The greatest tool in an ornithologist’s equipage is the fellowship of her peers.
Birds Through a Sherry Glass, H.A. Quirm
A week later, Beth and Hippolyta finally changed the topic of conversation. Herr Oberhufter had been consigned to as many degrees of misery as Hippolyta’s imagination could contrive, and Devon Lockley dismembered, figuratively speaking—and forcefully speaking, since tempers remained high all the way through Spain and across the border into France. But at last, something new touched upon the ladies’ offense.
“Do they call this tea?” Hippolyta scowled into the dainty cup she held before her. “It tastes like dishwater!” She set it down on its saucer with a loud clink that resounded throughout the elegant gilded tearoom of Hôtel Chauvesouris. Diners at neighboring tables glared in response, but Hippolyta was far too genteel to notice other people staring.
“Trust the French to make a revolting pot of tea,” she grouched. Selecting a macaron from the tiered plate at the center of the table, she sliced vigorously through it, nearly putting someone’s eye out with the resultant explosion of crumbs.
“So true,” Beth said, although her own drink tasted entirely tea-ish. She had long ago learned that the safest passage through conversation with Hippolyta Quirm was simply to agree.
“We should have stayed at the Hôtel Meurice instead.”
“We should have.”
Hippolyta frowned. “Don’t talk nonsense, Elizabeth. You know that would be impossible under the circumstances.”
“Of course,” Beth said, executing a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree change of opinion with well-practiced ease. “You are right.”
“Hôtel Meurice is at least five miles from the university hosting Chevrolet’s lecture. One might tramp all one likes about the countryside, but walking across town is entirely déclassé.”
“Yes, indeed,” Beth said. This explained why Hôtel Chauvesouris was crammed with twitchy birders. Monsieur Chevrolet was reputed to have the mustache of an Adonis and the thighs of a Zeus—and a highly informative manner of lecturing, of course. His seminars about thaumaturgic birds were always sold out. And while Paris offered several good hotels, ornithologists liked to keep a close eye on each other, in case of fowl play. Governments paid handsomely for the delivery of dangerous or endangered thaumaturgic birds to sanctuaries—and smugglers paid equally handsomely for their delivery to fashion houses and the secret laboratories of mad scientists—and one never quite knew where one’s colleagues stood on that ethical divide (partly because so many of them straddled it, depending on price). Or what they were willing to do to bag a bird. Beth had counted seven of her and Hippolyta’s rivals in the tearoom alone, and she knew others were taking a more bohemian approach to dining at the coffee shop across the road.
It was seven people more than she wished were present. Indeed, the entire scene threatened to overwhelm her brain. There were simply too many things to observe, analyze, and theorize about. She would have much rather had a tray delivered to her hotel room, so that she might continue adding the pileated deathwhistler’s details to her field journal in a peaceful environment. But Hippolyta had started tossing out words like “antisocial” and “hopeless” and “you will wither on the vine, Elizabeth!” until she’d relented. As a result, here she sat, not so much as thinking about the unusual length of the deathwhistler’s fibula, or the unusual angle the bird took when ascending in flight. She even wore the white lace dress Hippolyta so admired, despite its waistband being prejudiced against breathing. And now the selection of minuscule sandwiches for her plate having been achieved, the tea slandered, and her cutlery straightened to exactitude, nothing remained but for her to await death by boredom while Hippolyta made such small talk its point was practically invisible.
“I think mmffmm iff a mmff ffpiff,” the woman declared while chewing on the macaron. She gestured with her fork. “If mmf, fen mffpf!”
“I agree,” Beth answered.
Hippolyta swallowed. “By Jove! Are you even listening to me?”
“Of course,” Beth replied automatically. In sad fact, however, she’d become distracted by a new arrival to the tearoom. It was the bird thief Devon Lockley, consulting with the maître d’ as to an available table. Gone were his dusty coat and (alas) tight trousers; he had got himself up as a very fine gentleman indeed, clean and shaven in a dark suit and tie, his jet-black hair smoothed back. Looking at him, Beth’s boredom vanished as a strange fluttering overtook her nerves.
It must be guilt, she decided, in defiance of an intellect that had always placed her so far at the top of her classes they had to keep inventing new ceilings for her. She owed the man an apology. He might have stolen her bird (and her parasol) (and at least some of her good sense), but that presented no case for violence. Not only had her behavior been dreadful, but the loss of her and Hippolyta’s parasols had left both ladies exposed to the hazard of suntanning—as Hippolyta had pointed out a few times during their walk back to town (seventy-nine, to be precise). And no doubt Mr. Lockley had told Herr Oberhufter about their skirmish, which meant the entire circuit knew by now.
Instinctively, she reached for the cup before her. Tea is the reservoir of peace, her mother used to say, and Beth had lived by that motto ever since. Granted, she did not actually like the taste, but that was of no consequence. When one was an owl in a world of seagulls, one took any balm available.
The cup trembled slightly as she raised it to drink, but as milky warmth eased through her, she felt restored to, if not peace, then at least the safety of self-control. Plainly, the right thing to do was
She had just settled upon this when Mr. Lockley removed his gloves—despite not yet being seated to dine!
Beth’s nerves began to flutter anew. This time, however, the only possible diagnosis was…um…disapproval. Yes, so much disapproval! Why, just look at the outrageous way he exposed his naked hands, leather sliding over skin, long fingers taking the gloves in a strong grip that might lift a woman from the ground if he—
“Elizabeth!” Hippolyta’s bark pulled Beth from her reverie and caused their neighboring diners to jolt. “You have dripped tea into your saucer!”
Flushing, Beth hastened to repair this catastrophe.
“Tsk!” Hippolyta’s tongue flicked against her teeth. “So appalling.”
“Sorry,” Beth said, but then realized Hippolyta was in fact not looking at her. Following the woman’s glare, she saw that Herr Oberhufter had joined Devon Lockley at the tearoom entrance. A deathwhistler feather protruded jauntily from his bowler hat, and smoke from his cigar made a little cloud for it.
Beth did not hate anyone, since that would take mental energy away from thinking about important things, such as birds, and quality paper, and how to keep that paper dry while hiking over foggy moorlands to sketch birds. She made an exception for Klaus Oberhufter, however. The man might rescue dangerous thaumaturgic species from communities who would like to kill them (granted, to stop the birds from killing the community first), but he also readily sold them to aviaries that were little more than tourist ventures and that cared nothing for the birds’ quality of life. Hippolyta was more scrupled—she only sold to people who could provide the birds with a deluxe haven, since they were the only ones who could afford her exorbitant fee.
“Villains,” Beth muttered as the two men began to cross the tearoom to a thankfully distant table.
“Bamboozlers,” Hippolyta agreed. “I hear he’s some kind of academic wunderkind.”
“Really?” Beth asked without much interest, stirring her tea with a dainty silver teaspoon. “I’d have supposed Herr Oberhufter too narrow in his thinking to allow for genius.”
Hippolyta snorted. “I meant the other one. The bird thief.”
Immediately, every overeducated instinct in Beth’s body perked up. She studied Devon Lockley anew, as if she might assess his intelligence from the unhurried way he followed Herr Oberhufter.
“Really?” she asked again, her tone still nonchalant but her interest becoming so rich she could have bought a small nation with it.
Just then, Devon Lockley glanced over. His dark gaze met Beth’s with a small, crooked smile that implied he’d known exactly how long she had been eyeing him up—and therefore that he’d been eyeing her up too. Villain, indeed!
And academic wunderkind? Ha! A strident little voice inside Beth’s mind, hidden behind stacks of apologies and reminders to open doors for other people, urged her to march across and inform the man of her academic honors, including that time Oxford’s chancellor had called her “worryingly clever” (which almost certainly had been intended as a compliment). British women had enjoyed tertiary education ever since Queen Charlotte had developed such an admiration for the astronomer Caroline Herschel that she’d convinced universities to enroll women (her
He winked in return.
“Why don’t you give up,” Hippolyta suggested wryly, “and drink out of your saucer?”
Beth looked down at her teacup and discovered she’d bashed the teaspoon around its interior so much, she’d made another flood. While she mopped and apologized, Hippolyta entertained herself by pressing macaron crumbs to a finger and sucking this finger noisily until clean. But both ladies were diverted from their culinary concerns when suddenly a cloud of floral perfume engulfed them.
“Why, if it isn’t Hippolyta Spiffington-Quirm, as I live and breathe! I heard you were lost in the Spanish jungle!”
The ladies stared up at what appeared to be a perambulating wedding cake. White froth, lace, and flounces were topped with a flower bouquet in service as a hat. Amid all this was a round dark face beaming in happy assurance of its humanity. Beth smiled at her, but Hippolyta was less welcoming.
