They smacked their heels against the floor, bringing them into rhythm with the music. Daniel smiled, and a whole paragraph of interesting French literature burst through Alice’s heart.
“Stop!” shouted Jake Jacobsen as he lurched into the ballroom. “Police!”
Pirate heads instantly turned. But the musicians, in indomitable Spanish fashion, sensing a moment of passion, intensified their playing at once. Daniel danced Alice backward across the floor. Mr. Rotunder rushed at them, waving his wooden arm. Without even glancing the pirate’s way, Daniel lifted Alice’s hand in his, while at the same time lowering his other hand to her hip to spin her.
The red petticoat swooped around her legs. She thrust out with her free arm and effected a brisk karate chop to Mr. Rotunder’s neck. As he stumbled, she spun again beneath Daniel’s arm, brought her foot up, and planted its bootheel with force against the pirate gentleman’s midriff. He went down with athud(and a clatter) that shook the floor.
Alice completed her spin and Daniel caught her, turned them together, and danced them through a gap in the crowd. Mrs. Etterly attempted to stop their progress, but Alice kicked backward, her bootheel smacking into the woman’s legs. Then she and Daniel spun, and he applied a fist to Mrs. Etterly’s waist (causing him more pain than the lady, due to her whalebone corset). She crashed against Mrs. Ogden, who staggered in turn, her hefty bustle taking down two other nearby pirates.
Daniel and Alice spun again. They clasped hands and fixed a center of focus within their calm, mutual gaze. Dancing around the heap of fallen ladies, they made for an open door at the far end of the chamber.
Bloodhound Bess rushed behind them, sword raised. Daniel, sensing the woman’s approach (possibly due to her furious hollering), released Alice and turned.
“Pardon me,” he said disapprovingly, then grasped Bess’s wrist,twisted, and caught the sword as she dropped it. He flipped the grip around his hand with unthinking professional grace before thrusting the blade’s point into the polished wooden floor. The blade shuddered. Bess did not have even a moment to react before Daniel tugged the puffed brim of her headdress down over her eyes and shoved her away.
A second later he had turned back, taken hold of Alice, and propelled her into a new spin. Arm extended, fist coming into play, she felled two more pirates, and they hit the floor in time with a fervid beat of music. Daniel gathered her to him once more, and Alice locked her hand with his.Tap tapwent her heels as they skipped forward. The sense of overwhelm had gone. Old training routines took possession of her nervous system, and she felt like she could dance the night away.
“I’ve never known a woman as competent as you,” Daniel told her over the rushing, rollicking music.
Alice thrilled at this effusive compliment. “You also are proficient to an admirable degree,” she replied.
He lifted her, and she set her arm around his shoulders, and as they turned in a mutual dream of absolute professionalism, her outflung legs knocked Essie Smith, Lysander Smith, Millie the Monster, and a passing waiter all to the ground. The light swirled, shimmering with a thousand tiny reflections of crystal and glass, stirring the scene into one of fairy glamour. The music spiraled toward a crescendo. It was a perfect moment.
Finally Daniel set her on her feet and they fled the ballroom into the corridor beyond. Behind them, voices roared as a counterpoint to the music as the pirates realized the chase was on.
“Left,” Daniel said tersely.
They turned a sharp corner. Servants carrying trays of champagne glasses hurried aside, their loads trembling perilously.
“Right,” Daniel said. They turned another corner. “Left,” he ordered almost immediately. Descending a narrow, shadowed stairwell,they did not dare glance back as the sound of pursuit raged behind them. It was surprisingly tuneful. Apparently the pirates were not only making chase but had brought the musicians with them.
Arriving at the foot of the stairwell, they paused briefly as Daniel consulted his mind map. “Left,” he said, and they set off down a long corridor.
“Is that room ahead of us what I think it is?” Alice asked, noting a closed door.
Daniel flashed her a smile. “I thought about how Jane was carrying books when she reappeared after taking the weapon from storage. And I realized the one place we’ve not yet searched is—”
“—the library,” Alice joined him in saying.
They increased their pace. A furious clatter of shoe heels, curses, and drumbeats echoed from the stairwell as the pirates gained on them.
“Faster!” Daniel urged.
“Hi-yah!”
Suddenly, Miss Darlington’s maid, Competence, leaped from a side corridor into their path. Grim-faced, she wielded a broom in each hand.
Daniel and Alice halted before her. They stared dumbstruck as she spun her weapons with such ferocity they seemed to blur. Her feet jumped back and forth beneath her plain black dress, and the long yellow feather on her mobcap swooped. Finally she stopped, setting the brooms at a sharp angle to cross each other, and displaying a fierce grimace between them.
Daniel stepped forward calmly and punched her in the face.
She dropped with a clatter of broom handles to the floor.
“How cliché,” Daniel said in disapproval.
Alice raised an eyebrow at him.
“What?” he said defensively. “It was pithy.”
