We got you justice, Mama, Ned whispered to the long-departed spirit of his mother. He heard nothing in reply but his own old grief and was not surprised—after all, he’d been the one to mix the corn flour and water to make ectoplasm for her séances, so he didn’t actually believe in ghosts—yet at the same time it saddened him more than he could quite bear. And somehow tangled in with that was a sadness forMorvath too, at least for the confused man with a heart full of poetry and a deep yearning to be valued. But thinking about it made Ned want to cry, which made him want to curse, and so he focused on simply flying.
Beside him, Cecilia looked out through the telescope. She had said little since the explosion. Her calm was brittle, eerie, and Ned waited nervously for her to begin crying. But as they approached Northangerland Abbey she merely laid down the telescope and took a deep breath.
“Turn the house around,” she said.
Ned frowned at her, certain he’d misheard.
“I have seen my aunt through the telescope,” she explained. “I cannot ascertain her condition, but she is out of the abbey and alive. Now turn the house around and land it beyond the woods, if you please.”
“But—” Ned said, and would have added further expressions of bemusement had Cecilia not taken a pistol from a nearby shelf and directed it at his head.
“Kindly do as I ask.”
He laughed. “Are you hijacking your own house?”
“I am hijacking my life, at least for a little while. Please, I don’t want to shoot you. It would make kissing you decidedly unpleasant.”
Ned promptly wheeled the house around and muttered so fast through the landing stanza, the house trembled. As they glided down over treetops toward a meadow that lay between woods and hills, Cecilia alternated between scowling and hyperventilating. Ned did not know whether to be frightened of her or for her. He decided his safest option was simply to focus on setting the house down and reciting the anchoring stanza in the correct order.
“We cannot stay in this room,” Cecilia declared once they had landed. She gestured with her pistol at the elegant furniture and polished floor. “It will be far too uncomfortable. You will have to come into my—er—where I sleep—”
“Your bedroom?” Ned asked, more confused than ever.
“Exactly.” Her expression was so rigid it might at any moment crack. “Although you will have to excuse the mess. I was not expecting company.”
“Why are you even inviting company into your bedroom?”
She glared across the room at a book slightly misaligned on a shelf. “Soon we must return to the battlefield. I will reunite with my aunt, and I suppose you will report to the Queen. Since you have confessed yourself not truly an assassin, I won’t see you again. My life will resume its normal pattern. Tea parties. Bank robberies. Long evenings spent reading to my aunt until she falls asleep. This is—”
She stopped, swallowing some unspeakable word. But Ned had no intention of letting her get away with it this time. “Is what, Cecilia?”
She shrugged one shoulder, still not looking at him. “Regrettable.”
“I see.” And he did see—behind her stringent manner she was frightened. Within the taut, bristling posture of her body, she was trembling with vulnerability and grief. He stepped forward, took the gun, and tossed it on a chair. Then wrapping his arms around her, he drew her close.
“It’s all right to cry,” he whispered. She tried to pull away, but he went on holding her, determined not to let go even if she turned into a sea monster, a screaming mare, a Lady Armitage spitting poison. He stroked her long, beautiful hair. She smelled of roses and cannon smoke, and his body ached for her in a way he knew he could not satisfy.
At least, not yet. But soon. He’d marry her in the quadrangle of the Bodleian Library, he decided. He’d take her on a honeymoon to Biblioteca Marciana. They could name their firstborn William, in honor of the incomparable Shakespeare. Or Wilhelmina, he supposed, if they were lucky enough to have a daughter. Not Cecilia, though. Heritage ended here.
But his romantic dream shattered as she stomped on his foot, pulling herself from his hold so forcefully he stumbled. “Ow,” he said, scowling. She shook her hair from her face and scowled right back. “Why did you do that?”
“Because I don’t want to cry, Ned. And I don’t want yourconsolation.”
“You don’t?” He had never been so confused in all his life. Even now, he could see the shyness in her eyes, could practically feel the ache emanating from her body. Or maybe it was his own ache, growing so powerful in some places that he feared he might—
Oh.
His scowl faded as he finally understood. Hers flared into a blush. She lifted her chin with exquisite hauteur, almost but not quite disguising her embarrassment, and began to turn away.
He grabbed her hand. Without another word, he pulled her from the cockpit, marching so decisively along the hallway she had to run stumbling to keep up. He paused at one doorway, shot her a demanding look. She shook her head.
“Next one,” she muttered with a mix of determination and mortification.
He strode to the door, thrust it open so enthusiastically it banged against the wall—and then nearly got his face broken as the door flung back at him and slammed shut. The sound of Cecilia trying not to laugh did not improve his patience. He opened the door again more carefully and hauled her into the room.
He groaned. Facing him was the most alluring bed he’d ever seen. Simple white blankets tucked in without a crease; two pillows so thin even a pauper would disdain them—it was a bed that spoke so much of Cecilia he could barely breathe, looking at it. She slept in that bed, her body shifting against its sheets, her nightgown tangling up to her waist...
He hastily turned away. The rest of the room was as calm, although with feminine touches that eased its prim austerity—pearls, shawls, a polished Winchester rifle. On one wall, a black-draped portrait of Cilla gazed down, her painted eyes focused directly on him as if she knew what he was planning to do. Ned winced. He was as degenerate as the next man, but he could not debauch a girl while her mother’s portrait looked on.
