“Perhaps that would be unwise, since it would require touching.”
“A strong grip is fine,” she said, holding out her hand. “Indeed, thestronger the better. I imagine it is a by-product of combat training. Do let me help.”
He took the offered hand and she helped him to rise, although he was significantly more athletic than her, and whatever assistance she provided was by way of appearance only. Once he was on his feet, she expected him to release her hand, but he went on holding it, harder and harder, his face entirely quiet as he watched hers for a reaction.
She swallowed dryly as her fingers turned scarlet.
“You are remarkably tough for such a delicate woman, Miss Dearlove,” he said.
“Fiddlesticks,” she whispered. The bones in her hand began to burn in a most thrilling manner.
“Pardon me?”
“I may seem delicate, but most people are overly careful because of it. They aregentle.” She shuddered.
“So,” Daniel said musingly. “No light touches. No jokes. No sugar in the tea.” He regarded her a moment longer, then took a step closer, twisting her arm so their clutched hands pressed against her heartbeat. His eyes had become almost silver. His expression was classified. “Shall we have an agreement, Miss Dearlove? I will not be gentle with you. Does that sound good?”
Licking her lips, but knowing it was futile—knowing all her words were ash—Alice nodded. Something creaked behind him, and they blinked at each other. Alice’s stomach tingled as she recognized her own secret, silent language in Daniel’s eyes. She nodded again in response, and he took half a step back, lifting her hand in his. She hauled up her skirt, set a foot against his thigh, and in one seamless movement he pulled her off the ground and spun them both around.
She kicked with her free leg, smashing the square heel of her boot into the man who had been creeping toward them. With a cry, hestumbled, then collapsed to the ground. Daniel released her, and Alice leaped over the body to land easily on the dusty wooden floor. But even before she had turned with her gun in hand, Daniel had his own drawn and was aiming it at the man beneath them, who cowered behind spindly arms.
“I say! Don’t shoot!”
Sighing in annoyed unison, Alice and Daniel uncocked their guns.
“A word of advice, Dr. Snodgrass,” Daniel said. “Do not approach A.U.N.T. field agents without announcing yourself first.”
“Yes,” Snodgrass said meekly, clambering up and rubbing his chest where Alice had kicked him. “I see that now. Jolly good. My apologies.”
“Why are you here, Doctor?” Alice asked as she slipped her gun back into a secret pocket of her skirt.
Snodgrass held out a folded piece of paper. It trembled in his hand while Alice and Daniel regarded it expressionlessly. Realizing neither was going to take it, Snodgrass attended to the unfolding himself. “My assignment notice. See, here is Mrs. Kew’s signature. I have been included on the mission as technical adviser, posing as your valet. I brought along several clothing brushes and a specially designed shaving set for the purpose.”
“I’m going to die from my jaw catching fire, aren’t I?” Daniel said to Alice.
“I’m afraid so,” she agreed.
“How droll! Hahahaha,” Snodgrass trilled—and only survived doing so because there were agency regulations against assassinating a colleague for the crime of being damned annoying.
“Very well,” Daniel said in a tone that made clear it was, in fact, not very well at all. “There are sixty-five miles to Hampshire and it looks like a storm is coming in. I hope you don’t get airsick, Doctor.”
“I say. Not at all, what.”
Alice sat rigidly on the sofa, gripping her mission briefing notes with white-knuckled hands and trying not to listen to Snodgrass vomiting in the water closet. She was not new to flying. She had even survived going up in Lady Armitage’s battlehouse. They say a pirate’s house is an embodiment of their soul; in Lady Armitage’s case, this meant unstable, untrustworthy, and inclined to bunny hop wherever it pleased. But flying with her had been a gentle cruise compared to this journey. Rain battered against the little cottage. Turbulent air caused it to shudder and drop, taking Alice’s stomach along with it. Kitchen utensils clattered, navigation tools slid back and forth across their shelf, and something beneath the floorboards moaned as if a resident ghost wished he was even deader.
“Uughgghhh,” Snodgrass cried out. Alice found herself agreeing with him.
At the window, Daniel sat with one booted foot propped on the wheel, calmly reading Dickens and every now and then looking up to murmur a phrase of the flight incantation as his foot tipped the wheel slightly one way or another. His casual air of competency would have set Alice’s nerves afire with ardor were they not trembling so much that any flame would have been immediately extinguished.
She had asked him earlier, out of concern for the long flight time, why he was not using themomentum automaticaphrase to keep the cottage moving on its own. Standing beside him at the wheel, arms crossed, she’d been seeking something to criticize and this had been the best she could manage. The man flew like a pirate, albeit with a complete lack of swagger or hat feathers.
“Although the wheel is only a conduit for the incantation’s magic,” he’d said, “this one is so decrepit I doubt it could manage themomentum automatica. But there’s actually no need for the pilot to incantatewithout pause. One phrase can carry a house quite a distance.” He’d given her a glancing smile. “Would you like to take the helm for a while, Miss Dearlove?”
“No, thank you.”
“Fair enough. It is difficult weather.”
She had bristled at the insinuation. What exactly he’d been insinuating, she hadn’t known, but bristling had certainly seemed called for. “I could fly. If I wanted to. But I am disinclined to judge speed or distance.”
