Series: Veronica Speedwell # 4Format: Hardcover, 336 pages
Release Date: March 12th 2019
Publisher: Berkley Books
Source: Publisher
Genre: Mystery & Detective / Historical
Veronica Speedwell returns in another adventure filled with secrets and betrayal from Deanna Raybourn, the New York Times bestselling author of the Lady Julia Grey Mysteries.
Victorian adventuress Veronica Speedwell is whisked off to a remote island off the tip of Cornwall when her natural historian colleague Stoker’s brother calls in a favor. On the pretext of wanting a companion to accompany him to Lord Malcolm Romilly’s house party, Tiberius persuades Veronica to pose as his fiancée—much to Stoker’s chagrin. But upon arriving, it becomes clear that the party is not as innocent as it had seemed. Every invited guest has a connection to Romilly’s wife, Rosamund, who disappeared on her wedding day three years ago, and a dramatic dinner proves she is very much on her husband’s mind.
As spectral figures, ghostly music, and mysterious threats begin to plague the partygoers, Veronica enlists Stoker’s help to discover the host’s true motivations. And as they investigate, it becomes clear that there are numerous mysteries surrounding the Romilly estate, and every person present has a motive to kill Rosamund…
A Dangerous Collaboration is the fourth installment in author Deanna Raybourn's Veronica Speedwell series. If you are unfamiliar with this series, it is a historical mystery series set in Victorian England, featuring intrepid adventuress and sleuth Veronica Speedwell who loves Arcadia Brown's adventures. Having once again won the day in the previous installment called A Treacherous Curse, 26-year old Lepidopterist Veronica Speedwell decides to take a break.
A break that lasts 6 months and puts a strain on her relationship with Revelstoke (Stoker) Templeton-Vane her partner in the past 3 books. Upon return, Veronica finds her self drawn to yet another mystery when Lord Tiberius Templeton-Vane asks her to accompany him to Lord Malcolm Romilly’s house party off the coast of Cornwall. Tiberius persuades
Veronica to pose as his fiancée—much to Stoker’s chagrin. Upon
arriving, it becomes clear that the party is not as innocent as it had
seemed.
Every invited guest, except Veronica and Stoker, had a connection to Romilly’s wife,
Rosamund, who disappeared on her wedding day three years ago. The mystery in this one is especially interesting because it takes place
on a small island, somewhat akin to a locked-room mystery, as it would
be nearly impossible for the missing person to have left the island -
alive or dead - without someone having helped and others having noticed.
Yet it's been three years and she disappeared without a trace. What
happened to her? Why? Who knows the truth?
Even though Stoker and Veronica were often at odds due to what was presumed to have happened when she was gone, there are no better partners. Yes, there's Sherlock and Holmes, but Stoker and Veronica bring an entirely different skill set to helping solve curious mysteries that seem utterly unsolvable. Plus, I wouldn't want these two to be with anyone else. Not even Tiberius. Over the course of four books now, readers have watched the couple dance around each other in what has sometimes been a
most frustrating push-forward-pull-back dance you will ever witness. The sexual tension is so thick that you need a very sharp knife to cut through it. It's fair to say that I am excited about the possibilities for the 5th installment in this series having picked up on several Easter Eggs that appear in this book.
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Chapter One
London, March 1888
“What
the devil do you mean you’re leaving?” Stoker demanded. He surveyed the
half-packed carpetbag on my bed as I folded in a spare shirtwaist and
Magalhães’s Guide to Portuguese Lepidoptery. It was a weightier volume
than one might expect, featuring an appendix devoted to the butterflies
of Madeira and certain flamboyant moths found only in the Azores.
“Precisely
what I said. I am packing. When I have packed, I will leave this place
and board a train for the coast. There I will leave the train and get
onto a boat and when it stops at Madeira, I will have arrived.” My tone
was frankly waspish. I had dreaded telling Stoker of my plans, expecting
some sort of mild explosion at the notion that I had at last secured an
expedition, however minor, to which he was not invited. Instead, he had
adopted an attitude of Arctic hauteur. I blamed his aristocratic
upbringing for that. And his nose. It is very easy to look down on
someone with a nose that would have done a Roman emperor justice. But I
could not entirely blame him. As natural historians, we had balked at
our enforced stay in London, each of us longing for the open seas, skies
that stretched to forever, horizons that beckoned us with spice-scented
winds. Instead, we had found ourselves employed by the Earl of
Rosemorran to catalog his family’s extensive collections—interesting and
modestly profitable work that stunted the soul if endured for too long.
One could count only so many stuffed marmosets before the spirit
rebelled. The notion that I was to escape our genial confinement whilst
he labored on would have tested the noblest character, and Stoker, like
me, bore a healthy streak of self-interest.
“At Madeira?” he asked.
“At Madeira,” I replied firmly.
He folded his arms over the breadth of his chest. “And might one inquire as to the expected duration of this expedition?”
“One
might, but one would be disappointed with the reply. I have not yet
formulated my plans, but I expect to be away for some months. Perhaps
until the autumn.”
“Until the autumn,” he said, drawing out the words slowly.
“Yes.
Look for me in the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,” I
instructed with a feeble attempt at a smile. But even a nod to his
beloved Keats did not soften his austere expression.
“And you mean to go alone.”
“Not
at all,” I told him, as I tucked a large pot of cold cream of roses
into my bag. “Lady Cordelia and I shall travel together.”
He
gave a snort of laughter that was distinctly lacking in amusement.
“Lady Cordelia. You know her only experience with shipboard life is the
Channel steamer, do you not? Her notion of rough travel is not taking
the second footman. And I do not even like to think of what Sidonie will
have to say on the matter.”
I winced at the mention of Lady Cordelia’s snippy French lady’s maid. “She will not be coming.”
His
mouth fell agape and he dropped the pose of icy disdain. “Veronica, you
cannot be serious. I know you long to shake the fogs of London out of
your clothes as much as I do, but dragging Lady Cordelia to some
benighted island in the middle of the Atlantic makes no sense at all.
You might as well haul her to the North Pole.”
“I
should never attempt a polar expedition,” I assured him with a
lightness I did not feel. “There are no butterflies to be found there.”
He
gripped my shoulders, his thumbs just brushing the tops of my
collarbones. “If this is because of what I said earlier today,” he
began, “what I almost said—”
I
raised a hand. “Of course not.” It was a pathetic attempt at a lie. The
truth was that both of us, in an unguarded moment, had very nearly
given voice to sentiments we had no business declaring. I could still
feel the pressure of his hand, burning like a brand at my waist, as his
breath stirred the lock of hair pinned behind my ear, warm and impulsive
words trembling on my lips. Had his brother, the Viscount
Templeton-Vane, not interrupted us . . .
But
no. That line of thought does not bear consideration. The point is
quite simply that we were interrupted, and as soon as the viscount left,
I had taken tea tête-à-tête with Lady Cordelia, Lord Rosemorran’s
sister and a good friend to both Stoker and to me. By the time we had
shared the last muffin between us, we had decided upon a course of
action that we knew would surprise and quite possibly annoy the men in
our lives. Lord Rosemorran had behaved with his characteristic
good-natured vagueness, offering money to fund the venture and raising
objections only when he realized his sister’s absence would mean taking
care of his own children.
“Call
one of the aunts to help you,” Lady C. instructed with unaccustomed
ruthlessness. “I am thoroughly exhausted and a holiday is just what I
require.”
Lord
Rosemorran gave in at once, but Stoker was being bloody-minded as usual,
not least because so much hung between us, unsaid but thickening the
air until I thought I would never again draw an easy breath.
“It
is quite for the best,” I said, forcing the last of my shirtwaists into
the bag. “This business with the Tiverton Expedition has been
demanding. A little peace and quiet to recover from it will do us both a
world of good.”
On
the surface, it was a tolerable excuse. The investigation we had just
concluded[1] had been harrowing in the extreme, entailing all manner of
reckless adventures as well as a few bodily injuries. But Stoker and I
throve on such endeavors, matching each other in our acts of derring-do.
No, it was not physical exhaustion that drove me from the temperate
shores of England, gentle reader. It was the recent entanglement with
Stoker’s former wife, Caroline de Morgan, a fiend in petticoats who had
very nearly destroyed him with her machinations. I longed to repay her
in kind. But I had learnt long ago that revenge is a fruitless pursuit,
and so I left Caroline to the fates, trusting she would see her just
deserts in time. Stoker was my concern—specifically the powerful
emotions he stirred within me and what, precisely, I was going to do
about them. It seemed impossible to assess them with the cool and
dispassionate eye of a scientist whilst we were so often together. After
all, a proper examination of a butterfly did not take place in the
field; one captured the specimen and took it away to regard it
carefully, holding it up to the light and accepting its flaws as well as
its beauties. So I meant to do with my feelings for Stoker, although
that intention was certainly not one I meant to share with him. Knowing
how deeply he had been wounded by Caroline, I could have no hand in
hurting him further.
Luckily
for me, Lady Cordelia had been desperate, insistent upon getting right
away, and I seized upon her invitation with alacrity, determined to make
my escape without revealing our purposes, even to Stoker.
“I
daresay I will have nothing more interesting to write about than
butterflies, so do not be surprised if I am a poor correspondent,” I
warned him. “You needn’t trouble to write if it bores you. I am sure you
will have far more interesting activities to occupy your time. I am
sorry if it leaves you in a bit of a lurch with the collections,” I
finished, buckling the carpetbag.
“I will manage quite well alone,” he replied as he turned away, his expression carefully blank. “I always have.”
As
he no doubt intended, Stoker’s parting words haunted me for the better
part of six months. Madeira was beautiful, lush and fragrant and
offering tremendous opportunities for my work as a lepidopterist. But
more times than I cared to admit, whilst hotly in pursuit of a sweet
little Lampides boeticus flapping lazily in a flower-scented breeze, I
paused, letting the net drop uselessly to my side. Articles for the
various publications to which I contributed went unwritten, my pen
resting in a stilled hand while my mind roamed free. Every time, my
thoughts went to him, like pigeons darting home to roost. And every
time, I wrenched them away, never permitting myself to think too long of
him for the same reason a child learns not to hold her hand too close
to a flame.
In the
summer, when the late-blooming jacaranda poured the honeyed musk of its
perfume over the island, it was necessary—for various reasons I shall
not detail here—to call in the doctor to attend both Lady Cordelia and
me. By the time we had regained our strength, half a year had passed and
our thoughts turned to England once more. Long afternoons had been
spent upon the veranda of our rented villa as we rested like basking
lizards in the sun. We were both slimmer than we had been when we set
out. Lady Cordelia’s pale milk skin had gathered a cinnamon dusting of
freckles in spite of her veils and broad brims, but I had tossed my hat
aside, turning my face up to the golden rays.
“You
look the picture of health,” she told me as we boarded the boat in the
port of Funchal. “No one would ever imagine you had been under a
doctor’s care.”
I
plucked at the loose waist of my traveling suit. “You think not? I am
skin and bone, and you are little better. But some good Devonshire cream
and plates of English roast beef will see us right again,” I assured
her.
Absently, she linked her arm with mine. “Do you think they have missed us?”
“The
frequency of their letters would suggest so.” Frequency was not quite
the word. Every mail ship had brought fresh correspondence. The earl and
his children had written regularly to Lady Cordelia, and I had received
my share of the post as well. Colleagues in lepidoptery had much to
say, and there were weekly letters from Lord Templeton-Vane, Stoker’s
elder brother. He wrote in a casual, conversational style of current
affairs and common interests, and as the months passed, we became better
friends than we had been before.
And
from Stoker? Not a single word. Not one line, scribbled on a grubby
postcard. Not a postscript scrawled on one of his brother’s letters.
Nothing but silence, eloquent and rebuking. I was conscious of a
profound and thoroughly irrational sense of injury. I had made it clear
to him that I did not intend to write letters and expected none. And
yet. Every post that arrived with no missive from him was a taunt,
speaking his anger as eloquently as any words might have done. I had
sowed the seed of this quarrel, I reminded myself sternly; I could not
now complain that I did not like the fruit it bore.
And
as I stood arm in arm with Lady Cordelia on the deck of the ship
bearing us home, I wondered precisely what sort of welcome I could
expect.
“What in the
name of seven hells do you mean you want to ‘borrow’ Miss Speedwell?
She’s not an umbrella, for God’s sake,” Stoker grumbled to his eldest
brother as the viscount entered our workroom. (Such demands often
comprised the bulk of Stoker’s conversation; I had learnt to ignore
them.) “Besides which, she has only been home for two days. I very much
doubt she has even unpacked.”
Lord
Templeton-Vane bared his teeth in what a stupid person might have
mistaken for a smile. “Stoker, how delightful to see you. I hadn’t
noticed you behind that water buffalo’s backside. Perfecting your trade,
no doubt,” he mused as he looked from the moldering buffalo trophy to
the pile of rotten sawdust Stoker was busy extracting. As a natural
historian, Stoker’s lot was often the restoration of thoroughly foul
specimens of the taxidermic arts. The backside of a water buffalo was
far from the worst place I had seen Stoker’s head.
His
lordship clicked his tongue as he gave Stoker a dismissive glance.
“Besides which, I hardly think Miss Speedwell requires assistance in
arranging her affairs.” He lingered on the last word just a heartbeat
too long. The viscount had a gift for silken suggestions, and I
suppressed a sigh of irritation that he had exercised it just then.
Stoker and I had scarcely spoken since my return, exchanging cool
greetings and meaningless chatter about our work. But I had hopes of a
thaw provided the viscount did not scupper the possibility.
I
looked up from the tray of Nymphalidae I was sorting and gave them both
a repressive stare. “I am not your nanny, but if required, I will put
either of you over my knee,” I warned them.
Stoker,
who topped me by half a foot and some forty pounds, pulled a face. His
brother’s response was slightly salacious. He lifted an exquisite brow
and sighed. “One could only wish,” he murmured.
I
ignored that remark and brushed off my hands, putting my butterflies
aside. “My lord,” I said to the viscount, “before you explain further,
perhaps we might have a little refreshment.”
His lordship looked pained. “I abhor tea parties,” he protested.
It
was my turn to snort. “Not that sort of tea.” With Stoker’s grudging
consent, I retrieved a bottle of his best single malt and poured out a
measure for each of us. We settled in and I studied my companions. In
certain respects, they could not have been more different, yet in others
they were startlingly similar. They shared the fine bone structure of
their mother; from high cheekbones and determined jaws to elegant hands
they were alike. It was in coloring and musculature that they varied.
While his lordship was sleek as an otter, Stoker’s muscles, honed by his
long years of work as a natural historian and explorer, were heavier
and altogether more impressive. He made good use of them as he worked on
the mounts that would form the basis of the Rosemorran Collection.
Whilst we sorted the family’s accumulated treasures from centuries of
travel, the earl had given us the use of the Belvedere, the grand
freestanding ballroom on his Marylebone estate, as well as living
quarters, modest salaries, and a few other perquisites such as
entertaining visitors when we chose.
Stoker,
as it happened, was not entirely pleased with our current caller. His
relationship with his eldest brother was difficult at the best of times,
and it was apparent from his lordship’s expression of feline
forbearance that he was rather less inclined than usual to tolerate
Stoker’s bad temper. Stoker, for his part, was determined to play the
hedgehog, snarling with his prickles out.
The
viscount gestured expansively towards the specimen Stoker had been
stitching when he arrived. “Why don’t you go and play with your buffalo?
I have business with Miss Speedwell.”
Stoker
curled his lip and I hastened to intervene before bloodshed broke out.
“Poorly played, my lord. You know that Stoker and I are colleagues and
friends. Anything you have to say to me can be said freely in front of
him.” I had hoped this little demonstration of loyalty would settle
Stoker’s hackles, but his mood did not change.
The
viscount’s expression turned gently mocking. “Colleagues and friends!
How very tepid,” he said blandly. He took a deep draft of his whisky
while Stoker and I studiously avoided looking at one another. Our
investigative pursuits, invariably dangerous and thoroughly enjoyable,
had drawn us together, forcing a trust neither of us entirely welcomed.
We were solitary creatures, Stoker and I, but we had discovered a mutual
understanding beyond anything we had shared with others. What would
become of it, I could not say. In spite of six months’ distance, I still
thought often of that last significant meeting, when words had hung
unspoken but understood in the air. I had alternately cursed and
congratulated myself on my narrow escape from possible domesticity—a
fate I regarded as less desirable than a lengthy bout of bubonic plague.
I had been so near to making declarations that could not be undone,
offering promises I was not certain I could keep. My vow never to be
relegated to the roles of wife and mother had been tested during a
moment of vulnerability. Stoker was the only man I knew who could have
weakened my resolve, but it would have been a mistake, I insisted to
myself. I was not made for a life of ordinary pursuits, and it would
take an extraordinary man to live with me on my terms. It was a point of
pride with me that I hunted men with the same alacrity and skill that I
hunted butterflies. Only one sort of permanent trophy interested me—and
that had wings. Men were a joy to sample, but a mate would be a
complication I could not abide. At least, this is what I told myself,
and it was perhaps this elusiveness that made me all the more attractive
to the opposite sex.
His
lordship included. He was lavishly lascivious in his praise, his
conversation usually peppered with deliciously outrageous comments. I
never took him seriously, but Stoker took him too seriously, and that
was the root of their current lack of sympathy with one another. Like
stags, they frequently locked horns, and although neither would admit
it, I suspected they enjoyed their battles far more than they did the
civil affections they shared with their other brothers.
Stoker
was glowering at the viscount, who held up a hand, the signet ring of
the Templeton-Vanes gleaming upon his left hand. “Peace, brother mine. I
can feel you cursing me.”
“And yet still you breathe,” Stoker said mildly. “I must not be doing it right.”
I
rolled my eyes heavenwards. “Stoker, behave or remove yourself, I beg
you. I still do not know the purpose of his lordship’s call.”
“I
do not require a reason except that of admiration,” his lordship said
with practiced smoothness. Stoker made a growling noise low in his
throat while his brother carried on, pretending not to hear. “I missed
you during your sojourn abroad, my dear. And, as it happens, I do have
business. Well, business for you, dear lady, but pleasure for me.”
“Go on,” I urged.
“Tell
me, Miss Speedwell, in all your travels around this beautiful blue orb
of ours, have you ever encountered the Romilly Glasswing butterfly?”
“Oleria
romillia? Certainly not. It was as elusive as Rajah Brooke’s Birdwing
and twice as valuable. It is unfortunately now extinct. I have only ever
seen one preserved specimen in a private collection and it was in
dreadful condition.”
The viscount held up a hand. “Not entirely extinct, as it happens.”
My heart began to thump solidly within my chest as a warm flush rose to my cheeks. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that there are still specimens in the wild. Do you know the origins of the name?”
I
recited the facts as promptly and accurately as a schoolgirl at her
favorite lesson. “Oleria romillia was named for Euphrosyne Romilly, one
of the greatest lepidopterists in our nation’s history. She founded the
West Country Aurelian Society, the foremost body of butterfly hunters in
Britain until it merged with the Royal Society of Aurelian Studies in
1852. She discovered this particular lasswing on the coast of Cornwall.”
“Off
the coast of Cornwall,” the viscount corrected. “As it happens, the
Romillys own an island there, St. Maddern, just out from the little port
town of Pencarron.”
“A
tidal island?” I asked. “Like St. Michael’s Mount?” The Mount was one
of Cornwall’s most famous attractions, rising out of the sea in a shaft
of grey stone, reaching ever upwards from its narrow foundation. On
sunny days it was overrun with parties of picnickers and seaside
tourists and other undesirables.
The
viscount shook his head. “Not precisely. St. Michael’s is accessible on
foot via a causeway whilst St. Maddern’s Isle is a little further out
to sea and significantly larger than the Mount. There are extensive
gardens as well as a village, farms, a few shops, a quarry, even an inn
for the occasional traveler seeking solitude and peace. It is a unique
place, with all sorts of legends and faery stories, none of which
interest me in the slightest, so I cannot recall them. What I do recall
is that the Romilly Glasswing makes its home upon this island, and
nowhere else in the world. And this has been an excellent year for them.
They have appeared in record numbers, I am told, and they dot the
island like so many flowers.”
I
caught my breath, my lips parted as if anticipating a kiss. Nothing
left me in such a heightened state of expectancy than the thought of
finding a butterfly I had never before seen in the wild. And glasswings!
The most unique of all the butterflies, they traveled on wings as
transparent as Cinderella’s slipper. Ordinary butterflies derive their
color from scales, infinitesimally small and carrying all the colors of
the rainbow within them, reflecting back the jewel tones associated with
the most magnificent butterflies. Moths and more restrained specimens
of butterfly have scales with softly powdered hues, but the most
arresting sight is by far the butterfly without any scales at all. The
wings of these butterflies are crystalline in their clearness, patterned
only with narrow black veins like the leaded glass of a cathedral
window, the thinnest of membranes stretching between them. It seems
impossible that they can fly, but they do, like shards of glass borne
upon the wind. Their unique wings make them delicate and elusive, and
the Romilly Glasswing was the most delicate and elusive of all. The
largest of the glasswings, an adult Romilly could span a man’s hand if
he were lucky enough to catch one. I lusted for them as I had lusted for
little else in my life. But it was no use to me.
I
forced a smile to my lips. “How kind of you to share this information,”
I said in a toneless voice. “But I no longer hunt, my lord. My
specimens from Madeira were all gathered after their natural demise. I
have lost the drive to thrust a pin into the heart of a living creature.
My efforts are directed towards the vivarium that Lord Rosemorran is
graciously permitting me to develop on the estate.”
Once
the derelict wreck of a grand freestanding glasshouse, the vivarium had
been my own pet project, undertaken at Stoker’s suggestion. While he
tinkered happily with bits of fur and bone and sawdust, I had been
permitted to stock the restored structure with exotic trees and the
larvae of a number of specimens. I had nurtured them carefully as any
mother, bringing several species to life in my bejeweled little world.
“You
should know that better than anyone,” I reminded the viscount. “You
were kind enough to send me a grove of hornbeams and luna moths to feast
upon them.”
The
viscount crossed one long leg over the other, smoothing the crease in
his trousers. “I remember it well. You gave me quite the education upon
the subject of the luna moth. What was it you said? That they have no
mouths because they exist only to reproduce? One is not certain whether
to regard them with envy or pity.”
He
arched a brow at me and I gave him a quelling look. “Precisely,” I told
him, my voice crisp. “And while I am glad to hear the Romilly Glasswing
is not extinct, I must leave its pursuit to others.”
The
words pained me. I had only within the last year discovered in myself a
reluctance to carry on my life’s work as I had always known it. The
pursuit of the butterfly had given my existence meaning and pleasure,
but it had dried up for reasons I did not entirely understand. Madeira
had been an experiment after a fashion, a short expedition to test my
mettle. And I had failed to conquer my reluctance to kill. The few
inadequate specimens I had brought back had made the entire affair
pointless and I could not justify further expeditions if I had no better
expectations than the results I had achieved there. It chilled me to
think that I might never strike out again, net in hand, for foreign
climes and exotic lands. The notion of being forever immured in Britain,
this too-often grey and sodden isle, was more than I could bear. So I
did not think of it. I pushed the thought away whenever it occurred, but
it had crept back over and over again as our ship had neared England,
returning me to the complacent little life I had built within these
walls. It teased the edge of my consciousness as I drifted off to sleep
each night, that little demanding voice from a place that longed for
adventure. What if this is all there is?
Stoker
grasped his lordship’s meaning before I did. “Tiberius does not mean
you to hunt them,” he said quietly. “He has found you larvae. For the
vivarium.”
I smothered a moan of longing. “Have you?” I demanded.
His
lordship laughed, a low and throaty chuckle of pure amusement. “My dear
Miss Speedwell, how you delight me. I have indeed secured permission
from the current owner of St. Maddern’s Isle, Malcolm Romilly, for you
to take a certain number of larvae for your collection. While not a
lepidopterist himself, he is an ardent protector of every bit of flora
and fauna unique to his island, and he believes that if the glasswing is
to survive, there must be a population elsewhere as a sort of insurance
policy.”
My mind raced with the possibilities. “What do they eat?”
The
viscount shrugged. “Some shrub whose name escapes me, but Malcolm did
say that you might take a number of the plants with you in order to make
the transition to London as painless as possible for the little devils.
Now, I am bound for St. Maddern’s Isle for a house party to which
Malcolm has invited me. It seems only natural that we should combine our
purposes and I should escort you to the castle.”
“What a splendid notion,” Stoker put in smoothly. “We should love to go.”
“Stoker,” the viscount said firmly, “you are not invited to the castle.”
“Castle!” I exclaimed. “Is it really so grand as that?”
His
lordship favored me with one of his enigmatic smiles. “It is small, as
castles go, but it is at least interesting. Lots of hidden passages and
dungeons and that sort of thing.”
“What of ghosts?” I demanded archly. “I won’t go unless there is a proper ghost.”
The
viscount’s eyes widened in a flash of something like alarm before he
recovered himself. “I can promise you all manner of adventures,” he
said.
I could
scarcely breathe for excitement. Stoker gave me a long look as he
drained the last of his whisky, put down his glass, and walked silently
back to his buffalo.
His brother leaned closer, pitching his voice low. “Someone is not very pleased with us.”
“Someone can mind his own business,” I said fiercely. “I am going to St. Maddern’s Isle.”
“Excellent,” said Lord Templeton-Vane, his feline smile firmly in place. “Most excellent indeed.”
Chapter Two
“He
means to seduce you, you know,” Stoker said after the viscount had
left. He was removing rotten sawdust from the badly mounted water
buffalo, punctuating his words with vigorous gestures and showering the
floor and himself with the smelly tendrils of moldering wood. He had
stripped off his shirt as was his custom when he worked, but the nasty
stuff had stuck to his tumbled black curls and the sweat streaking the
long, hard muscles of his back and arms. I paused for a moment, as I
always did when Stoker was in a state of undress, to admire the view. I
had given him the better part of an hour to master his temper, but it
seemed it had not been enough. I adopted a tone of generally cheerful
reasonability.
“Of course he does,” I agreed.
He stopped and fixed me with a disbelieving stare. “You know that?”
I
sighed. “Stoker, I am twenty-six years of age. I have traveled around
the world three times, and I have met scores of men, some of whom I have
known far more intimately than you can imagine. I promise you, I can
smell a burgeoning seduction from across the room. I am no fainting
virgin,” I reminded him.
“Then why in the name of bleeding Jesus are you going with him?”
“He promised me Romilly Glasswings,” I said simply.
“And that is all it takes? Bought with a butterfly?” he said in a particularly harsh tone.
“Oooh, how nasty you can be when you are sulking,” I observed.
He
turned to his buffalo, wrenching out the sawdust in great, choking
clouds. The original taxidermist had thrown in whatever he could to
absorb moisture—sawdust, newspaper, bits of cloth. The stuffing had made
cozy nest material for all manner of rodents. Tiny bones flew through
the air with horrifying regularity as Stoker worked in a frenzy. After a
few moments, he stopped.
“I
am not sulking. I am concerned,” he told me, his voice soft and gentle
now, but the words clipped at the end, as if admitting them caused him
pain.
“I can take care of myself.”
“That is what I am afraid of.”
“I will not be gone long. His lordship and I settled the details before he left—a fortnight at most.”
He
nodded, his witch black hair gleaming in the lamplight. I waited for
him to rouse himself to temper again, waited for the inevitable
repetitious clash of wills, but it did not come. When Stoker and I
disagreed, a frequent occurrence if I am honest, it was a thing of
beauty—volcanic and ferocious. I took it as a mark of the highest
affection and respect that he fought with me as he would a man, and I
gave him no quarter either. Our rows were legendary on the Marylebone
estate, with frequent wagers amongst the staff as to which of us would
prevail. (The safest bet, I need not reveal, was always upon me.)
But
this time Stoker simply refused to rise to the occasion. I knew he was
angry at his brother’s presumption. Any invitation or gift that had come
from the viscount in the past had been met with rage on Stoker’s part.
The skeletons in their cupboard of childhood troubles danced vigorously.
The viscount’s overtures were intrusions, Stoker believed,
encroachments on something he held dear and that belonged to him—me.
Even though our relationship had not progressed past a firm friendship
and perfect companionship, he resented any attempt by the viscount to
win me to his side. I anticipated our quarrels on these occasions. I
enjoyed them. But this time, Stoker merely worked at his buffalo, his
jaw set and his gaze averted.
“Well,
I suppose I ought to pack,” I said finally. “We leave in the morning.
His lordship wants to take the early train from Waterloo.”
“Don’t
forget your hot-water bottle,” he said, baring his teeth in a ghastly
impression of his brother’s smile. “I should hate for you to get cold in
the night.”
I returned the smile. “Do not worry on that account,” I told him. “I know well enough how to keep warm.”
I
rose in good time the next morning, fairly fizzing with anticipation as
I washed and dressed and gulped a hasty breakfast. Is there any feeling
as delicious as the beginning of a new adventure? To be perched upon
the precipice of a fresh endeavor, poised for flight, the winds of
change ruffling the feathers, ah, that is what it means to be alive! I
glanced around my quarters, but to me they had assumed an air of
emptiness. Everything I truly cared about was packed into my carpetbag;
the rest was merely trappings. I gathered two last items for the
journey—the latest installment of the adventures of Arcadia Brown, Lady
Detective, and the tiny grey velvet mouse I had carried since infancy.
Wherever I had ventured in the world, from the misty foothills of the
Andean mountains to the lush islands of the South Pacific, Chester had
been my constant companion. He was a little the worse for wear these
days, his velvet thinning in some places and one of his black-bead eyes a
trifle loose. But I would have sooner traveled without my head than
without my stalwart little companion.
I
stepped outside and drew in great breaths of morning air, but not even
the choking soot of London could stifle my elation. At my feet, the
dogs—Stoker’s bulldog, Huxley, and Lord Rosemorran’s Caucasian sheepdog,
Betony—romped along as I made my way to the Belvedere to take my leave
of Stoker. He was already there, immured once more in his buffalo. To my
acute disappointment, he wore a shirt, and his usually disordered locks
were rather neater than was their habit.
“Good
morning,” I said in a cordial tone as I rummaged in a biscuit barrel
for a few scraps to throw the dogs. They quarreled over the largest—a
bit of moose antler from the Canadian wilderness—before Huxley
surrendered it as a courtship gift to Bet. She rolled ecstatically on
the ground, waving her enormous paws in the air and upsetting a model of
the Golden Hind made out of walnuts as Huxley watched, his deep chest
puffed out proudly.
Stoker merely grunted by way of reply.
“I am leaving, then.”
He
withdrew his head from the buffalo. He appeared tired, and he was
wearing his eye patch, a certain sign that he had fatigued himself. It
was a reminder of an accident he had suffered in the Amazon that had
nearly taken his eye and his life. He still bore a slender silver scar
that ran from brow to cheek, and from time to time, he had recourse to
the black patch to rest his weaker eye. I never minded as—coupled with
the golden rings in his lobes—it gave him the look of a buccaneer. A
rather bored buccaneer at present. His expression was bland as he gave
me a casual glance. “Oh? Pleasant journey.”
He
resumed his task and I stared at him, slack-jawed. I had expected an
argument. I had depended upon it. There were few things I enjoyed more,
and a set-to with Stoker was just the thing to cap my ebullient mood.
The fact that the past few days had seen us somewhat at odds with one
another made me all the keener to resume our usual banter. After six
months with no word from him, I had anticipated a row to shake the
rafters upon my return. Instead he had been blandly cordial, unreachable
even, and his apathy goaded me far more effectively than any display of
temper might have done.
“Is that it?” I demanded. “No dire warnings about your brother’s wandering hands? No glowering silences or raging tantrums?”
He
backed out of the buffalo again, his expression inscrutable. “My dear
Veronica, you must make up your mind. Do you want silence or savagery?
You cannot have both.”
Ordinarily
such a remark would be heavily larded with sarcasm, his rage barely
held in check. But this time there was only that maddening calm, a
newfound self-possession I could not prick. If he meant to wound me he
could have chosen no sharper blade than indifference.
“You
are quite right,” I remarked acidly. “Do forgive the interruption. I’ll
let you get on with your buffalo. I expect to be back in a fortnight.
If I am not it’s because I eloped with your brother to Gretna Green.”
His
sangfroid never slipped. He merely smiled and returned to his specimen,
calling over his shoulder, “Mind you ask for separate lodgings. He
snores like a fiend.”
Silence
dropped between us with all the finality of a stage curtain. That was
it, then. I turned on my heel and left him without a backwards look.
Carpetbag firmly in hand, I strode to the front of Bishop’s Folly,
admiring the unholy muddle of architectural styles that had been
assembled courtesy of several generations of Rosemorran earls. The Folly
was well-named, for there was not a builder’s fancy that had been
omitted—buttresses, vaults, towers, crenelations, the Folly boasted them
all.
Just as I
rounded the corner, the great front door swung back and Lady
Wellingtonia Beauclerk, the present earl’s great-aunt, emerged, calling a
greeting. I paused to give her a smile.
“I am so glad you happened to come out,” I told her. “I had no chance to say good-bye.”
“It
was not happenstance,” she said as she came down the short flight of
stone steps to the drive of loose chipping. “I was looking for you. I’ve
not yet welcomed you back from Madeira and here you are off again, like
one of your pretty butterflies.” Her tone was light but her eyes were
shrewd. “One might even think you were running away from something.”
I gave an involuntary glance back at the Belvedere, where Stoker still labored. “Don’t be absurd, Lady Wellie.”
“Are
you certain there is nothing you would like to share with an old
woman?” she prodded, lifting her walking stick to gesture vaguely in the
direction of my person.
“Absolutely not,” I returned.
She
did not bridle at the sharpness of my tone. She was obviously
preoccupied as she brandished a newspaper at me. I could not quite read
the headlines, but the text was enormous and the story clearly lurid.
“Have you seen the newspapers? This Whitechapel murderer business is whipping up hysteria.”
“I’m afraid I have heard nothing.”
Her
brows raised. “Lucky you. Prostitutes in the East End, child. Someone
has been ripping them up and all of Scotland Yard has been thrown into
tumult.”
I thought of
our previous involvement with the Yard[2] and the head of Special
Branch in particular. “Poor Sir Hugo,” I said lightly. “He must be
keeping busy.”
She
gave me a narrow look. “It is not just on Hugo to solve these
atrocities,” she replied with a firmness that belied her eighty-plus
years. “It is a national disgrace to have this monster stalking our
streets and our police force unable to apprehend him. England ought to
be better than this.”
In
Lady Wellie’s estimation, the Empire was the center of the universe and
England the center of the Empire. Nothing else mattered but this
blessed isle. The whole of her father’s life and hers had been devoted
to its service, secretly, as each had fulfilled the function of an
éminence grise, the power behind the royal family, always guiding,
protecting, shielding, not for love of the family themselves but for
love of the land and people they governed. Her blood was red as St.
George’s Cross. She was, without doubt, the most patriotic individual I
had ever known, and she was not above using anyone or anything in order
to serve her goals. She was ruthless and hard-edged, and when she
smiled, it was a crocodile’s smile, full of guile. I quite liked her, if
I am honest, but that morning I was eager to be on my way.
Her
shrewd dark eyes missed nothing. “I know you want to be off. I’ll not
keep you. But tell me where you mean to be in case I should like to
write to you.”
I
rattled off the castle’s address, watching as she pursed her lips.
“Malcolm Romilly’s place. I knew his grandfather. Waltzed with him at
Victoria’s coronation ball. He trod on my toes, but he was a very good
kisser. Quite a skillful tongue,” she said with a dreamy look.
I smiled in spite of myself and pressed her hand. “Good day, Lady Wellie.”
She lifted a withered hand. “Godspeed, child.”
His
lordship and I had arranged to meet at Waterloo Station, and I very
nearly missed him in the teeming throng of travelers that balmy late
September morning. The platforms were heaving with people of every
description, starched nannies with their screaming charges, turbaned
gentlemen making their way with courtly elegance past nut sellers, and
pale, thin girls selling the last of the summer flowers, bawling out
their wares in harsh cries to make themselves heard above the plump
matrons offering meat pies for the journey. Through them all strode City
men of business in their pinstriped rectitude, discreetly ogling the
aristocratic ladies gliding past without glancing to the left or right,
little dogs and ladies’ maids trotting in their wake.
The
viscount found me at last. “Miss Speedwell,” he said, coming to my side
with long strides that earned the admiration of more than one passing
lady. “I was beginning to despair of ever finding you in this melee.
Come, I have secured our compartment and the porter will see to your
bags.”
A very upright
porter with the posture of a broom handle took my bag from my hand and
gave me a searching look. “Shall I wait for the lady’s maid, my lord?”
he asked the viscount.
Lord Templeton-Vane waved him off. “Miss Speedwell is a modern lady. She does not travel with a maid.”
If
his lordship had told the man I intended to travel stark naked with a
pumpkin on my head, he could not have looked more appalled. He swallowed
hard and gave a half bow that was both respectful and condescending.
“Very good, my lord.”
“And I will carry my own bag, thank you,” I said, retrieving my carpetbag with a gesture that brooked no argument.
He
gave a little sniff—offended either at my intransigence or the fact
that he would see no tip from me—before drawing himself up to his full
height and turning to the viscount. “In that case I will bid you a happy
journey, my lord. The hamper and your small case are in the compartment
and your larger bags are marked for Pencarron and stowed in the luggage
van. Good day, sir,” he finished with a hopeful look at the viscount.
His lordship obliged him with a substantial coin and the fellow gave me a
dismissive look as he strode away.
The
viscount turned to me. “My dear Miss Speedwell, two minutes in and
already you are causing a scandal. Whatever shall I do with you?”
I
did not trouble myself to reply. He offered his arm and we were soon
comfortably established in our private compartment. As the train drew
from the station in great gusts of steam, he settled back against his
seat, regarding me thoughtfully. “I suppose I ought to have considered
better the impropriety of our traveling together,” he said.
I
shrugged. “I am no stranger to impropriety. It troubles me not in the
slightest,” I assured him. “After all, I work for a living. I am hardly a
lady.”
His handsome
upper lip quirked into an effort at a smile. “And yet you speak with
such distinction and your manner and gestures are thoroughly elegant.
Tell me, Miss Speedwell, how did you come to be?”
The
tone was casual but the gaze that fell upon me was watchful. It
occurred to me then that his lordship might have penetrated the truth
about my identity. It was an imperfectly kept secret at best. Stoker
knew, as did their second brother, Sir Rupert, along with an assortment
of government officials, a few Irish malcontents, and our own royal
family. Being the semi-legitimate daughter of the Prince of Wales came
with a few drawbacks, not least the lack of recognition from my own
blood relations. I had made my own way in the world, no thanks to them,
but I concealed my birth from prying eyes. Permitting my story to become
publicly known would rock the monarchy, I had been warned, although
they needn’t have bothered. I had as little desire to be pestered and
fussed over as they had of being deposed. The fact that one villain had
already attempted to put a crown upon my head was enough to convince me
that the life of royalty was not for me.
But
the question I pondered now was how much of this Lord Templeton-Vane
knew. I gave him a noncommittal smile. “It is a dreadfully dull story,
I’m afraid. My mother died when I was a year old and I never knew my
father.” That much was true, strictly speaking. “I was brought up by two
of my mother’s friends, a pair of spinster sisters who were like aunts.
One of them encouraged my interest in lepidoptery, and I discovered
that I could make a comfortable living with my net as well as see the
world,” I finished lightly.
His lordship said nothing for a long moment. “I think you underestimate how interesting a person you are,” he remarked finally.
“I have always said that it is interesting people who find others interesting.”
“And how neatly you turn my observation to a compliment! That takes real skill.”
“I am merely observant—as are you, my lord.”
He
canted his head, a gesture I had seen Stoker perform a thousand times.
“I think that we have progressed beyond ‘Miss Speedwell’ and ‘my lord.’ I
would take it as a mark of generosity on your part if you would address
me as Tiberius.”
“Very well. If you wish.”
“I do. Veronica,” he replied, drawing out the syllables as if reciting an incantation. Without warning, his expression darkened.
“Is there something wrong?”
He
shook his head. “Not precisely. But I have taken a liberty of which you
might not approve. You see, I remembered only this morning that Malcolm
Romilly is a Roman Catholic, rather a fussy one. He would not approve
of my traveling with a young lady unchaperoned.”
“I am hardly a young lady!” I protested.
“Young
enough,” the viscount corrected with a wry twist of the lips. “And
delectable to boot. No, I’m afraid Malcolm’s sensibilities might be
offended and we can’t have that. But I realized a little polite fiction
might smooth the path. He could hardly think it amiss if we travel
together as an affianced couple.”
I blinked. “You want me to pose as your fiancée?”
“Yes,” he said, obviously relishing the idea. “That small pretense will serve us quite nicely.”
“I hardly think it necessary,” I protested.
“Oh,
but it is,” he told me with an unmistakable air of satisfaction.
“Malcolm can be a stickler about such things. What if he took offense
and decided to withdraw his offer of the glasswing larvae? How
dreadfully disappointing that would be.” His voice trailed off
suggestively, letting the insinuation do its work.
I had, as he had known, no choice. “I will not lose the glasswings,” I said forcefully.
“Then
we are in agreement,” he said, settling back with a broad smile. “And
you will naturally forgive me for taking the precaution of sending a
wire to our host with that information just before we departed.” Before I
could respond, he gestured with an elegant hand, imperious as Jove.
“Now, if you will reach into the hamper beside you, you will find a
bottle of rather good champagne. I think a toast is in order.”
The
next hours passed in a haze of succulent food and drink and amiable
company as the viscount and I talked and laughed and thoroughly enjoyed
ourselves. The champagne was not the only delight to be found in the
hamper. His lordship—or Tiberius as I had been instructed to think of
him—had laid in a supply of delicacies to last the better part of a
week.
“I thought the
journey was to be completed by nightfall,” I told him as I helped myself
to a tiny pie with a featherlight crust and a filling of herbed
chicken.
“And so it
should be, but there is no reason for us to deny ourselves as much
pleasure as possible along the way,” he remarked. I might have taken
that for a proposition, but he merely selected a sandwich of the
thinnest, whitest bread filled with slivers of perfectly roasted beef
and lashings of horseradish sauce. “Divine,” he pronounced.
“You
have a crumb upon your lip,” I told him. He put out his tongue in
search of it and missed. Laughing, I moved forward and touched my
fingertip to the corner of his mouth. I had not considered the intimacy
of such an action. It was the sort of thing I might have done to Stoker,
and I had come to enjoy a similar although less intense rapport with
the viscount.
But if I
was slow to appreciate the familiarity of the gesture, Tiberius was
not. He held my gaze with his, all mockery fallen away as he leant
forward. He parted his lips, taking my finger into his mouth as he
removed the crumb. His eyes locked with mine, he gave a gentle suck, and
I felt the blood beat in my veins.
He
released my finger and sat back with a slow, deliberate smile.
“Delicious. As I suspected it would be,” he told me. And I knew he did
not mean the crumb.
For
the rest of the journey—and make no mistake, to travel from London to
the tip of Cornwall takes hours—the viscount behaved with almost perfect
decorum. He still made the odd remark that might have been construed as
inappropriate by Society’s standards, but nothing that imperiled my
virtue, slight as it was. And he did not touch me again. Instead he
applied himself to my comfort, insisting upon opening the window when
the compartment grew stuffy and asking intelligent and penetrating
questions about lepidoptery. I was no fool. I was familiar enough with
the machinations of men to know when I was being catechized simply so
that a gentleman might appear to marvel at my accomplishments thereby
endearing himself to me. But Tiberius was more skilled than most. I
almost believed that he was sincerely impressed with the breadth of my
knowledge.
Almost. To
test him, I spent the better part of an hour describing the Gypsy moth
in exhaustive detail. If I am honest, which I have sworn to be within
these pages, I will admit that I embroidered most of the facts and
invented some out of whole cloth. Throughout my recitation, he kept his
expression attentive and even offered thoughtful comments from time to
time.
“You don’t
say,” he remarked at one point. “The Gypsy moth has a furry tail and
feeds solely on Madagascar lizards. How frightfully interesting.”
“No,
it isn’t,” I corrected. “Because I made it up. Lymantria dispar do not
have furry tails, nor do they eat lizards. No moth does. I was merely
testing your ability to pretend to be interested. It is a prodigious
skill, my lord. You lasted fifty-seven minutes.”
He looked aggrieved, then smiled. “You were supposed to call me Tiberius,” he reminded me.
“And you have no need for this pretense. Why play at being interested in moths, of all things?” I asked.
“I am not interested in moths,” he admitted. “But I am interested in you.”
“That,” I told him without a blush, “is entirely apparent.”
“Good.”
He
sat forward, hands resting upon his knees. They were good hands, like
Stoker’s, beautifully shaped, although Tiberius’ were unstained by
chemicals and glues and the various other nasty things that habitually
fouled Stoker’s. These hands were strong and clean, the nails trimmed
and the moons stark white.
“You have never done a day’s work with those hands,” I told him.
“No, but I’ve done many a night’s,” he said, reaching one out to cup my cheek.
“My lord,” I began.
“Tiberius,”
he reminded me, leaning forward still further until his name was a
breath across my lips. I was just trying to make up my mind whether to
let him kiss me—the viscount was after all a very handsome man—or to
give him a polite shove, when the train jerked to a stop, flinging him
backwards onto his seat.
“Oh, look. We’ve arrived in Exeter,” I said brightly.
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