7
the usual number of beds—terrible toiletries— the plan comes together—things heat up—the rules of love—fun and games—they are put to the test
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man and woman in possession of a false marriage license must be in want of separate beds. Unfortunately, when Daniel and Alice entered their suite in Starkthorn Manor, they found only one—which quite frankly would not have come as a surprise had they read more exciting literature than was their habit. They eyed it disconcertedly as the housemaid went about lighting lamps and prodding the hearth fire.
“I will take the sofa,” Daniel said, removing his coat as if he was about to go to sleep that very moment.
“I would not ask you to do so,” Alice said.
“I don’t mind.”
“No, I mean it’s a bad idea. What if someone came in and saw you? It would not lend an impression of our being happily married.”
“Miss Dearlove is right, sir,” the maid interjected. Her name was Veronica Vale, and after sending away the footmen she had explained her designation was V-2: an A.U.N.T. agent fresh out of training and excited to work with her two greatest role models oh my goodness such luck at this early stage of her career and would they be so very kind as to autograph her duster?! Even when they had just stared in cool, wordless reply, her eyes never ceased shining with admiration. “I’m afraid, sir, that any chambermaid could walk in willy-nilly. Servants in a fine house like this never knock.”
“Hm,” Daniel said, unconvinced.
“We are professionals,” Alice reminded him. “It will be fine. Just wear clothing and keep to your side—the left side, if you please—and don’t eat biscuits in bed or take possession of all the pillows, and sleep on your stomach so as to prevent snoring, also kindly refrain from wearing cologne, and—”
“You certainly sound married, Miss Dearlove,” Veronica remarked with a chuckle.
“Mrs. Blakeney,” Daniel corrected her sternly.
Veronica flushed. “I beg your pardon, sir. It slipped my mind, what with you both being such stars. A and B, I still can’t believe it!” She clutched her hands together against her heart. “Did you really shoot each other in Clacton last year?”
“No,” they said.
“Oh. But did you kill three robbers this week in St. James using nothing but your hats?”
“No.”
“I see.” Her shoulders sagged.
“Well, that’s done,” Snodgrass said, emerging from the washroom. Although he looked as distracted as he had when flying through the storm, Alice was beginning to realize this was his resting scientist face. “I’ve installed an emergency toothbrush.”
“Thank you,” Alice said, “but there was no need, I brought my own spares.”
“As did I,” Daniel said.
“I meant in case you need to shoot someone with poisoned darts, what? Just be careful not to actually use it as a toothbrush, or you’ll have a jolly nasty toothache. I say, ha ha!”
“Ha ha!” Veronica echoed.
“Hm,” Daniel said. With a frown, he brought forth a map from his suitcase and unfolded it across the bed.
“This is the layout of Starkthorn Castle,” he said as the others gathered around. “We are here.” He indicated a small square that represented their bedroom. “We’ll mark the likely places for a weapon to be secured, then organize a grid-based plan for searching. Dr. Snodgrass, do you have a pen?”
“You wish to blow something up?” the scientist asked.
Daniel stared blankly at him for a moment, then turned to Alice. “Miss Dearlove, do you happen to have a pen?”
Alice produced the required implement, and from there rooms and passageways were marked, arrows drawn, and numbers allocated to various squares, in consultation with Veronica, who had spent the past week scouting out the castle (and dusting it). A plan was devised and memorized.
“We will begin with the obvious,” Daniel said. “Jane Fairweather’s private sitting room.” He tapped the pen briskly against a square numbered “one.”
“Caref—” was all Snodgrass had time to say before the paper burst alight with blue flame. Veronica screamed, Alice sighed, and Daniel grabbed a pillow, pressing it over the fire while Snodgrass explained that the map had been incantated to self-destruct upon being tapped.
“It’s really quite fascinating,” he said, flipping back one corner of the paper. “If you just look here you will see the Latin written onto the—”
“Get out,” Daniel said in a voice so cold it would have extinguished the fire had the pillow not already done so.
“Say what?”
Daniel pointed at the door. “Get. Out. Both of you, please. If you need to report—”
“We can telephone you,” the scientist said. “Agent A has been equipped with a portable receiver in her shoe for just such an occasion.”
“You mean this shoe?” Alice lifted her right foot and the sodden slipper thereon. It sparked slightly, and a rather forlorn buzzing sound stuttered from the heel. “Well, that explains it. I thought I had pins and needles in my foot.”
“Oh, I say.” Snodgrass drooped.
“You can just come find us,” Daniel said, folding the map with disconcerting precision.
“But I have another device which—”
“Best to leave now,” Alice said before Daniel grew so calm someone got injured. She hustled Snodgrass and Veronica from the room and shut the door behind them. Behind her, Daniel made no sound, but she could feel his anger clench the atmosphere.
“There have been far too many people for one day,” she said.
“Hm,” he agreed. He turned to unpacking, and Alice walked over to the fireplace to dry herself. She stood vaguely staring at the pale blue-and-white chintz wallpaper as her clothing warmed. The flames’ crackling made her tap her fingers now and again, but she felt gradually soothed by rain pattering against the escape route window, and small noises Daniel made as he transferred clothes from his bag into the potential barricade chest of drawers. The morning’s disturbances faded, and for a moment she remembered falling through the storm, unrestrained and truly peaceful for the first time in months.
If only she could tumble from a flying house every day, life would be much improved. She sighed at the thought of it.
Suddenly a shadow shifted over her face. Alice blinked out of reverie to find Daniel standing before her. She gazed up at him, still half-lost in the sense of falling, and he took hold of her upper arms as if to catch her. The pale murmur became a roar.
“You’re so hot,” he said, his eyes shadowy behind the firelit surfaces of his spectacles, his voice dark with a lingering residue of piratic magic.
“Um,” she replied dazedly.
“You’re smoking.”
“Er . . .”
“Literally, Miss Dearlove. Your petticoat is catching alight.”
“Oh!” Glancing down, Alice saw steam arising from her damp petticoat. The hem, embroidered with descendeo lente from the flight incantation, was beginning to spark.
“You’re standing too close to the fire,” Daniel said, drawing her away. He began divesting her of her velveteen coat as Alice fumbled urgently with the ties of her petticoat. Their hands tangled; their breath mingled; Alice almost felt like her heart was beating with his energy. Within seconds, she was stripped of all but chemise, drawers, corset, bustle pad, stockings, shoes, and hat. Strands of hair tumbled down her neck. Daniel’s breath tumbled out of him. Although the threat of combustion had been thwarted, Alice almost thought she heard the air between them crackle and spark. She crossed her arms defensively over the thin lawn of her chemise. Daniel turned away, shoving a hand through his hair.
“I’ll just—er, that is, you—I’ll—you get dressed and I’ll be over here checking for bugs,” he said.
“Very well,” Alice agreed, sidling over to her duffel bag. “Excellent plan. I’ll—you—er, don’t turn around.”
“I won’t,” he said most assuredly.
She withdrew a small handful of purple and green silk from the bag and shook it so that voluminous layers of beribboned, braid-trimmed, and lace-bristling skirts unfurled with a thwomp. Alice grimaced at the sight of them. In such a gown she was going to look hideous enough to be piratically fashionable, but she might need a headache tonic to bear it. With eyes half-closed, she removed her hat, shook out her still-damp hair, and dressed as fast as all the requisite layers allowed. Retrieving her spare gun from the bag, she checked its ammunition load, then tucked it into a secret pocket. At last, she turned back to the room . . .
And her eyes opened so wide she strained a facial muscle.
Daniel was leaning over the vanity table in a manner that had salacious consequences for the trouser fabric across his posterior. Alice could not help but stare. The memory of Miss Darlington declaring there were no teeth in her gluteus maximus arose piratically, accompanied by a vision in which Alice applied her own teeth to the firm globe of Mr. Bixby’s similar muscle. She immediately shut her mouth—and then realized it had been hanging open, and that she had been perilously close to drooling.
Drooling. Like a hooligan.
Fiddlesticks! Much more time spent in the company of this man and she’d end up casting off her tranquil layers to run amok, breaking windows and tearing out the pages of books. Agent B did things to her nerves that she could not comprehend. Clearly, he was dangerous—an assassin with a highly trained body, a mind like a loaded gun, a smile capable of destroying any common sense, and did she mention his body? Alice began to suspect his pajama party with Princess Louise involved more interesting activities than drinking cocoa and telling ghost stories.
“Ahem. Ahem.” She cleared her throat urgently, and Daniel straightened, glancing over his shoulder.
“All dressed, then?” he asked with complete ignorance of the wickedness rampaging behind her serene expression.
“All dressed,” she managed to say.
“I’ll just finish here, then we should go downstairs.”
He turned to inspect a clock. Firelight caught on his earring, making it flash like a flirtatious wink.
“Ahem! Ahem!” Alice rubbed her throat, the interior of which had now been so thoroughly cleared it was beginning to ache. “Indeed. Yes. Good. Downstairs. Indeed.”
Daniel frowned a little as he regarded her. “Are you quite well, Miss Dearlove?”
“Entirely well!” She gathered up her hair and began winding it into a tight knot. Daniel watched. He seemed tired, Alice thought—his eyes dark, his jaw twitching, as he followed her movements like one mesmerized. She brushed a hand along the side of her bare neck to catch a loose strand, and he jolted. “Ahem,” he said, and turned away to inspect the clock again.
“You really think the room will be bugged?” Alice asked.
“One can never be too careful.” He lifted a lamp to look under it, then twitched aside a velvet drape. “These old houses are often riddled with cockroaches or spiders.”
Alice shuddered. Thus far today she had been shot at by a pirate’s battle-conservatory, fallen through a thunderstorm, lost her favorite copy of Euripides, faced the dreaded scoundrel Miss Darlington, been aurally assaulted by both an anti-theft siren and Frederick Bassingthwaite, and almost caught on fire in more ways than one. And now there was a possibility of insects. Just how much more perilous could this mission get?
Crash!
The chaise lounge toppled back, thudding against the floor. A reverberation went through the Orange Drawing Room, causing chandeliers to rattle and vases to rock perilously on tables. Alice winced.
But the three elderly ladies who had been standing on the chaise, and who skipped easily off its curved back to the polished wood floor, only laughed and clanked their wineglasses together in merry triumph. As crimson liquid splashed over their hands, Alice winced again, thinking of how sticky their fingers would be hereafter, and of all the floor mopping some poor chambermaid would be doing tonight.
“What’s next?” came a call from somewhere amongst the mass of silk bustles, gaudy skirts, and terrifyingly fulsome hats crowding the room.
The question sparked fear through Alice’s blood. She was a courageous woman. She had walked through the Whitechapel slum at midnight, spied on wicked witches who would have killed her had they realized her identity, and read William Blake’s poetry. But nothing was more nerve-racking than pirates entertaining themselves with a few innocent parlor games.
Innocent, at least, until Miss Dole and Muriel Fairweather both tried to take the same seat during musical chairs. The resultant dispute had brought an end to that game, primarily due to the fact every chair had been smashed.
“Oops,” Mrs. Rotunder had said when the literal dust settled. “It seems we got a little overenthusiastic.” She’d dropped the chair leg she had been whacking over Bloodhound Bess’s head and had smiled sheepishly at Jane and Frederick. “Terribly sorry.”
“It is of no concern,” Jane had said, although her smile had been so sharp she was in danger of putting her own eye out. “We had far too many priceless Chippendale giltwood chairs anyway, and could certainly afford to lose them. As you know, the Bassingthwaite family are tremendously, fabulously rich.” This last word had come out like the crack of a whip, and Alice, from the corner of her eye, had seen Frederick flinch. “Having said that,” Jane continued, “perhaps we should try a quieter game now? Pass the Slipper?”
“Jolly good!” the ladies had agreed with a worrying enthusiasm that was explained with explosive clarity when the slipper turned out to contain a bomb.
Now Alice stood on a pouf at the edge of the still-somewhat-smoky room, trying to calculate how long the afternoon had gone on thus far. Two, three years? All perception of time had long since fled for its life, taking with it a large proportion of her sanity. She was forced to concede herself bamboozled.
Although she had experienced pirates before, it had never been in such quantity. One Lady Armitage was a drain on the senses; fifteen Wisteria Society ladies together were a sinkhole—in a typhoon—during a tsunami. All the hours she’d spent learning parlor game rules in preparation for this mission had gone up in smoke—literally. Every muscle in her body was clenched, and the resultant tension sent a constant twang through her.
She’d always believed Wisteria Society ladies were dignified, elegant, and exquisitely well-mannered (when not robbing banks and blowing things up). But this afternoon proved that they certainly liked to party. Alice had hoped an energetic game of The Floor Is Lava would tire them out. However, despite much leaping, clambering, and breaking of sofas, the trepidation on their husbands’ faces suggested further mayhem remained likely.
Indeed, with the very next word spoken, Alice discovered the depths to which the Wisteria Society would sink.
“Charades!”
Several cheers arose at this suggestion. Alice stared wide-eyed and white-faced in horror across the room at Daniel. He just happened to be looking her way (as he had been each time she’d glanced at him, which was a convenient coincidence), and he grimaced in reply.
Suddenly, one pirate lady standing atop an armchair began tapping her wineglass with a dagger. “Not charades!” she shouted. “I have a better idea!”
“Mrs. Ogden! Mrs. Ogden!” the group chanted. Miss Darlington, thus far silently dignified in a corner, drummed the floor with her cane.
Alice warily eyed the plump, froth-haired woman. Her embroidered cardigan and plaid skirts suggested more of a granny than a grim reprobate, but Alice knew from A.U.N.T.’s database that, in the past year since being inducted into piratic ranks, Ogden the ’Orrible had catapulted herself to the heights of infamy, primarily by catapulting bombs into the depths of rich viscounts’ houses. Most pirates did not attack civilian buildings, but Mrs. Ogden’s motto was “robbers can’t be choosers,” and no one had the courage to explain that she’d heard it wrong.
“I shall spin around and point to someone,” she declared, “and they must complete the dare I set them!”
“It’s rude to point,” Bloodhound Bess called out from a corner, where she was slipping a gold statuette of a Bassingthwaite ancestor into her skirt pocket.
Mrs. Ogden only laughed and began rotating herself unsteadily upon the chair.
Alice felt a sudden chill of doom. She was tensing even before Mrs. Ogden pointed directly at her.
“Mrs. Blakeney!” the old lady shouted.
Such a cacophony of applause, whoops, and whistles followed that Alice nearly burst into overwrought tears at the sound of it. But she was a professional, and ostensibly a pirate, and neither of those cried in public. So she took a deep breath, tapped her fingers against her thighs, and stepped down off the pouf.
“What is your dare?” she asked calmly.
“Goodness, how temperate,” Mrs. Ogden remarked, shrugging her mouth with admiration and nodding around at the crowd, who smirked in reply. “You have a remarkably cool character, Mrs. Blakeney. But I know just the dare to heat you up.”
“Yes?” She was ice, she was midwinter snow, nothing could trouble her.
“I dare you to kiss your husband.”
And just like that she became a bonfire.