“I have been playing tennis. As you were supposed to be also. And yet you departed without notice after aerial duck-duck-goose, which you can be sure I will be mentioning in the mission report.”
He leaned close, his voice fluttering against her ear. “Go ahead, write me up.”
Crash!The pirates had begun breaking crockery. Or possibly Alice’s nerves were breaking like an explosion of rose-painted porcelain.
“You are living dangerously, sir,” she managed to say as she tried to push him away. Oddly, however, her hand seemed to have lost all understanding of force, and was instead lingering against his waistcoat buttons, thrilling at their texture.
“Living dangerously is the job description,” Daniel said. His gaze slid with languid slowness down her form. “What are you wearing?”
“Bloomers,” she said.
“There is no need to swear.”
“No, bloomers. Turkish trousers. Mrs. Rotunder loaned them to me so I could play tennis without the inconvenience of tripping over a hem and plunging one hundred feet to my death. And Miss Darlington gave me the hat, which apparently protects against the Great Peril. I have no idea what she meant.”
Daniel considered it with some bemusement. “Perhaps it’s a shield against aerial weapons?” He reached out and tugged it more properly into place. “I found a barricaded room on the second floor that we might be able to access via a window,” he said as he straightened the hat’s brim. “I also spoke with Agent M before she left to catch a train from the nearby village. I’ve requested new premises, which she can fly back along with Mrs. Kew’s message. Might as well kill two birds with one stone.”
Alice stared at him wide-eyed. “Why would you kill birds? That isdespicable, sir! And where is this stone of which you speak?” She looked around for it without success; returning to his face, she found it perfectly inscrutable.
“I beg your pardon,” he said. “It was merely an idiom.”
“Oh.” She sighed. “Sorry. This is why I work alone. Conversation is beyond me.”
“Don’t worry on my account,” he said, tucking a loose, damp strand of hair behind her ear. “God knows I often have my foot in my mouth.” And, as Alice drew breath to answer—“Idiom again.”
“You cannot be worse than I am,” she insisted. “For example, I once called Mrs. Kew ‘Mrs. Cute’ by mistake.”
Daniel did not look up from tidying a strip of lace that had become slightly folded on her bodice. “I once called a cutthroat band of smugglers ‘snugglers,’ and barely made it out of their company alive.”
“Oh dear.” Alice bit her lip in an effort to repress her amusement, but Daniel only stared at the lace strip.
“It would be nice to feel safe with someone,” he said quietly.
Alice’s heart stirred. “You—” she began.
Toot! Toot!
They jolted, reaching for weapons.
“Blakeneys!” Mrs. Ogden leaned out of her attic window to wave at them. “They’ve just rung the bell for afternoon tea! I’ll race you to the field behind the castle!”
Her house swooped away before they could answer, and Daniel and Alice both shook their heads in silent condemnation.
“I am not going to race,” Alice said airily.
“Nor I,” Daniel agreed.
They glanced at each other for half a second.
And then they were running along the battlement—vaulting a cannon—yanking open a door—clambering down a tower of stairs—avoiding servants wanting their autograph—pausing to check inside asideboard for the hidden weapon—racing through the central hall—skirting a trolley of silverware—pointing out a cobweb to a housemaid—leaping over a sudden cat—and arriving at the castle’s main rear exit with only the merest acceleration of their breath. Dashing over the threshold, they scanned the collection of white-clothed tables and parasols that had been set up on the grass—
And stopped.
“There you are at last, Blakeneys!” Mrs. Ogden called from where she sat at a table with a plate of tiny sandwiches and cakes in front of her. She lifted a cup of tea in salute.
Alice and Daniel just looked at her.
“I am inspired to recollect paragraph seven in the mission dossier,” Alice murmured to Daniel as he took her by the arm and they proceeded across the grass toward Mrs. Ogden.
