“Your eyes are bleary,” Miss Darlington continued fretfully. “I fear you have caught chicken pox in this damp place. And you should not wear your hair down; you never know what vermin you might attract.” She gave Ned a pointed glare. Her expression stiffened as she noticed Frederick standing beside him. “I say, who is that?”
Frederick bowed. “Allow me to introduce myself, O madam of magnificence, whose august name—”
“That is my cousin,” Cecilia said. “Aunt Darlington, please meet Mr. Frederick Bassingthwaite. He is late of Starkthorn Castle and has a keen interest in ladies’ calves. Mr. Bassingthwaite, Miss Darlington.”
Frederick stepped forward to take Miss Darlington’s hand, but she did not offer it. “A Bassingthwaite in Northangerland Abbey.”
“Cecilia and I are to be married,” Frederick explained. “I am the happiest of men! Our fates have aligned and for as long as—”
“We must go at once to the garden,” Miss Darlington declared. “Cecilia, do you remember the way?”
“I’m not sure,” Cecilia admitted. She could envision her motherdrifting through the walled courtyard lavishly filled with greenery and flowers, but its location was beyond her power of recollection.
“I know it,” Ned said.
Miss Darlington threw him the sort of look she usually bestowed upon an unsanitary surface. “Well, I suppose there is no help for it. Cecilia, keep him by your side and see that he stays out of trouble.”
Ned frowned. “I am a cap—oh, never mind.”
Miss Darlington patted Cecilia’s arm in an effusion of emotion, then frowned. “This muslin is far too flimsy. Why are you not wearing a shawl? Do you want to languish and die? Pull yourself together, girl! And if anything happens thatactuallythreatens your life, you must run away, do you understand?”
Cecilia nodded wearily. It was, after all, the story of her life.
“Run away to find some guns and shoot the place up,” Miss Brown amended with a wink.
“Hm,” Miss Darlington said. “Let’s call that Plan B.”
“And look, ladies,” Gertrude Rotunder said cheerfully, holding up a bottle of whiskey. “Weapons!”
“Hurrah!” whispered the pirates.
18
a ladies’ craft-making session—first impressions—the villain’s denouement—a new theory—explosions (informational, literary, garnishes)—melee—the riddle of the door—scraped—the telltale heart
Observe a lady when she has some woman’s work in hand, and you will see the image of peace, calmly intent on her task. Thus were the matrons of the Wisteria Society; holding themselves in humble, feminine focus, they smashed bottles between cushions, sharpened swizzle sticks, and handed out corkscrews. Olivia Etterly fashioned a knuckle-duster from teaspoons, and Millie the Monster took the drapes’ braided cord as a garrote.
Cecilia stood guard at the door as they worked. She stared out at a corridor that formed a shadowed groove in her memory, its tallow candles smoking dolefully on sconces along the walls. She tried to envision herself as a little girl dancing its length but could not do so. That part of her was so distant now, it seemed to be a different girl in a different life, as if Cecilia herself had always lived with Miss Darlington, reading aloud from moralizing works in the mornings, training to rob and swindle people in the afternoon, and never daring to dream in caseshe encountered in her heart a sad-eyed little ghost hugging a math textbook.
“Are you all right?” came a quiet male voice at her shoulder. Cecilia turned and was momentarily alarmed to see Alex O’Riley standing beside her. Candlelight flickered in his dark blue eyes and against the silver hook earring hanging from his left ear as if trying, but failing utterly, to haunt him.
“You look rather melancholy,” he said, his voice tinted with a slight Irish accent.
“I am perfectly cheerful,” she replied, and gave him a smile to prove it. He winced.
“Any more cheerful-looking and you’d be in a coffin.”
Cecilia snapped her smile back. “Your perception is confused, Captain O’Riley.”
“I won’t disagree with you there,” he said, leaning back against the doorjamb. “Having grown up with stories about the infamous Wisteria Society, I did not expect to see a group of old ladies in petticoats. My perception is very confused indeed.”
“Only a man would feel that way,” Cecilia retorted.
“No doubt. I’m also confused about you, Miss Bassingthwaite. You look nothing like your mother.”
A sudden dizziness of emotion swamped her, and she drew herself more erect, eyes tightening. No one had ever said such a thing to her in all her life. She wasoutragedannoyedastonishingly pleased.
“How do you know?” she asked.
