“No hope at all.”
They glanced at the two beds set neatly apart, and the long dents in the carpet where they had been previously pushed together. Catching each other’s eye again, they shared a smile.
“You’ll have to wear a plain suit when you stand up as his best man,” Cecilia said.
Ned sighed mournfully, then put his arm around her waist. “You won’t be able to drink wine in a toast to them.”
“Not unless they have a seven-month engagement,” Cecilia agreed, touching a hand to her stomach. They switched off the light (and stole the complimentary mint chocolates) before leaving the room, nodding politely to a chambermaid waiting in the corridor outside.
As soon as they were gone, the chambermaid took off her cap and apron and hurried down the road to Rothbury House. She knocked at the servants’ door.
“Hooper?” she whispered when it opened, glancing around to be sure no one else could hear. “I have some information for you.”
Later that day on the outskirts of Bath, Cecilia’s aunt, the dread pirate Miss Darlington, received a note from her housemaid. She began hyperventilating even before she’d finished reading it.
“Prepare the house at once!” she commanded, clutching her letter opener like a sword as she rose from the chair on which she had been lounging. “Battle stations! Close all windows and start incantating the unmooring phrase. And ready the medicine kit. There is not a moment to lose!”
“What’s wrong?” asked her husband, setting aside the book of Byron’s poetry he had been reading aloud.
“Cecilia is in mortal peril,” Miss Darlington explained. “I have just received information—good God, I cannot believe she is walking about in her condition!”
“What condition?” asked her husband anxiously.
Miss Darlington collapsed back into the chair, unable to bear the weight of her newfound knowledge. “The interesting kind!”
“Oh dear,” murmured her husband, trying not to smile.
“And I just know she’s not wearing any protection.”
“It’s a little late for that, isn’t it, dear?”
She pinned him with a scowl so sharp he flinched. “Hat,” she snapped. “Scarf. Rubber-soled shoes. You know how delicate Cecilia is at the best of times. We must rush to her side!”
“Where is she just now?”
“Heading in the same direction as every other pirate: towardIsabella Armitage. We need to get there first. And I know just where Izzy will be.” She stabbed her letter opener so hard through the note that the oak tabletop beneath it cracked. “Tally. Ho.”
Miss Plim might not be kittenish, but if she had been able to take one look into the pirate maven’s eyes at that moment, even she would have fainted in terror.
A knock came again at Hooper’s door. “It’s Mary,” whispered the Angler’s Retreat chambermaid. “I have more news for you.”
Hooper brought out his secret notebook. “Go ahead.”
“Another policeman has just been sniffing around the room where the pirates stayed. And when I say sniffing, I mean that literally.”
“Are you sure he was a policeman?”
“He said his name was Detective Inspector Creeve. He gave me the shivers, to be honest. Not just the sniffing, but the way he stared at me. It was downright creepy.”
“Hm,” Hooper said, for he himself stared at the pretty chambermaid often enough and didn’t want to think he might have been downright creepy too. (He had been.) “I doubt this is significant, Mary. Maybe the man sniffed because he had a cold.”
“But—”
“I’m sure it’s nothing.” He cleared his throat. “I say, is there any chance you’re free Friday night? I know a nice little restaurant in the village...”
The door shut in his face.
14
