“Um,” she replied dazedly.
“You’re smoking.”
“Er...”
“Literally, Miss Dearlove. Your petticoat is catching alight.”
“Oh!” Glancing down, Alice saw steam arising from her damp petticoat. The hem, embroidered withdescendeo lentefrom the flight incantation, was beginning to spark.
“You’re standing too close to the fire,” Daniel said, drawing her away. He began divesting her of her velveteen coat as Alice fumbled urgently with the ties of her petticoat. Their hands tangled; their breath mingled; Alice almost felt like her heart was beating with his energy. Within seconds, she was stripped of all but chemise, drawers, corset, bustle pad, stockings, shoes, and hat. Strands of hair tumbled down her neck. Daniel’s breath tumbled out of him. Although the threat of combustion had been thwarted, Alice almost thought she heard the air between them crackle and spark. She crossed her arms defensively over the thin lawn of her chemise. Daniel turned away, shoving a hand through his hair.
“I’ll just—er, that is, you—I’ll—you get dressed and I’ll be over here checking for bugs,” he said.
“Very well,” Alice agreed, sidling over to her duffel bag. “Excellent plan. I’ll—you—er, don’t turn around.”
“I won’t,” he said most assuredly.
She withdrew a small handful of purple and green silk from the bag and shook it so that voluminous layers of beribboned, braid-trimmed,and lace-bristling skirts unfurled with athwomp. Alice grimaced at the sight of them. In such a gown she was going to look hideous enough to be piratically fashionable, but she might need a headache tonic to bear it. With eyes half-closed, she removed her hat, shook out her still-damp hair, and dressed as fast as all the requisite layers allowed. Retrieving her spare gun from the bag, she checked its ammunition load, then tucked it into a secret pocket. At last, she turned back to the room...
And her eyes opened so wide she strained a facial muscle.
Daniel was leaning over the vanity table in a manner that had salacious consequences for the trouser fabric across his posterior. Alice could not help but stare. The memory of Miss Darlington declaring there were no teeth in her gluteus maximus arose piratically, accompanied by a vision in which Alice applied her own teeth to the firm globe of Mr. Bixby’s similar muscle. She immediately shut her mouth—and then realized it had been hanging open, and that she had been perilously close to drooling.
Drooling. Like ahooligan.
Fiddlesticks! Much more time spent in the company of this man and she’d end up casting off her tranquil layers to run amok, breaking windows and tearing out the pages of books. Agent B did things to her nerves that she could not comprehend. Clearly, he was dangerous—an assassin with a highly trained body, a mind like a loaded gun, a smile capable of destroying any common sense, and did she mention his body? Alice began to suspect his pajama party with Princess Louise involved more interesting activities than drinking cocoa and telling ghost stories.
“Ahem. Ahem.”She cleared her throat urgently, and Daniel straightened, glancing over his shoulder.
“All dressed, then?” he asked with complete ignorance of the wickedness rampaging behind her serene expression.
“All dressed,” she managed to say.
“I’ll just finish here, then we should go downstairs.”
He turned to inspect a clock. Firelight caught on his earring, making it flash like a flirtatious wink.
“Ahem! Ahem!”Alice rubbed her throat, the interior of which had now been so thoroughly cleared it was beginning to ache. “Indeed. Yes. Good. Downstairs. Indeed.”
Daniel frowned a little as he regarded her. “Are you quite well, Miss Dearlove?”
“Entirely well!” She gathered up her hair and began winding it into a tight knot. Daniel watched. He seemed tired, Alice thought—his eyes dark, his jaw twitching, as he followed her movements like one mesmerized. She brushed a hand along the side of her bare neck to catch a loose strand, and he jolted.“Ahem,”he said, and turned away to inspect the clock again.
“You really think the room will be bugged?” Alice asked.
“One can never be too careful.” He lifted a lamp to look under it, then twitched aside a velvet drape. “These old houses are often riddled with cockroaches or spiders.”
Alice shuddered. Thus far today she had been shot at by a pirate’s battle-conservatory, fallen through a thunderstorm, lost her favorite copy of Euripides, faced the dreaded scoundrel Miss Darlington, been aurally assaulted by both an anti-theft siren and Frederick Bassingthwaite, and almost caught on fire in more ways than one. And now there was a possibility of insects. Just how much more perilous could this mission get?
Crash!
The chaise lounge toppled back, thudding against the floor. A reverberation went through the Orange Drawing Room, causing chandeliers to rattle and vases to rock perilously on tables. Alice winced.
But the three elderly ladies who had been standing on the chaise, and who skipped easily off its curved back to the polished wood floor, only laughed and clanked their wineglasses together in merry triumph. As crimson liquid splashed over their hands, Alice winced again, thinking of how sticky their fingers would be hereafter, and of all the floor mopping some poor chambermaid would be doing tonight.
“What’s next?” came a call from somewhere amongst the mass of silk bustles, gaudy skirts, and terrifyingly fulsome hats crowding the room.
The question sparked fear through Alice’s blood. She was a courageous woman. She had walked through the Whitechapel slum at midnight, spied on wicked witches who would have killed her had they realized her identity, and read William Blake’s poetry. But nothing was more nerve-racking than pirates entertaining themselves with a few innocent parlor games.
