A thin dark streak sped through the air. The gun had fired what looked like a string that was now attached to the house by a small, deeply embedded hook. Alex caught Charlotte about the waist and pulled her close.
“Hold on to me,” he said. “And perhaps give us a boost of magic incase the grapnel doesn’t stick and we plunge to our certain and horrible death.”
“Um,” was all Charlotte had the opportunity to say before they began to lift off the ground, towed by the ascending house. Astonishment silenced her. Until a few days ago, the greatest height she had visited was the belfry of St. Stephen’s clock tower, where she inspected Big Ben (and stole a gold pocket watch from the tour guide as a souvenir). Now, it seemed, she spent half her life in the air. And while she liked to think of herself as an open-minded, adapting kind of person (which goes to show just how self-delusional even the most intelligent woman can be), suddenly finding herself swinging on a length of string beneath a house was rather unnerving.
Seeking in her mind for the calm good sense of Elinor Dashwood or the capability of Anne Elliot, she was surprised to find instead images of her mother.
Until now, Delphine Pettifer, née Plim, had been a whimsical creature in soft focus at the edge of Charlotte’s life, warm, cheerful, and doting for twenty minutes before supper or at bedtime. Charlotte had never thought of her as anything more than Mother. Now here were memories of Delphine surreptitiously reading a French novel. Slipping pepper into Miss Plim’s tea. Using Miss Gloughenbury’s taxidermied poodle in an impromptu game of toss-and-catch with the parlor maid when Miss Gloughenbury was not looking.
Charlotte realized for the first time in her life that Plim did not only mean Aunt Judith, and tightly pinched lips, and going through life with a broomstick stuck up one’s opinions. It also meant writing a wicked, handsome pirate’s name on one’s dinner invitation list.
“Aereo!”she said with her mother’s verve, and they flew up toward the red door.
But Armitage House tipped abruptly, as if someone had hiccupped in the middle of incantating. It veered toward a rose-vined bungalow,carrying Charlotte and Alex in a long swoop to collide with the bungalow’s roof. Alex turned with both arms around Charlotte to protect her from the brunt of impact, an act of chivalry she suspected not even Mr. Darcy could equal. They scrambled to catch hold of the roof tiles with hands and boot heels. Armitage House veered again, and Alex tossed his gun aside before they were pulled in another wild course straight into a chimney or the hard-paved road.
“That house is as mad as its owner,” he said. Touching Charlotte’s face, he seemed to draw her heart back up from the pit of her stomach, into her throat instead. “Are you all right?”
Charlotte nodded, her voice tumbling over Latin words as she created a bolster of air around them. They were able to haul themselves to their feet, halfway up the roof (or halfway down, which they did not want to think about). Charlotte began tugging urgently at the tiny pearl buttons of her bodice.
“What are you doing?” Alex asked, watching her in bewilderment.
“I can’t move properly in this blasted thing,” she explained, grimacing as the buttons refused to cooperate.
“Wait.” He brought out a large, serrated knife and set about efficiently relieving her of her dress by means of tearing it apart right down the front.
Charlotte raised an eyebrow, impressed. “You’ve done this before.”
“Maybe,” he said through a small smile. Charlotte pulled out of her sleeves and the dress fell away, tumbling down the roof like an errant cloud. Charlotte was left barely clad in a thigh-length chemise, a corset covered by a silk camisole, white lace drawers that reached below her knees, stockings that encased the rest of her legs, and ankle boots. Her hair swept in blushing, breeze-stirred waves against the shocking nakedness of her arms. She felt light, liberated—and ready to apply those boots to the posterior of anyone standing between her and her amulet.
Alex was looking at her with eyes more vivid than the afternoonsky. Charlotte knew her own eyes held the same intense energy. He holstered his knife. She began to incantate. They ran along the slope of the roof.
And leaped to the neighboring roof, the incantation propelling them smoothly over the intervening space. Armitage House was swaying as it tried to gain height under the influence of an apparently inept pilot. Racing toward it, boots smacking against the roof tiles and making the cottage’s occupants look up from their afternoon tea in confused horror, they leaped again.
Soaring past chimneys and over the road, they landed with a thud on the roof of Armitage House. Laughing, Charlotte shook back her hair. She had never felt more alive. If someone handed her a first edition ofPride and Prejudicein this moment, she would throw it away just to watch it fly.
They skidded down the slope of tiles, vaulted the gutters, and came down on a small, wrought-iron-framed balcony. Alex unsheathed his sword. Charlotte smoothed her hair, then opened the balcony doors. They stepped into Lady Armitage’s gilded, pink-walled sitting room.
“Ah,” said the old lady from where she reclined on a sofa. “There you are.”
She cast a smile at them, smug, disdainful: a reprobate needing only one fluffy white cat in order to reach arch-villain status.
“Stand up, madam,” Alex ordered, brandishing his sword.
Lady Armitage elevated her eyebrows but, alas, no other part of her body. “Why don’t you sit down, boy? Both of you, yes? We can have a cut-throat. No, wait, I mean chin-wag. Ha ha.”
On the other side of the room, Tom Eames called out in a voice deprived of its vowels by the cloth tied about his mouth. In a fine suit, his hair slicked with pomade, a red rose in his lapel, and quantities of rope attaching him to the chair, he had been all dressed up and then given no place to go. Nearby, a vicar was also obliged to LadyArmitage’s unyielding hospitality. (The two men were, if you will, bridled.) A footman standing by the door had the stark expression of someone who knows that, if he does not obey orders, he’ll be married next.
Alex glanced at the men, assessing the risk of the situation in one professional glance, but Charlotte’s attention was entirely devoted to the glass-and-gold pendant Lady Armitage wore against her breast.
“I have come for my amulet,” she announced in a businesslike tone. “However, I do not wish to intrude, as I know this is not a proper hour for making calls. If you’ll just hand it over, please, we shall leave straightaway.”
“And,” Alex prompted quietly out of the corner of his mouth.
“Oh, yes. And kindly do not steal it again.”
“I meant Tom,” Alex murmured.
Charlotte blinked a few times. “Tom?”
