Chapter Three
An ornithologist must be proficient in the three fundamentals of fieldwork: finding a bird, identifying a bird, and getting the hell away from that bird before it eats you.
Birds Through a Sherry Glass , H.A. Quirm
All along the streets to the museum, Beth met no trouble. Her plain brown coat, accompanied by a small hat, gloves, and air of cultivated intelligence, triggered fear in any man who glanced her way: one catcall, and she might educate them.
Slipping past museum staff to enter the archives with the speed and stealthiness of a well-trained ornithologist, she also met no trouble.
Wending a narrow path through shelves and cabinets to the back of the chamber, she met no—
“Hello.”
Beth stopped so abruptly her hat shuddered, and only because of her stiffened posture did it retain its place upon her head. “You!”
Devon Lockley gave her a lithe smile. “You,” he replied, his tone more friendly and thus far more dangerous than hers. Worse, he’d removed his dinner jacket and unknotted his tie. The bare, olive-toned skin visible where he’d unfastened his shirt collar took “trouble” and dunked it in a glass of hot, rum-infused devilry. Light from the small, dusty windows slid across his mouth languorously, stroking the smile.
Beth looked away, clearing her throat.
Shelves of boxes stood to the right of them, and to the left a row of specimen cabinets. A wide, shallow drawer lay open in the cabinet directly beside Devon, revealing assorted birdcalls, bird lures, and bird thingamajigs whose purpose had long since been forgotten.
“I haven’t found it yet,” Devon said.
“I’m sorry?” Beth replied innocently. “Found what?”
His expression tilted with sardonic humor. “I suspect you’re not in the basement of the Museum of Magical Birds for the purpose of an afternoon stroll, Miss Pickering. You’ve come for the caladrius call.”
Beth applied to her sense of decorum for a suitable response, but it took one look at the man and turned away, busying itself with dusting its precious antique collection of curtsies. Left to her own devices, she gave him a second, considering look.
He was implausibly handsome for a university professor, who in Beth’s experience were a pallid lot, rather musty, with a constant yearning in their eyes for dinner, wine, and their latest lecture to magically write itself. But if there was any yearning done in regard to Devon Lockley, it was almost certainly not by him but toward him. Not that Beth felt any such yearning. Heavens no! She was far too sensible for that. The riotous sensations in her stomach were merely due to French tea.
She also suspected him of possessing masculine wiles. He probably kept them up his sleeve or in a trouser pocket—upon which thought, Beth glanced at said pocket, and managed to prevent herself from blushing only by dint of general aggravation. She hauled her vision up by the scruff of its neck and discovered Devon watching her smugly, as if he could guess her thoughts and was considering whether to reach his naked hand into that pocket and bring out something truly scandalous indeed. Her aggravation increased by several notches.
“I am here to do some research,” she said, silently reassuring herself that it was the whitest of lies; beige at most. “However, this seems a convenient opportunity to apologize to you for our fracas in Spain.”
“No need,” Devon answered easily. In response, Beth’s aggravation forgot about climbing notches and took flight instead.
“Absolutely there is a need! I was an ill-mannered scoundrel of the worst kind to assault you with a parasol!”
He leaned back slightly. “Er…”
“You ought to be stern and judgmental.” She thrust out a gloved hand. “I insist upon apologizing. Kindly frown at me and then shake hands, so we may reestablish a civil rivalry between us.”
“All right,” he agreed—then ruined it by adding, “My pleasure.” He gave her a frown that was clearly wearing nothing more than a wicked grin beneath its coat. But before Beth could summon offense, he took her hand.
Immediately, she knew she’d made a tactical error. His bare fingers were warm even through the kid leather of her glove. His grip was firm in a way that made the description “firm” seem altogether salacious. An electric sensation rushed through her body, setting off alarms hither and yon. All that saved her was remembering the job she’d come to do.
“How do you know about the caladrius call?” she asked.
Devon shrugged. “You told me.”
“I beg your pardon—?—!”
“Well, to be precise, you told my spy, Lady Trimble, who then told me.”
“Egad!” Beth gasped. “That’s cheating !”
“Come now, Miss Pickering,” he said, laughing. “All may be fair in love and war, but this is ornithology. Cheating is practically one of our scientific principles. Or did they not teach you that at—let me guess, Liverpool University?”
He wanted to aggravate her. “Oxford,” she answered in her politest tone. After all, she could climb trees without showing her petticoats and wrangle birds into cages without swearing. No man was going to disturb her equanimity.
He smiled.
“Villain!” she remonstrated at once, before she even knew what she was doing. And once she’d got going, alas, there seemed no stopping her. “Don’t try that charm on me, if you please. I will not succumb like some—some— liberal arts undergraduate .”
“If you say so, Miss Pickering,” he answered, still smiling. “I do beg your pardon. And while I can’t apologize for using Lady Trimble to spy on you, I will point out that at least I chose to run here and find the call before you might, rather than steal it from you outright. Not that such virtue did me any good.” He frowned askance at the open drawer. “This collection looks like a pack of first-year students have held a keg party among it.”
The apology, such as it was, mollified her. “Perhaps we aren’t the first to come searching,” she suggested in a calmer tone. “Hippolyta cannot be the only one to know about the call.”
“Which also means others might appear at any moment.” Devon glanced over her shoulder as if expecting a sudden influx of ornithologists bearing lockpicks, pistols, and emergency marriage certificates for use upon discovering a bachelor and spinster alone together. Beth’s nerves ruffled all over again. Really, this encounter was going to drive her to drink, and she did not think there was enough tea in all of Paris for the purpose.
“I suggest a compromise,” she said. “I will search for the call, and you will stand guard, and once I’ve found it we will leave quietly so as to not draw attention to ourselves. What say you?”
“I say you need a better dictionary,” Devon replied, grinning. He looked over her shoulder again; glancing back, Beth thought she saw a darkness move between shelves, but she blinked and it was gone. “I’m being paranoid,” Devon murmured, shaking his head. “How about I look for the call, you do the same, and may the best birder win?”
“And when I win?” she asked cautiously.
“When I win, we’ll agree to disagree, and depart without further argument.”
“Very well.” She turned toward the cabinet—only to discover she and Devon were still holding hands. He realized at the same moment and released her just as she was pulling away. She rubbed her hand against her waist. Devon shoved his through his hair. Stepping apart, they set to opening cabinet drawers.
“I admit I’m a little daunted, competing with Britain’s youngest-ever professor,” Devon said as they worked.
Beth glanced at him sidelong. Was he mocking her? Or had that been a note of sincerity in his voice? If he’d whistled a birdsong, she’d have been able to interpret it at once, but her ability with human conversation was mediocre at best, and this one certainly had her floundering. She decided to retreat, as usual, behind niceness.
“I’m daunted myself,” she said, “competing with an academic wunderkind.”
“That’s merely a rumor started by my thesis examination panel because they wanted to get away early for a fishing trip.”
Beth stared at him with astonishment. “Really?”
He just grinned in reply, his dark eyes glimmering. Instantly, Beth’s aggravation discarded niceness and leaped once more into the breach, swinging its fists wildly and suggesting she close the wall up with a dead professor. Turning away, she rummaged through the birdcalls, not even seeing them.
For a while, Devon searched quietly alongside. But all too soon they were elbowing each other…leaning past each other to grab at something that looked like a possibility… humph ing and tsk ing and smacking at hands…completely missing the caladrius call lying among several other antique whistles…then seeing it finally and both snatching at it with such urgency they knocked it clear off the tray. It flew past them, fell to the floor, and rolled through a gap between two shelving units.
“Now look what you’ve done!” they said simultaneously.
“It wasn’t my fault!” they replied in chorus.
And shoving at each other, they squeezed their way through the gap to crouch in the dark narrow space behind, groping around the floor for the little wooden call. Thighs pressed against each other; shoulders rubbed; etiquette rules exploded left, right, and center. Finally, Beth’s fingers stumbled upon the call, and she clutched it in triumph.
Unfortunately, Devon did the same.
“Let go!” she hissed at him.
“You first!” he hissed back.
“How dare—”
“Shut up.”
Beth gasped in genuine shock. “I beg your pardon!”
He relinquished the call, but only so as to slap his hand over her mouth. Beth’s heart leaped with what was almost certainly alarm and not delighted excitement.
“Shh!” he whispered. “I heard something.”
Beth nodded. Devon moved his hand away, and together they shifted apart two boxes on the shelf at eye level so they could peer through to the passageway beyond.
Tap-tap.
Beth slapped her own hand over her mouth. A bird was tiptoeing delicately over the dusty floor—a dull brown bird, not much bigger than a magpie, with dainty legs and a small black beak. Vanellus carnivorus , her brain automatically recited.
Rabid flesh-eating lapwing.
It was the most vicious, deadly little bird this side of the Mediterranean. With scant effort it could bring down a grown man and the horse beneath him, and the servants attending him, and their horses too. Almost its entire population had been exterminated, leaving only two specimens in the highest-security aviaries.
And one in this basement.
Suddenly, Beth could not breathe. This was not due to her hand over her mouth; rather, she simply could not remember the process of inhaling air. The lapwing’s claws tapped gently against the floorboards, providing an eerily calm counterpoint to her crashing heartbeat. She and Devon were sitting ducks, with no easy way of escape. As it passed where they crouched behind the shelf, there came a tiny click of fang against beak, and the warm vanilla scent the bird used to attract prey. Instinct urged Beth to follow that scent, to tuck herself into coziness beneath the lapwing’s soft wing. Intelligence managed to restrain her, however, and the lapwing continued farther down the passageway, its lure diminishing as it went. Beth and Devon glanced at each other, exhaling with relief—
The lapwing froze.
It cocked its head.
“Damn!” Devon swore. Grabbing Beth’s arm, he hauled her up with him and pushed her toward the gap in the shelving. “Run!”
Beth did not need telling, but this was probably not the time to complain about it. She squeezed through the narrow space, hoisted her skirts, and without daring to look back began to run. The lapwing clacked its fangs and beat its wings excitedly. Tap-tap-tap went its claws against the floor, just as they would against her bones.
“Faster!” Devon urged from behind her. Beth refrained from explaining that attempting to outrace certain death while dressed in four pounds of embroidered cotton and lace, a whalebone corset, a linen coat, and several layers of undergarments, not to mention her hat, was no easy task. She kicked aside document boxes that had been stored haphazardly on the floor. Devon pulled old field journals from shelves, flinging them over his shoulder as he ran. The lapwing chattered with delight.
Coming to the chamber door, Beth pushed it open and they rushed through, the lapwing nipping at their heels so closely, they could not shut the door on it. With the deadly scent of warm milk on a stormy night swirling around her, Beth lifted her skirts even higher, so that Devon might have seen the entirety of her calves had he been so inclined, and sprinted down a dim corridor. Ascending a flight of stairs that led to a chamber displaying various taxidermied land birds, they found a museum curator singing to himself about nocturnal city adventures as he dusted a Struthio disco , or flat-beaked ostrich.
“There’s a rabid lapwing in the building!” Devon shouted at him. “Evacuate everyone!”
Squeaking in alarm, the curator tossed his duster wildly and fled.
Snap! The lapwing caught the duster in its fanged beak. Feathers and wood splinters exploded everywhere. Devon knocked down the taxidermied ostrich, to little effect: the lapwing tunneled through it in seconds, emerging in a cloud of sawdust. It shook its head and chattered as if it was having marvelous fun and slaughtering them would be the icing on the cake.
Halfway across the room and moving fast—but probably not fast enough, she feared—Beth grabbed a kiwi from a pedestal and threw it, creating one poignant airborne moment for the flightless bird before the lapwing leaped up to snatch it.
Snap!
“This way!” Devon shouted, racing in the same direction the curator had gone. Beth followed, spurred on by the hideous sound of the lapwing gobbling up the taxidermied kiwi. They rounded a corner—
And almost stumbled at the sight of Miss Fotheringham and Miss Fotheringham strolling toward them along a corridor. The tiny, elderly birders were deep in discussion about something that made them giggle like little girls.
“Rabid lapwing!” Devon shouted in warning.
The Fotheringhams looked up with wide eyes, their giggles collapsing into gasps.
“Run!” Devon added, for they seemed rooted to the spot. This advice failed to stir the women, however, and Devon and Beth were forced to veer around them or else die on the altar of good manners. Not looking back, they turned another corner just as the screams began. Stumbling to a halt then, they stared at each other, white-faced.
“We can’t help them,” Devon said. “We’d be killed ourselves.”
“Only a fool would try,” Beth agreed.
Thud!
“Aagghhh!”
“Damn.” Devon’s expression twisted with conflicting emotions. Abruptly, he bent to pull up one trouser leg and draw a knife from the sheath strapped to his calf. Straightening again, he cocked an eyebrow at the sight of Beth holding up her own blade, which she had taken from a skirt pocket. “I thought you were a nice girl,” he said.
She looked him in the eye steadily. “That doesn’t mean I’m weak.”
Devon grinned. “Very well, let’s at least try to injure it, giving us all a chance to escape.”
Taking a deep breath, they turned.
And saw Misses Fotheringham round the corner, lapwing writhing in a sack fashioned from a hat veil.
“Thanks for leaving us the catch!” one of the sisters called out cheerfully.
“Jolly decent of you,” the other added.
Beth and Devon glanced sidelong at each other. “Um,” Devon said.
“Three thousand pounds at least for one of these,” the first Miss Fotheringham said, holding up the sack. Beth could see through its silk tulle that the bird’s beak and feet had been bound with frilly garters. “I wonder where it came from.”
“Wherever it did, it’s good luck for us,” the second Miss Fotheringham said. “A lapwing capture and the caladrius call in our possession, all in one afternoon!”
“But I have the caladrius call,” Beth said without thinking. Beside her, Devon winced.
“Is that so, my dear?” Miss Fotheringham held forth the netted lapwing in the manner of a weapon and smiled meaningfully. The bird’s sweet odor flashed through the air.
Sighing, Beth took the call from her pocket and handed it over. With a brusque nod of farewell, the Misses Fotheringham marched along the corridor toward the museum’s lobby, heels clicking sanctimoniously against the floor. Beth and Devon stared after them.
“I’m not sure why I bother being polite,” Beth said, “considering how rude everyone else is.”
Devon gave a brief, dry laugh. “Things are only going to get worse with this new contest. Really, I can’t think of a more foolhardy idea than offering Birder of the Year and tenure.”
“Reckless,” Beth agreed.
Nevertheless, the gaze they shared was filled with longing—for a permanent departmental office, that is, and their own aviary, and a lifetime’s supply of free tea and biscuits. Then Devon’s mouth began to slide into a crooked smile, as if he simply could not keep his wicked charm suppressed for long.
Beth sighed. “I fear you are also very rude.”
“And yet, you’re still staring.”
Her jaw dropped with incredulity—no, outrage!—no, horror! But while she was thus occupied searching for the most appropriate synonym, Devon leaned forward to whisper.
“I suspect you may be rather impolite yourself beneath all those good manners, Miss Pickering.”
Beth’s mouth snapped shut, and she drew herself up to the dignified height of five feet six inches (although to be honest, three of those inches included her hat). “I am not. Some of us can be fine ladies and rational creatures in the same form, sir, regardless of what novelists may suppose. You will not disturb my calm waters. Furthermore…”
“Yes?” he prompted when she fell silent.
She frowned. “Stop smoldering at me like that.”
Now he was the one who frowned, although it somehow managed to be mischievous, and a smile lurked at the edge of his mouth. “Smoldering?”
Beth gestured awkwardly. “With your eyes like that. We can’t have a reasonable discussion while you are smoldering.”
His frown swayed out of mischief right into wickedness. “Why, Miss Pickering, I thought I couldn’t disturb your calm waters.”
Beth bristled so much she feared becoming like the thornbacked owl, an unsurprisingly rare species that tended to explode when touched. Taking a deep breath to settle herself, since there did not seem to be a convenient tea station installed in the museum corridor, she said politely, “Good afternoon, sir. I shall be on my way.”
“Of course.” He stepped back, gesturing along the corridor. “After you.”
With a gracious nod, Beth turned and marched away. Traversing the lobby, ignoring Devon’s footsteps behind her, she flung open the museum’s exit door. But as she went through to the wide doorstep beyond, a sudden burst of light flashed in her eyes, causing her to stumble back with startlement.
“Madam, look this way?” someone called in a French accent. “And perhaps a smile?”
Another burst of light had Beth raising her arm as a shield. At once, Devon moved in front of her with an unexpected protectiveness that charmed her more than she wanted to admit.
“Sir!” came the voice again, loud, enthusiastic. “The name’s Mirou, reporter with Le Petit Journal . How does it feel to have saved all these people from a deadly bird?”
Lowering her arm, Beth peered confusedly around Devon’s shoulder at the scene before her. Two gentlemen in rather cheap suits, one holding a box camera, the other a notepad and pen, were standing in front of the museum, smiling rapaciously at her and Devon. Beyond them huddled a trio of museum employees, and beyond them, cluttering the street, a small but excited crowd of onlookers.
“How did you know about the bird?” Devon asked suspiciously.
The two men glanced at each other. “We happened to be here purely by coincidence,” said one, “investigating, uh…the plight of the urban sparrow!” He pointed to a poster on the wall beside the museum door, which in fact advertised an exhibition of the urbane sparrow, a bird of an entirely different (and snazzier) feather altogether. “Can you share your feelings about being a hero? And who is this pretty girl with you? Did you save her from certain death as well?”
Devon and Beth stared at him in mute bemusement.
“Show us the bird!” urged the man with the camera. “I’ll photograph it for the newspaper.”
“We don’t have it,” Devon told him. “Didn’t you notice the women who came out not five minutes ago?”
“Women?” The reporters looked at each other again, confused.
Devon frowned. “Two of them, carrying a bird trussed up inside a hat veil?”
“No, doesn’t sound familiar.” The reporters shook their heads slowly. Devon seemed astonished by this, but Beth was entirely unsurprised that two elderly ladies had gone unseen. And she certainly had no interest in talking to newspapermen. Doing so went against all her scientific and academic instincts, since there was no surer way of getting oneself misquoted in a public forum.
“If you’ll excuse me,” she said, “I have a train to catch.”
“Allow me to escort you,” Devon offered, holding out his arm.
“No, thank you,” Beth replied stiffly. “While it’s been a pleasure escaping death with you, and I wish you all the best despite your general villainy, I should like to be alone now.”
“Madam, I will not leave you exposed to danger.”
“The lapwing has been caught,” she reminded him.
“I’m talking about the newspaper reporters.”
Beth glanced at the men in question. One was eyeing her up and down then writing his observations in the notepad; the second was preparing to take another photograph.
“Very well, if you insist,” she said, shifting a little farther behind him, so as to be more hidden from view. “I will accommodate your vanity by walking with you to the next street corner.”
“Most kind,” he murmured, smiling facetiously. They departed the museum’s doorstep, both taut with silence.
They jostled their way through the crowd, the reporters shouting questions as they went.
They strode along the street with every pretense of not knowing each other.
And arriving at the next corner, they parted ways without a word, set on never meeting again.
(Then traveled the same route back to H?tel Chauvesouris, took the same elevator to the seventh floor, and walked down the same corridor to where their rooms were located side by side—but as both vehemently refused to notice this, the narrative is powerless to offer any comment.)