“My point? That would be the screaming madwoman with a flaming torch chasing us.”
They glanced over their shoulders and, upon seeing again the tangle-haired woman in a filthy nightgown bearing down upon them with uncanny speed, they increased their own pace.
“How was I to know we’d encounter someone like that in the lockedattic of a Gothic castle?” Daniel asked. “Really, madam, I find you overly fastidious.”
“Now Iknowthis mission has been too much for you!” Alice retorted. “No agent in their right mind would consider it possible to be overly fastidious.”
He frowned at her. She frowned in reply.
Alas, this state of relationship was entirely different from how it had been even five minutes ago, before the graceless moment that saw them confronted by the madwoman. Searching the upper floors of Starkthorn Castle, they had been entirely companionable.
For example, they had assisted each other in picking door locks.
(And if their hands had touched each other briefly in doing so, why, that was just an accidental consequence of professional behavior.)
They had explored shadowy, barely furnished rooms.
(And if Daniel’s fingers, firmly brushing a scattering of dust from Alice’s shoulder, had continued to linger at the nape of her neck—and her fingers in turn had stroked their knuckles against his thigh—one can only attribute this to the innocent effects of physical proximity.)
They had stopped to discuss their search route, marking off room numbers in Daniel’s mental map.
(And if they had caressed each other’s faces while doing so, that was due to—um—oh yes, the poor lighting in the corridor, requiring them tofeelas well as listen to their speech.)
Finally, they had reached the last door and, after unlocking it, had paused outside to—to—
Oh, fiddlesticks. They had grasped at each other with such an abrupt and complete rejection of professionalism that A.U.N.T.’s Code of Conduct burst into hot, metaphorical flames between them as they kissed. Daniel had pushed Alice hard against the door, his lips bruising hers, his hands hauling up the layers of her skirts, while she’d clutched at his hair so he could not relent. With a careful degree ofungentleness, he had breached the gap in her drawers, and she had invaded the front of his trousers, and he’d pressed her harder against the door, causing her to knock the handle, the door to thrust open, and them to stagger through it, still holding and clutching and kissing, whereupon they had immediately become diverted by the question ofwhat the hell was that screeching?
For two people who had readJane Eyre, the answer really ought not to have been a surprise.
Now, skidding around a corner, they entered a wide, well-lit corridor. Music swamped them, and laughter tumbled from a double door opened farther along. Instantly, they halted.
“The dance,” Alice said in horror.
Turning on their heels, they reared back from the madwoman as she waved the flaming torch at them.
“The devil,” Daniel said disapprovingly.
“Aaaaarrgghhh!” contributed the madwoman.
Trapped, both agents drew their guns in a synchronous movement, aiming at the woman’s heart.
It was a tense moment, requiring only dark sunglasses and a more dramatic kind of music playing in the ballroom in order to flip the narrative into something closer to a thriller than has thus far been its tone. Alice’s tranquil layers knotted up in her digestive system as she strove not to flutter her fingers—arms—entire body.
This should never have happened. She’d been unprofessional. She’d lost focus on the mission, falling instead into obsessing over Daniel’s strong, competent body—and, more especially, the way he employed that body to touch her as no one ever had before. Prior to meeting him, she’d felt only mild desires: to obtain secret information, to thwart criminals, to find a Latin edition ofUtopia. Now it seemed as though her entire being was comprised of longing. Even in this moment, facing down the madwoman in the corridor, her senses keptveering to Daniel beside her. The height of him made her feel dainty. The trusting calm of him made her feel powerful. She was not just Alice pointing a gun at some raging threat; she was part of a couple—a mission team, a friendship.
At that dangerous thought, she winced. Alice Dearlove, Agent A, did not have friends. She had associates. The fact that, not five minutes ago, this particular associate had been slipping his hand into her underwear signified nothing more than an overenthusiastic enactment of their mission cover. Most certainly, it did not signify any involvement of her heart. Agent A possessed no heart.
The aching in her chest region was probably indigestion.
“Good gracious!” came a sudden high-pitched voice, sending a shudder through her awareness in much the same way fingernails down a chalkboard might have done. From the corner of her eye, she noticed Frederick Bassingthwaite standing nearby, dressed in orange velvet, his mouth even more agape than usual.
“Why are you holding Evelina at gunpoint?” he asked.
Neither agent looked away from the madwoman, whose wary expression upon Frederick’s arrival suggested she retained at least some glimmers of sanity.
“She is threatening us with the flaming torch you might notice in her hand,” Alice explained.
“Of course she is,” Frederick said with a tinkling laugh. “That is what we hired her to do.”
