The Secret Service of Tea and Treason (Dangerous Damsels #3)

by India Holton

“Good God, no. One does not joke on a public street.”

Certainly not a woman who had tossed and turned all night, trying to ignore visions of a bespectacled butler straightening his cuffs after having bashed a man senseless.

“I agree,” Daniel said. “But it is more enjoyable when you have someone else to flip you.”

“Reading is not a hobby,” she said. “It is a way of life.”

The hard weight of him pressed her against the cobblestones, but he tucked a hand beneath her head, lifting it gently.

The morning’s disturbances faded, and for a moment she remembered falling through the storm, unrestrained and truly peaceful for the first time in months.

“You’ve memorized the castle map?” Alice was astonished. He looked at her, and she suspected he was seeing angles against her skin, patterns, a network of bones. “A man does like to be adequate at his job, Miss Dearlove.”

No one could be surprised at any man wanting to marry y—” He paused again, frowning so darkly at something across the room

Mrs. Rotunder scoffed at the rapier Miss Darlington had drawn from inside her walking stick. “Really, dear? Before ten in the morning? How déclassé.”

“I’m wearing my lockpick as a hairpin today,” Alice said, and patted her coiffure in search of it. “Allow me.” Before she understood what he was about, Daniel set a hand against her cheek and used his other hand to slowly withdraw a long copper pin from her hair.

She found Daniel already in their bedroom, muttering “pawn to queen bishop four” furiously as he did one-armed push-ups.

Frustration rushed her senses. She’d always found physical contact difficult, and in response, others had invariably stepped back, walked away, leaving her untouched rather than helping her to find a manner in which to experience it safely. Daniel Bixby had promised to be different. And now here he was, being considerate, taking gentle care.

“Please excuse me,” she gasped. “I have not been amused in years.” “No, I apologize,” Daniel answered. “I should not have referenced Dickens in such an offhandedly witty fashion.”

Oh God, another conversation. Was there no end to the misery of this mission?

Falling in love? Alice frowned. She was willing to admit stumbling in fondness, perhaps even tripping in lust, but anything further represented an unprofessionalism that could not be countenanced.

“Of course she is,” Frederick said with a tinkling laugh. “That is what we hired her to do.” The madwoman bared her teeth. “She is our resident Lunatic,” Frederick continued blithely. “One can hardly own a properly decent Gothic castle without keeping an Attic Lunatic. We also have a Mysterious Scar-Faced Man lurking in the cellar, and the famous medium Mrs. Zhu comes in quarterly to refresh our ghosts.”

Damn. He almost wished for the pirates to catch him before the urge to romantically similize completely destroyed his brain.

“I’m a widow,” Mrs. Ogden replied. “That means I never need to apologize again!” Another sword scraped from its scabbard.

But then she gave a soft, quiet sigh. It seemed to echo the yearning he felt, and he closed his eyes, bent his brow to the back of her head, as if she was an altar he would pray on.

He smiled at her then, that beautiful, melting smile which always made her want to sigh a little, hug him a little, marry him a little, and take him away to live in the peaceful countryside.

“Don’t leave.” He smiled. “I’m not going to leave you, sweetheart.” Shifting his angle, he moved closer, deeper, again. “I just don’t want to hurt you.” “You can hurt me,” she answered promptly. “I don’t mind.” “I do.”

“You know when you open a new book and realize it’s going to be perfect?” he whispered. “Yes,” Alice said. “That’s how I feel when I look at you.”

“After I talked,” Daniel was saying, “they kindly let me scrub their floors and wash their dishes, which helped most of all. By the time I had the laundry folded, I no longer wanted quite so much to slaughter Mrs. Kew and the Academy tutors. I just wanted you.”

“They’ll kiss soon and it will all be worth it,” Ned added, grinning. Cecilia smacked him. “Kissing on the street in daylight is scandalous behavior,” Charlotte said. “They just beat up more than a dozen men, darling,” Alex pointed out. “I think they’re beyond scandal now.”

They had ghosts too: the children they once were, still haunting them faintly in the background of their selves. Sad-eyed little Alice, held together by alphabets and poetry fragments. And young Daniel, who had learned so thoroughly not to flinch that, even now, he never noticed when he accidentally burned a finger, and was confused when Alice cared about it. But she did care, and he knew the right poems to whisper when she needed them, and every day the ghosts grew a little fainter.

They lived frightened—enchanted—in love. But oh, how they lived.

Three wicked women who had run away from who they were supposed to be and found themselves, found each other; three wild women holding hands, sharing laughter, as they danced together in the midnight sky, beneath a yellow moon.

“This is in disarray again,” Daniel said to her quietly, touching her unraveling coiffure as she came up beside him. “We have been dancing,” she said. He leaned closer. “That explains why you look like starlight and dark horizons.”