stepped out of the portal in her brother’s palace. It was all he could do not to smile like a loon.
“I beg your pardon?” she said, deliciously snooty. “Did you address me, sir?”
He stood. “Yes. Yes. Gerald Dunwoody at your service, Miss. You dropped this,” he said, thrusting the book towards her.
As she reached out to take it from him he heard a soft, muffled thud close by. And then one of Permelia Wycliffe’s other gels shrieked and pointed.
“Oh! Oh! How awful! A bird just dropped dead, right out of that tree!”
Melissande whipped round, book in hand, and stiffened. “Oh, blimey,” she muttered. “Don’t look now, but Reg just fainted.”
Reg? Reg was here? He turned and yes, there she was, his very own Reg, toes turned up on the mulched garden bed beneath an ornamental fig-tree.
Reg.
“Don’t worry, Miss!” he said to the horrified gel, now being supported by two of her equally horrified friends. “I’ll take care of it. Don’t you distress yourself, or come any closer. For all we know it could be diseased.”
“ Gerald — ”
He pulled a hush-up face at Melissande and rushed over to the garden bed where Reg lay unmoving. Heart thudding so hard he felt sick, he dropped to his knees beside her and stroked a fingertip down her limp wing.
A cold cave. A dead bird. A cruel hoax that he’d believed.
“Reg,” he whispered, trying not to move his lips. “Reg, can you hear me? Reg, it’s me. Gerald. Come on, Reg, please, open your eyes.”
Two of her toes twitched. Then she coughed, faintly, and half-raised her closed eyelids. “Gerald? Gerald, is that really you?”
He choked down a laugh, relieved almost to tears. “Yes, it’s really me.”
Both of her eyes popped wide open. “ Gerald Dun-woody!” she said, out of the side of her beak. “How long have you been back in town? And what do you mean, not coming to see me? I’ve been worried sick about you, sunshine. I’m going to have your guts for garters, I’m going to hang your silver eyeball as a New Year’s decoration, I’m going to-”
He snatched her up and kissed the top of her head. “I’m fine,” he whispered. “I miss you. Fly home. We’ll talk properly when this job’s done, I promise.” Standing, he tossed her high into the air. Watched her scramble her wings into action and flap away squawking her outrage like a fishwife.
“Oh!” cried Permelia Wycliffe’s gel. “I thought it was dead.”
“No, Miss,” he said politely, offering her a bow. “Merely a slight case of sunstroke. No harm done.”
The gel and her companions returned to their seat, and Gerald rejoined Melissande. “How very gallant of you, Mister Dunwoody,” she said, still haughty. Behind the prim glasses her eyes were sparkling.
“Not at all, Miss-ah-”
“Carstairs. Molly Carstairs.”
Really? “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Carstairs. Perhaps you’d care to join me for lunch?”
“That would be very pleasant,” said Melissande, dropping to the bench. “Reg is all right?” she added softly.
“She’s fine. Cross as two sticks, but fine,” he replied, equally softly. “Melissande… what are you doing here?”
“ Molly. And I was about to ask you the same question.”
“I’m on an assignment for the Department.”
She smiled, a very chilly curve of her lips, just in case they were being watched. “Fancy that. I’m on an assignment for the agency.”
He stared. “Who hired you?”
“Permelia Wycliffe. Who hired you?”
“Nobody.” In case anyone was watching, he pulled his fish-paste sandwich out of his lunch sack and took a bite. “I can’t talk about it.”
“You can’t talk about it here,” she said, opening her lunch box and taking out her own sandwich. It was ham and tomato, and looked singularly unappetising. The tomato had turned the bread all pink and soggy. “But you are going to talk about it, Gerald. There’s a very good chance you and I could help each other.”
“I doubt it,” he replied, and laughed as though she’d just said something amusing. “In fact, I think you should forget all about your job for the agency. Things around here might get a little… tricky… soon.”
“You mean you might try and blow something up?” she replied, and put her soggy sandwich back in the lunch box with a refined shudder. “That would have all the charm of novelty.”
He turned his shoulder to the rest of the garden and squinted his blind eye meaningfully. “I’m not joking, Melissande. You’ve no idea what’s brewing around this place.”
“Not right now, no,” she agreed. “But I will as soon as you tell me. And Reg, and Bibbie. Tonight. At Monk’s new establishment. Nine o’clock sharp. Don’t be late.”
What? “Monk’s what? What are you talking about?”
She reached into his lunch sack and took out the cupcake. The icing was luridly green: it had been the only one left in the baker’s that morning. “You haven’t heard? Great-uncle Throgmorton died and left him two houses,” she said around a mouthful. “He’s living behind the Old Barracks in Central Ott. Twenty-four Chatterly Crescent.” She finished the cupcake, pulled a napkin from her lunchbox and daintily dabbed her lips clean. “You know where that is?”
“I’ll find it,” he said, then shook his head. “That is, when I can find time to visit him. Which won’t be tonight, or any night soon. Mel-”
“Say you’ll come or I’ll make a scene,” she said, dropping the napkin back in her lunchbox. Her lips were smiling, but her eyes were deadly serious. “Do you have any idea how worried Reg has been about you? She’s in such a state she’s practically moulting.”
A pang of guilt spiked through him. “Yes, well, I’m sorry about that, but-”
“Not as sorry as you’re going to be if you’re not at Monk’s place by nine,” she said, and stood. “Say you’ll be there. Go on. Say it.”
Oh, lord. Sir Alec was going to roast him alive. Or he will if he finds out. So I’d best make sure he never does. “ All right,” he snapped. Bloody woman. I must have been mad thinking I was pleased to see her. “ Nine o’clock. But don’t get your hopes up, thinking I’m going to give you chapter and verse about my assignment, because-”
“Well, Mister Dunwoody, thank you so much for the pleasant chat,” she said loudly in her best royal highness voice. Holding her lunchbox like a shield… or a weapon. “We must do it again sometime. Good day.”
Dumbfounded, he watched her mince out of the garden, collecting other black-clad gels along the way. Honestly, she was impossible. Hah. Miss Carstairs his-his arse. Melissande was born a princess, she’d die a princess, and live every damn day in between a princess.
Just like Reg.
Moulting? Reg had been so worried she was moulting? Oh no. She was so vain about her feathers…
Flayed with remorse, appetite ruined, he put his lunch back together and returned to the R amp;D complex. Three steps through the side door a hand clamped mercilessly around his upper arm.
“A moment, Dunwoody. I want a word with you.”
Gerald felt his heart plummet. Errol, Errol. Do we have to do this now? Making certain to keep his expression suitably chastened and subservient, to keep the surge of anger from showing in his eyes, he didn’t fight but let Errol drag him sideways into a convenient corner.
“Ah-Mister Haythwaite-I really am sorry about your staff,” he muttered, keeping his gaze lowered. “I’ll purchase you a new one, you have my word. It might take some time-my salary, you know-but-”
Errol, whose blistered hand had been bandaged, let go of him and leaned close. As always when he was displeased his immaculate accent had sharpened to a lethal edge. “What are you playing at, Dun-woody? What exactly are you doing here?”
Abruptly, he decided to drop a little of his Third Grade act. He’d never bowed and scraped to Errol at the Wizards’ Club and, assignment or no assignment, he saw no reason to completely humiliate himself.
