The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings #2)(43)

“What?” The hair on the back of my neck stands up. I didn’t see Sim much this morning, but I have also been so preoccupied with reviewing Alexander Platt’s treaties so that I could be best prepared for our conversation tonight. “What was she doing there?”

“Lord knows. I gave her a slap and a scold to stay where she was allowed.” Sim hadn’t mentioned that. She hadn’t given any sign of taking a hit. But then I suppose Monty never had either, and he was beaten by our father for years. Or perhaps it’s just easy not to see if you aren’t looking. Herr Hoffman adjusts his wig, the part down the middle a pale line like a surgical thread pulled taught. “I suggest you not employ negresses, madam. They’re slippery and treacherous.”

“That’s a very grand statement,” I reply.

“If you had worked with as many African sailors as I have, you’d be suspicious as well.” I start, thinking for a moment he knows Sim is a sailor before I realize he’s talking about his shipping company. “Come along, Johanna.”

Johanna casts me an apologetic look over her shoulder as her uncle drags her away. “What about Max?”

“I’ll put him in your room,” I say quickly, for her uncle looks ready to strike her as well were they not about to walk into polite company. I hook two fingers under the bow around Max’s neck, then realize that is hardly enough and instead use both my hands to tug him back to my side. He whines, claws pulling up the rug as Johanna and her uncle disappear down the stairs.

“Go with Felicity,” Johanna calls. Max only cries louder.

“Come on, you enormous wrinkle.” I heave so hard I hear my shoulder joint pop. Max responds by lying down, a dead weight made possible to drag only by the fact that his fur is very slippery upon the polished wood floor. But I am not dragging this reluctantly dragged behemoth anywhere, particularly because in the process, he is leaving enough hair behind that two other dogs could be fashioned from it.

“Max.” I let go of the bow and instead make a fist, which I hold out to him. “What if I told you I had a treat for you in this hand?”

He sits up at once, tail thumping and all abandonment forgotten, then stands and follows me as I back down the hallway. I lead him into Johanna’s room, then open my hand and let his nose, the size of my palm, make a thorough exploration to be certain there’s nothing there. The thought of food got him salivating, and when he snorts and pulls his snout away, my hands are thick with slimy drool. The whole affair is a bit like being lovingly caressed by a dead fish.

I’m about to go when Max lets out a low woof, more threat to it than I’ve heard from him before. I turn back from the doorway as Max growls again.

Sim is standing at Johanna’s writing desk, the drawers open and their contents strewn over the top. She has a ring of thin files looped around one thumb, the metal picks clinking against each other like coins. Her sleeves are pushed up past her elbows, and I get a flash of that pirate ink in the crook of her elbow, a dagger running parallel to her veins, capped by a crown.

I have interrupted a burglary.

Sim must have frozen when I opened the door, for we stare at each other from across the room. I wonder if she’s armed, that marlinespike or worse within her reach. I wonder if I should run. But I’ve seen her, and she’s seen me, and she knows where I sleep. Running won’t change any of that.

Max lets out another ominous woof from deep within his chest. If there is to be a fight, at least I have the heaviest thing in the room on my side.

“Sim. What are you doing?” I say, trying to keep my voice as low and even as I can, though I’m reaching for the doorknob behind my back.

She doesn’t answer. The hard line of her jaw pops as she grinds her teeth.

“Are you stealing from the Hoffmans? Is that why you came here? You fed me nonsense about that book so that I wouldn’t notice you were a thief?”

“Let me explain,” she says, but I don’t give her a chance. Behind my back, my hand finds the door latch, and I spin around, trying to throw it open and bolt, only to find Max’s not insignificant rump is entirely in my way. The door bounces straight off him and slams again.

Sim launches herself across the room and grabs me, trying to pull me back into the room and away from the door. I have no idea what she intends to do once she has me where she wants me, so I take an example from Max and throw my dead weight in opposition. Instead of trying to pull me up, she tackles me, launching me backward so that we both smash into the wardrobe hard enough that it rattles against the wall. Inside, I hear something fall off a shelf and shatter, and the noxious scent of spilled rose water blooms around us, so thick we both cough.

Sim’s scrabbling behind me, trying to keep me pinned and reach the desk as well, and I’m almost sure she’s groping for some sort of weapon. While I don’t know much about fighting, I do know how revolting drool is, so I reach up and clap her face between my hands, still thick with Max’s saliva.

She yanks away from me. “God, what is that? That’s disgusting.”

I take a great lungful of air, ready to shout thief, but Sim leaps again, this time toward the desk. She snatches a single letter off it, the seal cracked in half and its folds fluttering, then bolts for the door.

I seize her by the back of the dress and yank hard. There’s a ripping sound as her skirt tears away from her waistband. She seems willing to leave her modesty behind if it means escaping—she’s still pulling for the door—so I adjust my grip and instead fasten my arms around her waist and we both crash to the ground again. There’s another ripping sound as we fall, this one from my dress, and I feel my mannish shoulders break through the stitching where the sleeves connect to the bodice.