His fingers around her arm were as sharp as sticks on a bonfire. His voice was flames. Charlotte wanted to scream now as she knew she would scream when they set a torch to the pyre. What should she do?She could not think—she knew only that she stood in smoke on a seaside road, inescapably caught between life and love, and nothing in any novel had prepared her for a moment like this.
“I am not a witch,” she said out of old, witchy instinct.
The man hissed a laugh. “Let’s see, shall we? I give it less than a minute before the pirate drops fifty, sixty feet onto this extremely hard road. Then we shall find out, Miss Pettifer, just exactly who you are.”
“I am—” Charlotte began, but her words turned to fire and her heart to ash.
Alex fell.
23
charlotte makes her choice—a senseless quote—a voice ripples through the smoke—woman’s liberation—an invitation—the cavalry arrives—the butler does it—miss plim explodes—a disaster of titanic proportions
Descendeo lente!”Charlotte shouted.
The man grasping her arm laughed with vicious triumph. But she did not hear him.“Descendeo lente, proximare,”she continued, her voice ringing clear and loud above the crackling fire and murmuring crowd. She raised her free hand as if to draw energy from the sunlight to intensify her magic. The words flared. Her hair began to stir around her as the air shimmered and swayed.
And Alex floated through the smoke to land gently on the road.
Immediately he tipped to his knees, coughing. But Charlotte could see through the crowd swarming toward him that he was safe—provided, of course, Armitage House or its burning timbers did not crash down upon him, nor the excited crowd trample him. She felt a pain she could not at first comprehend, until realizing it was her unconditioned facial muscles striving to manage the vast smile demanded of them.
“Thank you for giving me all the evidence I need,” the pale-hairedpoliceman said, his words licking close to her face. But again, she did not hear him, for the crowd was cheering. A group of American tourists explained to everyone nearby that these were circus performers, and immediately a chant began, accompanied by the rhythmic clapping of hands, requesting an encore performance.
The policeman slapped handcuffs onto Charlotte’s wrists. “The only performance you will be giving,witch,is your funeral speech on the bonfire.”
Charlotte jolted as fear once more slammed through her body. “Let go of me,” she demanded, tugging against the man’s grip, but he had remarkable strength for such a desiccated fellow and clearly no intention of allowing her escape. He continued along the street, dragging her with him. Charlotte saw ahead a horse-drawn police wagon, two uniformed officers standing at its open door. Her heart skittered in panic. Her thoughts flailed as if they too had been cuffed. There seemed no escape. Even if she used her weaponized ankle boots against the man, his colleagues would be upon her instantly.
Striving to recollect any element of the incantation that would save her, she could summon nothing more than the complaint of Marianne Dashwood: “Had I talked only of the weather... this reproach would have been spared.” Which, while true, was about as helpful as one might expect quoting a novel during one’s arrest would be. The irony of being arrested for witchcraft yet unable to command even one word of witchery would have made her laugh, were she not terrified.
Looking desperately over her shoulder, she saw nothing but bystanders dancing and hugging each other as a fiery Armitage House struggled higher over the rooftops. (Nothing quite like the imminent demise of a pirate to encourage community spirit.) Alex was out of her sight—which meant that she was out of his. He’d be unaware of her peril, and therefore unlikely to provide a rescue in the nick of time. She was going to disappear into that police van and out of the world.
She tried to take a breath deep enough that she might shout for him, but even had she managed it, the crowd began roaring as another pirate battlehouse appeared on the horizon to double their entertainment. He would never hear her over that noise. Charlotte had no hope, just as Miss Plim always warned. That had been a daily lesson, between embroidery and how to run a blind heist.Get caught doing magic and you’re alone. No one will come to save you. No one will even remember your name.
But as the tight-lipped specter of ruthless Plimmishness that had haunted generations of witches threatened to break her with its sharply tapping finger, a bolder figure appeared through the smoke. Trousers—upraised sword—magnificent feathered hat; Charlotte gasped as it took shape.
“Get away from her, you son of a bitch!”
The policeman barely had time to sniff contemptuously before the pirate spun dramatically on a gorgeous pink bootheel and kicked him in the gut. As he pitched forward, a cry of pain bursting from him, the pirate then applied her knee to his forehead with an efficiency Lady Armitage would have killed for. (Literally.) The man went down like a sack of wet handkerchiefs. His fellow officers rushed over, truncheons waving.
Charlotte and the pirate exchanged a brief, amused glance. Charlotte saw then that she had been rescued by a young woman, suntanned, swaggering, and her heart swaggered in response. Fear fell away—or, rather, was kicked away by the spiked boots of her Wicken pride. No witch was going to look scared in front of a pirate girl! She turned toward the policemen and began incantating. The pirate lifted her sword.
And the policemen, taking professional stock of the situation, ran away as fast as they could.
“Subsisto et concido!”Charlotte shouted after them. They fell to the ground, and whether due to unconsciousness or good sense, stayeddown. The pirate, appearing disappointed at this efficient end to the trouble, brandished her sword uselessly for a moment, then shrugged and gave a complex whistle. Hearing it, the police horses trotted off, taking the wagon with them.
“Thank you,” Charlotte said, attempting to offer the pirate a handshake before recollecting the iron cuffs.
The pirate grinned. “You’re welcome. I owed you.”
“You did?” Charlotte frowned a moment before finally recognizing her. “Upon my word! You are Constantinopla Brown.”
“At your service,” the girl said, bowing extravagantly. “Well, you know, not actually at your service, since pirates serve no one, not even Her Majesty the Queen (a personal friend of mine), and I regret to inform you that I’ve already robbed you of your earrings, but nevertheless, colloquially speaking, at your service and pleased to meet you.”
While Charlotte was blinking in an effort to process this speech, Constantinopla reached down and acquired a set of keys from the unconscious policeman. She sorted through them with practiced ease and used one to release Charlotte’s handcuffs. “I am ever so grateful that you rescued my Tom from the clutches of Lady Armitage,” she said as she worked. “He might have been wed to the old hag had you not intervened.”
“Oh yes,” Charlotte said. “It was a close shave. But we arrived in the nick of time and Tom absolutely, definitively, did not marry anyone, least of all Lady Armitage, of that you can be sure.”
Constantinopla’s face lit with a smile. “So it seems I owe you again, Miss Pettifer. I say, will you come to my wedding? I know we shouldn’t associate, but I’d be honored by your attendance, since you are responsible for it happening at all.”
