Deceiving The Duke (Scandals and Spies Book 2) (3 page)

P
hil’s heart
hammered so fiercely, it was a wonder it didn’t carve its way out of her chest. Frantically, she turned the pockets of her men’s jacket inside out. Her waistcoat earned the same treatment. A single prism bit into her bare palm; she couldn’t find the mate.

Canting her head, she hollered, “Meg!”

Where was her maid? Maybe Phil was searching the wrong jacket. If Meg had washed it in the two days since the Society meeting, she might have put the other prism somewhere else. After calling her maid’s name again, Phil searched the drawers of her vanity, thinking that it might have been misplaced in there.

“Phil?”

The call was thin and weak; Phil barely heard it.

“I’m in the bedchamber,” she yelled back. “Come here a moment!”

The noise that followed sounded uncannily closer to bird wings than it did to the slap of slippers on the wood floor. The sound ceased as abruptly as it began. Phil turned toward the open doorway, but no one appeared. She exhaled sharply with irritation. “Me—”

She scarcely began her maid’s name before a sing-song voice pierced the air. It did not at all resemble that of her maid.

“You’re…in…a…
pickle!
” The words dragged through the air, stretched to their limit until, at the last, the parrot thrust his head through the top frame of the door, where he must have perched on the other side. The bird’s beak was parted in his version of a grin.

Phil shook her head, unable to keep from smiling. “Indeed I am, Pickle. Which is why I called for Meg and not you. You’re no help at all in a crisis.”

Taking no offense, the bird spread his scarlet wings and soared into the room. For a moment, as he crossed the velvet drapes shielding the bed, he camouflaged so well that the indigo and emerald feathers in his wingtips and tail seemed to move independently. Stirring the air with his vigorous wingbeats, he settled onto the broad perch next to the vanity, installed for his use. Phil had others like it in every room in the manor. The window, facing west, poured in a vibrant orange light that made Pickle look as though he was aflame.

“Have you seen Meg?” Phil lifted her forest green, silk skirt above her ankles as she slipped her feet into the thickly-embroidered slippers resting on the Oriental rug. She crossed to the doorway, her heels clicking as she passed on to the wood floor. A few servants passed through the halls, the footman in the olive-and-white St. Gobain livery, but none resembled her mousy young maid. Phil called her name again, to no avail.

When she turned, she found Pickle examining the prism she had set on the vanity for a moment. He grasped it in his beak, running his tongue across it.

“No, Pickle, drop that at once! It wouldn’t make a very good meal.” She dashed across the length of the lavish room, startling her pet into flight. He flew over her head and dove out of her bedchamber and into the corridor.

Hiking her skirt to her knees, Phil raced after him. “Pickle, give that back. I need it for a very important project.”

One of the most important projects that she’d ever worked on. Upon her father’s death, she’d discovered that all the designs for his inventions had been contained in his mind. He hadn’t entrusted anything to paper. All she had left of the mind she’d adored so much were the remnants of his past inventions—at least, the ones he hadn’t taken with him that fateful day he’d gone to demonstrate his talent. The handful that remained proved an enigma to her as she puzzled out their construction. With the LEGs, she was on the cusp of success.

If
she could find the second prism, and
if
Pickle didn’t accidentally break the one he carried.

Flapping his wings, spanning over three feet from tip to tip, Pickle soared down the hall and smoothly turned through another open door. Phil skidded in after him a second later.

He’d taken refuge in her secret invention room. The door—an archway with a section of the wall that flipped open upon the press of a hidden switch—had been left open when she’d rushed to retrieve the prisms. Devoid of windows, the secret room was lit entirely by small, glass-paned lanterns to prevent their falling and wreaking havoc on the inventions. Even so, they were placed at intervals well out of reach of the rolled parchments she kept on one side of her work table along the wall. Instead, she placed them on the rare empty shelf in the jumble of machinery, glass, metal, wood, and other materials. Most of the materials were being used for one device or another. The inventions, in various stages of completion, some her own design and some an attempt to replicate one of her father’s, were strewn across the room in a jumble of organized chaos, one that Meg often chided was decipherable only to Phil. In the center of the room, a wide perch with a basin beneath—Meg’s attempt to confine Pickle’s droppings—served as the parrot’s throne.

However, instead of sitting his rump on that, he flew to the wide work table. Dropping beside the brown paper-wrapped parcel she’d set there, he abandoned the prism in favor of chewing on the twine. She snatched up the prism, turning it over in her hand to verify that it hadn’t chipped. Either Pickle had been unusually delicate in his handling, or the glass was much less fragile than Phil feared.

With her free hand, she shooed the bird away from the parcel. “Stop that, you. That’s delicate.”

Cocking his head in indignation, the bird spread his wings and glided to the stand in the middle of the room. As he got there, he told her, “Your feet smell like…
pickles
.”

“I certainly hope not.”

Cackling, the parrot bobbed his head in circles, repeating the word
pickles
all the while.

She stuck her tongue out at him. “It’s a lucky thing I’m wearing shoes and no one can smell my feet, you big turkey.”

“You’re a turkey.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “That’s not very original now, is it?”

“You’re original.”

“Why, thank you. I do try.” Pursing her lips, she turned to the parcel. “You did have a good idea, for once. Maybe I stuffed one of the prisms in with the LEGs.”

“You’re a leg.”

With a wry look at the bird, who was now grooming his wing, she informed him, “No, my dear. I
have
legs.”

He twisted his head to study her with one golden eye. “I have legs.” As if to demonstrate, he lifted one of them and curled his claws into his belly.

“Indeed, you do.”

When she unwrapped the parcel, he set down both his legs and spread his wings. She whisked the twine into the embroidered reticule hanging from her wrist, out of sight.

“Oh, no. You stay over there.”

He froze with his wings half-spread and strained his neck, as if to see where she’d put the string. “What’s over there?”

“You are,” she told him with a smirk.

The witticism was lost on him.

The paper crinkled as she opened it, speaking to her pet at the same time. “You can’t have the twine, my dear. You might swallow it and choke. Even if you don’t, it will feel exceedingly odd coming out your other end.”

Pickle squawked, indignant. “How do you know?”

“I’m extrapolating, based on the assumption that you won’t be able to digest it properly.” She shook her head. Sometimes, he sounded as intelligent as a human.

“Meg ate the cackling cheat!”

Other times, he said things like that. Though Phil would be interested to know which of Meg’s brothers had taught Pickle
that
particular phrase.

A huff sounded at the doorway. When Phil turned her head, her hands still on the parcel, she found Meg glaring at the parrot. Meagan O’Neill, one of the many O’Neills employed by the St. Gobain family, had been with the family ever since they had arrived in London. Granted, then she had been far too young to work and had been Jared’s playmate instead, as they were closer in age. The moment she’d grown old enough to do steady work, she’d latched onto Phil. When Phil had made her bows as a marriageable young woman, she had begged Meg to take up the position of her lady’s maid despite the fact that she was four years older than Meg. She’d never regretted the decision. Whether she needed a hairdresser or a confidante, Meg was always close at hand.

After brushing her pale brown hair away from her heavily-freckled cheek, Meg jabbed her finger at the bird. The other hand scrunched around a pair of silk, white gloves. “If I cared to eat you, I’d take you down to mam first and have her roast you. Then you wouldn’t be singing no song, I’d say.”

Pickle whistled, innocent-looking. When he unfolded his wings, looking like he might take flight, Meg flinched and shuffled from the doorway into the corner, beside the work table. Pickle cackled.

“You did no one any favors when you brought that blighted bird home with you.” Meg’s voice was weak, her freckles stark against her milk-pale skin.

Phil shrugged. Meg constantly lobbied for her to get rid of the parrot, but Pickle amused her. And despite his occasional threats, he never bit or landed on Meg. Though the latter might be due to the fact that whenever he took to the air, Meg hid beneath the nearest table. She was only brave from across the room.

As Phil lifted the goggles from the paper, she didn’t find a prism beneath. She set the one in her hand down on the rough wooden work table. “Have you seen another bit of glass like this? I’m sure I put it in my jacket when I left the Society meeting the other night.”

Sidling closer, Meg didn’t take her eyes off the parrot. Even her irises were pale, to match the rest of her. A light, icy blue, much darker than Phil’s storm-cloud-blue eyes. Meg licked her lips before she answered the inquiry.

“You only had the one in there. I set it on your writing desk when I cleaned the tailcoat.”

Phil sighed. “That’s where I found this one. Maybe I took it out and put it on the work table for some reason?”

Muttering under her breath, she systematically searched the table from end to end. Meg ventured out of the corner, hovering at Phil’s elbow as she alternately tried to convince Phil to give up the venture and argued with the parrot. Phil tuned the pair of them out. When she reached the end of the table only to come up empty handed, she started along the shelves.

Beside her, Meg wrung the gloves in her hands. “I do not smell like pickles, you overgrown canary!”

Phil fought the urge to grin. She pressed her lips together until she had herself under control. Pickle loosed a rude whistle.

“You know pickle is his favorite word.”

Meg made a face. It scrunched her freckles together until they looked twice as big. “Then maybe you shouldn’t have named him that.”

Absently, Phil answered, “It’s a bit too late to undo it, now.”

She cut a beeline across the room, heading for another shelving unit. Meg skirted the edge, giving the perch and parrot a wide berth.

As her friend rejoined her, Phil added, “Besides, he was in a pickle when I met him, thanks to that horrid old hag. The word seemed to amuse him.”

“It still does,” Meg grumbled.

No prisms caught Phil’s eye. She sighed. Where had she put it? She had one, so the other had to be around here somewhere.

Meg caught her arm as she turned away. “Maybe now isn’t the best time to search. In fact, you should put on some gloves, I think.” She held up the pair in her hand. “And I’ll fix your hair.”

“My hair is fine.”

Meg raised her pale eyebrows. “It’s falling free of your pins again.”

“So? Let it fall. In fact, let’s take it out.”

The young woman rolled her eyes. “I doubt your guests would appreciate your unkempt appearance.”

Phil frowned. “What guests?”

“You forgot that it’s Monday, didn’t you?”

Phil pressed her lips together.

Meg sighed. “The ball?”

“Hell and damnation!” Phil snatched the gloves from her hand and tugged them on.

Pickle reacted to her vehemence, flapping his wings with a vigorous
thwap-thwap-thwap
as he clutched his perch and repeated the expletive.

Phil prayed for patience. “You shouldn’t say that, my dear. It’s rude.”

“Hell and damnation!”

Wonderful. Now he would be repeating it all the night through and her guests would think her savage.

With a sigh, she turned her back to Meg, who was an inch or two taller than her. With a brisk, businesslike touch, Meg coiled the tendrils of Phil’s auburn hair escaping the coif and pinned them in place. The moment she finished, Phil turned toward the door.

“Have the guests started to arrive?”

“About half an hour ago.” Meg gave Phil a pointed look. “I’ve been searching for you ever since. I should have known to look in the invention room.”

Phil patted her shoulder, the signal for Pickle to fly over. The moment he launched from his perch, Meg squeaked and ducked into the corridor.

“Don’t let him—”

Pickle’s wing buffeted Phil’s coif as he landed on her left shoulder. His claws dug into the thin silk and her flesh beneath. Stifling a wince, she tapped his foot to tell him to ease up. As he settled his wings into a half-folded position for balance, he loosened his clutch on her.

Meg sighed. “That dress cost a fortune. If he soils it…”

Phil shut the door to the invention room. Pickle ran his beak lightly over the shell of her ear, tasting the curve with his tongue. When he reached where the top fused with her skull, he relinquished the exploration and butted her cheek with his beak instead.

“Kiss, kiss.”

As requested, she gave him a peck on the beak.

Meg scowled. “You two deserve each other.”

Phil tickled the parrot’s chest as she grinned. “I certainly think so.”

The maid rolled her eyes. “If you need my help after he ruins your hair or your dress, I’ll be in the kitchen playing loo.”

Phil shrugged with the shoulder not currently weighed down by her pet. “You know I don’t much care about my appearance.”

“You might decide otherwise after you meet the guests. You have a duke in attendance tonight.”

Phil’s stomach lurched. She stopped walking as her knees turned weak. Surely Meg didn’t mean…

No. The Duke of Tenwick had never attended one of her balls before. He couldn’t have connected her to the man he’d met at the club, either. She hadn’t given him her name. No, it had to be someone else.