She missed Devon with a physical sense that took her by surprise, since they had not been together for long. The air at her side seemed achingly empty of his presence. Her hand reached for him over and over again, as if wanting the balance he offered. And the sound of his voice echoed in her mind, warm and smiling, threaded through with the slightest American tone beneath his English vowels. Beth, he whispered to her, and she stopped, closing her eyes, listening to it, feeling his strong arms enfolding her.
How had this man quickly become so integral to her experience of being in the world that she felt incomplete now without him?
When the nights began to burn with silence and boredom, she imagined herself back on the moor again, tangled naked with him, loving deep and slow while magical bird stars floated and spun through the darkness beyond the sheltering tree. She remembered walking hand in hand with him on the long, climbing road, and discussing ornithological science over lunch as the train took them north, and working in easy professional harmony to catch the whopper swan in Oxford. So many wonderful memories, so much happiness—more than she’d known in all her life. When she let herself sink into them, she understood why she’d so rapidly fallen in love with Devon. He was extraordinarily lovable.
Why he loved her was more of a mystery, but she clung to the fragile belief of it. Far too often for good sense, she opened her field journal to the page on which he’d drawn her a dancing carnivorous lapwing, and hugged it to her heart as if she were some passionate art student.
She knew that Devon would come for her—perhaps not swinging in through the hotel window heroically, since (a) he did not know where she was and (b) it would cause an atrocious mess of broken glass; but certainly he would save her from winning Birder of the Year.
Not that she didn’t intend to save herself, but a girl does like to have someone waiting in the wings, wanting to rescue her.
Apart from these dreamy figments of her lover (her lover! squee! echoed a gaggle of delighted thoughts, hugging each other and kissing framed memories of Devon), the only people she saw were the servants who brought her food, a suitcase of clothes and toiletries, and last night, a note.
We will come for you at ten o’clock.
(Or possibly Weevils on one’s oven eat nice luck, considering Gladstone’s penmanship had reached the degree of impenetrability attained only by medical doctors and senior professors on whose written word other people’s futures depend.)
Rising now, Beth ate what remained on the latest food tray, washed, then rummaged through the suitcase with the bittersweet attitude of someone who has already lost two and holds little hope for this one as well. Gladstone himself must have specified the purchases, for brown tweed, gray tweed, and thick woolen stockings dominated the collection, smelling slightly of dust although they were new, and threatening death from heat suffocation before she even got on the stage to accept Birder of the Year. Beth selected a white shirtwaist, then a plain brown skirt on the basis that it included pockets. A woman felt she could do anything if she had pockets. There were no hairpins supplied, perhaps because Gladstone knew she’d use them to unlock the door, so she tore the lace trim off a garter to tie back her hair in a single braid. It was a young girl’s style, but when she consulted a mirror, she saw a strong, determined, resilient professor gazing back at her.
Of course she did. She’d always been that, beneath her good behavior. The only difference now was, she felt far less willing to compromise.
Well, that and she knew how to use her mouth to make a man groan with pleasure.
So, improvements all around.
She had just finished buttoning her half boots when the door opened. It was time for the award ceremony. Grabbing her satchel and setting on her head a straw boater that had been among the clothes, Beth marched from the room. In the corridor beyond, Gladstone stood with a small group of servants, his face blurred by the faint mist of pipe smoke. He gave her a scathing once-over.
“Adequate,” he said.
Beth tipped up her chin. “If you imagine that I care about your opinion—”
“Imagine?” he scoffed. “We are not primary school teachers, Pickering! And my opinion is not at work here, only my authority as your head of department.” He flapped a hand. “You don’t need that bag.”
“It contains the notes for my acceptance speech,” Beth lied. Her satchel had accompanied her to the heights of the Swiss Alps and the depths of the Bodleian Library, and she wasn’t about to relinquish it even if Gladstone did frown at her. Indeed, as she noted the covered birdcage being held by a servant, and smelled the thick, acrid scent of avian distress exuding from it, she considered taking the satchel and whacking it several times around Gladstone’s head. Only the fact that it contained exorbitantly expensive binoculars made her hesitate.
And perhaps Gladstone saw the uncharacteristic rebellion on her face and ran a hasty mental cost-benefit analysis of further debate, for he huffed in surrender. “Fine. Let’s go.”
They took an elevator to the ground floor in taut silence. Beth’s brain consulted urgently with her nerves regarding escape, but all the cunning ideas she’d developed during her imprisonment took one look at the aforementioned servants and slunk away. She had no intention of accepting the Birder of the Year award, and she’d developed quite the knack for saying no to people over the past week…but those servants’ muscles really were quite pronounced, and Gladstone’s frown plucked at nerves that had become particularly sensitized when he was her thesis adviser. She needed time to build a new plan.
Unfortunately, the journey across the hotel’s gilded lobby seemed to take only about five seconds. Arriving at the open doors of the conference room, Beth peered inside. Her stomach flipped at the sight of several hundred people seated therein, including Mr. and Mrs. Podder from Canterbury, looking around wide-eyed, and Monsieur Chevrolet, smoothing his elegant mustache. Onstage, the golden phoenix statuette that was bestowed upon recipients of the Birder of the Year award gleamed atop a pedestal, guarded by the heads of Oxford University and the Sorbonne, who scrutinized each other over their spectacles and down their noses as they waited.
Beth’s stomach flipped again. Was Devon in the audience? Was he smiling with sardonic humor and wondering if she’d name him in her acceptance speech?
“Give her the bird,” Gladstone ordered brusquely, flicking his fingers at a servant. The man stepped forward, holding out the cage without a word. As she took it from him, Beth lifted the cover and peeked beneath.
The caladrius hunched on its perch, seemingly no more than a puff of trembling white feathers. Beth could hear the rapid staccato of its breath and noted the splatters of wet guano. The cage itself was beautiful, ornately fashioned from gold, but contained no food or water receptacle. She felt the chill of what she’d have called a premonition had she been any less educated. A life without comfort lay before the little bird. Feted for its talent and forced to perform in an endless series of drawing rooms and lecture halls, it would never get the consideration and freedom it needed to thrive. Beth very nearly burst into tears at the thought.
The caladrius did not even peep.
Taking a slow, deep breath, she lowered the cover and turned again to Gladstone. “The bird is unwell. It needs to fly, to release the buildup of its magic.”
Gladstone waved a hand impatiently. “Of course, of course. I’ll let it tootle around my aviary for a while after I’ve presented it to the most important people: the Queen…the Russian emperor…the editor of the Daily Telegraph.”
Beth stared at him with all the iciness of a frostbird. She noticed belatedly that he was not wearing spectacles, and his hair and goatee had transformed from gray to the blond of his younger days. She could see in his smirk that it was no accident: he’d drawn from the caladrius’s untempered magic to heal various injuries time had done to his appearance. Repulsion threatened to not only flip her stomach but spill its contents all over the floor.
“No need for that expression, girl,” Gladstone snarled. “Just smile and do your duty by Oxford. And if you don’t…” He ran the end of his pipe across his throat.
Beth’s eyes grew wide with shock. “You’ll kill me?”
“What?” Gladstone blinked at her confusedly. “No. Good grief! I’ll have your Royal Society Medal of High Achievement taken from you, your professorship renounced, and all sources of funding closed to you forever.” He paused, his face hardening once more. “Do you understand?”
Beth’s heart cringed. She looked again into the conference room, heavy-eyed and with a dozen apologies crammed unspoken in her throat. Oxford’s chancellor was staring out at her now, his face taut with impatience. The audience murmured restlessly. Everyone was waiting for her.
“Well?” Gladstone demanded. “Do. You. Understand?”
“Yes,” she said.
Then, tightening her grip around the birdcage’s handle, she turned on her heel and fled.
—
Racing across the hotel lobby, Beth knew she would not reach even halfway to its exit before Gladstone’s servants caught her. Niceness would not save her this time; bird facts were useless. She needed a dose of barefaced, swaggering bravado. What would Devon do in such a situation?
Better yet, what would Hippolyta do?
“Help!” she shouted. “By Jove, help me!!”
Bystanders turned to gape at her with the horror of offended etiquette, for one simply does not run through a hotel lobby if one is a decent person (although the occasional handsome spy in a tuxedo, or lovestruck person desperate to stop a wedding, may be forgiven for doing so).
