Although I’ve always loved lilies of the valley best,she reminded herself—and then flushed in horror as she realized she had spoken aloud. Panic began swelling into her throat.
But Cecilia only smiled. “To each her own, Miss Pettifer,” she said.
And just like that, Charlotte could breathe. A single sentence from the pirate and years of reproachful Plimmish education unraveled, making her feel at last acceptable in all her shy, brittle sensitivity. The irony was so Jane-Austen-like, she almost laughed.
“I am glad you were able to save Captain O’Riley,” Cecilia continued blithely, as if validating a woman’s true heart was such everyday work for her she did not even need to pause afterward. “Beneath his weapons and roguishness... and bad manners... and simply awful language... not to mention that catastrophe he calls a battlehouse... and then there are the dubious politics and the tendency to drink a little too much when he is in a bad mood, which seems to be often... er, yes, beneath that, he is a good man.”
“I will agree that he has a few worthy qualities,” Charlotte said.
“And he’s remarkably handsome,” Cecilia added.
“He is tolerable to look at, I suppose,” Charlotte agreed.
“Also rich.”
Charlotte paused, thinking back to the first day she met him, the outrage and the secret wry appreciation she felt, as a fellow swindler, when his briefcase opened and shredded paper fell out. “Money isn’t everything,” she said.
“Good heavens!” Cecilia ejaculated. “I fear you have inhaled too much smoke from the fire, Miss Pettifer.”
Charlotte did not answer, for she had noticed how Darlington House was casting out a grappling hook, as yet unsuccessfully, and adreadful thought occurred to her. “Pardon me, Miss Bassingthwaite, I may be prejudiced in the matter of aunts, but what if your Aunt Darlington was to get the amulet from Lady Armitage?”
Cecilia smiled complacently. “Aunt Darlington is a noble character who will keep the best interests of England first and foremost in her thoughts,” she replied in ringing tones.
“I’m pleased to hear it,” Charlotte said.
“Or to be more precise, we are doomed.”
At that lowering moment, a voice called out from the edge of the shore road. “Ladies! Ladies! Over here!”
Charlotte turned to see Constantinopla Brown standing before a garishly colored popcorn stall. The young pirate leaned one hand in a proprietary manner against its shuttered frontage, while with her other she waved cheerily.
Cecilia turned to Charlotte with a smile that was now less complacent and more wickedly piratic.
“I say, Miss Pettifer. Are you by any chance up for an adventure?”
“The secret to a successful relationship,” Ned was saying as he and Alex ate pork pies they had stolen from a passing vendor, “is communication. Cecilia knows I will never (again) install a tennis net in the parlor without talking to her about it first, and I can be sure she won’t go off harum-scarum without letting me know. This is why we are so blissfully happy. I urge you to take my advice, old chap, if you want the same happiness with Miss Pettifer.”
“Uh-huh,” Alex said, watching Cecilia spin a small, portable wheel inside a popcorn stall as it rose above the crowd. Constantinopla was pointing to the dueling battlehouses while calling out unnecessary navigational directions, and Charlotte stood between the two pirate ladies, counting the bullets in her gun.
“Of course, I’m blessed to have a wife like Cecilia,” Ned continued. “So gentle, so demure.”
“Hm,” Alex said, grateful for the mouthful of pie that restrained him from further response as he witnessed Cecilia bashing a bag of popcorn against a decorative piece at the front of the stall that was obstructing her view. The piece broke off at the same moment the bag split open, sending popcorn down upon the crowd in an appropriately circus-like version of manna from heaven. Alex swallowed pie and said carefully, “By the way, do you have a spare wheel on you?”
“Sorry,” Ned said. “Cecilia carries ours in her bustle. Pirate women really do have the best fashions, you know. Visionary, even. Mark my words, one day all women will have secret compartments and pockets in their skirts as a matter of course. But why do you want a wheel?”
“I don’t. I was just wondering how your demure wife managed to get that popcorn stall aloft.”
Ned glanced up at the colorful little stall flying toward the battlehouses, three women jammed inside. He rolled his eyes. “Another thing you will learn about successful relationships, O’Riley, is that you’ll always be wrong. Besides, you can’t keep a good woman down, and that goes literally for a buccaneering one. I see your Miss Pettifer is getting into the swing of things in a manner I’d not have expected from a Wicken League member.”
Indeed, Charlotte was literally swinging herself up to crouch on the roof of the stall, lips moving as she whispered the incantation. She had a gun in one hand and a long pink ribbon tying back her hair, and Alex thought he would swoon at the very sight of her.
“Lottie is unique,” he said.
“Do you think we should chase after them?” Ned asked without much enthusiasm.
“I think they left us behind for a reason. This is women’s business.”
“Sounds about right. Be a friend, steal me a coffee from that vendor.”
