The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows - Olivia Waite Page 0,110

a sheet of paper; it faded into near-invisibility, until the paper was held up close to a candle. Then the beer would burn, and the hidden letters reappear. “Nell and I would set up a batch of broadsides special,” Emma said, as she poured them tea in her cozy kitchen, “and then hand them out the night before whatever it was we were planning.” She shook her head. “I was thinking of approaching Mr. Biswas to help, now that Nell’s gone.”

“No need to wait,” Agatha said. “It won’t look too odd if I take over for a night or two.”

“Then I can tell you who to give them to,” Mrs. Koskinen said.

“Why did you never tell me this before?” Penelope asked.

Mrs. Koskinen’s gaze was steady. “You were always good friends with Mr. Oliver,” she said. “It seemed like too big a risk.”

“Well,” said Penelope after a moment. “I’m just impressed you were able to keep such a secret for so long, in this town.”

Mrs. Koskinen’s answering smile was proud and sly.

They would need only a few hands for the work: Harry and John were happy enough to offer help, and Mr. Thomas and Mr. Kitt were high on Mrs. Koskinen’s list of reliable troublemakers. Agatha distributed code-marked ballads using the same system Nell had, and nobody was any the wiser. Penelope’s list of equipment gave way to hasty preparations—wheelbarrows and makeshift bee veils and a truly alarming number of heavy gloves—and the next evening Penelope kept a careful eye on the sun as it sank, and the moon as it slowly but steadily rose in the sky like heaven’s benediction on her plans.

Harry only grinned when she pointed out it was full, and would help light their way. “You sound like Mother used to, when her blood was up.”

Penelope preened beneath the compliment.

They waited, in separate homes, while the bells of St. Ambrose’s tolled eight, nine, ten. At half-past eleven, the conspirators all gathered behind the churchyard: Agatha and Penelope, Harry and John, and Mr. Kitt, all in dark clothes, lower faces masked, muslin veils bundled high on hats and heads. They looked oddly ornate and festive, as though the ancient Melliton dead had risen from their graves for an eldritch moonlit picnic among the headstones.

Silently, Penelope waved her friends to follow, and they crept up the long, high hill.

When the bells struck midnight, the sound covered the noise of the Abington Hall garden gate squeaking open.

The smoker hissed like a miniature dragon as Penelope wreathed all six hives in soothing pine-and-lavender smoke. Half the garden’s plants were dug up already, she noted with affronted fury: the rows of strawberries and hyssop were gone, and the honeysuckle torn up by the roots and left stretched out on the ground like a bevy of lovesick maidens.

When the smoke had taken effect, Penelope waved the others forward, and they went about stealing the hives.

One slumbering skep went into the bottom of each wheelbarrow, a straw cover placed over its open base to protect the drowsy bees dozing in their combs. A board went over the top of the barrow, and another skep could be balanced on top of that, with twine quickly lashing it in place so as not to tip over on the journey.

The six hives were loaded up in silence, and the thieves wound their silent way back through the labyrinth and to the garden gate. Penelope caught Agatha’s eye, and saw her grinning silver in the dimness. For one glorious, moonlit moment, Penelope’s heart soared with triumph.

Then a shadow loomed in a window, and a cry went up from the house.

They were discovered.

“Go!” Penelope hissed.

Harry took off with the first barrow, bounding down the hill and into the woods, where it would take a bloodhound to trace him. Footmen and gardeners poured out of the Hall, carrying any handy weapons and shouting “Thieves! Burglars! Murder!” indiscriminately into the night. Mr. Kitt, steering the second barrow down the hill as skillfully as if it were a ship under sail, made it safely to the wood line, with Agatha and Penelope pelting after and ducking beneath the dark protection of alder and pine.

Penelope clutched the rough bark and turned frightened eyes upon her husband, who was doing his best with the third wheelbarrow. But he was so tall, and the barrow tilted more boldly forward in his hands, and as she watched with bated breath, the front wheel of the barrow hit a rock and staggered, dumping the top skep from