It took Beththree drinks before she finally soothed her aggravation about the newspaper article. By the time she poured a fourth, thus emptying the teapot, her mind was ready once more to focus on the competition—mainly because her body was tired of traipsing down to the bathroom at the end of the corridor, thanks to all the tea. Sitting cross-legged on the bed, she consulted her map of Britain, along with several newly purchased field guides, and took copious notes as she brainstormed theories about where the caladrius might be found. It seemed an impossible task, but she wasn’t England’s youngest professor for nothing.
“I shall be unrelenting until I win!” she declared, brandishing her pen like a sword. “Unrelenting and utterly ruthless!”
But you’re an angel, Devon whispered in her mind.
Crack!
Beth blinked in startlement as the pen hit the far wall. She hadn’t even been aware of throwing it. Rushing to check therewas no damage to the wall, she picked up the pen, then turned again toward her work…
And stopped. Heart twisting oddly, she stared at the spacious room with its elegant furnishings and its bed that was large enough for her to sleep in even with all her papers strewn across the counterpane. Altogether it represented a remarkable improvement upon her situation last night, at the Chaucer Inn, in the tiny, bed-filled room with Devon. No uncomfortable borrowed nightshirt. No sleeping on the floor.
No one to talk to about birds, or dance with, or kiss in the swaying firelight.
Sorrow came upon her with all the suddenness of an owl upon a mouse. The familiar dull ache of being essentially alone, something she’d felt even before her parents died of cholera—something not even Hippolyta’s bombastic company had assuaged—now sharpened into a hot, raw pain.
I miss him, she realized.It’s only been a few hours, but I miss him so much. He’s a villain; he pulled me out of my perfectly calm waters and disturbed me right through my very being…and I miss all of it: the hijinks and hassles and chaotic fun…
I miss the me I was with him.
Sinking to the floor, she leaned back against the wall and stared wearily at her work set out on the bed. It was just a few steps away and yet she felt drained by the thought of returning to it, as if she’d need to traverse an abyss instead of a rather shabby rug. But return she must. It was all she had: her career, and skies filled with birds.
For the first time in her life, that seemed inadequate.
Then she heard a tiny noise. Another followed, and another, as the occupant of the neighboring room moved around,seemingly right next to where she sat, on the other side of the wall. Closing her eyes, she listened, taking comfort from someone else’s presence. And finally, she grew settled again.
The fact was, Devon had behaved in a reprehensibly ungentlemanlike manner, with his constant banter and all his towing of her. She wasfortunateto be rid of him! So very, verylonelyfortunate.
Sighing, she tipped her forehead against her knees. But the universe did not take this cue to send Professor Lockley bursting in with flowers and chocolates, so she hauled herself up and got on with work.
—
Devon sat onthe floor of the Margaret Lucas Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne Bedroom, leaning back against the wall, listening to tiny sounds from the room behind him as if they were ghosts of the breath he kept losing whenever he thought about Beth Pickering. But he didnotthink about her! Absolutely not! He was too busy working on how to win Birder of the Year.
He read through Gabriel’s notes over and over again. He drew circles on maps and wrote down every theory that occurred to him. Crawling onto the bed to fall asleep sometime around midnight, he dreamed of Beth (which, please note, does not count as thinking about her) and woke in such a state of mental exhaustion, the world seemed no more than a blank darkness. Then he realized his notebook was lying open across his face.
Lifting it, he peered sleepily at the place-names Gabriel had listed for him. Nine sites, scattered widely across the island, equal in their potential lure for a magical bird. It wouldtake months to explore them all. And even then, he might be on entirely the wrong path. The caladrius could be anywhere.
Except…
He sat up, brushing the hair away from his eyes. The bird wasn’t anywhere, of course. It wassomewhere, or else there would be no competition. Realizing that, his perception shifted radically, and he understood at once where he needed to go next.
As for where he longed to be—well, he wasn’t thinking about that, was he?
—
In her ownbedroom, Beth woke face down on the map of England. As her vision slowly came into focus, she saw the circle she’d drawn and the words scrawled next to it:
Ornithologists are ruthless!
She ran a finger sleepily across the sentence. Among all the thoughts she’d corralled in the night, that one alone offered her certainty. In fact, she suspected it was the key to everything.
Climbing off the bed, she washed, then hastily donned a dress she’d bought yesterday (soft white, printed with lilacs and trimmed with lace, about as appropriate for a serious-minded scholar as a gossip magazine would have been, but perfect forif she met Devon againtraveling in the heat). As she bound up her hair and set a straw boater upon it, she gazed out the window at the brightening sky. Sparrows flecked rooftops, pigeons squatted upon chimneys…and somewhere out there in the long expanse of Britain, a caladrius perched.
In a cage, waiting to be won.
Nothing else made sense. A group of leading ornithologistsin all their professional ruthlessness would never organize a competition for Birder of the Year based on mere hope, a rumor, a white-winged dream. Once she’d taken that into account, Beth had become convinced that they held the bird in their possession and presumably had contrived some plan for arranging its “capture” by their chosen winner. A plan she intended to overturn, outscheming them to win Birder of the Year for herself!
Granted, she didn’t understand people, let alone their motivations, which would make outscheming them rather tricky. But she was always open to learning a new subject. And certainly this would be easier than traipsing randomly around the kingdom with binoculars and a big net. She didn’t have to find the caladrius; she only had to find someone who would reveal its location.
