“I have one of Snodgrass’s lockpicks,” Daniel said, removing his tie pin. He inserted it into the lock, but immediately sparks began to ignite. As Daniel pulled back his scorched fingers, the pin shot out, exploding in midair before dropping to the floor, where it proceeded to burn a hole in the carpet.
Alice shook her head with displeasure. “Let’s hope that’s the only thing that is blown tonight.”
“Hm,” Daniel answered.
The noise of the explosion drew a chambermaid from a nearby room. “Is everything all right?” she asked.
“Just fine,” Daniel replied, placing his foot over the smoking lockpick.
“The eagle has eaten the frog,” Alice told her in code—i.e.,The door won’t open, damn it, do you have a spare lockpick on you?
“Um,” said the maid, her eyes widening.
“I don’t think she knows your aunt,” Daniel murmured. He smiled at the maid. “All is well, my wife merely has had too much wine. I told you this was the wrong door, dear.”
“Thank you for that correction, dear,” Alice said in a voice so wifely, A.U.N.T. really needn’t have spent any money on the fake marriage certificate.
The maid, being used to piratic marriages, fled before swords were drawn. Alice and Daniel turned to frown at the locked door. “We could try the room upstairs,” Alice suggested. “If it is accessible, we could climb down from its window to that of the sitting room.”
“Good plan,” Daniel said. He stared into the middle distance for a moment, his eyes flickering as if reading something Alice could not see. “That room has been allocated to Olivia Etterly and her husband,” he said.
“You’ve memorized the castle map?” Alice was astonished.
He looked at her, and she suspected he was seeing angles against her skin, patterns, a network of bones. “A man does like to be adequate at his job, Miss Dearlove.”
Hastening upstairs, they found Mrs. Etterly’s door unlocked. “Hm,” Daniel murmured as it opened.
“Perhaps she thought locking it would be useless in a house full of thieves,” Alice said. Peering around the doorframe, she scanned the interior. “Clear.”
They entered, Daniel shutting the door behind them before crossing to open the window. Alice stood unmoving, her attention riveted on the wrought-iron bedstead and tangled sheets of the bed, which dominated the room. Instinctively she wanted to launder those sheets, remake the bed, lay a mint chocolate on the pillow. Her imagination, however, remembering Mrs. Etterly’s advice—“talk to your handsome young husband about bedsteads and bonds”—began to have other ideas.
“Dare... love...” The suggestion drifted through her awareness, and her imagination nodded in enthusiastic agreement.
“Dearlove. Miss Dearlove!”
“Huh?” Blinking, she yanked her attention away from the bed and found Daniel staring at her blankly.
“All clear outside,” he reported. “And the sitting room window below is ajar.”
“Right,” she said in a brisk voice that fairly shoutedI am a professional woman.
Focusing sternly, she unhooked the fine braided cord that decorated her dress, looping it from elbow to hand several times. Then removing a clip from her coiffure, she unfolded its metal arms so they extended into a three-pronged anchor. To this she tied the end of the cord.
“Hopefully it’s long enough,” she said, attaching the anchor to the windowsill and letting the cord unfurl down the castle wall. It reached to just above the sitting room window.
“I’ll go first,” Daniel said. Without further discussion, he was up and out, proceeding easily via the cord down the wall.
“Typical man,” Alice muttered as she watched him go. “Always has to take the lead.”
“Hff,” came a sardonic comment from behind her.
Drawing her gun, she turned on a heel but saw nothing in the room. Clearly her nerves were still on edge after the long day spent in piratic company.
Really, Mrs. Kew ought not have assigned her to this mission. She may have mastered the Three Primary Rules for Normal Conversation and the Seven Standard Facial Expressions, but piratic behavior was a whole other kettle of fish. (Not that anyone had ever presented her with a kettle of fish—thankfully—but Alice had heard the phrase used before and suspected it was a lesser subclause of Normal Conversation that had been taught at the Academy one day when she’d been off sick.)
The Wisteria Society ladies had perfect manners—to assist them in committing perfect crimes. For instance, it was easy enough to understand a lady must always wear kid gloves in public, but it took a whole other angle of comprehension to see this was necessary so as to not leave fingerprints at a burglary scene. Alice knew she was entirely ill-equipped to learn the pirates’ backward kind of etiquette.
But if she did not do so, and quickly, the Queen would die. AndAlice herself would likely die too. She was disinclined for that to happen.
