“Ha! Having traveled in your house, drinking that tepid stuff you pretend is tea, and sleeping on a mattress so soft I was in danger of becoming relaxed for the first time in six—in fifty years, I know perfectly well that piratic danger is false advertising.”
“Oh?” said Mrs. Rotunder chillingly. There came the long, slow hiss of steel being drawn from a scabbard.
“You call that a weapon?” Mrs. Chuke pulled out a fly swatter. Made of black metal. With spikes all over its surface.
Charlotte and Alex sidestepped as Mrs. Rotunder whirled her sword in a complicated maneuver.
“Shall we go?” Charlotte whispered.
They winced as Mrs. Chuke whacked the sword with one hard blow from her swatter.
“Probably wise,” Alex agreed.
“Aereo,”Charlotte said. At once, they elevated over the witch and pirate, who were too involved with each other to notice their precipitous departure. They crossed the wall and came down to the street on the other side.
“Rosemary Road!” Alex said delightedly. “I told you this was a good shortcut.”
“Braggart,” Charlotte replied.
A small throng of American tourists turned away from a shop window to stare at them open-mouthed. “I say, how did you do that?” one asked with alarm.
“There was a ladder on the other side of the wall,” Charlotte said. “We climbed up, jumped down.”
The tourists exchanged dubious glances.
“She’s only joking,” Alex said. “We’re acrobats with a traveling circus. Trained to leap over high obstacles in a single bound.”
The tourists began to murmur excitedly, and several inquired about tickets to the show. Suddenly a woman in a pink turban pointed at Charlotte.
“I recognize you! Your photograph was in the newspaper. Wait—didn’t this man kidnap you?”
Charlotte smiled tolerantly. “No, not at all.”
“That photograph was of her twin sister,” Alex said. “Three minutes younger and not as pretty.”
“Ahh.” The crowd nodded.
Charlotte stared at him, surprised. “You’d call me pretty?”Strong, fierce, gorgeous, brave... pretty.
He grinned. “That is the least I would call you, my darling.”
The tourists cooed.
“You said Miss Dearlove was pretty,” she persisted. “Perhaps this is an adjective you apply to all women.”
He laid a hand against her cheek, looking down at her with his particular tender-smile-despite-all-the-sharp-weapons expression, which Charlotte suspected was probably what had earned him his reputation for deadliness in the first place. Several of the tourists sighed dreamily. Charlotte would have done so herself were it not for years of rigorous Plimmish training.
“Oh, Lottie,” he said. “You are—”
“Stop!” roared a voice from behind the wall. “Kidnapper!”
Charlotte glanced over her shoulder. “Was that my one or yours?”
“Wicked kidnapper!” came a different voice.
Alex shrugged. “It doesn’t seem to matter which.”
“She is the wicked one,” retorted the first voice angrily.
