5

stealing o’er the fading sky in shadowy flight—gunfire—the end of wuthering heights—cecilia is shot, supper is postponed—the trousered girl—a lost tiger—unexpected mountains

It was foolish to wish for beauty, at least in Miss Darlington’s opinion. She had a well-cultivated mind, a well-disposed heart, and tinted goggles that kept out the brightness of the sun; anything else was extravagance. The soft fields and purpling woodland shadows of Devon offered her no more than navigational points. The elegiac light of late afternoon, love-colored and quiet, caressing the wheelroom window, was a hazard that made her squint. When a white swan glided like a tender poem into her path, she considered ramming it, and only the swan’s swiftness kept it from being added to Pleasance’s soup pot. As Ottery St. Mary came into view beneath, she orated the descent stanza of the flight incantation, turned the wheel to port, and aimed her front door toward a cluster of houses set incongruously in a field beyond the village.

“Coming in to land,” she roared into the brass trumpet beside the wheel. Pleasance, in the kitchen, hastily tossed loose cutlery into the sink. Cecilia, reading in the parlor after having spent several hours at the wheel herself, rose and went to the window to see the view. With Wuthering Heights held closed against her heart, she reached out to shift the curtain—

Crash!

The window cracked violently and Cecilia was thrown back off her feet. Pain shot through her. She crawled to shelter behind a sofa and then stared at her book, lying where it had fallen from her hand. It bore a gaping black bullet hole.

“That was my only copy,” she said aloud in irritation. She then checked her bodice. A seared rip marked where the bullet had ricocheted off her metal corset stay. The lace was ruined and she would have a bruise to be sure. Peering carefully over the back of the sofa, she saw that the window, which they’d only just had repaired, was now shattered again.

“Shots fired!” came Miss Darlington’s belated observation, echoing through the parlor trumpet. “Cecilia, secure our landing zone!”

Cecilia swung into action. She rid herself of her dress, and then, clad only in knee-length chemise, petticoat, long lace-trimmed drawers, corset, stockings, and slippers, she hastened from the parlor. Another shot smashed through what remained of the window, rebounded off Lady Askew’s silver samovar, and whistled so close past Cecilia’s head that her hair seemed to flutter in its passing. It flew through the open parlor door and embedded itself in the grim, painted face of Black Beryl, making her as one-eyed as, well, a pirate.

“Everything all right, miss?” Pleasance asked, glancing out from the dining room.

“Perfectly fine,” Cecilia answered, taking a rifle from the umbrella stand in the foyer. She spun it on her index finger to cock it. “Would you open the back door for me, please?”