The early Society matrons, showing an aptitude for piratic ruthlessness, had quickly turned their social support network into an endless competition among themselves, and this had become so codified over the years that, by the time Cecilia entered, there was a complex system of promotions, demotions, demolitions, and tests to navigate before one was even allowed a biscuit from the tea table. Cecilia had passed all these tests. She had robbed several banks, blackmailed a marchioness, flown the Channel, and even gone dress shopping with Bloodhound Bess, who could take three hours in one store alone. Still they hadn’t raised her from the junior women’s division. But she was determined to succeed, even if that meant stealing the tea table itself to prove her worth.

Other possessors of Beryl’s incantation did exist outside the Wisteria Society, of course. Witches. Introverted women. Men. But for Cecilia, the Society was her whole world. She would rise in their ranks if it killed her.

Which of course was always a possibility with pirates.

“What’s happened?” she asked as she watched her aunt read the letter. “Mrs. Rotunder didn’t blow up Hampton Court again, did she? Or has piracy been made a capital crime? Don’t say Mrs. Etterly’s pet tiger ate the Queen!”

“Worse,” Miss Darlington intoned direly. “Muriel Fairweather’s butler absconded!”

She widened her eyes in horror, then had to focus once more on steering as the house nearly collided with a church steeple.

“Well, that is unfortunate,” Cecilia said, “but not what one would usually suppose an emergency.”

“He absconded—with her house!”

“Oh dear.” A pirate’s house was her psyche made corporeal.

“I know they said the butler did it,” Miss Darlington continued, “but it seems unlikely he’d be so brazen. A more powerful hand is behind this, mark my words.”

“But surely a Wisteria Society member would not go so far as to steal the house of another?”

“We have only three laws in our Society, Cecilia. No killing civilians. Pour the tea before the milk. And no stealing each other’s houses. Anyone breaking those laws is cast out—literally, and in most cases from a very significant height.”

“So who might it be?”

She already knew the likely answer. Maliciously acquiring houses was a theme of Wuthering Heights, after all. But not daring to speak this aloud, she merely looked coolly at Miss Darlington, who replied with a cool look of her own.

Perhaps tracking down her father had just become easier than she’d anticipated.

Suddenly the house swooped, causing a dictionary to topple, its pages creasing appallingly against the floor. Cecilia stepped forward to lay a gentle hand on her aunt’s arm. “Why don’t I drive for a while?” she suggested. “You are understandably upset. Sit down, have a cup of tea.” She eased the elderly lady away from the wheel, supplied her with her cane, and then took the wheel herself. She murmured the pilot phrase, and the magic seemed to grow warm as it adjusted to her mental presence. “Miss Fairweather’s territory is Devon, I believe?”