Chapter Thirteen
The garden sparrow is as beautiful as the swan (although not as delicious when roasted).
Birds Through a Sherry Glass , H.A. Quirm
In a coffeehouse overlooking Paddington Station, Messrs. Flogg and Fettick sipped their third round of black coffee as they watched passengers enter the terminal.
“I’m not happy, Mr. Flogg,” grumbled Mr. Fettick. “When we sent Schreib and Cholmbaumgh to frighten our professors into escaping the Chaucer Inn together, it was specifically so that they’d remain in each other’s company. But here we are now, with ‘The Lovers Parted!’? ”
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Mr. Flogg soothed him. “Every narrative benefits from some conflict. The professors will reunite, feeling more keen than ever, mark my words. After all, we’re tracking them to make sure they do.”
Mr. Fettick sighed. “What if they don’t, though? The newspaper articles have already been published! We might have to print a retraction.”
Both men shuddered.
“No, it’s fine,” Mr. Flogg reiterated firmly. “A night apart will make our lovebirds’ hearts grow fonder. We can leave that up to human nature—what we have to do is pave their way to success in the competition. But not too quickly, mark you! IOS and the British Tourism Board want to get their money’s worth first.”
“But not too slowly,” Mr. Fettick countered. “The professors need to look clever, so that people will appreciate the value of a university education.”
“True.” He sighed. “This project certainly is a challenge. Let’s imagine we’re a pair of bird experts. Where would we go next?”
Mr. Fettick hesitated, only too aware that his own degree in French history left his head in entirely the wrong place for thinking like a scientist. “Well, I’d personally go to question the IOS chairman, Professor Gladstone. But that’s because I know he’s involved. Don’t worry, they’ll never think of it.”
Mr. Flogg’s brow creased in the shadow of his bowler hat. “They’re geniuses; of course they’ll think of it. Drat! We’d better organize a surprise to meet them at Oxford University should they turn up there. Something to slow them down a bit.”
“What kind of surprise?”
Mr. Flogg merely smiled fiendishly and bounced his eyebrows.
“Ah,” Mr. Fettick said, perking up. “ That kind!”
Setting down his coffee cup with a clank, Mr. Flogg stood in a manner that would have been dramatic were he not a pasty-faced fellow with a prissy little mustache. “Quick! To the telegram office!”
—
Following a hasty meal in the Hildegard of Bingen Breakfast Room, Beth caught a hackney cab to Paddington Station. Entering the terminal, she immediately looked around for Devon Lockley Cholmbaumgh, still feeling a little on edge after having imagined yesterday that the man was lurking behind her. But all she saw were a few pigeons and one rather fine specimen of Parus major (and, less interesting, several dozen people). This failed to ease her nerves, however. As she purchased a ticket and made her way across the platform, she had the oddest sensation that someone was watching her…
“Miss Pickering!”
At the familiar voice, her pulse stumbled. Turning, she smiled politely.
“Hippolyta.”
“Thank goodness, by Jove!” the woman boomed, ringlets and ruffles flouncing as she rushed forward to take Beth’s hand. Footmen followed in her wake, barely visible beneath armloads of luggage. “I’ve been beside myself!”
“Er,” Beth said, looking down at the yellow gloves Hippolyta had given her.
“You know how bad I am at stitching! They’re my favorite gloves, and the seams are beginning to fray! But you’re so clever, I’m sure you can have them tidied up in a jiffy.”
“Um,” Beth said, to no effect. Hippolyta hustled her aboard the train in such typical style that she began to wonder if she’d only imagined the past two days.
“Oberhufter is traveling east like a fool,” Hippolyta said as they settled into a first-class compartment, “despite all signs pointing clearly to the caladrius being in the Cotswolds.”
“Actually, I—” Beth began.
“It shall be my great pleasure to laugh in his face when I win Birder of the Year! Has there ever been a more aggravating person in all the field of ornithology?”
“You—”
“No, indeed!” Sighing loudly, she frowned at the compartment doorway. “I can’t believe no one has come to ensure we’re settled in and have all we require. Such poor service!” She leaned back as one of her footmen spread a blanket over her lap, then forward as another rearranged the pillow behind her. “Elizabeth, be a sweetheart and go inform the steward that we require tea and biscuits, would you?”
“Yes, of course,” Beth said automatically, rising from her seat.
“And tell him to remove that ridiculous mustache of his before he returns. It reminds me in the most disagreeable manner of my late husband.”
Beth entered the corridor with some trepidation. It was crammed with people hurrying to organize themselves before the journey began, and the air hung turgid with cigar smoke and perfume. “Sorry…sorry…pardon me…sorry,” she murmured as she wove a careful passage. But no one heard her over the clamor, or even saw her, apparently, as elbows, suitcases, and shoe heels impacted with her body. Beth found herself driven to the verge of frowning. Why people—?!
(That was the full extent of the sentence. Extroverts need not trouble themselves asking for an explanation.)
Halfway to the dining car, she paused to lean back against the wall, trying to catch her breath. Never before had she felt so driven to homicidal inclinations. (Although not really. After all, murdering someone on the train led to appalling consequences, such as bloodstains, delayed timetables, and fictionalized accounts in cheap novels.)
“I told you so,” came a voice through the open door of the compartment next to her. “?‘Birders on the Oxford Express.’?”
“I’m impressed. Your instincts are sharper than a lapwing’s claw, old chap.”
Beth’s innate curiosity made her glance through the open door. She saw two men in dark suits and bowler hats, each with a briefcase resting on his lap. They did not look like ornithologists, despite their conversation. They looked like they belonged to the species of gentleman who travels around selling commodes.
“What if she lets herself be influenced by that atrocious woman?”
“Then we bring out a deadly—”
He stopped, and as two mustachioed heads whipped in her direction, Beth hastily looked away. Seconds later, the compartment door slammed shut.
Bother! Just when the conversation had been getting interesting! Beth had no qualms about eavesdropping, since it was how a lot of biological science got done, but she couldn’t extrapolate anything from that brief snatch of information. Perhaps if she leaned closer…
“Hello, Miss Peckerine,” came a rich, amused voice.
Beth almost gasped as she looked up to see Devon walking past. He’s here! her heart cried out with joyful excitement. He’s here , her brain echoed in significantly darker tones. He flashed her a hot glance, and Beth felt herself begin to melt. In a panic, she said the first thing that came to mind.
“Villain!”
He stopped in his tracks.
Oh dear , she thought, pulse scattering wildly through her body, as he reversed himself for three steps then turned to face her. He wore a black gabardine coat to his knees and a gray shirt, black trousers, oh my goodness rugged black boots, as if he were intending to scout for a nocturnal bird or set a woman’s heart aflutter. And still no tie, waistcoat, or even the basic masculine dignity of a hat. Passengers muttered complaints about him blocking the corridor as they sidled past, but Beth did not even notice. All she saw was his gorgeous infuriating eyes looking down at her with dark intensity as he set a hand against the wall beside her head. He held her gaze for several decades, then looked at her mouth, then farther down.
“Pretty dress,” he said, and Beth melted to such a degree she had to press her legs together.
“Why are you here?” she demanded.
He lifted his gaze, and as their eyes met again, it felt like coming home. Which was ridiculous , Beth told herself. She’d only known the man a short while. He was the opposite of home. He was an unmapped horizon, or a bar chart without category names along the x-axis. She’d been right to leave him in Canterbury, and thank God here he was—er, so she could leave him again, that is! She would push him away this very instant and march off down the corridor!
All right, perhaps not this instant, but the next one, for sure!
“I’m chasing the caladrius, same as you,” he said.
“So you’re going to the Cotswolds also?” She rather impressed herself with how seamlessly the lie glided off her tongue.
He smiled. “That’s my ruthless girl.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she answered haughtily.
“No? On a completely different subject, I learned today that a shilling is all it takes to buy information from a railway ticket officer about where a passenger is heading.”
Beth gasped. “Cheat!”
“Liar,” he countered.
They stared at each other. All that prevented a sudden, shocking bout of tongue kissing and bodice ripping was the crowd of passengers bustling around them. Devon leaned forward, whispering in her ear.
“I’ll race you to Oxford University. May the best ornithologist win.”
Beth drew breath to answer that she was most definitely not going anywhere near the university, nor the city in general, nor indeed the entirety of Oxfordshire at all, thank you very much, and furthermore do not stand so close to me in this reprehensibly scandalous manner—
But he was already gone.
Well! She’d show the scoundrel exactly how ruthless she could be! Tea and biscuits forgotten, she turned sharply on a heel, and begging forgiveness, expressing regret, she forcefully apologized her way back down the corridor (while behind her, had she known it, sat two extremely excited publicists, shaking hands and congratulating each other).
Arriving at Hippolyta’s compartment, she found the steward already there, pouring tea from a silver teapot as Hippolyta watched him closely, lest a mustache hair fall into her cup. The woman glanced up as Beth entered.
“Where have you been? It’s not safe to just wander about on a train; someone might step all over you.”
“Sorry,” Beth said. Dropping to the seat, she took a napkin from the table and pressed it against her face. “So dreadfully hot!”
“Have a cup of tea,” Hippolyta suggested. “That will help.”
The steward handed her an already poured cup. Thanking him, Beth stared into the rising steam. Here at last was a reservoir of peace—and yet, it looked entirely inadequate for her needs. She could do with wine instead. Or maybe vodka.
“You really don’t look the thing, Elizabeth,” Hippolyta said. “Drink up. It’s important to take care of yourself.”
“You’re right,” Beth agreed. But it was an automatic response, for no Englishwoman worth her salt took care of herself if there was an opportunity to sigh instead and gaze wearily into teacups.
Hippolyta gave her a stern little frown. “I hope you will listen to me.”
“I have,” Beth assured her. “And I think—”
“No, dear, I meant listen to me now as I practice my acceptance speech for Birder of the Year.”
“Oh, I see.” Her brain trudged forward with its habitual answer, yes, of course .
“No,” she said.
Hippolyta blinked at her. “I beg your pardon?”
Beth set down the tea and straightened her spine, although she could not quite manage to look Hippolyta directly in the eye. Infuriated with herself for having succumbed so easily to the force of Hippolyta’s personality, she gathered that energy, transformed it into courage, and said, “I’m going to find another seat and then continue on with the competition alone.”
Hippolyta’s mouth fell agape. “By—by—!”
“Sorry,” Beth said, getting to her feet. “It’s been…nice…knowing you.”
While Hippolyta sputtered and huffed, she reached for her suitcase in the luggage tray above, accidentally knocking the table in the process and making dishes rattle. Tea leaped from her cup onto a napkin, where it proceeded to sizzle, blackening the linen. Beth stared at it for an empty moment, then lifted her expressionless gaze to Hippolyta.
The woman shrugged. “You’d have thanked me when you woke in the hospital. Competing against me would have been too anguishing for you, especially since I’m going to win.”
Beth almost laughed. “Goodbye,” she said, and turned away.
But then she stopped, her pulse skittering. This woman had been the closest thing to a friend she’d ever known. Memories stirred: walking a sunlit Italian shore, sipping iced tea as they searched for the double-beaked sandpiper…hauling herself up a rock face in driving rain while Hippolyta shouted directions from within the shelter of an umbrella on the ground below, only to discover the rainbow auk’s nest was a mirage…
“By the way,” she said, not bothering to look back. “My name’s not Elizabeth. It’s Beth.”
And she left, gently closing the door behind her.
—
Devon slammed open the compartment door and flung himself onto the seat with a loud sigh. Gabriel looked at him over the fine silver rim of his reading spectacles. “Are you all right?”
Devon scowled. Had he known his cousin would ask questions in this obnoxious and invasive manner, he’d not have asked for his ongoing help. “I’m fine,” he said.
Gabriel regarded him in a vaguely considering but mostly bored way, then went back to perusing his newspaper. Devon exhaled with relief. He did not wish to talk about what had just happened in the corridor with Beth, most definitely and absolut—
“I suspect I’ve been a villain,” he said.
“Again?” came the impassive response.
He shrugged and nodded.
Gabriel turned a page in the Times . “I assume it involves the woman you refuse to discuss, the one to whom you were villainous in Canterbury, judging from the report in this newspaper.”
Devon glared, to no effect. Gabriel merely turned another page, studiously ignoring him.
“Fine. Maybe the same woman,” he relented. “She’s my professional rival but I always seem to end up flirting with her.”
He propped his feet up on the opposite bench, and Gabriel shifted away from them, frowning.
“For a genius, you are remarkably obtuse. Has it occurred to you to just behave nicely with the woman?”
“Has it occurred to you to visit your wife?” Devon shot back.
Gabriel’s expression turned so icily lethal, it could have been employed by Her Majesty’s armed forces as a weapon of mass destruction.
“Forget it,” Devon said (the universal masculine code for I’m sorry but am too proud to actually say so ). “I appreciate you coming with me. We should have brought Amelia along too, had an adventure of the cousins, just like old times.”
“What an abysmal idea,” Gabriel muttered. Even in childhood, it had been his stance that two was a crowd, three a catastrophe. Closing his newspaper, he folded it in a brisk, efficient manner. “I’ve agreed to use my standing as an Oxford University professor to get you into their ornithology department offices without suspicion, but there will be no adventure.”
“Come on, have some fun. We both know I saved you from the terminal boredom of listening to that lecture about the Foreskin Phenomenon—”
“?‘The Fordwich Phenomenon of Thaumaturgic Erosion Trails, Illustrated by the Transportation over Loam of the Saint Augustine Limestone.’?”
“I think I died a little just from hearing that title.”
Gabriel didn’t bother replying, instead setting his paper on the table at an eighty-nine-degree angle, then nudging it the final degree to perfection. Devon tried not to sigh.
He hadn’t expected to see Beth again. But when he’d arrived at Paddington Station, there she’d been, buying a ticket, looking as frazzled as he felt—but also gorgeous, gorgeous ; how had he ever thought her merely pretty? Rossetti would go down on his knees to beg the honor of painting her. (Were he still alive, that is, resurrection being a step too far for Devon’s expensively educated imagination.) What was a mere scientist to do in response to such a woman?
Stalk her, apparently. He grimaced. Iniquity was not feeling as good as it used to.
He stood abruptly. “I’m going for a stroll.”
Gabriel stared at him with bemusement. “A stroll? On a train?” Then his eyes narrowed. “You’re going to spy on that woman.”
“Am not,” Devon retorted. Really, who was the idiot who’d suggested bringing his cousin on this trip? Oh yes, the same idiot who was now planning to sneak along the train corridor and spy on a woman because he missed her face, and the way she chewed her thumbnail, and how her eyes lit like a summer sky at the very mention of birds.
With a groan, he leaned against the compartment door. “Tell me not to do it.”
“Don’t do it,” Gabriel said.
“You truly think I shouldn’t?”
“You want to know what I truly think? Truly? ”
“Yes.”
“I think that the Fordwich Phenomenon is a perfect example of how—”
Thud. The compartment door slammed shut on the rest of that sentence. Devon turned to head along the corridor, promising himself that after one quick glimpse of Beth, he’d go back to being an intelligent adult. No more allowing his heart any influence on—
His pulse erupted.
She was standing at the far end of the corridor, talking to an attendant. Sunlight coming through the train windows flickered like bright phoenix wings against her profile and illuminated her hair with a reddish halo. Angel was too feeble a word for her. She was heaven entire, embodied in a woman’s body. She was every superlative in every ridiculous emotional dictionary printed in a man’s heart. Devon wanted to walk up to her, take her in his arms, and feel the grit of his past turn to gold. But he could not move. Time had stopped, breath had stopped; he stared, entranced, wishing helplessly that she’d turn and smile at him. Then she actually did turn—
Panic gripped his body, flinging it through the open door of a compartment.
“Egad!” came a unified cry from two elderly women seated together therein. Hands fluttered; hat feathers threatened to take flight.
“Ahem!” came a loud throat clearing from two men seated opposite. Mustaches bristled; fingers tapped on briefcases.
Apologizing, Devon tried to back away, but the women took in his appearance with one swoop of their lorgnettes and began verbally assailing him.
“Sit down! Sit down at once, young sir! Rest those legs of yours. No need to be shy; this is a public compartment!”
“ Actually , as we tried to tell you, it’s not,” said one of the men, to no avail. The women tugged on Devon until he dropped to the seat between them.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, poor lad,” said the woman to the left of him, patting his knee.
He smiled. “A celestial being, in fact. Beautiful, with eyes like the sky.”
“Ooh, this is a boy in love,” said the woman to the right, patting his other knee. “So why are you sitting with us instead of her?”
Because you practically kidnapped me , he wanted to reply, but instead increased the wattage of his smile, blinding them to anything beyond its charm. “She’s my rival in a competition.”
The women gasped. The men shifted in their seats, glancing at each other with taut silence.
“You’re not an othologist are you?” asked the woman to the right.
“Yes, I’m a—”
“Cockermouth!” shouted the woman to the left.
The men jolted, almost dropping their briefcases. But Devon only frowned with mild confusion. “I beg your pardon?”
“The caladrius will be in Cockermouth. The town in Cumbria. Wordsworth was born there, and you know what he wrote about birds.”
“Er…” Devon didn’t read poetry, but in any case he couldn’t see how it would influence the caladrius, unless the bird had evolved considerably since last observed.
“Nonsense,” scoffed the woman to the right. “It will be in Scotland! Everyone knows it likes the cold.” She eyed Devon shrewdly. “You should take your celestial being to Gretna Green, just over the Scottish border. Marry her there and catch the caladrius at the same time!”
Devon choked on his breath.
“What’s your name, dear boy?” asked the woman to the left, patting his arm now and murmuring something about Brussels (or possibly “big muscles”; Devon wasn’t exactly paying attention).
“Devon Lockley,” he told her.
“Ooh, the boy in the paper!” exclaimed the woman to the right. Both ladies lifted their lorgnettes to inspect him more thoroughly, and Devon glanced toward the compartment doorway in much the same way an archaeologist glances at the suddenly closing stone door of a pharaoh’s haunted tomb.
“You kissed the girl,” said the woman to the left, “so you have to marry her!”
“Um…”
“And you certainly can’t elope to Gretna Green!” argued the woman who’d suggested it in the first place. “You’re famous! You need to marry in a cathedral.”
“Er…”
“The people will demand it!”
“You should have all white flowers, in honor of the caladrius!”
“And release doves at the end of the ceremony!”
“And you’ll need to get a proper haircut!”
By this time, the men on the opposite bench were so tense, they appeared on the verge of shattering. Devon himself felt a headache coming on. He promised to use the ladies’ suggested marriage proposal, autographed their handkerchiefs, and finally effected an escape.
Beth had disappeared from the corridor, and with a doleful sigh he returned to his own compartment. Looking up from a geography textbook, Gabriel arched one eyebrow.
“What happened to you?”
“Admirers,” was all Devon managed to say before collapsing on the seat. He ran a hand across his face, through his hair. “Why people?”
Gabriel shrugged. “I wish I knew,” he said, and blessedly went back to reading his book.
Devon stared out the window, thinking about reuniting with Beth catching the caladrius, kissing Beth presenting the caladrius to the IOS committee, and sinking himself into Beth’s warm soft depths like a man experiencing a little death and temporarily visiting heaven winning Birder of the Year and the best reward of all, Beth’s love tenure.