“I’ve stolen Pleasance,” he repeated. “You know—young housemaid, deceased vampirical baroness, and a few subsidiary ghosts too, I suspect? I thought it would take some doing, but as it turned out all I needed was to mention I’m friends with Robert Louis Stevenson, and she fell immediately in with my scheme.”
“What scheme?” Cecilia asked, and he lifted their hands. She spun a little too fast, her skirts whipping about, her wits staggering. “I am going to kill you,” she warned upon her return.
“I hope you do it slowly,” he said, grinning with such heat that all the words in her throat burned away and she could only gasp in outrage. “Will you use that knife you have tucked in your garter, warm against your thigh? Or will you use your bare hands?”
“I shall dismember you,” she said pointedly, and he winced.
“You might find that hard,” he replied.
“I’m sure it will only feel like a small prick.”
“Temptress.”
“Libertine.”
They danced past Prince Wilhelm and the Queen of Hawaii, who were waltzing ponderously, and nodded a smiling acknowledgment to them.
“Rogue,” Cecilia continued, hissing the word through her smile. “Profligate.”
“Yes, yes, I know,” Ned replied. “Knave, rakehell, et cetera. But back to the matter at hand. I stole Pleasance, and she stole a premises, and together we are going to steal you.”
“What premises?”
“You’ll see.”
He waltzed her to the edge of the crowd, among fern shadows. His steps slowed, and his hand pushed her gently closer until she could feel his heartbeat through her bones. He was not smiling now. The charm, the pleasant easy cheer, had disappeared. Raw, vulnerable longing darkened his eyes.
“I love you, Cecilia Bassingthwaite,” he said. “Please marry me. Please say yes.”
“Oh.” She stepped on his foot, but neither of them noticed. “I—but—my aunt—”
“And this is why I’m stealing you. Pleasance agrees. It’s like you’ve caged yourself in duty and guilt. You won’t let yourself go.”
“I can’t.” She had left her mother, and her mother had died. Besides, Aunt Darlington was so old now, so fragile—
Crash!
All right, so Aunt Darlington had just knocked over a chair in her exuberance as she danced poor Prince Edward half to death, but that was beside the point.
“You don’t have to leave her,” Ned said. “You simply have to let me take you away instead.”
She stared up into his beautiful, solemn eyes, and her wits held their breath—hands clutched to their fast-beating hearts, eyes wide, as they awaited instructions. But she did not need them for an answer. Opening her mouth, she said—
“Excuse me,” came Captain Morvath’s voice behind her. “May I cut in?”
And she felt a long, sharp knife at her throat.
25
no zombies, i assure you—the seeds of poetry—bad timing makes an ass of the villain—a name from the past—the consequence of not educating women—a diabolical plan—the weight of the crown—cecilia imperils her reputation—the cinderella hour
In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they keep a parachute in their escape garden shed and employ it in timely fashion to avoid colliding with their environment. Thus Patrick Morvath was able to circumvent extinction and, after a brief detour to a London tailor, arrive at the Jubilee Banquet in order to exact revenge upon Queen Victoria (and possibly read his latest poem aloud to the gathered royalty, since such a discerning audience would surely appreciate his genius, especially if he was standing over the dead body of the English queen as he orated).
But when he arrived in Buckingham Palace and saw Jemima Darlington among the crowd, his plan imploded in white-hot flames. He had stabbed her with all the grief and fury within him, and yet here she was—dancing! Laughing on the arms of some popinjay with a ridiculous mustache!! It was as if he hadn’t impacted her at all!!!
A cry broke out of his soul but he swallowed it down, since howling with all the loneliness and shame of a small boy was not quite the done thing at a royal ball. He would write it out later, he told himself, as was his habit—blistering page after page with the poetry of his wounded psyche. Thus, in the way of all creative masters, he would draw great art from his tragedy...
Smothermade an excellent rhyme withmother.
