“I’ll accompany you,” Frederick added. “A lady should never be alone in this dangerous world.”
“Excellent!” Ned slapped Frederick on the shoulder. Frederick winced. “Good luck to you both.”
Jane and Frederick hurried off. Ned turned to ask Cecilia if sheneeded assistance, but she had vanished. He looked around urgently and saw the door to Millie’s house was ajar. He ran through the cozy little rooms, calling her name in a loud whisper, nearly leaping out of his skin when she reappeared suddenly carrying a ladder.
He pressed a hand against his hard-beating heart. “You shouldn’t keep going off like that without telling people.”
“Why not?” She frowned with confusion.
“Because people care about you. They worry when you disappear.”
Her confusion deepened. Ned sighed, and without further word he took up one end of the ladder and helped her carry it from the house.
“Where are Jane and Freddy?” she asked as they emerged into the garden.
“Why, are you worried about them?” Ned replied facetiously.
“No. I’m merely in a hurry to be getting aloft.”
“They found a house they didn’t have to climb into.” As he spoke, the town house began to shudder and rise. It scraped against a villa, and lavender buds fluttered gently through the garden.
“Freddy went with Jane?” Cecilia said. “Finally, some good fortune.”
“So you don’t want to marry him, then?” Ned asked as they extended the ladder and propped it against the cottage wall.
“I don’t want to marry anyone.”
“But what would Lady Victoria do without her Lord Albert?”
“Employ a Scottish gillie. You go up first.”
“I should go beneath you in case you fall.”
“I am wearing a dress, sir. I don’t want you to look up and see my underwear.”
“I’ve seen it before,” he reminded her with a grin. But she merely looked at him expressionlessly until he shrugged and began to climb. She tucked up her skirts and followed behind.
Upon reaching the cottage rooftop, they trudged over thatch to the front door of Darlington House. Cecilia opened it.
The foyer was a mess. Flower vases had tipped, spilling their contents. The Duke of Kent’s crystal bowl lay shattered on the floor. A trail of lace and ribbon emerged from the sitting room, only to end with pearl-handled scissors lying in a pool of blood on the parquet floor.
“Wipe your feet,” Cecilia told Ned. “The wheelroom is upstairs, at the end of the corridor. I’m going to check the doors are shut, then prepare the guns. You get us aloft.”
“Your wheel isn’t locked with a key hidden somewhere interesting?” Ned asked, eyeing her drawers.
Cecilia frowned, rearranging her skirts. “No. And stop smiling like that or I’ll make you walk the plank.”
Ned laughed and jogged up the stairs. Cecilia hurried into the Lilac Drawing Room, where a cataclysm of scrapbook paper and floral decals confronted her. Mr. Etterly had not been taken without a fight. She made certain the porch door was closed, then ran through the rest of the ground-floor rooms until she could call out to Ned, “Secure for flight!” Immediately the house began to rise.
Cecilia dashed to the attic. Darlington House had a fine selection of artillery, including a multibarreled gun, cannon, and harpoon. Cecilia chose the cannon without hesitation, even knowing the danger it presented to the Wisteria Society still within the abbey.
“God be with you, Aunty,” Cecilia whispered. Her heart clenched—but she had spent ten years repressing love even more fiercely than a patriarchal system could, and this was not the moment to stop doing so. She hauled the cannon to the window and began to load it.
19
explosions, yet again—the heir of boudicca—empress of the skies—blood and ghosts—pleasance becomes a heroine—pleasance becomes a mad baroness—an interlude—cecilia decides
A scientific woman ought to have no wishes, no affections, a mere heart of stone (and a good supply of ammunition). Constantinopla Brown prided herself on being scientific, piratic, a feminine creature; even so, she winced as the cannonball struck Northangerland Abbey. Somewhere inside that building were the venerable ladies of the Wisteria Society. Perhaps they’d even been in the corner of the west wing that had just exploded in a cloud of smoke and debris. Had Constantinopla brought the royal troops to rescue them, only to doom them instead to a horrific death?!
