Reaching into her bodice, she pulled out the other set and positioned them exactly where she’d found the others. The real plans were then tucked back into her bodice, and she climbed to her feet.
Only to hear footsteps approaching down the hall.
Oh, blast! Her heart suddenly thundering, Pip quickly looked around for a place to hide. Darn the Riptons for their open natures. They simply didn’t have the mentality for subterfuge. She finally resorted to the obvious. Dropping back to her knees, she paused and listened. It was pointless climbing all the way under that bed if it wasn’t Pamela approaching.
The door latch lifted. Pip scuttled under the bed, praying nobody dropped anything on the floor. She had just managed to get her skirts tucked all the way beneath the bed curtains and her glasses firmly positioned on her nose before the door opened and Pamela swept in, her maid right behind her.
Pip closed her eyes, as if that would help. She swore they could probably hear her heart.
“But my lady…” the maid protested in a guttural accent. Leave it to Pamela to be the only woman of Pip’s acquaintance to eschew a French maid for a German one.
“Speak German,” the hussy snapped. “We do not wish to be overheard.”
Pip grinned to herself. Poor Pamela. She chose the wrong language if she wanted to protect secrets. Pip was not only fluent in French, Spanish, and Italian, but could manage in German, Portuguese, Latin, Russian, Hungarian, and Greek. Theo had always said that a knowledge of languages could only help a soldier do his job. So, Pip had learned them right alongside him, and then used the languages whenever she had been allowed to join her parents abroad.
Besides, she thought, almost snorting out loud. It obviously hadn’t occurred to Pamela that the princess down the hall was a dab hand at German herself.
“Check to make sure they’re still there,” Pamela ordered. “Bobby said it was important.”
Pip’s heart almost seized. The maid was walking right around to the site Pip had just mined. She was dead; she knew it. She was so paralyzed she couldn’t even come up with a reasonable excuse for hiding under Pamela’s bed. As if there could be one.
The maid knelt. Pip opened her eyes to see a very nice pair of peach satin slippers stop and face the bed. She held her breath. But the maid didn’t bend to reach under the bed. She reached under the mattress with one arm while telling Pamela she was trained for more than retrieval, like a dog.
Pip was fighting between panic and laughter. It just figured.
“You are trained to do what I tell you,” Pamela insisted. “Are they…”
The maid backed out and straightened. “Just where he put them. What else do you need from me? I am in sad want of rubber balls to fetch.”
Amazingly, Pamela laughed. “I should sell you to the gypsies, Gerta.”
“You could try, Pamela.”
Pip raised an eyebrow. Odd for a maid-employer relationship. Was Gerta also part of the cabal Beau was helping to stop? It would make sense.
“Well,” Pamela said from over by her dresser, “the important work is done. He will retrieve the plans on his way home from the party. Although I am sad that in the end Beau will suffer for his intransigence. It would have been delicious to have him owe me for saving him from a charge of treason. I suppose even death would be preferable to marriage to that mouse.”
The maid stepped up behind her mistress. “It is his own fault. He could have had you.”
Pamela chuckled. “He will again. It is only a small matter of patience. I give him a month before he is back begging for me.”
“Two weeks,” the maid countered. “Will you stop in on Thomas tonight, or shall I?”
Pamela sighed. “You do it. I’ve had enough of men today.”
Pip came within Ames aces of correcting the harpy on her assumption. Pip might in the end be forced to give Beau up. She would be damned if she gave him up to this monster.
But then she smiled. At least she knew that Pamela would come out on the short end of this endeavor. Pip had the real plans and Pamela had nothing. Pip would have loved to have been there when the truth came out, but she had other things to do. Like get married in a few hours. If she ever made it out from under Pamela’s bed.
In the end it was a close call. Pip waited through Pamela’s nightly routine, which
seemed to involve a dozen different kinds of cream, gloves slid onto oily hands, various gems categorized and counted, and the entire spectrum of attires chosen for the next day. Pip supposed she should feel honored. For the wedding, Pamela was going to wear her brightest red, which Pip chose to believe meant she felt threatened by the whole situation. After all, didn’t birds wear their brightest plumage to try to steal attention? Pamela evidently needed red to challenge a mouse.
Even finally dousing the candle did not free Pip. Either la Pamela had a guilty conscience or a bad back, for she tossed for what seemed like hours as Pip lay beneath, more and more bedeviled by the dust that lurked in such places.
Finally, though, the room was quiet but for rhythmic breathing. The rest of the house was even quieter, the revelers having long since sought their own beds. Checking her bodice one last time, Pip carefully slipped from beneath the bed and crept to the door. She was once again thankful that the party was at the Riptons’, since the staff was conscientious and the door hinges well-oiled. She escaped Pamela’s room with no more than a whisper of her gown.
It would be perfect if Joyful had already sought her bed. Pip did not want any recriminations, especially when she felt so triumphant.
