Chapter Six
The field ornithologist is a sophisticate, at ease with the diversity of people she meets in hotel lobbies and salons around the world.
Birds Through a Sherry Glass , H.A. Quirm
As it turned out, hijacking a trawler was easier said than done.
To begin with, there was the matter of boarding. “I wish I’d sought a special license to wear trousers,” Beth mused as she stood at the dock’s edge, eyeing the narrow but hazardous distance between herself and the trawler’s deck.
Devon felt his heart lift on unexpectedly soft wings toward her. “Take my hand,” he offered. “I’ll help you.”
She stared at him as if he’d tried to pass her a fanged ostrich. Then, dismissing this small but swooningly delightful opportunity for moonlit romance, she closed her umbrella and made a nimble leap. Devon held his breath, but she landed neatly on the trawler’s deck with a complete lack of coy, feminine vulnerability and only the mildest dishevelment of her hat.
Devon’s heart swooped back and curled up inside him. With a self-mocking smile, he leaped after her.
Then came the difficulty of operating the trawler.
“I see the wheel,” Beth said, sheltered once more beneath her umbrella as she surveyed the deck, “and piles of rope, and clearly the chimney holds some purpose. But how does it all go together to create locomotion?”
Devon pushed back his wet hair and sighed. “To be honest, I don’t know. But we’re scientists; surely we can figure it out.”
There was no chance to do so, however, because just then another obstacle arose: the trawler’s four occupants rushing from the cabin, clad only in long woolen underwear. They appeared about as happy to be hijacked as might be expected.
“Merde!” they shouted. “Qu’est-ce que vous faites, connards?!”
At once, Beth and Devon leaped back. “Why are they calling us flycatching loons?” Beth asked, her umbrella trembling.
“That’s fou fatal contopus ,” Devon told her. “I’m fairly sure they mean something more earthy.” Drawing a gun from a holster beneath his coat, he pointed it at the fishermen.
“Enlever mon passeur de perruches!” he commanded.
The men glanced at each other, frowning confusedly. “Take off, my budgie smuggler?” one hazarded.
“Er…” Devon did not avert his attention from them as he asked Beth, “How do I say, ‘we’re birders and we need you to follow that ferry’?”
“Don’t ask me,” she said. “I will never move them in French, unless it be to laugh at me.”
He turned his head then to stare at her. “Really? Shakespeare, at a time like this?”
“Anytime is a good time for Shakespeare,” she replied patriotically.
“This is what you learn at Oxford? With such an impractical education, you have no hope of winning Birder of the Year.”
“And—and Yale offers an education so practical, it may as well be a technical institute!” she retorted, clearly unfamiliar with sniping, but giving it her best shot. “I suggest you just go home and await my award acceptance speech.”
Devon grinned. His hand longed to reach up and brush away a raindrop glimmering on her cheek. Other parts of his body expressed longings so Shakespearean he almost laughed at the irony. “You are a martinet,” he told her amiably.
“And you are scandalous,” she countered.
“Ahem,” contributed a fisherman.
Returning to his senses with a jolt, Devon turned to find all four men leaning back against a large equipment box, arms crossed, watching the scene in fascination. He scowled. Gesturing with his gun toward the misty sea beyond, he ordered them in brusque English to follow the ferry. And apparently the barrel of a Webley Mark I spoke a universal language, because they jumped to obey.
While the fishermen worked, Devon kept his weapon trained on them. Beth, however, paced the lantern-lit deck, chewing her thumbnail with no consideration for the glove encasing it.
“I’m sorry for the inconvenience,” she told the captain.
“Please forgive us,” she told the first mate.
“You are ever so kind,” she told the two crew members, smiling with the kind of warmth that suggests something is about to burst into flames.
“Really, just dreadfully sorry,” she reiterated to the captain.
And so on, until the fishermen ended up assuring her it was perfectly fine she had pirated their boat. Whereupon she relaxed and began instead to ask about their operations, mingling hand gestures and pidgin French, apparently intent on getting her mariner’s license at the end of the journey.
The fishermen patiently explained each rope’s purpose and the fundamentals of steam engineering, and even let her steer the wheel for a while. Not a mile out to sea, they began bringing her tea, and jam sandwiches, and a coat that she declined on the basis of being quite warm, thank you (although Devon, smelling it from where he stood on the other side of the deck, suspected she preferred freezing to stinking of old fish). In return, she taught them several bird whistles and extracted from each man a promise to never shoot down an albatross should they happen to stray into the Southern Hemisphere while trawling for mackerel.
Devon watched all this with a cynicism that had been polished by years in the ornithology field. The woman truly was fascinating, and he would have gladly kissed her in Calais had the ferry’s horn not interrupted. When she laughed with the fishermen, everything inside him sighed with a longing he could not repress. But…
But…
Er, there had been a but within that train of thought, he was sure of it. He just couldn’t seem to remember where.
No one offered him sandwiches. Indeed, all he got were menacing looks and more than one muttered promise that he would “nourrir les poissons” the moment he let his guard down. Knowing poissons did not actually mean poison somehow failed to reassure him. Apparently what was good for the goose was not good for the gander after all. He made himself an uncomfortable seat upon a coil of rope, hunched in his coat against the endless drizzle, hungry and tired and thinking thoughts so impolite, Beth probably would have fainted had she known them.
As night labored on through murky darkness, Devon drifted asleep despite himself. Upon awakening in the faint, blue-toned light before dawn, he looked out with relief at the town of Dover, its black silhouette glinting here and there with lights like slumming stars. The boat was dawdling into harbor. The fishermen stood around the wheel, talking quietly and casting him vicious looks. Surprised that they hadn’t turned the boat around while he slept, Devon nodded to them as he crossed the deck to where Beth sat on an equipment box, sheltered by a makeshift canvas roof.
She was rigidly upright, clutching her satchel against her midriff protectively, but her eyes were closed, and Devon indulged in a moment of observing her without fear of being chastised. She must have been freezing in her light skirt and jacket. He wanted to wrap her in his arms—merely on the scientific principle of sharing body heat, of course. He wanted to remove her hat and unbind her glossy hair slowly, pin by pin. It would reach almost to her waist, he guessed with the expertise of a man who had unraveled many a coiffure. It would feel like silk against his skin. He’d brush it back, then tip her chin so as to kiss her soft, lucent throat until she opened those heavenly eyes and saw him…
Saw him.
His heart, decidedly unimpressed with such a dangerous notion, silenced all further thought. Removing his coat, he draped it over her.
“Wake up, angel,” he whispered. Then louder: “Wake up, we’re almost here.”
“Strix owl,” Beth muttered, then wakened with a jolt. She blinked up at him dazedly, her eyes brimming over with shadows.
For a moment, Devon forgot to breathe. The emotion visible in her gaze was so stunning, and made her so beautiful, so haunting, it was as if she’d risen from the sea like a forgotten daughter of Poseidon. But then she rubbed a hand across her brow, and when he saw her again she was guarded once more.
“I must have dozed off,” she said.
“We’re almost here,” he repeated. “Dover.”
“Already?”
“Already?” he echoed incredulously. “It’s taken at least three hours. This boat is a tub.”
She sat even straighter. “It’s an eighty-six-foot steam drifter with a tonnage of—” She stopped herself. “In any case, the gentlemen were kind to bring us at all.”
A laugh broke from him, and he hastily turned it into a cough. Solemn, Beth regarded his damp, crumpled shirt, then the coat enveloping her.
“This is yours,” she said. The words snagged a little on her breath. “You gave me your coat.”
“You looked cold,” he said gruffly. “I—I didn’t want you to be cold.”
His brain sighed in self-disgust. Beth touched the coat, and Devon found himself shivering like it was his skin she’d laid those finely gloved fingers upon. Her wondering expression might have broken his heart had she not quickly hidden it away.
“You look colder,” she said with a brief, shy glance at his damp shirt. “And that is a worrying cough you have.” She handed him back the coat. “But thank you for your kindness.”
Devon came so close to blushing he could feel its heat in his throat. No one had ever accused him of being kind before. Mesmerized, he reached vaguely for the coat and missed; it dropped to the deck. He barely noticed. In the dreaming twilight, he knew nothing but her.
The first moment he’d seen the woman at that tedious birders’ meeting, standing alone at the edge of the room with her gaze fixed on the exit door, he’d thought she looked like an angel visiting earth and finding it horribly boring but, being angelic, not wanting to complain. Pretty face, lovely eyes, eminently kissable. But now his attraction was becoming complicated by a far more treacherous emotion. He liked her. She was Sunday morning, a bird in the hand, fresh chalk for a clean blackboard. And damned if he wasn’t in—
“Ahem.”
Turning, blinking, they both looked at the fisherman standing beside them.
“Ton manteau, crétin,” he said, holding out Devon’s coat.
Beth smiled at the man in a way that sent jealousy rampaging like feral carnivorous ostriches through Devon’s blood. “How gracious,” she said. Then she flicked a reproachful look at Devon. “Isn’t that gracious? He’s offering you tea and toast—you know, croutons.”
Somehow, Devon did not think so. He took the coat, then hurried away before wishes, or French fishermen, eviscerated him.
Finally, as daylight seeped red-gold and glimmering through the harbor, they docked at the Admiralty Pier. Devon gave the trawler’s captain a handful of francs and got a scowl in return. He climbed onto the pier, heavy-limbed, cold, and determined to find a place that served coffee. Beth, however, took a ridiculously long time with farewells. Devon watched bemusedly as she shook the hand of each fisherman, murmuring a few words, eliciting smiles and much doffing of caps. It appeared she was thanking them, wishing all good things upon their families, and inviting them to call upon her should they ever find themselves at Oxford during the Michaelmas term. And they were thanking her right back . Devon rolled his eyes.
At last they handed her up onto the pier, saying things in rapid, impassioned French, which Devon suspected were instructions on how to kill him and steal all his money. Grasping her elbow, he proceeded to tow guide her solicitously toward the train station at the end of the pier.
“Good heavens!” she declared, clutching her hat to keep it on her head. “This is altogether vigorous of you!”
“I’d just like to leave Dover sometime before winter,” he said. “And without an entourage of angry Frenchmen,” he added, glancing over his shoulder to where the men were standing on the trawler’s foredeck, arms crossed, watching him balefully.
“They are merely excited for us,” Beth said. “Because they understand so little English, it was no use telling them about Birder of the Year. My own French being weak, all I could think to say was that you were my beloved husband—my épine dans mon coeur , giving me a vacation in England—an angoissant vexation .”
Devon laughed. “I’m pretty sure you told them I’m a thorn in your heart who distresses you with his anger.”
“Oh.” Her expression blanked. “I must go back at once and explain!”
“No, you must not,” he said, increasing his stride. She stumbled to keep up with him.
“But what will they think of us?”
“That we’re evil boat thieves. It doesn’t matter, we’ll never see them again.”
“But—”
Suddenly, her boot met a crack in the dock and she stumbled. Devon caught her before she fell. Glancing back again as he did so, he saw the fishermen bristling. One reached for a harpoon.
“There’s no time to waste!” he said, practically dragging her along. “We must hurry if we want to have any hope of catching the caladrius!”
“Yes,” she said, her mood suddenly changing, as if she’d come fully awake and remembered what she was about. “You’re right. We must run!” Now she was tugging on him.
Devon found himself actually trying to slow her down before she did either of them an injury. “The station is right there. Don’t worry, Miss Pickering. It’s all going to be fine.”
—
“It’s a disaster!” the ticket clerk cried, waving his cap in agitation. “We don’t understand how it happened! The track is absolutely melted! Not just buckled but melted , I tell you!” He jammed his cap onto his head, then immediately yanked it off and waved it again, nearly whacking the engineer who stood with him, gazing mournfully at the mess of warped tracks alongside the platform. “There’s no point asking about tickets, mister. We’re not getting a train in or out of here for days.”
“Feuerfinch,” Beth said.
The clerk and engineer stared at her as if she were mad, or possibly German. But Devon made a thoughtful sound in his throat. “Interesting theory, Miss Pickering,” he said.
Beth opened her mouth to remind him that he was not the only academic genius standing on the dock, thank you very much, but something in his eye suggested that he’d appreciate the excuse to tease her. So instead she leaped down the twelve inches from platform to tracks, eliciting a shocked gasp from the ticket clerk at such unladylike behavior. A small red semiplume lay trapped between pebbles; crouching, she picked it up gently and held it to the morning light. Pinkish-gold traces of magic lingered around the soft bit of fluff, shimmering here and there as a breeze tried to restore the feather to flight.
“Feuerfinch,” she said again, envisioning the snazzy little bird, with red wings and an orange breast, hopping over the tracks as it breathed tiny but potent flames onto them. She’d never seen one in the wild, and her heart sighed happily over the feather even while her brain peered at it closely, taking mental notes of the enthralling details.
“I’m impressed,” Devon said.
Beth couldn’t decide whether he meant impressed by her or the bird, so regretfully set aside the compliment. “Someone has employed a feuerfinch to deliquiate this iron,” she said. “The luteofulvous threads of psychokinetic ignition still emanating from this fringilla accendo semiplume confirm it.”
Looking up, she saw the engineer lean sideways toward Devon. “What’s she talking about, mate?”
“A magic bird melted your tracks,” Devon translated.
“Cor blimey!”
“The feuerfinch is extremely rare and only found in the Black Forest,” Beth said, peering up at the arched roof of the station as if the bird might still be flapping around beneath it. But all she saw was a quiet, wingless morning shimmering with dust. Regarding the tracks once more, she noted fragments of the magical threads that provided a lingering trail of the bird’s movement. Tracing it with her gaze, she realized the little creature had attempted flight several times but failed.
“Someone clipped its wings!” she said, rising from her crouch with the force of dismay. “They mutilated the bird so they could use it as a weapon!”
“The IOS competition is heating up,” Devon said, his voice grim. “Literally, in this case.” They exchanged a silent gaze weighted with professional fury for whoever had harmed the feuerfinch, then Devon glanced northward, frowning. “We should hurry.”
“Yes,” Beth agreed, and stepped on a track, raising her arms in advance of climbing back onto the platform. But suddenly Devon was reaching out, taking her hands in his.
“Up you come,” he said.
He lifted her so precipitously, Beth stumbled onto the platform, colliding with him. He held her steady…she stared at him in a daze…and after several moments the clerk and engineer cleared their throats awkwardly. Coming to her senses, Beth moved back. With a sardonic smile, Devon released her hands and turned to the clerk and engineer. Beth took the opportunity to discreetly flex her fingers, which thrummed with the sensation of his touch.
Villain , she reminded herself. Rival.
Pretty , her heart replied with a sigh.
“I’m afraid this was sabotage,” Devon explained to the workers. “There’s a race for a special bird, a caladrius—”
“Ahh, so that’s what those blasted orthonogogists were going on about,” the engineer said, nodding with belated comprehension. “I thought a caladrius was some kind of kitchen utensil. Couldn’t understand why they were in such a tizzy about it.”
“They actually demanded the use of our staff vehicles!” the clerk added. “Didn’t even line up in a proper queue!”
“You have vehicles?” Beth said hopefully. “Carriages?”
“Bicycles. Or we did. The ornologists wanted them all. Offered enough money that we could get a new portrait of Her Majesty for the waiting room, so of course I said yes. I brought out the Special Transactions form (3A), the Purchaser Identification form (2F), the form for—”
“You gave them all necessary papers,” Devon interrupted.
“Yes! But they ignored that and just took the bicycles!”
“You mean they stole them?” Beth gasped.
“No, they paid money,” the clerk said. “But they didn’t fill out the proper paperwork!”
“Oh dear,” Devon murmured.
The engineer peered suspiciously at Beth. “You’re one of them, aren’t you?”
His tone was so sharp, she leaned back. Devon took a small, gliding side step closer to her—an act she’d observed a horned blackbird making in defense of his mate—and she went all steamy inside. Not even admonishing herself that steamy was a highly unscientific term could seem to stop it.
“Of course she isn’t,” Devon said, smiling with such languid charisma that both clerk and engineer blushed. “We’re innocent, mild-mannered geologists. Entirely down to earth.”
He nudged Beth with his elbow, but she hesitated. While an ornithologist should be able to lie on the spot—for example, No, sir, I did not see the bright-red sign saying “private land, no trespassing” beside the gate, which was definitely already open —she had never mastered the ability. Just then, however, she glimpsed a figure lurking by the entrance to the station and recognized it as Oberhufter’s secretary, Schreib. Immediately she gave the clerk and engineer a brisk nod.
“We are indeed geologists! Rock-solid characters, honest to a fault.”
“But you knew about the magic bird,” the clerk pointed out.
“Didn’t you as well? I thought it was obvious.”
He squirmed and shrugged in the beam of her polite smile.
“We’ve got a lot on our plates right now,” she continued, “so we’d very much appreciate a timely furnishment of intelligence as to any means of locomotion that might be available nearby, for which we will offer commensurate recompense, of course.”
The two men gave her a stunned look, then turned to Devon.
“Tell us where in town to find horses,” he said. Then, with a sidelong wink at Beth: “Please.”
The steaminess began to form a sauna in the pit of her stomach.
“If you’re not orgthologists, why are you so desperate to get horses?” the engineer asked suspiciously.
“We have a rock emergency.”
“Oh. Well, that makes sense. But look you, there’s no point running around Dover. Those maniacs will have been through it like a plague already.”
“We have to try,” Beth said. “It’s a matter of—”
“Life and death?” the clerk interjected with a doubting smirk.
“Worse! Tenure! And surely with a bit of door knocking, some cash on offer, we’ll find a kind, good-hearted person willing to help. This is Britain, after all.”