Glancing at him, Charlotte felt a fluttering in her stomach. She knew she shouldn’t have eaten fish for lunch! On the other hand, could it be... friendship? At least what she supposed friendship was from reading about it in books. She expected one day she would marry, for such is the general fate of womankind, but having afriendwas a dream she had never dared entertain. That Alex might be this made her want to laugh in delight.
But delighted laughter was the sphere of girls like Lydia Bennet, and tended to escalate into scandalous behavior, such as running off with scoundrels... er...
Blushing, she lifted her chin, tightened her lips, and glared at the captain, Mrs. Chuke, and a nearby seagull.
“Well!” Mrs. Chuke was nonplussed. This was not the response she had expected from Judith Plim’s niece. She muttered a word, and old brown leaves littering the street began to rise, swirling around herankles. She’d been a witch longer than Charlotte had been alive, and Chosen One or not, the girl would be made, either by wisdom or outright witchcraft, to remember her place. “You are clearly discomposed, my dear. This situation must not continue!”
Charlotte opened her mouth to reply, but she was indeed discomposed, and could not immediately recollect how the scene inPride and Prejudicehad continued. So she closed her mouth and pulled out her besom instead.
Mrs. Chuke paled. “You would not dare.”
Charlotte shrugged. From the corner of her eye she saw Alex lower his face to hide a smirk.Heknew she would dare. She felt another surge of delight.
“Just put down the broom and come home quietly,” Mrs. Chuke said. “I read the runes this morning, and they predicted you traveling back to London with me.” But her own hand was sliding down toward a secret pocket wherein no doubt she kept her besom.
It was time for the Andromeda Choice. The last resort, the worst possible weapon, designed specifically to disarm a fellow witch. Charlotte had always felt it would come to this one day, but her heart did lurch a little. A witch might attack another witch (indeed, it would be strange if she didn’t), but using the Andromeda Choice was like flying a bicycle over a crowded street. Only the wildest person would do it.
Click.
A cloud of dust burst from the besom. Mrs. Chuke shrieked in horror. Raising her own besom, she activated its broom with an immediate instinct to tidy. As she swept madly at the air, Charlotte and Alex turned to flee.
The wall blocked their way.
And in front of the wall stood Mrs. Rotunder, arms crossed, jolly black hat feathers swooping in the sea breeze.
Two streets away, Bixby was staring down the barrel of a gun.
It was a very pretty gun, with an engraving of tiny flowers on its silver body and pearls set in the handle. Its owner, Miss Dearlove, clutched it with all the delicacy such a weapon deserved. She herself was also very pretty, but that seemed rather beside the point at this moment.
“Keep walking into the dark and narrow alleyway, if you please,” she said. Her quiet voice offered no threat—so long as one ignored the words it was actually saying and the loaded gun behind them. It had lured Bixby away from Alex and Charlotte, requesting assistance in finding a dropped shilling; and then humbly begged his pardon as it explained he must do as he was told or else be shot. Bixby had obliged because he feared the woman would start crying if he did not. But allowing himself to be guided into a convenient place for murder went beyond his notions of chivalry.
“Forgive me, miss,” he said, since abduction at gunpoint should not prevent one from using good manners. “I’m afraid I cannot do that. May I suggest instead you hand over the gun, and I will allow you to depart unharmed.”
Miss Dearlove did not so much blink as wince her eyes briefly shut then open. She bit her lower lip. It made her appear so vulnerable that Bixby would have felt his heart melt if such a thing were biologically possible. Although he remembered her throwing beer mugs at pirates last night in the tavern, he could barely reconcile that image with the timid creature before him now. The simple brown dress, the calm face, and the quiet voice that spoke only when necessary, made him think of book-lined shelves and the Dewey Decimal System of an outstanding library. A man’s instincts (and other things) roused automatically for awoman like this. It was all Bixby could do to prevent himself from offering to buy her a cup of tea and escorting her safely home.
Indeed, notwithstanding the fact she was proposing to murder him, he rather thought her entire attitude reminded him of a doe—i.e., gentle and shy—and he could not endorse such a one being involved in dangerous shenanigans like these. Somebody might get hurt, and it would not be him.
Smiling kindly, his eyes soft, he reached out to remove the gun from the girl’s anxious, fine-boned grip.
Fifteen minutes later he woke on the dirty ground of the alleyway, bound hand and foot, and groaning through a lace handkerchief stuffed in his mouth. His wallet was gone, as were his gold cufflinks.
Had someone been on-site with an encyclopedia of nature, Bixby would not have needed them to explain that the true description of a doe was “powerful and unpredictable.” Spitting out the handkerchief, he turned onto his back and laughed.
Mrs. Rotunder had no such sense of humor. Indeed, after spending several days in the company of witches, she could barely remember what humor looked like. Crossing her arms with the self-awarded authority of older women everywhere, she frowned at Charlotte and Alex. “Now, my dears, you know this can’t go on. Not the least because it’s far too clichéd. We are in England, not Verona! Have some literary subtlety and separate, for everyone’s sake.”
Irritation flashed through Charlotte’s nerves, sparking a low mutter that caused Mrs. Rotunder’s sable feathers to shake. Alex glanced at her sidelong, excitement in his eyes. She half-expected him to kiss her right there and then. “Madam,” she said, her voice strong with righteousness, “I can assure you the captain and I are not together.”
Mrs. Rotunder’s response was to direct a trenchant stare at their joined hands.
“This is because I am keeping him under my control,” Charlotte explained.
Alex shrugged and nodded complacently.
“Soyoukidnappedhim?” Mrs. Rotunder gave a brusque laugh.
“And why not?” Mrs. Chuke interjected, striding forward before Charlotte herself could reply. Dust covered her face, but so great was her anger, she did not even notice. “Charlotte would be a witch if witches existed. That makes her just as dangerous as him!”
Mrs. Rotundertsked. “No one is as dangerous as a pirate.”
