“Stand back!” Captain Hardy hoisted a leg to kick the door down.
“Wait!” Lucien seized Captain Hardy’s shoulder. “Listen.”
Then they recognized it: A sound reminiscent of a goat kicking the slats of its stall.
A rhythm as old as time.
In other words: the legs of a bed against a wooden floor.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
ThumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpTHUMP!
The last mighty thump had them scrambling backward as if the door were about to explode.
Too late, Delilah crossed her arms over her head in a futile attempt to prevent Corporal Dawson’s gurgling cry of ecstasy from entering her ears.
And then all was blessed silence.
As this was not an experience any of them had ever anticipated or hoped to share with one another, no one knew quite where to aim their eyes, or what to do with their hands. Tristan andLucien were still holding pistols. They were all in fact crouched a little, as if the ceiling was caving in.
“Holy Mother of God,” Lucien finally breathed, in awe.
He spoke for all of them.
They were all silent, winded from being buffeted between terror, mortification, relief, and maybe just a little envy, in a matter of seconds.
It was all cooing and murmurs behind the door now. And giggles.
“I say we shoot them anyway,” Captain Hardy suggested darkly.
They stifled uneasy laughter.
This little tableau—the drawn pistols, the stupefied expressions, the cringing postures, as if they wished they could all change out of their old skins into new, unsullied skins—was what greeted Mrs. Pariseau when she exited the room adjacent, handsomely dressed in a maroon day dress.
They all gave a guilty start.
“Well, good morning, everyone.” She turned the key in her lock.
“Good morning, Mrs. Pariseau,” they replied in absurd unison.
She paused to study them, amused.
She gestured with a head tilt at Corporal and Mrs. Field Mouse’s door and whispered, with an eyebrow wag, “Third time today!”
They stepped aside so she could pass down the stairs.
One of the things Delilah and Angelique loved about being proprietresses of a boardinghouse near the docks was the variety. And while the day-to-day was on the whole delightful, they had also contended with the British soldiers pouring into the building, a runaway French princess, a secret tunnel, smugglers, ravenous German musicians, a scandalous opera singer, several attempts by various aristocrats to steal their cook, a makeshift gambling den, financial fluctuations, Mr. Delacorte, and Dot. They had managed all of this more or less with aplomb.
Somehow confronting this newest challenge seemed to require more courage than all of those combined.
As the comfort of their guests was paramount, they intercepted Mrs. Pariseau in the foyer when she returned from her morning jaunt and invited her for a cup of tea in the kitchen.
The three of them sat at one end of their large worktable while Helga rolled dough for tarts at the other end.
“Mrs. Pariseau, we’re so terribly sorry about the... the neighborly disruption. Would you like us to move them to another room? Would you like us to prepare another room for you temporarily?”
Mrs. Pariseau lifted a hand. “Oh, please don’t trouble yourselves, ladies. I can pretend it’s the sound of wild animals murdering each other on the savanna or some such. It’s an inexpensive way to go on an educational little holiday in my mind. Last night I imagined it was a hyena taking down an antelope. I went to a lecture about those animals not too long ago, as you may recall. So interesting. And Corporal Dawson is only on leave for a fortnight, after all.”
