Besides. Monk said he liked her hair the way it was.
When she returned to the office, she found Sir Alec pensive by the window, Rupert seated in the client armchair, Reg eyeing the pair of them suspiciously from her vantage point on the ram skull, and her desk alarmingly empty of cat.
“Where’s Boris?”
“Threw himself headfirst out of the window,” said Reg. “But he landed on his feet, worse luck.”
She rolled her eyes. “If I thought for a moment you actually meant that…”
“Ha,” said Reg, and fluffed out her feathers. “How would you know what I do or don’t mean, ducky? Seeing as I’ve only been here five minutes.”
Uncomfortably aware of Sir Alec’s sudden, pinpoint scrutiny, Melissande feigned an attack of deafness. “Does anyone want tea?”
“No,” said Sir Alec. “Miss Cadwallader, word has reached me that there is a credible threat to the Splotze-Borovnik wedding. Without going into details, let me just say that the Ottosland government has good reason to fear the consequences, should anything go wrong during the upcoming nuptials. Therefore it falls to me and my Department to nip this threat in the bud.”
“And to me, it seems.”
Reluctantly, Sir Alec nodded. “Yes. And to you. Indeed, without your assistance I fail to see a solution to the problem.”
Oh. Feeling cornered, Melissande looked at her brother. “And Rupert? What has any of this to do with him?”
“His Majesty is here because-”
“Thank you, Sir Alec,” said Rupert, with the merest hint of a bite. “Best you let me handle this.” He smiled, but his washy blue eyes were serious. “Melly, darling, do sit down and I’ll explain.”
Heart sinking, she perched on the edge of her desk. “Please, Rupes, don’t tell me he’s got you tangled up in his dreadful janitoring business too.”
“Only very slightly around the edges, I promise.” Leaning forward, Rupert braced his elbows on his knees and steepled his fingers. “Insofar as he needs me to ask you to attend the Splotze-Borovnik wedding as New Ottosland’s representative.”
“Rupes…” Melissande shook her head. “You’ve already asked me, remember? It was thanks but no thanks then, and it’s thanks but no thanks now.”
“Yes, well, the thing is, you see, Melly, now Sir Alec needs you to say yes, please.”
“But why?” she said, resisting the urge to glare at Sir Alec. “I mean, what possible use is it for me to attend the wedding? It’s not as though I can go romping about Splotze pretending to be a janitor.”
Rupert shifted in his chair, uncomfortable. “No, indeed, Melly, you certainly can’t.”
“Under any circumstances,” said Sir Alec. “Let me make that perfectly clear. No. One of my agents will accompany you.”
“I see,” she said, willing herself not to snap at his highhanded attitude. “And I take it you expect me to slide him into the wedding party without any awkward questions being asked?”
“Precisely.”
So, she was to be a stalking horse. How glamorous. “And when you say one of my agents, d’you mean the agent already stationed in Splotze? I take it there is one.”
Sir Alec’s grey gaze was cool and watchful. “Yes. But he is currently… unavailable.”
The hint of tension in his voice had her skin crawling. Oh, damn. There’s trouble. And now I know where this is going. “You’re sending Gerald.”
“I assume you have no objection.”
Reg broke her silence to rattle her tail feathers, ominously. “Well if she doesn’t, I do. If I were you, Mister Smarty Pants, I’d be thinking twice about sending my Gerald anywhere. Given the givens of recent events.”
“I agree,” Melissande said, nodding. “It’s too soon to send him off janitoring again.”
Sir Alec stared at her, his gaze abruptly glacial. “In your opinion.”
“Melly,” said Rupert, sounding uneasy, “perhaps it’s not your place to question how Sir Alec conducts the affairs of his Department.”
“It’s all right, Your Majesty,” said Sir Alec. “Your sister is simply expressing her concern for a friend.”
“A concern I’d have thought you’d share, Sir Alec,” she pointed out. “Gerald might be a rogue wizard, but that doesn’t make him indestructible.”
“No. It makes him unique,” Sir Alec said, very clipped. “And under the circumstances, Miss Cadwallader, unique is what I require. Like it or not, and largely thanks to your connection to both him and the Crown Prince of Splotze, Mister Dunwoody is the most suitable agent for this assignment.” His cool grey gaze flicked to Reg. “Various givens notwithstanding.”
Melissande felt a fresh warning prickle on the back of her neck. Something was going on here between Reg and Sir Alec and Gerald was in the middle of it, of that she had no doubt. It was why the bird had stayed out all night, and why she was now giving Sir Alec a look fit to turn a lesser man to wilted compost.
“Besides, Reg,” Sir Alec added, undaunted, “I can’t think of anyone who appreciates more completely than you do, the need for good men and women to stand against evil. And considering present company, that’s saying something. Don’t you agree?”
Reg looked down her beak at him. “I don’t recall saying you shouldn’t make a stand, sunshine. But you can’t ask me to believe Gerald’s the only man you know with legs.”
“Mister Dunwoody is not a child,” Sir Alec said sharply. “And I very much doubt he’d want you treating him like one.” He turned. “Or you, Miss Cadwallader.”
Well, he was right about that much at least. Drat the man. Melissande shifted her accusing stare to Rupert. “And you’re prepared to go along with this, are you?”
Rupert shrugged. “I’m here.”
Ha. And to think she’d been happy to see him. Resentful, she glowered at Sir Alec. “So… assuming I do this, how would it work? I attend the wedding in my official capacity as Princess Melissande of New Ottosland, representing His Majesty King Rupert, and Gerald tags along as-what, exactly?”
“Some kind of minion, I’d have thought,” said Sir Alec, eyebrow lifted again. “Royalty is always breaking out in minions, isn’t it?”
She bit her lip, thinking. “Well, I suppose at a pinch I could call him my secretary. Although why I’d need to take a secretary to a wedding, I’m sure I don’t know.”
“You’re forgetting, Mel,” said Rupert. “It’s not just the wedding. There’s the wedding tour beforehand.”
Oh, lord. Of course. “But-but the tour is slated to last for days!” she protested. “I can’t possibly leave the agency to fend for itself. Not for days. Not with just Bibbie to sail the ship. She’d capsize it before lunch.”
Reg snorted. “Not to mention no princess worth her tiara is going to travel anywhere with nothing but an unattached young man as her escort. You try pulling a stunt like that, ducky, and they’ll turf you out of the international princess club faster than you can say Oy, you there, how about a curtsey, then?”
“Actually, Sir Alec, that’s perfectly true,” said Rupert, disconcerted. “What Melissande gets up to here in the Old Country as plain Miss Cadwallader is rather winked at back home. Out of sight, out of mind, y’know. But if she’s going to Splotze as Her Royal Highness, well, she simply cannot flout tradition. There would be… repercussions.”
“Lord Billingsley and his decrepit cronies?” Melissande pulled a face. “Honestly, Rupert, it really is past time you pensioned them off.”
Sir Alec cleared his throat, lightly. “Perhaps Miss Markham might care to play the role of royal lady’s maid in this particular production?”
“What?” She slid off the edge of her desk. “Sir Alec, are you stark raving bonkers? Bibbie as a lady’s maid? Bibbie to walk three steps behind me, curtseying every time I hiccup? Emmerabiblia Markham? Tell me, have you met her?”
“Miss Cadwallader, I-”
“And anyway, if you rope me and Bibbie into this nonsense, along with Gerald, that means there is no more Witches Inc. I’d have to close the doors. And I won’t do that, I’ve worked- we’ve worked-too hard for too long and-”