couldn’t be trusted to keep them safe I wouldn’t let Sir Alec mix them up in this wedding business.”
“So…” Monk dragged a hand down his face. “There is something going on over there. This isn’t just Sir Alec with the wind up.”
Gerald hid a wince. Careful, now. Careful. He mustn’t mention Abel Bestwick’s graphic message. If Monk got a bee in his bonnet he was perfectly capable of futzing the entire mission. As expected, he’d already gone spare over the notion of Bibbie playing janitor. It wouldn’t take much of a nudge to send him over the edge again.
“All I can tell you is that our man in Splotze has landed himself in hot water. But we don’t know how hot, and we don’t know who’s boiling the kettle. It could all turn out to be a big misunderstanding. That’s why I’m going, to figure the lay of the land. But trust me, Monk, I won’t let the girls get within sniffing distance of trouble.”
“Oh, yeah?” Monk snorted. “Think you can hobble those two if they get the bit between their teeth, do you?”
He was saved from answering by Melissande’s return. “Are you two still in here?” she said, hands on hips in the kitchen doorway. “Honestly, how long does it take to wash a few dishes?”
“Where’s Bibs?” said Monk, neatly side-stepping the domestic bear-trap. “Don’t tell me you’ve made her hex herself so hideous she can’t bear to show her face!”
“On the contrary,” said Melissande loftily. “I’ve managed to kill two birds with one stone. Gentlemen, I give you Gladys Slack, lady’s maid to Her Royal Highness Princess Melissande of New Ottosland.”
She moved out of the way, and into the kitchen walked a modestly downward-looking young lady with glossy dark brown hair pulled into a bun and melting brown eyes framed by thick horn-rimmed spectacles, whose plain black skirt and prim cream blouse and sensibly low-heeled button shoes and knitted stockings did nothing to disguise the tempting figure beneath.
“Well, that’s no good,” said Gerald, feeling his heart crash and bang against his ribs. “Where’s the hooked nose? The beady eyes? Where are the warts with hairs in them? Blimey, Melissande. She might not look like Bibbie but she’s still beautiful!”
“Exactly,” said Melissande, as Bibbie stood like a mouse with her hands demurely clasped before her and her gaze still downcast. “She doesn’t look like Emmerabiblia Markham, which means if there’s anyone in the wedding party who’s ever dined at the Markham mansion they won’t think twice when they see her. But she’s still guaranteed to attract Crown Prince Hartwig’s wandering hands, which means they won’t be wandering over me this time, so I can avoid creating an international incident, which I’m sure Sir Alec will appreciate.”
Gerald swallowed. What about him creating an international incident? He didn’t want Crown Prince Hartwig’s philandering hands all over Bibbie! Except he couldn’t say that, could he? He didn’t have the right.
“And Bibbie? You seem very comfortable speaking for her about this, Mel,” he snapped. “What’s her opinion?”
“She doesn’t have one,” said Melissande, lofty again. “She’s a maid. But if she did, it would be identical to mine. Yours would be, too.”
His jaw dropped. “I beg your pardon?”
“Begging’s good. Very miniony. Keep it up,” Melissande said, encouraging. Then she sighed. “Honestly, Gerald. Don’t be so thick. Minions ministering to royalty possess no thoughts that haven’t been inspected and approved first. You do remember Lional, don’t you?”
Of course he did. But he’d hoped Melissande had forgotten him. Instead here she was doing the most appalling impersonation of her imperious dead brother. Ignoring her, he turned to Bibbie.
“Look, Bibs-”
“I’m sorry, sir,” said Bibbie, in a mousey little voice. “I’m afraid I don’t know who you mean. My name is Gladys, and I’m sure I shouldn’t be speaking to any young man without Her Highness’s permission.”
There wasn’t even the hint of a mischievous twinkle in Bibbie’s changed eyes. Giving up, Gerald rounded on Monk.
“So you’re just going to sit there, are you, like a drunk flea on a dog? You’ve nothing to say about Melissande tossing your sister into the clutches of this grabby Crown Prince Hartwig?”
Monk grinned. “No. If Hartwig’s stupid enough to put his hands where they don’t belong, Bibs’ll take care of him. She’s had a lot of practice.”
“Wonderful,” he groaned, reluctantly accepting defeat. “Where’s Reg? I know she’ll be on my side.”
Melissande and Bibbie-Gladys-whoever the devil she was being-exchanged cautious looks.
“Reg?” said Melissande. “She’s-ah-taking a post-prandial flap about the neighbourhood.”
Oh, no. “You had a fight?”
“Of course not,” Melissande said quickly. “Just… a difference of opinion. Don’t worry. She’ll be back soon.”
Uncomfortable, they stared at each other.
“It is going to work out, isn’t it?” said Bibbie, alarmingly uncertain. “With Reg, I mean. The day will come when we don’t look at her and think You’re the wrong one. Won’t it?”
Nobody answered her.
Soon afterwards, Bibbie unhexed herself then went back upstairs to change out of her Gladys Slack attire. Melissande and Monk withdrew to the parlour for a bit of privacy, and possibly to argue some more about Bibbie, and Gerald shut himself in the library with paper, pen and ink and his mission briefing notes so he could order his thoughts. He read them twice, once quickly, once slowly, and then, ideas and random observations simmering, started scribbling.
Two scrawled pages later, a gentle rustling of feathers turned his attention to the open window.
“And that’s you, is it?” Reg enquired politely, from the sill. “Thinking You’re the wrong one every time you look at me? Sorry now you didn’t leave me behind to die too, are you?”
So she’d heard that? Damn. A sharp pain was brewing in his temples. Sighing, Gerald let his head fall against the back of the chair.
“Don’t be daft, Reg. Of course I’m not sorry.”
A feathery whoosh and flap as she glided from the windowsill to the arm of the chair opposite. “And don’t you try to kid a kidder.”
He cracked open his good eye. “I’m not.”
“No?” Her dark eyes were gleaming in the lamplight. “And I s’pose you’re not peeing-your-underdrawers terrified that you’re going to wake up one morning and find you’ve turned into him, either.”
“Not peeing-my-underdrawers, no,” he said, after a brief hesitation. “But I’ll admit to an occasional looseness in my bowels.”
“Ha!” Her tail rattled. “And so they should be loose, sunshine. He was a nasty piece of work and no mistake, your opposite number.”
“Which means I’m a nasty piece of work, surely,” he countered. “Doesn’t it?”
“That’s up to you,” Reg said, shrugging. “Every man’s captain of his own ship, Gerald Dunwoody. You made the right choice the first time. All you have to do is make it again.”
“And again, and again, and again,” he murmured. “Every hour of every day, for the rest of my life. And how much harder is that going to be, with his magic inside me like he’s perched on my shoulder?”
“But it’s not all inside you, is it? Not any more.”
“Trust me, Reg. Enough of it is. And if Monk can’t pull a rabbit out of his trousers, it always will be. D’you know, I nearly flattened bloody Errol Haythwaite?”
Reg chuckled. “Bloody Errol Haythwaite could do with a bit of flattening.”
“It’s not funny!”
“Gerald, Gerald,” she sighed. “Lose your sense of humour, my boy, and you really will be in a pickle.”
And that was when she sounded like his Reg. He felt the memory jolt through him, bright flames in the sunlight as she crumbled to ash. Smothered a groan. A familiar, feathered weight came to rest on his shoulder and a long beak rubbed gently against his cheek.
“I know it’s hard,” she whispered. “I know you miss her. It’s easier for me. I got my Gerald back. That other manky bastard, he’s just a bad memory. But I know it’s not the same for you, Gerald. I won, and you lost, and how that’s going to end up I honestly can’t say.”
“No,” he croaked. “Me, neither.”
“I’ll go, if you want me to,” the other Reg said, with only the slightest tremor in her voice. “I managed before
