Splash.
Beth’s jaw fell as she stared at the midnight waters into which Devon had just thrown the caladrius call. “Why on earth did you do that?”
“To prove I wasn’t lying,” he said. “I genuinely don’t know why it was in my pocket.”
She turned her incredulous stare upon him. “So you just threw it away.”
He pushed a hand through his hair, frowning slightly and biting his lower lip as he considered the sea, which now contained one of the most valuable tools for capturing a caladrius and winning Birder of the Year.
“Perhaps not my smartest move.” Then he shrugged, and a smile sauntered back onto his lips. “Well, it’s done now. Let’s get moving.”
“Er, fine,” Beth said, striving to overcome her discombobulation. “We’ll find somewhere to have tea, catch the morning ferry, and be in England before noon.”
“Or,” he said, “we can hijack a boat and sail across the channel tonight.”
Beth gasped. “What a terrible suggestion!”
“I forgot, you are a proper lady. Of course you disapprove of hijacking.”
“I disapprove of sailing. A steamboat would be faster.”
Devon exhaled a laugh that deepened his smile and made him look so gorgeously wicked, she half expected him to transform into a carnivorous lapwing and bite her neck. “I do declare, Miss Elizabeth Pickering,” he said, “we may be birds of a feather after all.”
She bristled. “Please don’t address me that way. For one thing, we aren’t so well acquainted.”
“We’ve survived peril twice together already,” he pointed out.
“Yes, but Elizabeth isn’t my name.”
“Mrs. Quirm calls you that.”
“However, I am in fact Bethany. I introduced myself as Beth to Hippolyta, and she just assumed it was for Elizabeth.”
His stare turned quizzical. “You’ve never corrected her?”
“Heavens no! That might hurt her feelings.”
He seemed momentarily at a loss as to how to respond. But then he smiled again. “Very well, Miss Not-Elizabeth. What do you say to that fishing trawler docked over there?”
“I say it looks filthy and will probably fall apart halfway across the Channel. But that is better than remaining in Calais.”
“Hey!” cried out a nearby dockworker in a wounded voice.
“Je suis désolée!” Beth apologized, then hurried after Devon toward the fishing trawler as if she was not an intelligent woman who knew better than to go off alone in the middle of the night with a reprehensible, American-educated scoundrel who might just be someone very dangerous to her indeed.
Chapter Six
The field ornithologist is a sophisticate, at ease with the diversity of people she meets in hotel lobbies and salons around the world.
Birds Through a Sherry Glass, H.A. Quirm
As it turned out, hijacking a trawler was easier said than done.
To begin with, there was the matter of boarding. “I wish I’d sought a special license to wear trousers,” Beth mused as she stood at the dock’s edge, eyeing the narrow but hazardous distance between herself and the trawler’s deck.
Devon felt his heart lift on unexpectedly soft wings toward her. “Take my hand,” he offered. “I’ll help you.”
She stared at him as if he’d tried to pass her a fanged ostrich. Then, dismissing this small but swooningly delightful opportunity for moonlit romance, she closed her umbrella and made a nimble leap. Devon held his breath, but she landed neatly on the trawler’s deck with a complete lack of coy, feminine vulnerability and only the mildest dishevelment of her hat.
Devon’s heart swooped back and curled up inside him. With a self-mocking smile, he leaped after her.
Then came the difficulty of operating the trawler.
“I see the wheel,” Beth said, sheltered once more beneath her umbrella as she surveyed the deck, “and piles of rope, and clearly the chimney holds some purpose. But how does it all go together to create locomotion?”
Devon pushed back his wet hair and sighed. “To be honest, I don’t know. But we’re scientists; surely we can figure it out.”
There was no chance to do so, however, because just then another obstacle arose: the trawler’s four occupants rushing from the cabin, clad only in long woolen underwear. They appeared about as happy to be hijacked as might be expected.
“Merde!” they shouted. “Qu’est-ce que vous faites, connards?!”
At once, Beth and Devon leaped back. “Why are they calling us flycatching loons?” Beth asked, her umbrella trembling.
“That’s fou fatal contopus,” Devon told her. “I’m fairly sure they mean something more earthy.” Drawing a gun from a holster beneath his coat, he pointed it at the fishermen.
“Enlever mon passeur de perruches!” he commanded.
