“And get blood all over the rug? It’s a sixteenth-century Persian antique, you know, part of the royal collection. It took a great deal of effort to acquire.”
“Steal,” Cecilia murmured.
“Obtain by private means.”
“Well,” Cecilia said, abandoning a losing battle in favor of theoriginal topic of conversation. “It was indeed fortunate I was here. ‘The level moon stared at him—’”
“The moon? Is it up already?” Miss Darlington glared at the wall as if she might see through its swarm of framed pictures, its wallpaper and wood, to the celestial orb beyond, and therefore convey her disgust at its diurnal shenanigans.
“No, it stared at Hiawatha,” Cecilia explained. “In the poem.”
“Oh. Carry on, then.”
“‘In his face stared pale and haggard—’”
“Repetitive fellow, isn’t he?”
“Poets do tend to—”
Miss Darlington waved a hand irritably. “I don’t mean the poet, girl. The pirate. Look, he’s now trying to climb in the window.”
Cecilia glanced up to see the man from the doorstep tugging on the wooden frame of the parlor window. Although his face was obscured by the lace curtain, she fancied she could see him muttering with exasperation. Sighing, she laid down the book once more, rose gracefully, and made her way through a clutter of furniture, statuettes, vases bearing long-stemmed roses from the garden (the neighbor’s garden, to be precise), and various priceless (which is to say purloined) goods, to part the curtain, unlatch the window, and slide it up.
“Yes?” she asked in the same tone she had used at the doorstep.
The man seemed rather startled by her appearance. His hair had fallen exactly as she had supposed it would, and his shadowed eyes held a more sober mood than before.
“If you ask again for my interest in the great North Atlantic auk,” Cecilia said, “I will be obliged to tell you the bird has in fact been extinct for almost fifty years.”
“I could have sworn this window opened to a bedroom,” he said, brushing his hair back to reveal a mild frown.
“We are not common rabble, to sleep on the ground floor. I don’t know your name, for you have not done us the courtesy of leaving a calling card, but I assume it would in any case be anom de pirata. I am all too aware of your kind.”
“No doubt,” he replied, “since you are also my kind.”
Cecilia gasped. “How dare you, sir!”
“Do you deny that you and your aunt belong to the Wisteria Society and so are among the most notorious pirates in England?”
“I don’t deny it, but that is my exact point. We are far superior to your kind. Furthermore, these are not appropriate business hours. We are ten minutes away from taking luncheon, and you have inconvenienced us twice now. Please remove yourself from the premises.”
“But—”
“I am prepared to use a greater force of persuasion if required.” She held up the bone-handled letter opener, and he laughed.
“Oh no, please don’t prick me,” he said mockingly.
Cecilia flicked a minuscule latch on the letter opener’s handle. In an instant, with a hiss of steel, the letter opener extended to the extremely effective length of a rapier.
The man stepped back. “I say, there’s no need for such violence. I only wanted to warn you that Lady Armitage has taken out a contract on your life.”
From across the room came Miss Darlington’s dry, brusque laugh. Cecilia herself merely smiled, and even then with only one side of her mouth.
“That is hardly cause for breaking and entering. Lady Armitage has been trying to kill my aunt for years now.”
“Not your aunt,” he said. “You.”
A delicate flush wafted briefly over Cecilia’s face. “I’m flattered. She has actually employed an assassin?”
