“Um,” Beth said.
“Where’s your American lover? Oh no, you ain’t back to being rivals?”
“Uh…”
“Is that cage for when you catch the caladrius?”
“Er.”
“Wait until Jenny hears about this! She loves birds! The flying kind, that is. Well, and t’other kind.” He winked in such a risqué manner that Beth took a step back. “Just wait here a mo’ and I’ll go tell her! Bleedin’ hell, an actual famous orthilochist!”
“Um,” Beth reiterated, to no avail. The stable hand dashed off, leaving her reeling from their conversation.
“Good grief,” she muttered. “Why do people have to people?”
“Vulgar cretin!” Hippolyta shouted.
Beth almost laughed. Trust Hippolyta to phrase it in a more blatant way, she thought, turning to raise her eyebrow at the woman—then suffered a belated jolt of alarm as she realized, Hippolyta! Ducking behind the horse, she looked around urgently but could not see her former associate anywhere.
“Must you shout, madam?!” arose another voice with no concern for the irony of its own volume. Beth comprehended that Hippolyta and Oberhufter, and God knows who else, were approaching close upon the inn.
She had mere seconds to act before they either passed its frontage and saw her in the stable yard—or stopped and, entering the building, discovered Devon therein. She looked around, trying to assess all possible escape routes, but before she could decide upon one, the inn’s side door flung open and Devon emerged at a run. Relief propelled Beth toward him, and he grasped her arm of course, towing her inside the stables. One second later, a hansom cab arrived in the yard, driven by Gladstone’s footman and with Hippolyta and Herr Oberhufter crammed into its seat, the Fotheringham sisters each balancing precariously on a step at either side. Behind it came the servants’ carriages.
Ducking behind the stable’s open door, Beth and Devon peered through a gap between the hinges as the ornithologists climbed down from the cab, squabbling the entire time.
“We won’t be able to hide for long,” Beth whispered. “The horse proves that we’re here.”
Peep, the caladrius agreed.
Just then, the stable hand entered through the stable’s far door. Devon whistled quietly through his teeth and the boy came to an abrupt halt, noticing them in their hiding place. As he drew breath to speak, Beth placed a finger to her lips, urging silence. She pointed in the direction of the yard and mouthed the words avaricious opponents. The boy frowned with unsurprising bewilderment.
“I know you’re here, Elizabeth!” Hippolyta shouted. “Just hand over the bird and no one will get hurt! Except that Cambridge lout. And, well, you too, a little bit. I’m sure you understand; this is ornithology, after all!”
Comprehension dawned on the stable hand’s face. He hurried over, joining them in the shadows behind the door and forcing them to cram themselves farther into the corner.
“You got the caladrius in that cage, yeah?” he whispered. When Beth and Devon nodded, his excitement shone so brightly, he almost looked clean. “Keep your pecker up! I’ll bamboozle the rotters while you saw your timber.”
Now Beth was the one to frown in bewilderment. But there was no time to request a translation.
“We need to get to Sheffield, to catch a train south,” Devon said.
“That’s easy. You just go some three hours up the east road. Cut down through the gardens behind here, that’ll get you in a jiffy to the village, then Bob’s your uncle.”
“I don’t have a jiffy,” Beth said. “Or an uncle.”
Devon smiled at her. “He means…never mind. Let’s go.”
“The name’s Jack Scrottley, by the way,” the boy said, “in case you happen to talk to any newspaper reporters.”
He held out his grubby hand and Beth automatically shook it, silently thanking her gloves’ manufacturer and reminding herself not to chew her thumbnail anytime soon. Then he hurried away, and as they heard him greet the ornithologists, Beth and Devon ran along the stable’s alleyway and out the back door, a booming echo of Hippolyta’s voice chasing them like a Siberian saber-toothed canary.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Out in the middle of nowhere is often where you find your answers.
Birds Through a Sherry Glass, H.A. Quirm
“When he said ‘go up the east road,’ I did not think he meant literally up,” Beth said, pausing to wipe her brow with the back of her wrist. Since leaving the village of Grindleford, their route had made a moderate but relentless incline through woodlands, and the day’s heat had intensified to such a degree that they half expected to see a flock of firebirds in the trees overhead, singing flames across the sky. Their steady pace slowed, and “three hours to Sheffield” had transformed into “all damn afternoon to go one-fifth of the way.”
To be fair, they’d spent much of that time sitting beneath an oak tree. Their pursuers not appearing, perhaps having taken a different route, it had seemed only logical to rest from the hectic morning and to eat a nourishing luncheon purchased from a baker in the village, whose spectacles were so scratched he’d barely been able to see them, let alone identify them as famous ornithologists. This logic had then extended to gazing around at the lovely, tranquil countryside (reconnaissance), noting various birds within it (professional development), and drifting slowly, sweetly closer to each other (team building). Their eyes had begun to haze, their lips parted…since, after all, kissing would be the most logical thing to do, because, er, um, because it would reinvigorate them for the walk ahead…
And suddenly the caladrius had embarked upon a bright, trilling song, calling to its peers in the wild. They’d moved apart with surprised laughter.
“We must get back on the road,” Beth had said, forcing good sense back into her brain.
Devon had sighed and nodded. “Yes, we ought not loiter like this. At any moment a reporter from the Morning Herald might pop up to ask us when we’re getting married.”
“Ha ha,” Beth had said.
“Ha ha,” Devon had agreed.
They’d gathered up the leftovers of the food and resumed walking.
Soon after, however, a yaffingale had flown across the road, and they’d felt a professional obligation to stop and admire it, and argue cheerfully about it being a harbinger of rain, and for Beth to make rudimentary notes in her field journal before Devon stole the book to draw a tiny dancing carnivorous lapwing in the corner of one page. Beth had watched him with a lump in her throat. When he’d returned the book, she’d hugged it while Devon had shoved his hands into his pockets and scuffed a bootheel against the dusty road. They’d smiled rather bashfully at each other, there in the middle of the road, and kissing would have almost certainly ensued had not the yaffingale circled back and deposited a large wad of guano only inches away from them, rather spoiling the mood.
Then a carriage had appeared on the road behind them, coming out of Grindleford, requiring an urgent dash into the protection of tree shadows…and the holding of hands when they emerged again…the swinging of those hands…light conversation and smiles…lingering looks…
