“Actually, I’m on guard in case someone manages to take the amulet and escape. I’ll stop them and relieve them of their burden.”
“Ah, you’re a true pirate for sure, Lightbourne. Always go with the laziest plan.”
“Of course. You’re here for the amulet too, I imagine.”
Alex shrugged. “Maybe.” In fact he vowed to never rest until that amulet, and the power it contained, belonged to him.
“Good luck. The exhibition’s only been open two days and already at least a third of the Wisteria Society are here, gossiping, trading gunpowder recipes, and sizing each other up for assassination. There are also several other women who I assume are either very enthusiastic historians or witches.”
“Witches,” Alex echoed dourly, and Ned raised an eyebrow.
“Still holding a grudge after all these years?”
“What can I say, I’m Irish. My grandchildren will inherit that grudge, and theirs after them.”
“Then you might not want to go into the exhibition, for everyone’s sake.”
Alex said nothing in a manner as pointed as any of the seven blades sheathed about his person. Ned laughed.
“I hope you at least have a quick getaway planned.”
“My house is just down the road. Yours?”
“The maid has taken it off to do some shopping. It’s fine, I expect to be here for a while. Woe betide anyone who decides to steal the amulet before Cecilia’s finished looking through the library.”
Alex was about to reply when he saw something out of the corner of his eye that froze every word inside him.
The briefcase thief had just walked in.
She paused at the entrance, an elegant figure in gray, her hair bound smoothly beneath the merest excuse of a hat. As Alex watched, she removed a pair of dark sunglasses and coolly looked around the hall. She was even more attractive than he remembered—and for the past two days since their encounter, he’d done a lot of remembering. And restless sighing. And wandering along St. James’s Street in case he glimpsed her again (so as to demand his briefcase back, of course, and not to gaze admiringly at her smoky eyes or the slow, promising curves of her body). But upon actually seeing her now, he immediately ducked into Ned’s shadow.
Not hiding, not at all; he was a big, scary pirate. He just didn’t fancy being noticed in this moment.
The woman pocketed her sunglasses and began to stride toward the ticket counter. Alex’s pulse quickened as he realized she was carrying his briefcase.
“You’re drooling,” Ned commented with amusement.
Alex ignored him. What shoes did she wear today? he wondered. What terrible thing would they do if she employed them against him? And how could he arrange a demonstration?
“You’ll want to be careful,” Ned said. “That’s a witch.”
“You know her?” Alex asked, not looking away from the woman.She had come to the end of the short queue in front of the counter and was waiting in much the same way a stick of dynamite waits.
“I know of her. She’s Charlotte Pettifer, niece of Judith Plim who leads the Wicken League.”
Alex raised an eyebrow in surprise. “I didn’t know they had a leader. Can you imagine someone trying to do that in the Wisteria Society?”
Ned snorted laughter. “I’ve heard witches are less volatile than pirates.”
They both regarded Charlotte Pettifer for a moment, then exchanged a wry glance.
“I suggest you run,” Ned said.
Alex frowned. “Have you ever known me to run? However, I may just walk with alacrity into the exhibition room. See you later?”
“If you survive.”
Charlotte was quite certain that the person, be it gentleman or lady, who has patience for a queue must be intolerably stupid. And yet it was also considered vulgar to move ahead more quickly by smacking one’s purse against those in front, so she merely tapped her foot as she waited for a girl to convince the ticket agent she was indeed over the age of eighteen and any minute now her fiancé would arrive and confirm this.
