“That’s quite all right,” Cecilia murmured and, glancing up, caught Jane scowling at her a moment before returning to her book.
Cecilia shifted to open the teahouse door. A little bell sounded, and the smell of freshly baked scones wafted from within. Cecilia looked in at what appeared to be an Impressionist’s fever dream. Ruffles, ruches, bows, feathers, laces, furs, faux flowers (and the blanched faces of the teahouse staff) informed her that the rest of the Wisteria Society were already present.
“Aunty,” she said, standing aside and gesturing so that Miss Darlington might precede her. The group entered the teahouse.
Which is to say, they closed parasols, sheathed swords, disembarked parents, determined precedence, angled, then reangled the wheeled chair, pardoned one another for any inconvenience, thanked one another for any assistance, and then entered the teahouse.
“Ahoy!” the children shouted.
“Ahoy!” the crowd cheered back. Teacups, cake forks, and pistols were uplifted in greeting. The staff cowered.
“Cecilia dear,” Miss Darlington said as she waited for Essie’s husband to obtain her a seat at the long table, “why don’t you see if the teahouse has a library? I’m sure you will find the chitchat of old ladies tedious—it will be all about firming lotions and bulletproof eyeglasses and the best guns to use when you have arthritis. Pleasance can attend to my needs.”
“A library in a village teahouse?”
“It’s worth investigating. Perhaps they have scintillating novels about—er, Victoria sponges. This is not really an occasion for young people.”
Cecilia watched the children clamber onto chairs so as to better reach a plate of cakes. Jane Fairweather was pouring tea for her grandmother. Clearly Miss Darlington wanted to be rid of her for the duration of the meeting and was snatching at the merest excuse.
Cecilia felt unsurprised. Every time someone had tried to discuss Morvath this week, Miss Darlington had sent her from the room on a spurious errand. Cecilia had fetched more handkerchiefs, cups of tea, cursed goblets, snuffboxes, and shawls than she even knew existed in Darlington House. More than once she’d heard the ladies whisper, “Don’t talk about him in front of the poor girl, she’ll be disturbed,” and she’d struggled to repress a smile.
Actually, she rather appreciated being kept in the dark, for that meant the ladies were themselves blind to her own scheming. In a secret copy ofAgnes Grey, tucked beneath her bed’s mattress, she had written notes on her various plans for patricide. Every night she read them through, added ideas, sketched diagrams, and tried not to remember a sword falling, a woman screaming—
“Run!”
—until her pen became a dagger slicing through several pages of the book.
Once Morvath was dead, the Wisteria Society would no longer whisper protectively or send her from the room so she wouldn’t be disturbed. They would give her the best seat at the tea table.
Besides, nothing ever really disturbed her... except that charming and handsome—er, which is to saycheeky and utterly deplorable—Captain Lightbourne.
And maybe Jane Fairweather’s smirk, which was presently being directed at her again. Cecilia drew herself out of contemplation to stare coldly back at the other woman.
“Why doesn’t Cecilia visit the village library?” Jane suggested.
“Oh no, dear,” the senior Miss Fairweather said. “She couldn’t go walking alone and”—her tone dropped into darkness—“unchaperoned.”
Miss Darlington waved a hand at this concern. “Cecilia is twenty-one, quite old enough to go out and about alone.”
Cecilia opened her mouth to remind her aunt she was nineteen,then closed it again in silence. She had been told Chanters House in Ottery St. Mary had a magnificent private library, from which perhaps she could procure a new copy ofWuthering Heights. The only defect in this plan was that she might come upon Constantinopla and Tom imitating Mary Shelley in the graveyard. A lady did not want her sensibilities ruffled whilst on her way to burgle a library.
“Only if you are certain,” she replied with all due hesitance, but her feet were already carrying her back toward the door.
“Absolutely certain,” Miss Darlington assured her. Jane nodded encouragement, despite Miss Fairweather’s frown. Cecilia noticed from the corner of her eye Anne Brown laying a sketch of Northangerland Abbey on the table among plates of tiny sandwiches and asparagus rolls. Someone embedded their dagger in it. Cecilia took another step back.
“You look very pale,” Jane said. “Do go out, get some sun.”
“But—” Miss Fairweather began.
“Excellent idea,” Miss Darlington interjected. “Only keep your hat on, and use your parasol, and don’t, whatever you do, remove your gloves. Remember the Great Peril, dear.”
At that phrase, half the company went silent—including Millie the Monster, who had a quizzing glass up to her unpatched eye, and Bloodhound Bess, whose grin seemed to extend almost to her left ear by reason of a scar obtained when she tried to steal a fur from a Russian tsarina. Cecilia felt like a child being tested on her lessons.
“Freckles,” she recited, and the ladies nodded with satisfaction.
Thus it was that Cecilia found herself entirely at liberty on a temperate afternoon within walking distance of a public library, a famed private library, two cake shops, and a museum. That she had Jane Fairweather to thank for this was the most extraordinary part. But Cecilia did notlook a gift horse in the mouth (although she’d read enough history that she ought to have known better). Raising her parasol, she crossed the street—
And then paused, overcome with freedom. Where might she go first?
