“Of course I’m sure,” Alice told him, affronted. “It is written clearly in the—” She stopped, recollecting their audience, who were watching with fascination. “Er, in the wedding album. Three years this coming January.”
“Oh yes. It only feels like three months due to the profusion of romance.”
“A veritable excess of romance,” Alice agreed. Daniel reached out to pat her arm again and she sidestepped before he could do so.
Miss Darlington’s mouth twitched. “Well, goodness. I suspect this will be an intriguing week after all. No doubt we will spy some charming interludes and uncover many secrets of our hearts. Coming, Gertrude?”
With a parting nod, the pirate ladies proceeded together across the grass toward Starkthorn Manor, trailed by their husbands.
Alice shook back her ruined hat feathers. “Well,” she declared, “that was a success.”
“Hm,” Daniel said, frowning.
“You doubt it?”
“I doubt we will be alive by the end of the day.”
“Nonsense. I survived chatting with Miss Darlington in her sitting room. You kept Mrs. Rotunder from completely destroying our house. And it took no effort whatsoever to convince them we are a happily married pirate couple. I am entirely confident all shall be just fine.”
Never had things been worse.
Daniel stood in the grand entrance hall of Starkthorn Castle, surrounded by pirates, and drew upon all his training as a secret agent in order to remain calm. His spectacles fogged with the effort of breathing regularly. Every instinct in him ached to retrieve both guns from inside his coat and fire until all their bullets were spent—a move that would see him dead within seconds.
Mind you, death might be preferable to spending one moment more listening to Frederick Bassingthwaite speak.
“...And so with all my warm, palpitating heart I welcome you, Aunt Darlington, Mrs. Rotunder, Mrs. Blakeney, and associated gentlemen. Long have I yearned to see your dear and handsome visages, and I beg you find comfort in this my most humble and unworthy abode, from which the scions of Bassingthwaite have...”
At Daniel’s side, Alice leaned close to whisper, “Do you think we can just blow the whole place up and be done with it?”
Daniel considered this suggestion. A few sticks of dynamite beneath the Corinthian columns and—
Wait. She was probably not serious.
Thud!
He jolted out of his thoughts to see a dagger reverberating in a portrait of Black Beryl that hung on the wall directly behind Frederick.
“Sorry,” Mrs. Rotunder sang out. “My hand slipped.”
Frederick’s face had turned as white as the pearl handle of the dagger, but he nevertheless managed to trill a laugh. “Dear lady, allow me to declare there is no—”
“No need to apologize,” interjected his wife. She smiled with such determination Daniel feared she would do an injury to her facial muscles. Marriage to Frederick would strain anyone, but Jane Fairweather seemed so tense she probably needed no weapon to assassinate the Queen—one curtsy and she might just explode. “The rest of the party are partaking of tea in the Orange Drawing Room,” she said. “You are welcome to join us, or the servants will escort you to your rooms for a rest first. I know travel can be wearisome for the agèd.”
Silence sharper than any dagger followed this statement. Daniel and Alice glanced nervously at each other.
But Miss Darlington only laughed. “I see marriage has improved you, Jane. That was almost nasty. Well done, dear!”
Jane nodded in receipt of the compliment. “But is dear Cecilia not with you, Miss Darlington? I am looking forward to seeing my darling chum!”
“She sends her regrets,” Miss Darlington said.
“How disappointing,” Jane murmured. Daniel regarded her thoughtfully, for her facial expression did not seem to quite match the words. He tried to compare its various microfeatures to those on his internal checklist of A Disappointed Countenance Type One: Female, but before he could begin, Jane was already smiling. “Well, I am glad you at least are here.”
Miss Darlington frowned as she scanned this for insult. “I feel quite parched,” she replied, as if the state of her throat was Jane’s personal fault. “Come along, Mr. Darlington.”
Behind her, Jake Jacobsen rolled his eyes fondly. Miss Darlington laid her hand in a queenly manner upon his offered arm, and they began to cross the hall toward a distant sound of laughter. Mrs. Rotunder and her husband hurried after them before Frederick could speak again, and Daniel began to follow.
“Ahem.”
