A few weeks ago, when they had all gone to a donkey race, Mr. Delacorte had intimated that Mr. Pike had a sweetheart. This news had unexpectedly landed like an anvil on Dot’s heart.
It had been quite a revelation for her, in more ways than one.
She had not quite regained her footing around Mr. Pike in the aftermath. She felt, oddly, as though he had gotten the better of her. She had not expected to feel like poor Apollo, heartsore over Daphne, a tree.
Violets firmly clutched, she took a long gliding step in the little shower of rainbows, closed her eyes, and rotated, imagining she was Daphne. “Now I’m a tree,” she whispered.
She opened her eyes to discover Mr. Pike frozen on the stairs, wearing an expression of utter bemusement.
Her face was instantly scorching.
They stared at each other.
“Good morning, Mr. Pike.”
“Good morning, Dot. What are you doing?”
The trouble with Mr. Pike was that he was not shy about asking awkward questions. Such as when he’d discovered her rubbing lamps in the sitting room, and she’d been forced to tell him it was because she wanted to ascertain whether they might be harboring any genies. One never knew, after all.
“I was just about to replace the flowers in the vase in the reception room,” she said with dignity. She gestured with the violets.v
“I see. Does this require turning about three times with your eyes closed?”
She paused. “Sometimes,” she decided to say, cagily.
He bit back a smile. “I thought I heard you say something about a ‘tree,’?” he persisted.
Finally she sighed. “In the sitting room at night we’ve been reading Greek myths. Peneus turns Daphne into a tree to save her from Apollo’s, ah, attentions.” Her blush renewed itself. She said all these things as if Peneus and Daphne and Apollo were people with whom Pike might be acquainted.
He took this in.
“Shame on that Apollo,” Mr. Pike finally said. “He sounds like a brute.”
“He was heartsore,” Dot explained.
“Oh.” Pike was confused. “I was just on my way down from having a look for drafts on the third floor,” he volunteered.
One candle in a specific sconce on the third floor persisted in mysteriously snuffing out, and it was particularly maddening to Mrs. Hardy. Dot could have told them the search for the cause was futile; obviously it was ghosts.
“Mr. Pike... do you think you’ll always be a footman?” she asked suddenly. “Or will you ever transform into something else?”
He blinked. “That eager to be rid of me, are you?” he said dryly. He hesitated. “Mr. Hawkes did mention to me once that he thought I would do well working for the Alien Office.” He’d lowered his voice. “In intelligence.”
Dot was surprised. Mr. Christian Hawkes—now styled Viscount Redvers—was a former renowned spymaster who had come to stay at the Grand Palace on the Thames. Pike had once worked for a very wicked earl, and Hawkes was able to send the earl to prison for a terrible crime in part because of Pike’s help.
Suddenly she was sorry she’d asked. The possibility of Mr. Pike leaving to become something else seemed as awful as the possibility of him having a sweetheart. Inconveniently, she did not want to imagine either thing. But imagining was what she did best. She couldn’t seem to help it.
“I think that would be a very fine thing,” she said bravely. Because it was the kind thing to say, and she thought it would be true. No one had better shoulders for a career involving catching enemy spies.
She was glad she’d said it, because he looked very flattered.
“What about you, Dot? Do you think you’ll always be a...” He trailed off, as if he could not quite find the right word for whatever Dot was.
She hesitated.
“I might want to be a story writer.” She almost whispered it.
This little inspiration had been germinating for some time. She’d never told this to another soul. She’d never even dared say it aloud to herself.