Page 129 of Once a Villain
Outside, the fireworks bloomed again. “You know what I just realized?” Joan said wonderingly. “We haven’t been on a first date.” None of them had, in any configuration.
Aaron blinked. “A first date,” he said slowly. A hint of confidence returned to his face then, as if he already had some thoughts about what they could do.
“Do you have something in mind?” Nick said to him.
“I’ll tell you when we make it out,” Aaron said.
Joan bit back a smile of her own. “It’s a plan.”
As she said it, sparks of light rained down again from the sky. A wave of trepidation hit her, strong as a premonition. She took a breath, trying to shake the feeling off.
They were going to make it out, she told herself. All of them. They had to.
Joan cracked open the door and peered out. The passage at the top of the stairs was clear. They all slipped out of the library, and Nick and Aaron headed downstairs. Before Joan could follow, though, something caught her eye.
From here, at the top of the stairs, she had a clear view through the drawing room into the Gilt Room beyond.
Eleanor stood there in profile, her golden hair cascading down her back. She started to turn, and Joan flew down thestairs as silently as she could, heart pounding.
As she reached the bottom, her expression must have been grim, because Aaron and Nick both gave her alarmed looks.
“She’s here,” Joan said.
Thirty-Five
They regathered the others, strategizing on the run as they collected the weapons that they’d stashed behind the shed.
“She ambushed us last time,” Joan said. “Ourturn now.” She pictured the house and its most defendable rooms. They needed to corral Eleanor into a controllable space. “I want her in the Breakfast Room.”
“That room has three exits,” Jamie argued. He had maps of everything in his head. “Too easy for her to escape. And we could end up surrounded by guards.”
“But one of those exits goes to the China Room,” Joan said. Where all the crockery was kept. “That’s small and difficult to move around in—and if someone barges through, we’ll hear smashing plates. The second exit can be blocked off completely.” It had a movable wall that could be locked into place. “And the third comes out onto a landing on the principal staircase. Not much room for people to maneuver there either.”
Ruth chewed her lip, considering that. “Eleanor will think like you did, Jamie. That there are three ways out. She won’t expect to be trapped.”
“How do we get her in there?” Nick asked. “We need her to come more or less alone.”
“We lure her in,” Joan said.
Joan had been worried about how to clear the Breakfast Room, but Ruth just swept in with a Gran-like glare and barked, “Out!” She’d channeled some of Gran’s formidable presence, and the few chattering guests in the room must have concluded that she was someone with real clout. Who else would dare dismiss such powerful people like that?
As soon as the room was empty, Joan and the others worked quickly. The Breakfast Room was a small, hall-like space that had once been the front entrance of the house. There was still a huge recessed bay window to the south—a miniature sunroom—where the door and porch had been. The view outside showed the terrace and South Garden. Snow stood in the air, unmoving, in the moonlight.
The room’s interior was exactly as Joan had remembered—richly decorated, the walls shimmering with Genoese silk and velvet brocade in crimson and gold, with floor-to-ceiling panels depicting Roman gods. The exits were great marble arches with heavy wooden doors.
Ruth and Aaron guarded two of the exits now, while Jamie and Joan blocked off the third, sliding the movable wall into place and driving its heavy metal bolts into the floor, locking it. Then they went to help Nick and Tom carry the large dining table and chairs to the far end of the room to clear the space of obstacles.
After that, Joan and Jamie set up the bait.
Jamie drew from his pocket the device that had been used to record the message from Nick’s counterpart. It was a tiny thingin his palm—a piece of white plastic the size of Joan’s thumbnail.
Jamie’s brow furrowed as he recorded something new on it—one of his perfect memories. Joan felt a strange pang at the thought that they were overwriting the original message with the love note; it had been one of the last remnants of the counterparts.
She busied herself with rearranging the recessed sunroom, placing chairs and lamps at the edges of the glass walls, making a stage for Jamie’s recording. When she was done, she found the others watching. They’d all been working in semidarkness—most of the curtains closed—so that no one outside could see in. Now, in the silence, the sounds of the house around them seemed loud. Joan could hear people walking in the Gilt Room above; people moving up and down the stairs.
“Are we ready?” she asked softly. Nerves prickled through her as she spoke. Eleanor had always been ten steps ahead every time they’d confronted her. Would she anticipate this too, or would Joan and the others finally get the jump on her?
“Not quite.” Nick went over to the fireplace. A large, decorative sword had been set above it. He took it down now and tested the blade against his finger. The gleam of red said that it was sharp.
