“ROMANCE: ANOTHER REASON TO STUDY ORNLITHOLOGY!” Laz declared, making them jolt. They stumbled back from each other, blinking in disorientation. Over Devon’s shoulder, Beth glimpsed two dark-suited figures lurking behind an elm tree.
Her instincts shook. “We have to go,” she whispered.
Devon regarded her soberly, taking in her sudden concern. Without a word he returned her glove, then bent to gather up the bagged swan. Turning away from the crowd, he set a hand against her back to guide her toward the park gates. The fact that he did not question her, nor hesitate to do as she advised, made Beth tingle all over again.
Then he gave Laz a frown that equated to a failing grade, and her tingling became a decided twang. “Do not even think of approaching a thaumaturgic bird again until you’ve had some training,” he ordered.
“Yes, sir!” Laz saluted briskly. “I shall follow your inspiring example of ornlithololgical study at one of the EXCELLENT UNIVERSITIES here in England and abroad!”
“Right.”
And they walked away, leaving a dozen blushing, whispering picnickers (and two highly satisfied publicists).
Chapter Sixteen
One swallow does not make a summer—unless you create an aviary for yourself full of bright flowers and one magical sun-rousing swallow, that is.
Birds Through a Sherry Glass, H.A. Quirm
“There’s only one conclusion we can reach now,” Beth said, pulling her glove back on as they walked back to the museum.
“I agree,” Devon answered firmly.
“Someone is trying to help us,” she said.
“Someone is trying to kill us,” Devon said at the same time.
They stopped in the middle of the footpath, staring at each other.
“What?” Beth said.
“What?” Devon said.
Beth shook her head and continued toward the museum. “That’s the kind of faulty thinking I expect from a Cambridge professor,” she said with a fine hauteur.
“And yours is the kind I expect from someone who thinks a demonic strix owl is a cuddly bit of fluff,” Devon countered, shifting the whopper swan more comfortably in his arms as he kept pace with her.
Beth gasped. “I never said such a thing!”
“But you think it, don’t you?”
She lifted her chin and glared at the path ahead, all bristling indignation. “It is possible that I might, but that is irrelevant.”
“I swear, when this competition is over, I am going to buy you a new dictionary.”
Beth flicked him a disdainful sidelong look, but humor tugged at her mouth. “Villain,” she said lightly.
“Angel,” he retorted.
They shared a smile of camaraderie that made Beth’s nerves flutter even more than the kiss had done. Devon ducked his head, staring down at his feet as if he suddenly needed to remind himself how to walk.
Arriving back at the museum’s courtyard and finding it abandoned, they passed through an uncanny silence, the stunned aftermath of the whopper swan’s magic. Bags, books, and half-eaten food lay scattered on the grass. Behind the great, honey-colored museum, the sky hung breathless, shocked. Beth couldn’t help but shiver.
In the next moment, Devon moved closer to her, his height a bulwark, his warm shadow a promise that she would be safe no matter what flew out of that sky at them. Such machismo nonsense, Beth thought with an internal huff.
Squee! her heart replied, hugging itself. She could still feel the softness of his kiss against her hand. She wanted more than anything for him to kiss other places on her body. Forehead…cheek…places she dared not name even to herself.
(“Tenure!” her brain shouted, but it could not be heard over the throbbing of those unmentionable places.)
“After we take the swan to safety,” Devon said, “shall we go for coffee to discuss what happened?”
“Uughhgnnngggh,” Beth answered, and was relieved to hear it come out as a calm, casual “All right.” She despised coffee, but that scarcely signified at a time like this.
Her excitement was dashed, however, almost as soon as they entered the cold, white-tiled antechamber of the departmental aviary.
“Professor Gladstone didn’t want the bird after all?” the aviary keeper asked when they presented her with the whopper swan in its blackout bag.
“Professor Gladstone?” they echoed in identical tones of suspicion.
“You must be mistaken,” Beth said. “Professor Gladstone is in the Peak District.”
The aviary keeper shrugged, cradling the swan to her plump bosom as if it were a sad child rather than a deadly magical beast. Behind her, the grimy, glass-paned wall of the aviary seemed to flicker as birds leaped and flew and stalked each other through the trees. Their songs and murderous cries filtered dimly through to the antechamber, and Beth’s brain automatically identified them even as it multitasked itself with wondering if Gladstone was still in Oxford, why he had released the whopper swan, and whether she should order cake along with her coffee during the
“His signature was on the request form,” the keeper said as she rocked the swan gently. “The men said he wanted it for a practicum class.” Leaning across her desk, she shuffled with her free hand through a stack of papers until she located the one she wanted. “There,” she said, holding it out.
Taking the form, Beth brought out her spectacles and perused it quickly. “This was filled out several weeks ago.”
