. Daniel lifted her hand, kissed it, and her tranquil layers dissolved in a great, possessing rush of joy.
Thank God she’d never before known it was possible to be so happy, or she would have been miserable wanting it.
“Alice, my wonder,” he said against her hand.
“Daniel, my love,” she answered, smiling.
And she put her arm around him, bringing him close to her side, roses and thorns and all. Together they left the shadow of the A.U.N.T. house and went into the pirate’s cottage, and from there flew away to get their books.