Chapter Twenty-Five
When the going gets tough, find a shortcut.
Birds Through a Sherry Glass , H.A. Quirm
Three days later
“What a dark moment!” Mr. Flogg groaned, staring into the depths of his coffee. Across the table from him, Mr. Fettick sighed in solemn agreement.
“I don’t see why,” Schreib said, taking the last cream puff on the three-tiered communal plate. “Miss Pickering will win Birder of the Year, which is at least half of what you wanted, and IOS is happy.”
“But the British Tourism Board is not,” Mr. Flogg said. “It was supposed to take longer than this for the caladrius to be ‘captured,’ so people throughout Europe would be inspired to come across, join in the excitement. And newspaper editors are not happy, since the grand romance they’d been touting has just fizzled away. Not even a dramatic breakup, not even a tragic but interesting death. Furthermore, our plan for a proper finale—our expensive , already-paid-for plan—has been ruined. We’ll be lucky if anyone employs us after this debacle.”
“I’m going to miss sitting in coffeehouses, arranging great adventures,” Mr. Fettick said.
“I’m going to miss having an income,” Mr. Flogg added.
This time, they both sighed in mournful unison.
Schreib cast a bemused glance at Cholmbaumgh, who shrugged. “But it’s not over yet, is it?” the latter ventured. “They haven’t handed out the award.”
“And Mr. Lockley hasn’t rushed to Miss Pickering’s rescue,” Schreib pointed out.
Mr. Fettick raised his gaze to Mr. Flogg, eyes glinting with hope. “That’s true. ‘Hope Remains.’ What say you, Otis? Do you think we can go for one more spin?”
Mr. Flogg smiled, reaching across the table to grasp Mr. Fettick’s hand. “Chester, let’s dance.”
—
Beth woke to the sound of sparrows. They were scratching at the windowsill, and for a moment Beth thought she was home again in Oxford, with the city awakening reluctantly to another week of lectures, and her landlady downstairs burning the breakfast eggs. But the pillow beneath her head was soft, wrapped in silk, and she did not smell the familiar greasy smoke.
Her mind lurched through time (pausing here and there as it spotted an interesting bird), then crashed into the present. She sat bolt upright, looking around blearily at the hotel room in which Gladstone had locked her three days ago while word went out that the caladrius had been captured by “The Extraordinary Professor Pickering from Oxford!” …because “Girls Can Do Anything (with a Quality University Education)!” …and that Birder of the Year would be awarded in the same hotel’s conference room.
Strong light suggested that the morning was well advanced—unsurprising, since she’d sat awake most of the night worrying about the caladrius, Devon, the newspaper headlines, the Dover railway clerk’s horse, and even Hippolyta. She’d paced the room, tried for the sixteenth time to pick the door’s lock, considered screaming for help again although it had achieved nothing thus far, and torn her fingernails in what she knew was a futile effort to open the bolted window. She’d even waved to passersby on the road below, not caring that such behavior was the height of vulgarity. But no one had seen her to be scandalized, let alone to rush in and perform a rescue. Finally, near dawn, she’d slipped into a troubled sleep.
She missed Devon with a physical sense that took her by surprise, since they had not been together for long. The air at her side seemed achingly empty of his presence. Her hand reached for him over and over again, as if wanting the balance he offered. And the sound of his voice echoed in her mind, warm and smiling, threaded through with the slightest American tone beneath his English vowels. Beth , he whispered to her, and she stopped, closing her eyes, listening to it, feeling his strong arms enfolding her.
How had this man quickly become so integral to her experience of being in the world that she felt incomplete now without him?
When the nights began to burn with silence and boredom, she imagined herself back on the moor again, tangled naked with him, loving deep and slow while magical bird stars floated and spun through the darkness beyond the sheltering tree. She remembered walking hand in hand with him on the long, climbing road, and discussing ornithological science over lunch as the train took them north, and working in easy professional harmony to catch the whopper swan in Oxford. So many wonderful memories, so much happiness—more than she’d known in all her life. When she let herself sink into them, she understood why she’d so rapidly fallen in love with Devon. He was extraordinarily lovable.
Why he loved her was more of a mystery, but she clung to the fragile belief of it. Far too often for good sense, she opened her field journal to the page on which he’d drawn her a dancing carnivorous lapwing, and hugged it to her heart as if she were some passionate art student.
She knew that Devon would come for her—perhaps not swinging in through the hotel window heroically, since (a) he did not know where she was and (b) it would cause an atrocious mess of broken glass; but certainly he would save her from winning Birder of the Year.
Not that she didn’t intend to save herself, but a girl does like to have someone waiting in the wings, wanting to rescue her.
Apart from these dreamy figments of her lover ( her lover! squee! echoed a gaggle of delighted thoughts, hugging each other and kissing framed memories of Devon), the only people she saw were the servants who brought her food, a suitcase of clothes and toiletries, and last night, a note.
We will come for you at ten o’clock.
(Or possibly Weevils on one’s oven eat nice luck , considering Gladstone’s penmanship had reached the degree of impenetrability attained only by medical doctors and senior professors on whose written word other people’s futures depend.)
Rising now, Beth ate what remained on the latest food tray, washed, then rummaged through the suitcase with the bittersweet attitude of someone who has already lost two and holds little hope for this one as well. Gladstone himself must have specified the purchases, for brown tweed, gray tweed, and thick woolen stockings dominated the collection, smelling slightly of dust although they were new, and threatening death from heat suffocation before she even got on the stage to accept Birder of the Year. Beth selected a white shirtwaist, then a plain brown skirt on the basis that it included pockets. A woman felt she could do anything if she had pockets. There were no hairpins supplied, perhaps because Gladstone knew she’d use them to unlock the door, so she tore the lace trim off a garter to tie back her hair in a single braid. It was a young girl’s style, but when she consulted a mirror, she saw a strong, determined, resilient professor gazing back at her.
Of course she did. She’d always been that, beneath her good behavior. The only difference now was, she felt far less willing to compromise.
Well, that and she knew how to use her mouth to make a man groan with pleasure.
So, improvements all around.
She had just finished buttoning her half boots when the door opened. It was time for the award ceremony. Grabbing her satchel and setting on her head a straw boater that had been among the clothes, Beth marched from the room. In the corridor beyond, Gladstone stood with a small group of servants, his face blurred by the faint mist of pipe smoke. He gave her a scathing once-over.
“Adequate,” he said.
Beth tipped up her chin. “If you imagine that I care about your opinion—”
“Imagine?” he scoffed. “We are not primary school teachers, Pickering! And my opinion is not at work here, only my authority as your head of department.” He flapped a hand. “You don’t need that bag.”
“It contains the notes for my acceptance speech,” Beth lied. Her satchel had accompanied her to the heights of the Swiss Alps and the depths of the Bodleian Library, and she wasn’t about to relinquish it even if Gladstone did frown at her. Indeed, as she noted the covered birdcage being held by a servant, and smelled the thick, acrid scent of avian distress exuding from it, she considered taking the satchel and whacking it several times around Gladstone’s head. Only the fact that it contained exorbitantly expensive binoculars made her hesitate.
And perhaps Gladstone saw the uncharacteristic rebellion on her face and ran a hasty mental cost-benefit analysis of further debate, for he huffed in surrender. “Fine. Let’s go.”
They took an elevator to the ground floor in taut silence. Beth’s brain consulted urgently with her nerves regarding escape, but all the cunning ideas she’d developed during her imprisonment took one look at the aforementioned servants and slunk away. She had no intention of accepting the Birder of the Year award, and she’d developed quite the knack for saying no to people over the past week…but those servants’ muscles really were quite pronounced, and Gladstone’s frown plucked at nerves that had become particularly sensitized when he was her thesis adviser. She needed time to build a new plan.
Unfortunately, the journey across the hotel’s gilded lobby seemed to take only about five seconds. Arriving at the open doors of the conference room, Beth peered inside. Her stomach flipped at the sight of several hundred people seated therein, including Mr. and Mrs. Podder from Canterbury, looking around wide-eyed, and Monsieur Chevrolet, smoothing his elegant mustache. Onstage, the golden phoenix statuette that was bestowed upon recipients of the Birder of the Year award gleamed atop a pedestal, guarded by the heads of Oxford University and the Sorbonne, who scrutinized each other over their spectacles and down their noses as they waited.
Beth’s stomach flipped again. Was Devon in the audience? Was he smiling with sardonic humor and wondering if she’d name him in her acceptance speech?
“Give her the bird,” Gladstone ordered brusquely, flicking his fingers at a servant. The man stepped forward, holding out the cage without a word. As she took it from him, Beth lifted the cover and peeked beneath.
The caladrius hunched on its perch, seemingly no more than a puff of trembling white feathers. Beth could hear the rapid staccato of its breath and noted the splatters of wet guano. The cage itself was beautiful, ornately fashioned from gold, but contained no food or water receptacle. She felt the chill of what she’d have called a premonition had she been any less educated. A life without comfort lay before the little bird. Feted for its talent and forced to perform in an endless series of drawing rooms and lecture halls, it would never get the consideration and freedom it needed to thrive. Beth very nearly burst into tears at the thought.
The caladrius did not even peep.
Taking a slow, deep breath, she lowered the cover and turned again to Gladstone. “The bird is unwell. It needs to fly, to release the buildup of its magic.”
Gladstone waved a hand impatiently. “Of course, of course. I’ll let it tootle around my aviary for a while after I’ve presented it to the most important people: the Queen…the Russian emperor…the editor of the Daily Telegraph .”
Beth stared at him with all the iciness of a frostbird. She noticed belatedly that he was not wearing spectacles, and his hair and goatee had transformed from gray to the blond of his younger days. She could see in his smirk that it was no accident: he’d drawn from the caladrius’s untempered magic to heal various injuries time had done to his appearance. Repulsion threatened to not only flip her stomach but spill its contents all over the floor.
“No need for that expression, girl,” Gladstone snarled. “Just smile and do your duty by Oxford. And if you don’t…” He ran the end of his pipe across his throat.
Beth’s eyes grew wide with shock. “You’ll kill me?”
“What?” Gladstone blinked at her confusedly. “No. Good grief! I’ll have your Royal Society Medal of High Achievement taken from you, your professorship renounced, and all sources of funding closed to you forever.” He paused, his face hardening once more. “Do you understand?”
Beth’s heart cringed. She looked again into the conference room, heavy-eyed and with a dozen apologies crammed unspoken in her throat. Oxford’s chancellor was staring out at her now, his face taut with impatience. The audience murmured restlessly. Everyone was waiting for her.
“Well?” Gladstone demanded. “Do. You. Understand?”
“Yes,” she said.
Then, tightening her grip around the birdcage’s handle, she turned on her heel and fled.
—
Racing across the hotel lobby, Beth knew she would not reach even halfway to its exit before Gladstone’s servants caught her. Niceness would not save her this time; bird facts were useless. She needed a dose of barefaced, swaggering bravado. What would Devon do in such a situation?
Better yet, what would Hippolyta do?
“Help!” she shouted. “By Jove, help me!!”
Bystanders turned to gape at her with the horror of offended etiquette, for one simply does not run through a hotel lobby if one is a decent person (although the occasional handsome spy in a tuxedo, or lovestruck person desperate to stop a wedding, may be forgiven for doing so).
But Beth didn’t have the luxury of good manners. “I’m an ornithologist,” she called out, “and they’re trying to hurt the caladrius!”
A shocked gasp arose from the crowd. Close observers might have noticed the remarkable lack of feathers upon ladies’ hats and concluded that newspaper coverage of Birder of the Year had gone deep into the public psyche. Luckily, Beth was professionally trained in close observation.
“Please help me save the bird!” she cried.
At once, elegant ladies and somber gentlemen leaped forth to block the pursuit of Gladstone’s servants. A scuffle broke out. A furled parasol was employed, and a walking stick or two. One woman vigorously swung what appeared to be a handbag in the shape of a birdcage. Within seconds the servants had been brought to the floor.
Beth glanced back in amazement, then turned once more toward the exit doors…
“Excuse me!” said a young woman, darting in front of her. Beth skidded to a halt mere inches from collision. “I’m from the Ladies’ Home Journal . I’d like to interview you about—”
“Sorry, no time,” Beth said. Smacking the woman’s notepad so it skittered across the floor, she resumed her dash.
“Elizabeth, my dear!” Hippolyta herself appeared in a perfumed blur of flounces and lacy ruffles, as if summoned by Beth’s imitation of her. The woman was like a flock of seagulls at a beach picnic, Beth decided grimly—never driven off for long. Without even so much as a pardon, she skirted around her and kept going. Running faster now, she felt a breeze, promising freedom (and a lung infection from London’s air pollution), as the exit doors flung open…
And every beat of her heart came to a crashing halt.
—
Devon strode into the hotel lobby, his long dark coat billowing in dramatic hero style—and stopped abruptly, redness suffusing his cheeks as he stared at Beth. He’d been expecting to disrupt the award ceremony by leaping upon the stage to rescue the fair maiden just in the nick of time, but here she was, fair indeed (although not, scientifically speaking, a maiden any longer), and scowling at him furiously.
“You’re in the way,” she said, gesturing that he should move aside. Then she added, of course she did: “Sorry. Nice to see you. Please get out of my path.”
God, he loved her. Loved her so much he kept bringing God into it, and indeed was even at this moment contemplating a grand church wedding if such was required to have Beth Pickering in his life forever. When she’d vanished into the crowd at Sheffield’s train station, panic had almost overcome him in a way not even the deadly masked booby had been able to do. Glimpsing Hippolyta and one of Gladstone’s servants pushing her onto the train, he’d made a mad dash—but had been too late. Thumping on the side of the train had achieved nothing, and there’d not even been a carriage balcony for him to jump onto like a romantic daredevil. Although he’d known Gladstone would not hurt Beth, watching that train speed away had felt like part of his heart was being dragged away with it.
Traveling to London in agonizingly slow pursuit, he’d taken a room at the Minervaeum Club and spent two days trying to uncover where Gladstone was keeping Beth and the caladrius. Late on the second day, Gabriel had arrived, taken one disapproving look at the shambles of clothes, sheets, and dinnerware strewn about the room, another at Devon’s haggard, unshaven face, and sighed with exasperation.
“Why are you making a disaster out of this?”
“Because it is one!” Devon had replied in a rather hysterical tone he’d not have used had he known he’d be recalling the scene later.
“No,” Gabriel had said with stern impatience, “a disaster is when lightning strikes a Neolithic gravesite in Kent, disrupting the thaumaturgic wellspring thereunder and electrifying every metal object in the vicinity. Which is what happened this morning, and I’m heading there now to join the professional response. So let me make this quick. You know you’ll see your woman and your bird at the award ceremony. You have time to make a plan. Pull yourself together, all right?”
“All right,” Devon had muttered, feeling justly chastised.
So he’d made a plan, and tidied the room, and waited impatiently to rescue Beth.
Except she did not seem to want it.
“I spend half my life chasing deadly birds and the other half applying for funding grants,” she told him, chin raised at her favorite haughty angle. “I can rescue myself.”
“I know,” Devon said.
“Nice doesn’t mean incapable.”
“I know.”
“There was this one time in Greece when a lycanthropic owl—”
“Get them!” came a shout from behind her. Gladstone’s servants had almost wrestled their way out of the crowd. Hippolyta was creeping up with a net she’d had concealed in her hat, as if Beth were some kind of bird. And the young woman from the Ladies’ Home Journal was excitedly writing on a notepad as she watched the scene. Devon immediately drew his gun, aiming at them all.
“We’re leaving,” he announced. “And I will shoot anyone who tries to stop us.”
The entire crowd froze.
“Please don’t follow,” Beth urged Hippolyta in a tone of sincere concern. “I concluded matters between us days ago, while on the train to Oxford. Having to keep defying you is—well, redundant, and quite honestly confusing.”
Hippolyta opened her mouth to reply but was apparently all out of Jove. In her gobsmacked silence, only the rattle of her long, ornate earrings expressed just how furious she was. Devon backed himself and Beth to the edge of the lobby, where large double doors stood open to a tearoom.
“Why are we going this way, instead of out the front door?” Beth whispered from the corner of her mouth.
“I have a plan,” Devon whispered back. “Trust me.”
“Always,” she said—and the only reason he didn’t grab her face and kiss her right then was because a crowd of rivals was waiting to leap that was exactly the kind of manhandling behavior he really ought to stop.
Turning, they ran into the tearoom.
And the crowd, with a roar, took up pursuit.