Chapter Thirteen #3
Just then she noticed that she was standing on a black sock. Shifting her foot off it, she crouched, holding out the thaumometer. Its needle remained flat: no active magic. Picking up the sock, she felt the shape of something small and thin hidden inside, and understood what she had.
The Hereford teaspoon! her brain exclaimed, headache forgotten in its sudden excitement.
Although the little antique spoon was emitting no energy now, moments ago its psycho-conjunctive power had actually materialized her wish for more time with Caleb!
Such potency was phenomenal. Forget the paper she was planning to write on the teaspoon—this was going to be a whole book!
If, that is, Caleb didn’t lose it before she could begin work.
Struggling to keep her expression unaffected, she stood.
“What’s that?” Vanity asked, her voice high-pitched, her face blanching as if she anticipated imminent disaster.
“It’s an Italian-milled cashmere sock,” Caleb said, frowning at it with a tinge of confusion, while simultaneously Amelia answered, “Nothing important.” But the look she gave him told a whole other story.
Or, rather, a tract of nonfiction, i.e., the Thaumaturgic Antiquaries Safety Regulations Manual, which they were supposed to read once a year to keep its contents fresh in their minds.
(Amelia did so every six months. Caleb hadn’t picked it up in a decade.) Granted, this manual did not specifically state that dangerous antique teaspoons ought not be stored in hosiery, but surely that went without saying.
“How did it get down here?” Caleb murmured, his confusion deepening from a tinge to a tint that darkened his eyes. “I had it in my suitcase.”
“So you did double-check it was there?” Amelia asked, recalling their last conversation on the subject.
He paused for the slightest moment, then: “Yes,” he said with a tone of outrage that she’d even doubt it. Which meant, obviously, no.
Amelia inhaled a breath and held it, along with several sharp words.
But the image of the five-year-old he’d been, so small, so impoverished, made her want to cry instead of shout, and hug him, and forgive his appallingly slack work habits.
(At least for now. No doubt she’d change her mind next time she had to loan him yet another pen.)
Besides, there was the minor point of her having more than once put that same teaspoon carelessly in her own pocket, even knowing how unstable it could be. But— “Why just a sock?” she asked.
“Look.” Caleb pulled back its cuff to reveal another cloth container within.
“Hm,” Amelia said, a tiny bit less stern, recognizing that he’d stored the teaspoon inside a safe bag, then covered that with the sock.
“And it’s not ‘just’ a sock,” he added. “An Italian-milled sock. Using diluted sulfuric acid from a cave in the Apennines.”
In other words, one of the most thaumaturgically active zones in Central Europe. “Hm,” Amelia reiterated, but with a tone of approval this time. He’d been quite clever. One might even say “admirably diligent,” were one not in earshot of people who believed she hated him.
“I haven’t touched it since I stored it away,” Caleb told her, and his tone was serious enough for Amelia to believe him. That meant the teaspoon had somehow made its own way downstairs.
Gasp! Could it have telekinetic ability?
Considering it had enchanted her when she stepped on it, even through two extremely strong layers of protection, Amelia was beginning to imagine almost anything of the little spoon.
“When we get home I need to study it more,” she said, and desperately wished she was there right now, cozy and alone in her little flat on Norham Road, where a teakettle or book was always in nearby reach and nothing worse disturbed her evenings than Caleb knocking on the door, begging to be let in because he’d lost the key to his own house (again).
She clenched the teaspoon, forcing herself quite ruthlessly to focus.
“I shall just take it upstairs and lock it in my own suit—”
“No, you won’t,” Caleb interrupted, snatching the sock from her. “That bloody thing follows you around in the most uncanny way. I’ll keep it safe,” he insisted.
“Nonsense,” Amelia scoffed. “You’ll forget to do so halfway up the stairs and toss it onto a side table. I am far more reliable.”
She grabbed the sock, trying to pull it free from his grasp. But Caleb stubbornly clenched his fist tightly and pulled back. Amelia clung on with fierce determination (which is far more noble than stubbornness, please note), and a tug-of-war commenced.
“Rapscallion!” Amelia scolded.
“Autocrat!” Caleb retorted.
Their eyes flashed as they glared at each other. Their hearts pounded as they rocked together.
Damn, I adore you, Amelia thought. “Blasted rotter!” she snarled.
“Harridan!” he replied, looking like he might shove her away—or kiss her if she got close enough.
“Are they always like this?” Vanity could be heard asking Dummersby.
“Unfortunately,” the curator replied through a disapproving puff of pipe smoke. “Dreadful enemies.”
Caleb’s glare intensified to the point where Amelia thought she might go up in flames. “Give it back to me!” she demanded. Take me back into your bed and finish what we started the other night.
“Never!” Caleb shouted furiously in reply. I’ll never let you go, bella luna.
“Ahem.”
Like the crack of a whip, a woman’s voice cut through the scene in the nick of time, just as Amelia feared the teaspoon’s magic, or her own wayward passion, would flare uncontrollably and cause havoc.
Freezing in mid-wrangle, she and Caleb looked over to see Lady Ruperta standing in the drawing room’s doorway.
“Amusing ourselves, are we?” the woman inquired.
At once, Amelia let go of the sock. “Pardon me, ma’am,” she said, straightening her sleeve cuffs.
“Sorry for the kerfuffle,” Caleb added, taking the opportunity to shove the sock into a pocket, then smoothing back his hair. “Just a slight professional disagreement.”
Lady Ruperta sniffed, a sharp little sound reminiscent of a gun cocking. It had them shuffling their feet and reiterating murmured apologies with a demureness Professor Ottersock could never manage to inspire.
“Well,” the woman replied, which was clearly meant to be understood as I do not excuse you but have lost interest in this conversation.
She shot a vicious glance at Sir Nigel, who was attempting to hide behind Vanity, then frowned at everyone in general.
“Kindly keep the noise down. Some of us are busy and do not wish to be constantly distracted by explosions and fisticuffs.”
“Busy?” Sir Nigel queried. Or perhaps he just made a nervous peep; it was difficult to tell which. In any case, his wife had already turned away. Her heels could be heard tapping along the corridor for quite some time afterward, like a heart beating beneath floorboards.
Caleb sighed wearily. “Back to work, friends.”
Vanity giggled, heaven only knew why.
“Perhaps Miss Tarrant should go count the parlor plates,” Dummersby suggested with a solicitude that barely concealed the snark beneath it. “Since we don’t want poor Professor Sterling murdered before this job is done.”
Amelia heard Caleb draw breath to reply and almost certainly destroy their ruse of enmity for the sake of defending her. Hastily sacrificing her dignity, she laughed.
“Excellent idea, Mr. Dummersby. The part where you suggest murdering Professor Sterling, that is.” And lifting her chin, she snatched up a porcelain ashtray and peered intently but unseeingly at its potter’s mark, while her heart spun away back through time, bespelled with lovely remembered dreaming.