Sweet Nothings Page 3

  Chapter 4

  Tad was sitting on the floor studying a book of love poems when Claire magicked herself into the library. A sweet scent arrived just as she did, not that he cared. “You’re back, I see,” he said, fidgeting with two pages that were stuck together and pretending to barely notice her entrance.

  “The Lady promised me something when my service is complete and I’m not leaving without my prize, no matter how insupportable the company.” Claire raised her pitch and turned up her nose as she pronounced the word she so obviously meant to insult his choice of vocabulary.

  “And what the Lady promised you is…?” Tad tried not to sound too eager for her answer.

  She turned a breezy smile on the pigeons. “At least there are some people in this room worth talking to. Good evening Sev, Nan, Pip.”

  “Good evening,” the birds tweeted in unison.

  Tad hadn’t realized the hour but it was never too late to have a bit of fun with Claire. For the past weeks since Lady Love had made her his assistant, he had found her notions more and more absurd. A great argument was usually the result of his comments about her line of reasoning, and lately these rows had become a strange sort of addiction for him. “A scientist who enjoys consorting with magical creatures…tsk tsk tsk.” He twitched a finger at her. “What will your fellows say? And what is that you are wearing on your head?”

  Claire removed the bubbled-lensed spectacles strapped atop her mass of honey-colored hair and stuffed them into her dress pocket. “You will not provoke me again. I came prepared to deal with your kind.” Her hand withdrew from her pocket clutching a square lump wrapped in cheesecloth. Slowly, she unwrapped it, lifted it to her lips and sank her teeth into its contents. “Mmm mmm mmm…” She held it out to Tad. “Would you like some?”

  Tad stared at the sandwich with her saliva and bite marks in it. “No, thank you.”

  “Sure? It’s brisket with a secret sauce, my own special recipe.”

  His stomach rumbled a wicked plea. Water flooded his mouth. “I am really not hungry,” he dutifully replied. “Nor am I interested in any secret anything. I like to know what it is I’m eating.”

  “I’m not too particular myself as long as it’s juicy and delicious.” Claire gnawed off another morsel and closed her eyes as she savored it.

  Tad found himself staring at the delightful turn of her countenance, her obvious enjoyment of the dish. Not that Claire’s palate would ever be as refined as Roselle’s. “Probably you ate a lot of roaches and crickets when you were a toddler,” he said and looked out of the corners of his eyes to see if this comment might make her face turn red again. Like his remark last week about the way one of her experiments was bound to burn down the library.

  Claire swallowed. “And probably you ate none. How sad to go your whole life without tasting something you oughtn’t. That’s what happens when you fail to apply the principles of science to your life. No experimentation means nothing new ever happens to you.”

  “Yes, nothing unfortunate happens to you if you mind your own business.” Unless Lady Love decided to send her pigeons to abduct you and make you her slave. But he would not dwell on that in front of Claire.

  A draft swept through the library. Tad looked around but did not find any doors had been left ajar or windows open, hardly surprising since the library was completely without these amenities, at least to his eyes. Aside from the ceiling, which was very much intact at the moment spinning stories of romance, there was no place at all where a gust of wind might have entered.

  “Oh, that is very unexpected,” Nan said.

  Tad swiveled his eyes to the she-bird who perched next to the globe, Sev on one side, Pip on the other.

  “Yes, rather unfortunate,” Sev said.

  Pip cocked his head and stared off into the rows of bookcases in front of him. “I do enjoy a good intrigue.”

  “What are you babbling about?” Tad asked the three of them.

  “We have just received word of another case,” Nan said.

  Claire looked back and forth between Tad and the birds. “What did I miss?”

  “Nothing, dear,” Nan replied. “Sev, Pip and I are the only ones able to understand the wind that carries the names of the tragic lovers. It seems Princess Arabella has joined their ranks.”

  Tad scratched a particularly itchy spot above his ear. “Princess Arabella of Lumares?”

  “But the best news of all…” Pip widened his eyes and turned them around his audience. “Captain Avery is her true love and he happens to be…” He strutted around on top of the bookcase with his chest feathers puffed out. His beak suddenly snapped back to where his cohorts sat. “A pirate,” he announced in a mighty whisper.

  Of course he was.

  “Thank you for that unnecessary and dramatic performance,” Tad replied. “But how many desperate souls can there be in the world? It has hardly been any time at all since the last case, and the one before that only a few weeks prior.”

  “I was getting so bored,” Pip groaned. “This case sounds like fun.”

  “Your box of stolen trinkets does not make good company?” Tad asked the pigeon and sent Claire a knowing look. “He takes something from each case and squirrels it away in a box on top of that shelf.” He pointed to the place. “And he steals food instead of finding his own. Obviously, he is a beggar and a thief, so you should never give him a single scrap.”

  Claire lowered her eyelids at him.

  Tad turned his own eyes back down to his book of poems. “And where is Wigamus this evening?”

  The book in his lap sprouted an eye on its cover.

  “Eeee!” Tad flung the thing onto the floor and scooted himself back. “Wigamus!” A growl rose in his chest. His eyes moved to the pigeons, whose snorts and snickers morphed into howls. “And just how long have you known about that?” He thrust his finger at the book that was transforming itself into a kitten. “I wondered why the three of you were so content to be quiet while I was reading.”

  Claire clapped her hands, face aglow as she applauded the kitten. “That was very clever.”

  “I think you mean very disturbing. You wouldn’t appreciate it at all if it was you that had been studying for over an hour only to find...” Tad shook his head to rid it of distasteful thoughts. “It simply does not bear thinking about.” He pushed himself to his feet and directed a grimace at the kitten as he wiped his hands on his trousers. “I do not wish to know which piece of you I was trying to pry apart just as Claire arrived. From now on you will announce yourself in my presence.”

  “Apologies,” Wigamus said.

  The birds continued to laugh.

  Claire observed the miscreant shapeshifter. “I know you said he doesn’t open his mouth when he speaks, but that’s a thing you just have to see for yourself.” She took a slow, scientific step toward Wigamus.

  “He is not one of your experiments,” Tad said. “And we have work to do since two people evidently cannot fall in love in this realm or any other without my assistance.” He charged up to the globe. “Time to get one princess and one pirate matched up.”

  “We can’t help a pirate and a princess fall in love,” Claire’s voice called out behind him.

  “This is why you should stay here and watch me work in the globe. On my very first case it was a man-beast I had to get a happily ever after with an innocent warrior woman who had come to town to slay him because he ate her betrothed. I’m sure this won’t be nearly as difficult as all that.”

  “But he’s a pirate.”

  Tad turned from the globe to face Claire’s outraged expression. “I don’t make the rules. Lady Love marked them and that’s that. If she wants me to know why, she’ll tell me.”

  “Don’t you have any curiosity at all, any desire to understand how things are?”

  “Your scientific mind is a little busybody. I would not wish it on anyone. I intend to close this case without knowing or caring why the Lady decided to make a dastardly pirate the prin
cess’s true love, nor do I care if she even likes him. As long as they fall in love and get married someday, somehow, that suits me very well.”

  “You ought to care very much why she put two people together when they’re so clearly not suited. What if the woman she decides is your true love turns out to be—”

  “I have already found my true love, so I have saved the Lady the trouble.”

  Claire’s head wagged at him. “At first I was surprised when three talking birds showed up and told me Lady Love wished to speak with me. Now it is very clear that you need a lot of help.”

  “If you’re so eager to assist, let me show you a thing or two about how it’s done.” Tad did not wait for any of his helpers to make their way over to the globe before giving his command. “Show me Princess Arabella of Lumares.”

  Sand swirled in the globe and a female figure appeared sitting on a pile of jagged stone and looking out into the sea. Claire and the pigeons scrambled to gawk at the spectacle. Nothing happened. The princess just sat there, so still that Tad might have thought this only a single moment in time if not for the wind blowing her hair around her face. It was the color of wet sand, her hazel eyes rather dazed, the whole of her figure not especially pretty, and there was nothing very striking about her at all.

  “She looks sad,” Claire said.

  “And asleep,” Pip chirruped. “So boring.”

  “Yes, she’s very uninteresting,” Tad replied. “And that’s wonderful news. She is undoubtedly awaiting her true love, too, and what better way for her to meet a pirate than at a beach? Show me…” He thought for a moment about the most efficient way to get the details he needed without becoming entrenched in useless facts and figures. “Show me how Princess Arabella came to be in this place instead of the palace.”

  Sand swirled and settled to reveal the princess’s face. She ran a paddle-shaped brush through her hair. “But Henry danced with her again,” she said.

  “To make you envious, I’m sure, fairest one.” The voice that spoke these words was like honey. “He could not have eyes for another after seeing you. I have looked far and wide and you are the loveliest of all.”

  The princess shook her head a little. “I can’t take any chances. I will do whatever you ask to secure a solution to my problem…the kingdom’s problem.”

  “Very well.”

  “And he will come for me?”

  “He will not be able to resist.”

  Tad squinted and moved his face closer to the globe. “Show me who the princess is talking to.” Sand swirled and settled. The princess’s face stared back at them. “Oh. She’s a lunatic, then, talking to herself?”

  “Answering herself, too?” Claire said in that know-it-all tone of hers.

  Tad took up the globe in both hands and gave it a good shake. “Pigeons, this contraption is broken.”

  “Impossible,” Nan replied.

  “Did you not see what just happened?” Tad said in a snarl.

  “User error.”

  Claire chuckled. “Pip may have a point.”

  Tad turned his best glare on her.

  She stared back at him, unmoved. “I am simply reaching the logical conclusion that there were, in fact, two persons in the princess’s chamber.”

  Tad put the orb back on its stand and crossed his arms. “Then the globe has clearly failed.” He waited for the magic ball to figure out who the princess was addressing, but the thing continued to show the princess’s face.

  “A mirror,” Claire said.

  His assistant had chosen an inconvenient time for her vanity. “Now is not the time to fix your hair. We have a conundrum on our hands.”

  “What’s wrong with my hair?”

  The ire in Claire’s voice had Tad turning to look at her. “It’s just a bit disheveled, no doubt from those silly spectacles with the leather strap you were wearing.”

  Claire’s nostrils flared. Most unladylike. “Silly? They’re called goggles and they happen to be—”

  “Do the two of you require a chaperone?” Nan asked.

  Pip tweeted out a snort. “Or a love potion?” He looked at Wigamus, who was lying upside-down on a shelf with his paws outstretched.

  Claire cleared her throat. “Back to what I was saying before rudeness interrupted me.”

  Tad pressed his lips together to hold back the words he felt rising along with the fire in his belly. He had tried to console her that the state of her hair was not her own fault. And she got all offended about that.

  Claire’s hands were on her hips while she stared him down as if he were no more than a wet-nosed puppy. “The person she was talking to must have been behind her or next to her. Since everybody knows she’s an only child, she could not possibly have a twin. Obviously, she was speaking to a reflection. At least, that is my hypothesis.”

  “And a brilliant one,” Pip said. “I see why the Lady recruited you to assist our assigned imbecile.”

  “Well, let’s just keep watching her, then.” Tad turned back to the globe.

  The princess’s eager eyes were locked on whatever was in front of her.

  “You will have your heart’s desire, fairest one,” a sweet voice said, the same faceless voice as before. “And why should you not? You are all graciousness and loveliness, charity and kindness. Why should you not have what you wish for?”

  Tad leaned forward and gazed into the princess’s eyes. There was something in them, something red.

  “Just one bite,” the honeyed voice said.

  The princess lifted a shiny, red apple to her lips.

  Claire shoved Tad aside with a single thrust of her hips. “There, see?” She pointed to the princess’s left eye. “The reflection of the edge of a mirror.”

  Tad huffed at her. So rude to just push a body around.

  “Quiet, you two,” Nan shrieked, her bird eyes fastened on the image of the princess sinking her teeth into the apple.

  A cry rang out, a shrill, horrible sound. The princess crumpled onto the ground and lay still. In an instant Tad and Claire had their cheeks pressed against each other, vying for a closer look. Shadows moved across the princess’s form and the dark surface she was lying on.

  “Where is she?” Tad asked. He moved himself back from Claire since her body refused to budge so he could get his eyeballs nearer to the globe.

  “She is still in her bedchamber,” Sev said. “Quit arguing and pay attention.”

  Tad gave the bird a grumpy look. Moments later the princess was lifted by pairs of gruff hands, pirate hands, as Tad knew them to be when the image shifted and her bearers’ forms came into view. “How did they get into her room?”

  “Everybody knows castles have secret passages,” Pip said. “But you could ask the globe.”

  “No, it’s not important,” Tad replied.

  “Pip is probably right about the secret passage, and that’s likely how the woman she was talking to entered as well,” Claire said. “Whoever she was, I don’t like her one bit. Her flattery over the princess’s looks was obviously orchestrated to gain influence over her.”

  “Yes, and I think I can guess who the mystery woman was,” Nan replied. “But why would pirates kidnap the princess? It’s common knowledge that her kingdom is on the brink of ruin from their looting and pillaging. There’s surely nothing left for a ransom.”

  “This must be why the Lady decided to pair the princess up with a rogue,” Tad said. “She is clearly the scheming sort and would fit right in as a girl pirate.”

  Claire’s lips twitched a little. Tad watched and waited for the geyser to erupt. “She was obviously tricked,” was regrettably the only thing that fizzled out.

  The girl would have to learn that science could never reveal the true nature of the heart. “The princess was jealous that Prince Henry danced with another lady, and she contrived to get herself kidnapped by pirates so he would go to rescue her and forget about this other woman by becoming her hero. She’s a very foolish woman, putting herself at the m
ercy of pirates, but it is all a great hoax, and she has probably given the pirates her own jewels to pull it off.”

  Tad waited for Claire to contradict his speech with some argument about the need to research and experiment. She stood there tapping her little finger on her little chin. “The pirates were probably too greedy to keep their end of whatever bargain was made, which she should have guessed. But whoever the princess was speaking to in her chamber must have encouraged her jealousy and talked her into a foolish scheme.” She flashed her eyebrows at Tad. “What did I tell you earlier? Jealousy may be the way to a woman’s heart, but I don’t think the results will be quite what you had in mind.”

  Chapter 5

  “I don’t like it,” Nan said. “Princess Arabella was already expected to wed Prince Henry in an alliance to save her kingdom. Why would she not just wait for their impending marriage?”

  “Because what she really desires is true love,” Tad said. “And Prince Henry is not it, though she believes he is, and he has possibly fallen for another woman.” He heaved out a sigh. “I will never understand how some people do not know their true love on sight.”

  The library grew silent. Everybody was staring at him.

  Sev choked on a cough. “Yes, some people are very foolish.”

  “None of this makes any sense,” Nan said. “And did the second voice not seem at all familiar to you, sweet as honey, full of sugary words? Recall from both of our prior cases who it is that uses such a persona.” Her round eyes tried to impart some epiphany to Tad. “A fairy godmother. Matilde, I would bet my feathers on it.”

  Tad wondered if it was possible to do away with a fairy godmother for good. Probably it wasn’t. “Is she back already?”

  “I don’t think so, dear. Very likely she was busy on this scheme before she showed up to try to ruin Meg’s happily ever after.”

  “But we got her,” Pip said gleefully. “That’s why I do this job.”

  “Out of the goodness of your heart? Yes, I’m sure that’s it and it has nothing to do with free food.”

  Nan sent Tad and Pip a look of severe displeasure. “Before the two of you start swapping insults, might we see Avery the pirate?”