With a sigh of relief he stood and was opening his mouth to call the ladies out when something soft but heavy whacked him in the head. He spun about, dazed, and was whacked again. He had no opportunity to aim his gun at the assailant before he was pounded to his knees, and all he could do was cover his head with his arms in futile self-defense against what appeared to be assassination by pillow.
“Ow!” he cried—albeit quietly, so as not to attract the attention of Morvath’s henchmen. “Ow! Stop it!”
Suddenly the object was yanked away and Ned looked up carefully through hands and hair to see Cecilia holding a knife to the throat of Jane Fairweather.
“Cecilia,” the girl said, blinking behind the spectacles that hung askew on her face.
“Traitor,” Cecilia replied.
“Now, see here!” Jane exclaimed—but then faltered as Frederick emerged from the passage, draped in cobwebs like a maudlin bride. “I—” she began again, but was silenced once more as the daunting figure of Alex O’Riley appeared, followed by fourteen ladies in various states of undress. Jane blushed at Miss Brown’s chemise, gasped at Millie the Monster’s drawers (pink, with cheerful little yellow bows), and almost fainted when Miss Darlington emerged in a camisole and petticoat.
Soon the room was packed with half-naked women, and Cecilia had all she could do to keep Jane upright.
“Cecilia!” Miss Darlington snapped, and immediately Cecilia’s shoulders straightened, her chin lifted, and her knife hand moved to a more refined angle. “What on earth are you doing to Miss Fairweather?”
“She betrayed us to Morvath,” Cecilia explained.
“She attacked me with a pillow,” Ned added.
“Cushion,” Jane said pedantically, and Cecilia pressed the knife a little firmer against her pulse. Jane winced. “I’m sorry, I assumed you were one of Captain Morvath’s men. I was hiding from them behind the drapes. I am no traitor, I swear!”
“If you aren’t,” Cecilia asked, “why are you running around free in Northangerland Abbey, breakfasting with Morvath?”
“I cannot say,” Jane mumbled.
“I can,” Ned interjected. “And in fact have been trying to say it all along. It’s simple. Miss Fairweather is not the culprit, Miss Fairweather is. The senior Miss Fairweather. Miss Fairweather’s grandmother Fairweather: Miss Muriel Fairweather, not Miss Jane Fairweather, to be clear.”
“Egads!” Millie the Monster exclaimed. The rest of the Society muttered among themselves. Cecilia hesitated, looking at Jane’s delicate face and taut mouth, which was always so fond of quoting Wordsworth. She wished there was another reason to continue holding the girl at knifepoint, but dislike based on an old, vague jealousy and the sorrow of faded friendship did not seem enough. She lowered the knife and stepped back.
Jane straightened her spectacles, then curtsied to the women. “I apologize on behalf of my grandmother. Would you believe it was an affair of the heart?”
“No,” said fifteen voices.
“Would you believe Morvath preyed on her sensitivities as an elderly woman?”
“No.”
“Oh. Well then, would you believe he promised her five thousand pounds and the Heppingworth Diamond?”
“That sounds more like it,” Miss Darlington said, and the others nodded in agreement.
“I did not approve of her choice. But I am a Fairweather. Loyalty is all to us.”
Mrs. Rotunder snorted a brusque laugh. “Your aunt had your uncle arrested because he stole the Rembrandt she stole from Prince Edward’s mistress.”
“Loyalty is second only to the craft of piracy to us,” Jane amended. “I dared not expose the false theft of our house, and I hadn’t the courage to foil your kidnapping. I did urge Cecilia to leave the teahouse, to save her from her father.” She smiled at Cecilia, who stared back impassively. The smile faltered. “I thought rumors of his wickedness were surely exaggerated. A few days in Captain Morvath’s company changed my heart. He made us listen to his ‘Ode to Pensiveness.’” She shuddered. Ned and Frederick shuddered. Even Miss Darlington shuddered, although that may have been due to wearing almost no clothes in a chilly, shadowed room.
“When I heard Cecilia had been brought on board the abbey, I was determined to help her escape, despite my grandmother’s trust in me. I stole the key to the secret garden where the Society houses have been moored.”
“Jolly good!” cheered the pirates in enthusiastic whispers. “Well done! Brava! Fine work!” They elbowed Cecilia aside to pat Jane’s back, shake her hand, and mortify her thoroughly with a close view of their bare ankles and uncorseted breasts. Cecilia turned away with pursed lips and caught Ned smirking at her. She scowled.
“Cecilia,” Miss Darlington said, emerging from the throng like a battlehouse hoving into view. “Are you all right? Have you seen your father?”
Everyone turned to look at Cecilia in anticipation of her reply. She noted the unspoken third question in their eyes:Have your instincts awoken to the moldy, dark heritage of villainy that stalks these halls in which you were raised?(Or, as they would more likely put it,Have you gone off the rails yet?)
“I met him briefly, but we did not speak,” she explained, her voice tight. “I’m fine.”
The ladies, being British to the core, were not fooled byfine. They looked more closely at her mother’s dress, as if it was her mother’s ghost; they turned their suspicious stares then to Ned, who grinned in response.
