Anne returned the salad plate to the tray. A tiny prickle ofmovement caught her eye. She bent and looked closer. Some insect was slowly crawling up one of the stems in the vase.
A bee.
Anne’s breath caught. She stifled an exclamation, not wishing to startle the older woman. She knew Lady Celia abhorred flying insects. And what had Jasper said about his aunt’s reactions to bee-stings? Anne was not fond of bees either, having been stung more than once in her youth.
She glanced over to the window. Had the creature flown inside already? Or had it been hiding in the flowers? Wouldn’t Clara or Mrs. Pratt have noticed it? Wouldn’t it have flown away before now?
What to do? She looked again to the flowers, to keep an eye on the bee. Now a second emerged from the vase, slow and lumbering, almost as if drunk. What in the world? A third emerged, and Anne’s skin prickled with gooseflesh at the invasion.
She said evenly, “Don’t panic, my lady, but there is a bee ... just there. I’m going to—”
“A bee? I told you not to open the window. I react most violently to their stings.”
“I think they came in with the flowers.”
“They?”
“Shh. At least three. I’m going to open the balcony door, carry the vase outside, and hope they fly away out there instead of in here.”
“Be careful!”
Going to the balcony door, Anne unlocked it and pulled it open.
“Hurry,” Lady Celia said, voice urgent. “They’re beginning to move faster.”
Anne returned to the bedside table, bit her lip, and gingerly picked up the vase, carrying it to the balcony as though it were a lit fuse, trying not to jostle it. Stepping outside, sheset the vase on the parapet’s ledge and quickly retreated, closing the door behind herself and the window as well.
“Do you see any more?” Anne returned and studied the tray and table and then looked toward the ceiling.
“No,” Lady Celia replied with a long exhale. “Thank you, Anne. That was quick thinking. If you had tried to swat them you would have succeeded only in stirring them into a frenzy.”
“That’s what I thought. I’d probably knock over the vase and break the dishes but could not strike all three before one of us got stung.”
“And in my case, that would be bad,” Lady Celia said. “The last time I was stung, my throat swelled and I had difficulty swallowing or breathing. My mother reacted the same way. I inherited all my weaknesses from her: weak heart, reactions to shellfish and bees.”
Anne asked lightly, “Any other dangers I should know about?”
Lady Celia hesitated, her expression suddenly somber. “Not that I know of.”
Anne did not press her. Instead her mind puzzled over the questionHow?She could believe one insect had unknowingly been transported inside within a posy of flowers. But three? She thought back. Clara had set the tray in the larder to keep the iced cream chilled. Had the cold stunned the bees, only for them to awaken upon entering the warm room? But how had three ended up inside that vase?
Twenty minutes later, Anne slipped back onto the balcony and shook the vase upside down, heedless of the flowers falling to the floor. There was no water in the vase, but one dead bee fell out with them. She noticed the bottom of the vase had been marked with a little heart.
She carried the empty vase back inside. “All gone.”
Lady Celia’s gaze latched onto the vase. It was a simpleceramic vessel painted blue with a small crack repaired with glue. Crudely made, as though by a child or amateur potter.
“Let me see that.”
“It’s empty. I made certain.”
Even so, Lady Celia held out her hand, and Anne set the vase into it.
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve seen this before, though not in years.”
“Oh?”
It certainly did not seem on par with the woman’s collection of fine Wedgwood.
