And after hearing the story Millie the Monster told about how she’d employed a coconut in her youth, Alice had sorely wished she’d not eaten that slice of cake.
Now the pirates were enjoying a quiet period, much in the same way the eye of a hurricane is quiet. Settled in the Ecru Drawing Room, they engaged in ladylike occupations such as needlework—“oh, stop sniveling, Olivia, I’ll have this tattoo finished in one minute”—sipping a few extra cups of tea—“dearest, could you pass me the milk jug, and by milk jug I mean rum bottle”—and attending to their correspondence—“I say, Hadiza, how do you spell ‘extortion’?”
Alice wanted nothing more than to get Daniel out of the room so they could have some respite from the grim work of socializing by instead searching up chimneys and in cisterns for the hidden weapon. But he was trapped beside the hearth, staring blankly at MissDarlington while that good lady lectured him on the risks of encephalitis for young married men. One sleeve of his suit jacket needed straightening, and he had not even noticed a loose thread on the upholstery of the chair in which he sat. He looked like a man who needed aholidaythorough debriefing from his superiors prior to being assigned some new, more gentle mission, such as assassinating the Russian emperor.
Watching him, Alice sighed with melancholy.
Egads! This blatant evidence of her eroding mental well-being so alarmed her, she did not notice someone sit beside her on the sofa until they reached out to take the book from her hands. That they survived doing so speaks to how discombobulated she had become; looking up belatedly, she saw Essie Smith.
“All’s Well That Ends Well,”the pirate lady said, reading the book’s gilded cover. Her tiny skull earrings glinted as she lifted a smile to Alice, who blinked warily in response. “I do so love a happy ever after, don’t you, Mrs. Blakeney?”
Oh God, another conversation. Was there no end to the misery of this mission?
“Indeed,” Alice said. “A happy result to any investig—er, interesting event—is always pleasant.” Her stumbled answer illuminated to her that she had no life outside work. The thought brought another sigh from her lips.
“You sound happy,” Essie noted.
“I am,” Alice answered. After all, service is a fine heritage. She could have written her own ode to duty had she been given enough time with ruled paper and a thesaurus. At least, she could have last week. This week’s bewilderments had left her barely able to recollect the A.U.N.T. motto (Semper Octopus—i.e., Really Needing Eight Arms All the Time Just to Get Everything Done).
“It does not surprise me,” Essie said, flicking through the pages of the book in a carefree manner that made Alice want to snatch it backand hold it safe against her heart. “You are young, attractive, with excellent taste in fashion, and clearly you and your husband cherish each other.”
“We do?” Alice said, perplexed. Then, recollecting her mission identity: “We do!”
Essie’s smile deepened. “In this house full of huggers (and muggers), everyone privately has their eyes on you and Mr. Blakeney. We feel quite arrested by your romance. Someday you must tell me your secrets, for I confess, keeping order in my own relationship is not always easy. As Shakespeare says”—she tapped her long fingernails against the book, and Alice barely managed to restrain herself from breaking those nails and the fingers attached to them—“if only men could be discontented to be what they are, there would be no fear in marriage. But so few of them seek self-improvement!”
Alice’s brain, distracted by the misquote, hastily searched itself for some reply. It flung phrases out of boxes, grabbed her imagination and shook it, all to no avail. Fortunately, Essie continued.
“I am, of course, fond of my dear husband. He is good with his hands, if you know what I mean.”
Aha!Alice’s brain snapped to attention, for it knew how to respond here. “Yes! Mr. Blakeney is also good with his hands,” she said. “He can kill with just one punch.”
“Indeed?” Essie blinked rapidly down at the book. “Goodness me. That is... charming, I’m sure. I suppose he is more careful when touching you, though.”
Alice’s expression darkened. “Indeed, he has become prone to gentleness of late.” Even the thought of it made her skin tingle in the most disconcerting manner.
“Oh dear,” Essie murmured.
Alice looked across to where Miss Darlington was now prodding Daniel’s temple and explaining how a freckle proved him to have araging case of brain inflammation. The elderly pirate seemed oblivious to how close she came to assassination for the crime of being concerned about him. Alice, however, could discern from Daniel’s polite smile that he was clearly on the verge of homicide. She had to clench her muscles to keep from shooting Miss Darlington herself.
Fiddlesticks. When had Agent B, her absolute archrival, become so dear to her that she’d kill to protect him from mild discomfort? If only this mission would finish soon so she could haveherhappy ending: a whole new mission, assigned to her alone.
At this thought, her heart flinched oddly. Almost as if it would miss Agent B. Almost as if it wished with all its, er, heart to stay with him. That, of course, was nonsense. Falling in love with one’s mission partner contravened several rules and—
Excuse me.Falling in love?
Alice frowned. She was willing to admitstumbling in fondness, perhaps eventripping in lust, but anything further represented an unprofessionalism that could not be countenanced.
“Were I his lady, I would poison that vile rascal,” Essie commented, and Alice turned to stare at her.
“A line from the play,” the woman elucidated, tapping a fingernail again on the open page. She thenlicked the fingerbefore using it to turn to a new page, and Alice felt the North Pole’s ice caps relocate suddenly into her body.
“You know,” Essie mused, “I suspect Shakespeare may have been a pirate.”
Alice did not reply, her whole attention fixated upon the book for fear of what Essie might do to it next.
“He wrote much that inspires me,” the woman added. “For example, ‘to thine own self be true.’ That is the best advice anyone might receive.”
“And yet it originates with Polonius,” Alice said, “who was a pompous hypocrite.”
