“I very much noticed. But it’s my library!”

“You haven’t been using it.”

“That doesn’t mean you should be fornicating in here. This is a sacred space.”

Primrose turned to Rue. “Fornicating? In a library! Oh, Rue.”

Tasherit remained perturbed by something Primrose had said and didn’t care about Rue’s indiscretions. Well, to be fair, she wasn’t British. She didn’t think the same way.

“Wait a moment.” Rue was struck with confusion. “Tasherit, what are you doing awake?”

“Oh, didn’t you notice?” Percy was snide. “We’ve puffed out of the grey. Occupied with something else?” He gave Quesnel a nasty look.

Quesnel issued a smug smile at Percy.

Tasherit said, “Did you know Primrose was engaged?”

The question wasn’t addressed to anyone in particular, so Rue, Percy, and Quesnel all nodded.

“Was I the only one not told?” The werecat did not look honoured by the exception. “Odd to be so singled out.”

“I hadn’t seen you to tell you.” Never had Rue known Primrose to lie in such a barefaced manner.

“Fiddlesticks!” The word sounded exotic with Tasherit’s accent. “You’ve been avoiding me this entire journey. When I haven’t been asleep.”

Rue’s, Quesnel’s, and Percy’s focus bounced back and forth between the combatants as though watching a badminton match.

Prim went on the defensive. “If you wouldn’t press me so!”

Tasherit’s beautiful face came over all inscrutable. “I enjoy your company. I hardly think that pressure.”

Footnote made an appearance at that juncture, ambling up in a welcoming manner until he spotted Tasherit, at which point his tail bristled up like a bottlebrush and he hissed.

The werecat sniffed. “Well, I know when I’m not wanted.”

Despite Quesnel’s and Rue’s protestations, she exited the library with graceful finality.

Rue said to Footnote, although she was really addressing Primrose, “You’re a bit tough on our stunning friend. She is a valuable member of my crew, you know.”

Footnote subsided into a loaf position, looking like an upended Christmas pudding with interested ears.

Percy leapt to his cat’s defence. “He’s entitled to his own opinion.”

Rue could hardly argue with that. “You’d best be wary, moggie. She is much bigger than you. Could easily turn you into an Endnote.”

The little black and white tom twitched his whiskers.

Percy said staunchly, “He’s tougher than he appears.”

Rue looked at Primrose. Enough time had passed for her to calm down a bit. “What on earth is wrong, Prim?”

Primrose closed her eyes. “Arguing with that woman is like fighting a blancmange. Press too lightly and she only wobbles, press too hard and you get engulfed into her squishy mindset. It’s disconcerting.”

Rue muttered, “Blancmanges have squishy mindsets?”

Percy explained the situation to Footnote. “My dear sister doesn’t like people she can’t manage, organise, and categorise. I’m thinking our feline friend there defies all attempts.”

Prim narrowed her eyes. “No one is interested in your opinion, Percy.”

“Footnote is, aren’t you, Footnote?” Her brother did not look up from the cat.

Footnote merped at him.

“Quite right,” said Percy. “You are the only intelligent conversation to be found on this ship.”

“Percy, be fair,” remonstrated Rue. “He’s the only one you condescend to talk to.”

“And have certain persons steal my ideas again? I think not.”

“For the last time,” said Quesnel, “it wasn’t your idea to have stolen.”

Primrose raised both her hands. “Please don’t start up again. It’s already been a trying day.”

“You don’t know the half of it, sister dear. You’ll never guess what I caught these two up to.” Percy glared at Rue.

“Unfortunately, I think I can guess. Rue is my best friend, after all.”

Quesnel blinked at Rue. “You told her?”

Rue didn’t see what he had to complain about. “Naturally I told her. What good is an education if it is kept to oneself?”

“That sounds like one of my lines.” Percy was, to be sure, ever eager to share his research into the world with the world.

Quesnel looked dubious. “You think she’ll benefit?”

Rue followed this reasoning. “Well, yes, if she persists in this foolhardy notion of an engagement. It follows that there will eventually be marriage. To a man.”

“You think she’ll go through with it?” Quesnel was surprised.

Primrose interjected. “I am engaged – of course I intend to go through with it!”

“You see?” said Rue.

Quesnel raised his eyebrows. “Curious.”

Primrose objected at any whiff of judgement. “No, it is not! I cannot believe you would take Tash… Miss Sekhmet’s side. Marriage is the correct course of action for any lady of quality. Just because she has odd notions about independence, and Percy is scared of women, and you two are playing out a protracted bout of scandal doesn’t mean I am equally outrageous in my feelings on conjugational formality!”

“Independence, is that what Tasherit calls it?” Rue kept herself from smiling. Prim did seem in some distress. Poor thing, she genuinely felt that she should do what was expected of her. What a horrible way to go through life.