Daring In a Blue Dress

by Katie MacAlister

  “I don’t understand how that translates to the passage not having any branches on the ground floor,” Alden said, nodding to me when I stopped next to him. “It seems a folly not to have done so.”

  “Ah, but you are not thinking like a baronet who enjoys his French wine despite the war.”

  “Which war?” I asked, confused. “World War One, or the Napoleonic Wars?”

  “The latter, naturally,” Lady Sybilla said with an arched eyebrow at me. “I thought you were going to put my papers in order?”

  “I am, I am, but I do have a job to do, too.”

  “I shall have my secretary attend to it if you are unable to handle the task as you indicated you would,” Lady Sybilla said loftily.

  “Did I hear my name being mentioned?” Lisa oiled her way into the room, and leered at Alden. “What’s that you need me to do, Lady Sybilla? You know it’s my pleasure to give help whenever it’s needed.”

  She might have been addressing Lady Sybilla, but her eyes were on Alden. I decided that I was a big enough person to ignore her continued attempts to entice him away from me.

  “Mercy here has undertaken to sort my personal papers, and those of my husband, but she seems unable to find the time to do so.”

  “I told you that I intend to work on them in the evenings. It’s just that . . . well . . .” I looked at Alden, who was not in the least bit flustered, as I had expected he’d be with the arrival of Lisa. In fact, he didn’t even look like he was paying attention to her (or me) at all. He was frowning at the crude floor plan of the house that he’d drawn, complete with notes on dimensions of rooms, and in red ink what I assumed was his guess of the route the passageway from his room had taken. “I’ve been busy,” I finished lamely.

  “I will be happy to help you with the papers, Mercy,” Lisa offered. “I’ve been told I’m ever so good with organizing things. We could work together on the project, don’t you think?”

  “Sure,” I said glumly, aware of Lady Sybilla’s pale eyes on me. She might be old, but she had a gaze like a basilisk. “That would be helpful.”

  “There, now, isn’t that nice? We have solved that problem. And I hear you’re solving one of your own,” she said, putting her hand on Alden’s arm.

  He looked up, startled. “Eh?”

  “I’m told that you found a secret passageway in the house, one that someone has been using to spy on all of us, but that you’ve come up with a brilliant idea on how to catch the culprit by putting some sort of chemical on the light switches that the person uses. I have to say, that’s the cleverest idea I’ve heard in a very long time.”

  Alden stared at her for a few seconds, then transferred his gaze to me. Only by then, it was a glare. A furious glare. “Mercy, might I have a word in your ear?”

  “Uh . . . sure.” I followed him when he marched over to the far side of the room, where a marble fireplace that probably hadn’t been used in at least fifty years lurked with an oddly menacing air. Lady Sybilla and Fenice left the room, leaving me alone with Alden. “What’s up?”

  He whirled around to face me, his eyes narrowed, and his nostrils flaring. “You told Lisa about our plan to catch whoever is sneaking around in my house?”

  “No, of course not.” I cleared my throat. “I did tell Fenice, but I figured that was OK. I mean, she was all freaked out about the idea of someone being in the house able to watch her, so that means she couldn’t be doing it. Not that I ever thought it was her. Or Vandal, for that matter.”

  “Oh?” He stiffened. “Why are you so quick to exclude Vandal?”

  I whapped him on the arm. “Silly, your jealousy is showing.”

  “I’m not jealous,” he replied with great dignity, which was immediately blown when he added, “You’re not falling for him, are you?”

  “Of course not.” It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that the only man I was falling for was standing right in front of me, but I decided that not even I was ready to investigate that thought, and I certainly wasn’t up to talking about it with the man who expected me to be leaving in a week. “I simply meant that he isn’t the sort of man who would go skulking around the innards of a house spying on people. For one thing, I have it on the best authority that he’s spending most of his free time wooing the local ladies, and for another, he hardly ever comes up to the house for meals, let alone anything else.”

  “That doesn’t prove anything.”

  “No,” I said, leaning in to give his lower lip a little nibble. “But neither does your unwarranted suspicion based on jealousy.”

  “I told you that I’m not jealous.”

  “Of course you’re not, darling,” Lisa said, oozing over to us, her hips swaying with exaggerated movements. “A man like you would never have cause to be jealous.”

  “Dude,” I told her, shaking my head. “Do you spend all your free time watching old Falcon Crest reruns? Because you’re sure doing the same sort of scene-eating overacting that they used to have on that show.”

  “Scene-eating!” she snarled, her hands fisting. “Overacting?”

  “In spades,” I told her, at the end of my tether. “Since the day you came here, Alden has made it perfectly clear that he was not interested in a sexual or romantic relationship with you. And yet you continue to slink around and cast innuendos at him, and make sly little digs at me, and butter him up one side and down the other. Well, I’ve had it with your shenanigans. Just knock it off already, and we’ll get along fine.”

  She gawked at me for a moment, then turned to Alden with her hands spread wide. “You see? I try to be nice, but she’s forever insulting me, and trying to belittle me in front of others.”

  “What do you mean, you see?” I asked suspiciously. “Have you been complaining to Alden about me? Oh! You have, haven’t you?”

  She smiled.

  Alden looked incredibly uncomfortable, and began fidgeting, a sure warning he was about to run off.

  “Don’t you dare,” I told him, poking him in the chest with my finger. “If I’m going to have a dramatic scene with Lisa, the least you can do is stand there and be supportive! So get with the program!”

  He thought for a moment, then applauded politely. “Brava, Mercy.”

  Lisa tched, and with a last lingering look at Alden (my rant clearly had no effect on her), she hustled her hips out of the room, murmuring something about attending to Lady Sybilla’s latest literary output.

  “That’s your idea of support?” I asked Alden, my lips thinned.

  He shrugged. “It was the best I could do on the spur of the moment. If you give me ten minutes, I could write you a supportive note.”

  “All right, but later.” I couldn’t help but smile at him. “I like your notes.”

  He smiled back. “I like yours, too. I particularly like the one you slipped into my pocket yesterday, with the drawing of—”

  He evidently remembered there was someone else in the room, and stopped.

  Fenice, busy with her phone, paid us no attention.

  “Yeah, that’s not for public discussion,” I said, my cheeks warming a little at the memory of the drawing I’d done of a depiction of him and me engaged in one of the more athletic positions from the Kama Sutra. “So! You were chastising me. Are you done with that, or should I explain more why I told Fenice what was going on?”

  “I’m done,” he said with a mock sigh, but his lips were warm when I leaned in to kiss him. “But please do not tell anyone else.”

  “I won’t. And I’ll tell Fenice not to tell anyone else, too, since I assume she is the one who told Lisa about our plans. What are you going to do this afternoon?”

  “I have to run into town to pick up the things we need,” he said with a sidelong look at Fenice, who had finished with her phone, and was in the act of packing up several icy bottles of water for the refreshment of the afte
rnoon students. “A friend of the chemist who ordered the . . . erm . . . objects, and who was with a criminal investigation branch for several years, is going to meet me here later to show me how best to apply the substance.”

  “Awesome! I’ll see you later, then. Here, Fenice, I’ll take some of those down to the garden with me once I grab a quick sandwich.”

  “Thanks, Mercy. The caterer didn’t bring nearly enough water for a day this hot.” Fenice staggered out with a box filled with water bottles. I followed a short while later, hastily eating a chicken sandwich as I made my way down to where the students of the day were reclined in whatever shady spots they could find, enjoying their tongue sandwiches.

  The next two hours passed with speed while I ran three more students through their archery paces. Just as I was putting everything away, a huge hand reached out to tap me on the shoulder.

  “Your name is Mercy, isn’t it?”

  I turned to find the big red-faced man named Barry Butcher smiling at me. “Hello. Yes, I’m Mercy. You’re Mr. Butcher, aren’t you?”

  “That’s right. Barry to my friends. I’ve seen you with Alden Ainslie, haven’t I?”

  “Well . . . yes, I know Alden.”

  His smile grew. “Our Mr. Ainslie knows what he’s about all right. He’s quite the man, although I will admit to being somewhat frustrated with him right now.”

  “Oh? In what way?” I was a bit wary, not quite comfortable talking about Alden to a man I didn’t know well.

  “It’s his stubbornness in holding out for a better offer.” His smile changed to a frown. “The Hairy Tit Conservancy has made him a generous offer for the house and lands—a quite generous offer—but he simply refuses to listen to it. I don’t suppose you are a twitcher?”

  “Twitcher being bird-watcher?” I made a noncommittal gesture. “I like birds, but I don’t go out of the way to study them, although I did think of becoming a zoologist once. But I was more interested in mammals, particularly African mammals. I want to save all those lions and elephants and rhinos that are being hunted into extinction.”

  “Now, that’s just exactly what we at the conservancy are doing,” he said, his frown melting away. “We want to preserve and protect our friend the Hairy Tit, and we have a prime opportunity to do that, but Alden is being stubborn, very stubborn.” He shook his head. “Perhaps you could talk to him for me? Point out just how many birds he’ll be saving if he allows us to take over conservatorship of the precious breeding grounds?”

  “I’m sure you’re eloquent enough for both of us,” I said, smiling a wholly false smile, but determined not to get into whatever business Barry was trying to conduct.

  His smile slipped a notch, but he nodded, and murmured something about being grateful for anything I could do.

  I edged around him. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to go see if there’s a student waiting for me.”

  “Ah, there I can help you.” He gestured toward the archery butts. “Or rather, you can help me. I was hoping you could find time to teach me some practical uses of a bow and arrow.”

  “Practical?” I rubbed my nose. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Rabbits,” he said, nodding toward the line of woods that stretched beyond the far pasture. “I’ve got a little garden, you see, and it’s overrun with rabbits. I’d take a shotgun to them, but the missus, she doesn’t like that. Plus, it’s the devil’s job to clean buckshot out of a rabbit carcass.”

  I kept my lips from curling in disgust. I might be an occasional meat eater, but I’d never eaten a bunny, and didn’t intend to change that fact. However, it didn’t mean I could hold others to my standards. “I’m afraid I’ve never done any bow hunting, Mr. Butch—Barry.”

  “But a target is a target, isn’t it?” he said, giving me a little prod in the ribs that sent me staggering a couple of feet. “If I paid, oh, say, double the fee, do you think you could take me out to the field and teach me to shoot at a few things?”

  “I don’t want any part of shooting animals,” I said firmly.

  His eyes, an uncanny pale grayish brown, narrowed. “You one of those vegans?”

  “No, but I am an animal lover, and I don’t like hunting in any guise. I’m a bit surprised that you are into it, frankly, since you are with the bird conservancy group.”

  “Rabbits that eat your garden are not the same as endangered birds,” he retorted.

  “I’m not going to debate you on the point, since I realize that you choosing to thin the rabbit herd on your land is your own business.”

  “That’s the ticket,” he said, totally ignoring my comments to clap his giant hand on my shoulder. “I knew you’d be up for the job. I’ll just go pay the lady with her arm in a sling, and then you can take me out to the fields, and we’ll do a little shooting.”

  “I just said I wasn’t going to shoot any animals—,” I called after him as he strode away.

  He raised a hand to show he heard me, and a few minutes later, over my continued protests that all I would do was teach him how to shoot stationary objects, he carried two of the student bows, a stack of paper targets, and two quivers full of arrows. I had my borrowed bow, and spent the time it took walking out to the far pasture quizzing him about his experience with archery.

  “Did it as a child, of course,” he said, tacking one of the targets onto a tree stump that sat just outside the pasture, on the fringe of a small wood that divided Alden’s land from the next fields. “Da used to say I had a right eye for it, but of course, a shotgun is more efficient, so once I learned to shoot a proper weapon, I didn’t go back to this.”

  I said nothing other than to give him basic instruction on how to hold the bow, notch the arrow, and aim at the target.

  “You certainly didn’t lie about your eye,” I told him a half hour later, collecting the remains of seven paper targets. We’d scattered them around the edge of the small wood, taping them to a fallen tree, a couple of low-hanging branches, and a small clump of shrubs. “You have the makings of a very good archer.”

  “Aye, but these are just static targets,” he said, waving one of the bows toward the woods. “It’s a world of difference hitting a moving one.”

  “Very true, and that, as I explained numerous times, is not something I’m prepared to teach you.”

  He eyed me speculatively. “I bet you could do it.”

  “Yes, but I’ve had training in moving targets. My college used to have competitions where we had to do all sorts of crazy shots, including through small objects like oranges and grapefruit, and hitting the bull’s-eye painted on a dummy on a pulley that was jerked across our line of vision. The best, though, was what we used to call our spy missions. Our instructor would go out into a local forest, and hang a shirt with a heart painted on it from high up in a tree. We had to hunt down the target, and then hit it in the heart, if we could. It was great fun, and I won that particular contest three months in a row.”

  “Now, then,” he said in a warm, approving voice. “That must have been something to see.”

  “It was kind of fun,” I admitted, glancing around to make sure we’d picked up all the bits of paper.

  “What say we have a wee competition ourselves?” Barry suggested.

  “For what?” I asked, taking a peek at my watch. Barry had paid double the normal fee to do this spontaneous shooting, so I felt obligated to give him his full hour, but at the same time, I very much wanted to get back to the others. It wasn’t that he made me feel uncomfortable . . . I simply did not enjoy being alone with him.

  “Well, if you want a prize of some sort,” he said slowly.

  “No, no, I meant what sort of competition did you have in mind?”

  He thought for a moment, then gestured at a group of somewhat stunted fir trees. They were about twelve feet tall, and clustered together tightly, too tightly to allow any one of them
to grow to its proper size. Beyond them, I knew from rambles with Alden, was a rocky outcropping that dropped down into a small ravine ending in the pasture of a sheep farmer who was his neighbor. “What say we each take a turn playing your spy game? I’ll hide a target for you, and you can hide one for me, and whoever wins will buy the other a pint at the local.”

  “All right,” I said, willing to do just about anything to finish up our hour and get back to the Hard Day’s Knights area. “What do you want to use for a target? I’m afraid we’re out of paper ones.”

  “Anything wrong with my shirt?”

  He was wearing a blue checked short-sleeved shirt.

  “You’ll ruin it,” I said, eyeing him warily as he started to unbutton his shirt. To my relief, he had a tank top under it.

  “I’ll tell you a secret,” he said, pulling the shirt off, and giving me a big wink. “I never liked this shirt. My wife bought it for me at a jumble sale. Now, then, you take half, and I’ll take half.”

  With a loud ripping noise, he tore the shirt in half as easily as I’d have torn a piece of toast. “We don’t have anything to paint a heart on it,” I said, holding his shirt with the very tips of my fingers.

  “Let’s just say we have to hit the center of the target. Now, you go that way—” He pointed to the right, where the clump of firs gently swayed in a light afternoon breeze. “And I’ll go through to the other side of the copse. Shall we meet back here in five minutes?”

  “All right.” I trotted off in the direction he pointed, choosing what I thought would be a difficult spot for him to shoot (into the sun), and tied the shirt around the trunk of the spindliest of the trees.

  “I set you a right challenge, I did,” Barry said as we rendezvoused. “I’m thinking you won’t be claiming this win.”

  I smiled politely, not really giving a damn whether I did or not. “Good luck with yours.”