“Drat it all,” she muttered.
“Hff,” came a whispered reply.
It must be a breeze through the open window, she thought. Looking out, she saw Daniel swing in through the window below. The line went slack. Returning her gun to its secret pocket, Alice began gathering up her skirts in preparation for rappelling.
“Grrr,” the mysterious voice rumbled behind her.
Turning again with a confused frown, she went abruptly still. Her pulse, on the other hand, began to race around her body in hysterics.
Well, this explained why Mrs. Etterly did not bother locking her door.
As if it knew what she was thinking, the tiger emerging from under the bed grinned.
9
an unexpected encounter—the tiger and the lamb— not a ghost at the window—hide-and-seek— daniel to the rescue
Tiger, tiger, burning bright, in the bedroom of the pirate. Although not literally burning, Alice thought sourly—a burning tiger would at least be less inclined to stalk her. It had a fearful symmetry indeed about its lithe body, but Alice found herself focusing instead on its even more fearful fangs. Although a pretty pink bow had been set about its neck at a charmingly cocky angle, this somehow did not ameliorate her terror.
“Fiddlesticks,” she whispered. The open window beside her offered an escape, but as she reached with agonizing care for the sill, her hand fumbled against the rappel hook and inadvertently dislodged it. She tried to catch it but was too late: with a mocking clatter against the stone wall, her means of escape slipped away.
The tiger’s eyes flashed as if appreciating Alice’s worsening dilemma. It swayed in what she imagined was preparation for leaping, biting, tearing, and other gruesome activities.
With a wild flare of desperation, she waved a hand.“Aereo,”she gasped, trying to summon the ancient magic of the incantation.
A vase of flowers rocked gently on the bedside table.
The tiger’s tail flicked.
“Fuck,” Alice said—not strictly speaking a phrase of magic, but certainly piratical. Reaching blindly behind her, she caught hold of a large porcelain lamp and threw it as far as she could across the room.
In other words, three feet.
Thunk.
The tiger watched the lamp roll across the carpet, then turned back to Alice. Hunching down, its massive shoulders rippling with muscle, it began to creep toward her.
All the books she had read in her life flashed before her eyes. Unfortunately, none of them happened to be manuals on escaping deadly wild beasts. The tiger paused, its jaws closing. The disappearance of the enormous fangs proved less reassuring than Alice would have supposed. She watched everything about the creature grow tight and still, and realized she had seconds to live.
Sorrow rose from her heart, but her mind ruthlessly stomped it down again. Taking one last breath, she placed a hand on the windowsill and vaulted up, over—and out into the darkness.
Meanwhile, one floor down, Daniel was experiencing problems of his own.
“So interesting to see you here, Bixby,” said the man aiming a gun at his heart.
“You too, Captain O’Riley,” Daniel replied, his own gun not stirring an inch from the pirate’s heart.
“I thought you were going to Edinburgh to open a bookstore.”
“People can change their mind.”
“Not you.”
Daniel stared at the dark-haired pirate, silently calculating angles for attack, odds of getting pulverized if he attacked, and sudden painful nostalgia. For three years he’d used Alex O’Riley as a source of information and experience, cleaned his house, participated in his adventures, and come perilously close to loving the man with a depth of friendship he’d never before experienced. But the assignment had ended and the file closed, shutting away all such uncomfortable sentiments.
“Don’t be so ridiculous,” came a woman’s voice from the edge of the room. Without moving, Daniel flicked his gaze toward it. His heart followed.
Charlotte Pettifer stepped forward. Dressed in black shirt, black trousers, and tall studded black boots, her strawberry blonde hair tied back to fall in a rippling stream almost to her waist, she looked like a wicked witch—exactly what she was. She gave him a look that suggested far more danger than any her brawny pirate husband with his passel of deadly weapons could supply. Daniel knew that, with one murmured word, she could have him out the window and broken on the ground far below.
