It was the best of dress shops, it was the worst of dress shops. It sold the most beautiful garments, it sold the ugliest scraps, and Miss Primula Tewkes fell in love and despair as she walked amongst its displays. Her maid, Alice Dearlove, followed like a shadow, black-garbed and silent, arms full of hatboxes. Primula declared herself to be in Heaven, but Alice privately wished the lady would go direct the other way.
"I cannot attend Lady Hessop's soiree in anything but the most exquisite ensemble," Primula averred. "The most exquisite!"
"Yes miss," Alice said.
"You wouldn't want me to be ridiculed for wearing something outmoded, would you, Dearlove? Would you? Well?"
The lady's eyes widened. Alice guessed from this that alarm was required at the prospect of the Honorable Miss Tewkes drinking mimosas and making nice conversation while garbed in anything less than a fashion masterpiece. Unfortunately, she felt such little alarm that she did not even blink as she looked at her mistress from behind the load of hatboxes. Her own eyes, dark, cool, remained their normal size. Her countenance was so deadpan it ought to have been given the Last Rites.
"No miss," she said, glancing at the glass-paneled door, which offered the only escape from the shop.
"You are tedious, Dearlove. Tedious! Surely even a lady's maid has enough imagination to appreciate my dire circumstance?!"
Alice hesitated, unsure which of yes miss and no miss was required here. No would have been accurate, for although she possessed a sterling imagination for such things as secret libraries, lost libraries, and indeed any type of library possible, she could not imagine what was so dire about not being able to choose a dress.
On the other hand, yes was also accurate, for even Alice felt obliged to describe herself as tedious. For example, at this very moment all she wanted was to put down the hatboxes, take off her shoes, and lose herself in a really good dictionary.
"Yes miss?" she hazarded.
Primula huffed, turning to flip her hand through a rack of frothing pastel dresses. "I am wasting my time here! Wasting it! I don't know why you even suggested this boutique. We should have gone to Harrods."
"Yes miss," Alice said, blowing a loose strand of fine brown hair from her face. The hatboxes swayed and she swayed with them, only just managing to keep them balanced. She glanced at a clock on the wall, then again at the door, before turning back to Primula. "Perhaps that purple lace dress would-"
A delicate chime interrupted her as someone entered the shop. Looking around at once, Alice saw only a servant, his expression bored as he held the door ajar despite carrying half a dozen bags. He appeared nondescript-brown-haired, clean-shaven, wearing spectacles and the general masculine uniform of dark suit and bowler hat. Nevertheless, Alice's heart fluttered inexplicably. Realizing she was staring at him, she began to turn away, but just then he glanced over and their eyes happened to meet. Alice's face remained impassive; her heart, however, went from fluttering to perfect stillness in, well, a heartbeat.
Nonsense, she thought. If her cardiac organ had stopped, she would not be standing, nor breathing (to be fair, she did not currently seem to be breathing, but that was beside the point), nor indeed blushing like a schoolgirl just because a handsome man looked in her direction. Alice felt unclear exactly how he had transformed from nondescript to handsome within the space of seconds, but no doubt an encyclopedia could explain it. She'd visit the library this evening and-
Suddenly masses of frothing pink and yellow swamped her vision. Alice blinked frantically. Either the patisserie across the street had exploded or a fashionable woman was walking in through the doorway.
"Really, Bixby? This is what you consider a suitable dress shop? We should have just gone to Harrods."
"Yes miss," the man replied without inflection.
Alice's vision recovered enough from its shock to recognize the Honorable Miss Dahlia Weekle, Primula's exact social equal and therefore most bitter rival. At that moment, a cake explosion would have been more welcome.
"You were right, miss," she murmured to Primula, nudging her eastward as Miss Weekle veered west toward a glove display. "We should indeed leave this very moment."
"Steady on, Dearlove. I am not a sheep to be herded. Why the hurry?"
"Primula! Darling!"
Alice winced.
"Dahlia!" Primula's dismay was so fleeting, Alice barely saw it. "How unexpected to meet you here! So unexpected!"
The ladies gripped each others' shoulders and kissed the air, their lips making a sound like rapiers tapping at the start of a duel.
"That color is remarkable on you, dear," Dahlia said.
"Such a unique hat!" Primula countered.
The door chimed once more. Alice caught Primula's arm, the hatboxes swaying perilously, and attempted to tug her away. But it was too late.
Two men burst into the shop, brandishing pistols. "This is a robbery!" one shouted.
Primula and Dahlia squealed. The shopkeeper squealed. Alice sighed.
"Hands in the air!"
Immediately the ladies obeyed. Alice, pleased for an excuse to set down the hatboxes, placed them on a small table then raised her own hands. Hopefully this business would be over soon and she could go home for a cup of tea and a biscuit.
"You!" The thief turned to Dahlia's manservant. "Hands up!"
"Do as he says, Bixby!" Dahlia wailed.
Bixby carefully lowered the carry bags. But instead of raising his arms, he folded them together across his chest. "This is highly inconvenient," he said in a reproving tone. "Miss Weekle has an appointment with her hairdresser in fifteen minutes' time and it cannot be postponed. Kindly find another store to burgle."
The thieves glanced at each other and laughed.
"Just shoot him, Merv," one said. "Make sure he never needs no hairdresser again."
"A hairdresser," Bixby corrected.
Silence slammed down upon the scene, broken only by a sharp click as Merv cocked his pistol.
Alice frowned. Clearly matters were about to become even more time-consuming. "For heaven's sake," she began-
But it was no use. Without further discussion, Merv shot Bixby.
A loud twang followed, and across the shop a gilt-framed mirror shattered under the impact of Merv's bullet. Blinking confusedly, Alice realized that Bixby had removed his bowler hat at remarkable speed and utilized it as an apparently bulletproof shield. The resultant ricochet had cast seven years' bad luck upon the shop but saved the manservant's life.
"Bloody-" was all Merv had the opportunity to say before Bixby threw the hat at him. It struck his face with more force than brushed felt regularly offered. Merv screamed, dropping his gun. From there it was a simple matter of one kick from the manservant, one punch with a black-gloved hand, two swift and efficient jabs to the throat, and the thief ended up senseless on the ground, his last word having proved prophetic as blood dripped from his nose. Bixby stepped back, calmly straightening his cuffs.
The other thief snatched wildly for Dahlia's purse. Alice pushed the young woman aside, so the thief grabbed Primula's purse instead, yanked it from her hand, and was out the door before anyone could react.
"Help!" Primula screamed. "Help!"
"Oh dear, miss," Alice said with an attempt at comfort that fell so flat a dozen steamrollers could not have crushed it more. "I'm afraid he's long gone. We should get you home." She picked up the hatboxes and was turning to the door when suddenly Bixby stepped forth, offering a crisp, shallow bow.
"Ma'am, allow me to recover your purse."
"Oh!" Primula flushed in singular delight.
"No," Alice answered, shaking her head. "We cannot ask-"
But apparently a request was not required, for Bixby immediately took off after the thief.
"How exciting!" Primula cried, flapping a hand before her face.
"Goodness me!" Dahlia added, clutching at her bosom.
"Fiddlesticks," Alice muttered under her breath. And tossing the hatboxes aside, disregarding how they emptied across the floor, she jumped over Merv's unconscious body and followed after Bixby while Primula wailed about crumpled bonnets (crumpled!) behind her.
"Don't! Stop! Thief!" she shouted, and gave chase in a most unexpected manner indeed.
Three years Daniel Bixby had worked as a butler for the rogue pirate Rotten O’Riley. Three years flying a rickety, ensorcelled house at speeds one could only describe as improper, smuggling pennyroyal tea into Ireland, and washing O’Riley’s laundry. Yet after just one week in Dahlia Weekle’s service he was exhausted. Criminal life had nothing on the rigors of shopping with an aristocratic lady.
This purse-snatching offered the best entertainment he'd had since his return to London (or, to be fair, second best, since nothing could surpass yesterday's discovery of a Utopia edition in the original Latin). Indeed, he might have stopped the hoodlum at once by using a phrase from the magical incantation that pirates employed to fly their battlehouses and witches to move small objects-O'Riley's witch wife had taught him how to bring down a man with just one enchanted word-but it was invigorating to give chase (not to mention that witchcraft was highly secret, highly illegal-and, according to pirates, highly, er, low behavior.)
About three hundred feet along the street, he caught the thief. After a struggle, he twisted the man's arm behind his back, relieved him of the purse, and held it out of reach.
"Thank you," said a woman's voice behind him.
Daniel felt the purse removed efficiently from his grip. Glancing around, he was astonished to see the lady's maid. Time seemed oddly suspended as he stared, arrested by the sight of her. You, said something inside of him, like a memory or a dream. It had whispered to him in the dress shop but spoke louder now, as if she'd removed a mask and he could see her more clearly. Her delicate face was framed by a coiffure so severe it made him think of backboards and plain, starched undergarments-
At which point, time dropped into the pit of his stomach with a crash that sent reverberations through his entire nervous system.
"Ma'am," he said, taking refuge in politeness even while his nerves clamored and the thief swore and kicked in an effort to get free. "It was a pleasure to be of assistance."
"You are too kind," she replied, her voice civil but her expression making it clear she was speaking literally. She turned and handed the purse to the thief.
Daniel blinked, trying to comprehend the evidence before his eyes. He had not been so confused since hearing Wordsworth described as a poetic genius. And confusion was dangerous in his line of work (i.e., when he felt it, other people became endangered). He twisted the thief's arm further, causing the man to holler, and took the purse from him once more.
"I beg your pardon," he reproved the lady's maid.
At his somber tone she cringed, her big dark eyes filling with tears, her lashes trembling. Daniel felt like an utter cad. "Please don't cry," he said, holding out his hand in apology.
And she grabbed the purse in it, tugged hard, and jabbed the fingers of her free hand up into his armpit.
Daniel gasped at the sudden pain. His grip weakened, and the purse disappeared once more from his possession. The woman returned it to the thief, who took it with an attitude of bemused uncertainty.
"For goodness' sake," Daniel muttered. Although years of piracy had presented little opportunity for heroics, he felt certain they did not usually involve the victim attacking her rescuer. Wrenching the thief about, he snatched the purse from him and-
The woman grasped his wrist with both hands. Daniel attempted to shake her off, and she attempted to emasculate him with an upthrust of her knee, and he saved himself (and his future children) by quickly blocking her with his own knee, leading to her stomping down on his foot, and him twisting her arm, and both of them stopping abruptly to watch the thief escape along the street.
"Is that your pearl necklace he's carrying?" Daniel asked mildly.
"Yes," she replied.
"Oh dear."
She shrugged. "Hopefully he won't bite the pearls to see if they're real. They are in fact cyanide capsules."
As the thief turned a corner and disappeared from the narrative, Daniel released the woman. She took a careful breath, her fingers twitching at her skirt, and he frowned with concern. "Are you hurt?"
The look she gave him was such that Daniel immediately wanted to find a chalkboard and write I will not ask stupid questions one hundred times upon it.
"Yes," she said in a quiet, terrifyingly precise voice. "I have a headache, my feet ache, and it has been six hours since my last cup of tea. Six hours! And now I even sound like her. Do you realize how much work went in to shepherding that woman into position so her purse could be stolen? How many boutiques I have endured this week? Do you realize how many conversations about penny-dreadful novels I have been forced to endure?"
"I-"
"One such conversation would be too many, but there in fact have been dozens, all mixing together into a ghastly, giggling blur. And yet there goes Putrid Pete back to his gang's headquarters without the tracking device in Miss Tewkes's purse, thanks to your dratted chivalry."
"I-"
"Furthermore, what were you thinking, bringing Miss Weekle shopping on Bond Street today? Her servants coordinate with Miss Tewkes's servants so as to ensure the ladies never meet. The last time they did, there was a fracas over a parasol, and Miss Weekle's footman ended up with his nose broken. You have disrupted everything. Therefore I say good afternoon, sir. This ends our acquaintance."
And grabbing the purse from him, she turned and marched away.
Daniel stared dazedly after her. His memory was shouting for attention . . . His body, however, drowned it out with a hot, uncomfortable throbbing. Perhaps he had strained something in his fight with the thief. He would have to consult a medical encyclopedia this evening.
The woman took an unrelenting course along the footpath, obliging more genteel ladies to leap out of her way. She moved with the dangerous grace of someone entirely aware of her surroundings and entirely unafraid. He watched her, knowing she would know that he did.
And for the first time in living memory, Daniel Bixby grinned.
“Fiddlesticks,” Alice muttered, smacking the purse in a one-two beat against her thigh as she strode back toward the dress shop. Frustration and indignation dueled for possession of her mood, but annoyance already had it tied up in knots at the thought of all the undisciplined things she’d just done. Running in the street! Wrestling! Using the word “dratted” like some-some hooligan!
Copyright © 2023 by India Holton. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
