Charlotte gasped. She did not actually know what he meant, but the suggestion in his sultry eyes was enough to warrant a significant inhalation of breath. “AndIcan assureyou,sir, that I am not here to play. I am here on business. And the next thing I throw at your head will not be blunt.”
“You are reassuring,” he said.
To which the only reasonable reply was to stomp on his foot.
Unfortunately, he moved it away a moment before impact, and her boot came down hard on polished stone. Charlotte winced as a metal dart in the boot’s sole crumpled, pressing back against her own foot. Only excellent craftsmanship, thick leather, and a durable silk stocking saved her from collapsing with an inconvenient paralysis.
“Oh dear,” the pirate said languidly. “It looks like you are in some disc—” He smiled. “—omfort. Allow me to lighten your burden by taking that briefcase from you.”
She snatched it behind her back. Inside were documents vital to her plan for getting the amulet. “Never! And furthermore—”
“Fire! Fire!”
The frantic call echoed through the exhibition room. Charlotte sighed. Alex rolled his eyes.
“You’d think people might try to be more original,” he said.
“Or at least learn faster,” Charlotte added.
They glanced at each other, realizing they had inadvertently stumbled into agreement. Luckily, at that moment a flame leaped from a nearby wooden model displaying Beryl Black’s wedding gown.
“Fire!” several ladies screamed, rushing back in horror.
“Fire!” the guards shouted.
There ensued a general trampling, pushing, writhing, and wailing, as the crowd attempted to converge upon the amulet. A guard pulled a hitherto unnoticed lever in the display plinth, and as a panel in the floor opened, the plinth sank immediately from sight. Pirates and witches stumbled over empty ground to collide in a tangle of fury, weaponry, and preposterous hats.
Charlotte shrugged her mouth in reluctant admiration of this security measure. But seeing the same expression on Alex’s face, she hastily scowled instead. Anger flaring, she turned on her heel and snapped words at the burning dress. It obediently tipped to the floor.
Charlotte took her besom from a pocket and pushed the minuscule button on its handle. The extendible broom shot out. Walking calmly over to the burning heap of satin, she began to beat it with the broom, albeit one-handedly, her other in firm possession of the briefcase. To her aggravation, Alex joined in, pulling Beryl’s black flag from a wall and applying it to the flames. Within moments, they had the fire out.
“Hm,” Charlotte said brusquely, in lieu of thanking the gentleman for his assistance.
“Hm,” he replied in an equally abrupt tone, tossing the flag onto the charred dress.
“Everyone out!” shouted the museum guard.
Without looking at each other, they followed the crowd out of the exhibition room. Its door slammed shut behind them.
The rest of the day was spent in conjecturing how soon the Pettifer ladies would return to the museum, and determining whom they should invite to dinner when they had the amulet in their possession. At least, Mrs. Pettifer was thus occupied. Charlotte, sitting very straight and very quiet on the sofa, readPride and Prejudiceandmurmured agreement every now and again. She was not going through the book page-by-page but skipping to her favorite scenes, seeking mental balm so the memories of the day troubled her less. Mr. Darcy—now, there was a man worth thinking about! Dignified, tidy, well-shaven, just exactly the sort Charlotte liked. He would not threaten to kiss a lady, nor smile at her in a way that made her rather wish he would...
“Heavens, what is it dear?” Mrs. Pettifer asked as Charlotte jolted up from the sofa. “Surely you approve of Mrs. Claybooth as a guest? It’s hardly her fault she married a butcher.”
“I beg your pardon, Mama,” Charlotte murmured, sitting again and smoothing her skirts. “I thought I saw a mouse, but it was just a shadow.”
A quarter of an hour followed in assuring Mrs. Pettifer no rodent of any kind existed in the sitting room, after which the good lady settled again to her planning. But then Mr. Pettifer, consulted as head of the household, declared there should be no dinner at all. A busy man, he had no interest in witchcraft and even less in entertaining witches. He considered them, as a species, altogether unlikable (with the exception of his good wife... and Shirley too, of course. No, wait—Charlotte). He would absolutely not have witches to dine!
By evening, fourteen names were on the invitation list.
“What about that handsome fellow you were chatting with at the museum?” Mrs. Pettifer asked Charlotte in the kind of mild tone that sets off alarms in a daughter’s head.
Charlotte looked up warily from Mr. Darcy’s second proposal scene. “What about him?” she asked.
“He seemed nice enough. We should invite him.”
“He is a pirate, Mama.”
Mrs. Pettifer waved this concern away. “I’m sure he just needs a woman’s influence to help him settle down and take a proper job,perhaps as an artist or a slightly melancholy poet. And my rune stones predicted just this morning that you would meet an eligible gentleman, Lottie dear.”
