“Uh-huh, uh-huh.” The pen’s tip began moving rapidly across the notepad. “Where do you plan to go from here?”
Beth drew breath to respond, but Devon interrupted. “Why do you ask?”
“Oh, just making casual conversation,” Mrs. Podder explained, trilling a laugh.
“You know, chitchat to pass the time,” Mr. Podder said. “Will you be traveling together?”
“Yes, what exactly is the nature of your relationship, may I ask?” Mrs. Podder added, looking up keenly from her notepad.
Beth felt as if a dozen phoenixes were going up in flames beneath her skin. “Professor Lockley is an esteemed colleague of mine,” she managed to answer.
“Esteemed, hey?” Mrs. Podder murmured, scribbling so emphatically, Beth supposed she must be very queasy indeed from the carriage’s jostling.
“I say, would you be willing to pose for a photograph?” Mr. Podder asked as he brought forth a Kodak box camera. “It’d be a nice little memento of our hijacking.”
Devon’s expression turned from wary to outright ornithological. “I don’t think—”
Thud.
Something heavy hit the carriage roof. In the startled silence that followed, a faint whirring could be heard.
“What is that?” Mrs. Podder asked with alarm.
“Stand and deliver!” came a shout from above.
The carriage juddered to a halt, throwing Beth from the seat. Devon caught her just in time.
“I’d say you’re about to meet one of our colleagues,” he told the Podders.
The whirring increased. Looking out through the window, Beth saw someone descend from the roof to the road with the assistance of a helicopter parasol. Then the carriage door was flung open and a young woman appeared before them. She was attired in tight breeches, tall boots, and a white lace shirt, with auburn curls tumbling loose about her shoulders and a wicked grin upon her face, all of which would have been an attractive vision were it not for the pistol she aimed at the passengers.
“Hello there,” she said. “Welcome to your hijacking.”
“Scoundrel!” Mrs. Podder shouted in reply. “Deplorable fiend!”
The woman laughed delightedly.
“Actually, this is Miss Rose Marin, a professor from Edinburgh University,” Beth said. “She’s a renowned expert in seabirds.”
“And a crack shot,” Miss Marin added. “So no one think of resisting.” She gestured with the pistol that they should exit the cab, then demanded they hand over their weapons. Upon receipt of Devon’s gun and Mrs. Podder’s pen, she leaped into the cab and slammed its door shut.
“See you at the award ceremony when I accept Birder of the Year!” she called out cheerfully before ordering the driver to move on. As the carriage sped away, they glimpsed her through its rear window, lounging comfortably on one bench with her boots propped up on the other as she bit into one of Mr. Podder’s sandwiches.
“Damn,” Devon and Mrs. Podder said in unison.
“It’s not so bad,” Beth argued. “At least we have a nice day for walking.”
Boom.
They all jolted as thunder shook the air.
—
Trudging through rain along the apparently endless road, Beth regretted yet again that Devon had not allowed her to retrieve her umbrella from the fishermen. Indeed, she’d have informed him of his error in decided language, were her teeth not chattering too much for speech. He, too, was silent as he tramped at her side. Mrs. Podder, on the other hand, had a lot to say. She muttered unending curses upon ornithologists everywhere and the universities that bred them, and Beth honestly couldn’t help but sympathize. At one point, a carriage rushed past, but such was the deepening murk that trying to wave it down would have invited the risk of being run over. So they walked on until, finally, at the cusp of evening, a sturdy white building came into sight.
It was the Chaucer Inn.
“Thank God!” Mrs. Podder declared with complete disregard for the fact that God was more likely responsible for the storm than the building. She shoved past Devon, barged through the front door, summoned the innkeeper while the others were pausing to sluice rain off their clothes, and thus secured for herself and her husband the last remaining room.
“Are you sure?” Beth asked the innkeeper when she and Devon got their chance to inquire. “Not even one room left? Not even only one bed?”
“No,” the innkeeper reported brusquely. “A group of French fishermen arrived about an hour ago and took two rooms.”
Beth felt Devon’s gaze upon her but dared not return it. “How unfortunate,” she murmured.
“This is all your fault, Wilbur,” Mrs. Podder could be heard griping as she and her husband followed a maid toward the stairs. “I knew we should have just stayed with writing housekeeping advice.” Glaring back at Beth and Devon through her dripping-wet hair, she shouted, “Heed my warning, innkeeper! Don’t give that pair a room, whatever you do. They’re unholy demonspawn.”
“As opposed to holy demonspawn,” Devon explained to the wide-eyed innkeeper.
“We’re actually scientists,” Beth clarified. “We’re in the middle of a competition, which is why we—”
The innkeeper gasped. “You’re not ornologistics, are you?”
“Something like that,” Beth said.
“Very cold, tired ornithologists,” Devon added.
“My daughter’s awfully excited about this Birder of the Year contest,” the innkeeper told them, suddenly bright-faced and smiling. “We read all about it in the paper. She wants to be a ornologist when she grows up.”
