A Curious Beginning (17 page)

S
toker was as good as his word. All through the long night of walking, he supported me, weakened as I still was by my recent bout of malaria. He permitted me to lean upon his arm when I grew tired and guided me across streams and over gates. Slipping away from the traveling show was a simple matter. We avoided the horse lines and the late-night carousers, following the edge of the river as it wound downstream towards the town of Clackton. We might have easily caught the train in Butterleigh, but as I pointed out to Stoker, anyone bent on finding us would presume we had taken the most direct route. Stoker had purloined a few shabby coats from inattentive traveling folk, and with these buttoned over our own clothes, we boarded the third-class carriage at Greycott and rode as far as Old Ashton before disembarking. Stoker had kept his eye patch firmly in his pocket, and I had, with a little difficulty, managed to stuff my orchidaceous rose hat into my carpetbag. In our attempts to blend in with other travelers, we could afford as few distinctions as possible. We washed our faces and hands carefully and left the decrepit garments in the public lavatories, each of us emerging with a far more respectable appearance than we had previously presented. We breakfasted heartily at the local inn, finishing just in time to catch the next train. Stoker dipped into his slender funds to purchase a packet of boiled sweets and tickets—first-class this time, as much to muddle any would-be pursuers as to afford us a bit of privacy.

Alone at last, I fixed Stoker with a curious look. “You are the most complex and contradictory man I have ever known,” I told him.

He unwrapped a boiled sweet and stuffed it into his mouth. “Shall I take that as a compliment or condemnation?”

“Neither. It is merely a statement of fact. You survived a brutal jaguar attack and spent what I can only imagine was a long and demanding period in the Royal Navy. You have willingly submitted to the extremely painful process of tattooing—not once, but upon multiple occasions. And you entered a
rebenque
fight with a man so fearsome, he ought to have picked his teeth with your femurs. All of this with perfect resignation and fortitude. And yet when a dressmaker's pin stuck you in the shoulder, you roared like a wounded lion.”

He considered that a moment, rolling the sweet over his tongue. “There are times when it is entirely safe to show one's vulnerability, to roll over and reveal the soft underbelly beneath. But there are other times when pain must be borne without a murmur, when the pain is so consuming that if you give in to it, even in the slightest, you have lost everything.”

“I suppose one might say the same of mental and emotional pain as well as physical,” I mused. “One simply gets on with what must be done because if one paused and looked at it full in the face—”

“Then one would never find the strength to go on,” he finished, cracking the sweet between his strong white teeth.

“As Arcadia Brown would say, ‘Excelsior!' Ever upward, ever forward.”

I expected him to disparage my taste in popular literature again, but he merely inclined his head. “Excelsior,” he agreed quietly.

“Your cheek is bleeding again,” I told him. He rummaged for a handkerchief, and I realized how handy it was of him to carry scarlet ones. He always seemed to be mopping up blood with them.

“Pity if it scars,” he said lightly. “The bastard would wound me on my good side.”

“I don't know about that,” I replied deliberately. “Both sides look entirely appealing to me.”

His hand stilled, his expression inscrutable. “Veronica,” he began. But I put up a hand.

“You needn't fear any predation on my part, Stoker. That was not a prelude to seduction. I was merely making an observation. You think those scars are off-putting, and to a woman with a feeble imagination, they might be. But for any woman who appreciates valor and courage, they are more attractive than any perfect profile or unblemished cheek.”

For once he was speechless, and I took the opportunity to make myself more comfortable. “I mean to sleep now, Stoker. I advise you to do the same.”

I closed my eyes then, as he rested his thoughtful gaze upon me. And in time, I slept.

•   •   •

I roused myself as we drew near to London and woke refreshed, if somewhat stiff. I poked Stoker from his snores.

“Bloody hell, what?” he demanded with all the grace of a bear roused from hibernation.

“We have nearly reached London. Where do we go from here? We cannot return to your workshop if there is a connection betwixt you and the baron. I wonder if we ought to seek out that Mr. de Clare. He was cryptic, to be sure, but he knows something of this business, and he might be able to offer us aid.”

Stoker blinked, then rubbed his eyes, pressing hard for a moment. He gave a jaw-cracking yawn and stretched. When he was fully roused, he spoke, his tone stern. “Look here, Veronica, I know you mean to ferret about in this business, but I do not think I can let you do that. Max did entrust me with your safety, remember, and there is no call for you to be exposed to further danger. We don't know what this de Clare fellow is about. Let me see you back to your cottage, and I will find him.”

“You! Haring about London when the Metropolitan Police are combing the streets for you? Not bloody likely.”

He sighed. “I admit it is a plan not without its difficulties, but I think you will be safe at your cottage.”

“It is not my cottage,” I reminded him. “I gave it up, and no doubt it has already been let again. Besides, I do not think I would be any better off there than with you.” The time had come, and so, drawing in a deep breath, I launched into an explanation of the circumstances under which the baron had found me.

When I finished, a muscle was twitching in his jaw, and when he spoke, it was through clenched teeth. “And did it not occur to you to mention this sooner?”

“We have not been in the habit of sharing confidences,” I reminded him. “Besides, the ransacking of the cottage was simply the act of an opportunistic thief who got away with nothing.”

“Was it?” He thrust his hands into his hair. “How can you not see it?”

“I assumed the fellow who broke into my cottage was simply looking to steal whatever was at hand. It is a common enough occurrence during funerals.”

“What did he take?”

“Nothing! He got away when I chased him into the garden. He grabbed my arm as if he meant to carry me off, but I do not believe that was his original intention. The baron helped me elude him, and when the fellow ran away, the baron seemed quite overcome. He insisted I was in some sort of danger and that I must go at once with him to London.”

“Where he tells me that he is engaged in a matter of life and death and that I must protect you, even at the cost of my own life,” Stoker finished.

“Yes, well, that was a bit melodramatic, I admit.” I paused. “You look very much as if you're restraining yourself from shaking me.”

“Maximilian von Stauffenbach was not melodramatic a day in his life. He was a pragmatist. If he said it was a matter of life and death, it was,” he said, fairly spitting the words in his rage.

“And now you think that my thief is the one who broke into the baron's house as well and murdered him?”

“I do not believe in coincidences,” he said. “Now tell me everything again. From the beginning.”

I did as he bade me, beginning with the funeral and tea with the Clutterthorpes and ending with my arrival upon his doorstep. He shook his head, thrusting his hands again through his unkempt hair. He was beginning to resemble one of the more disheveled Greek gods after a particularly trying day of warfare with the Trojans.

“Why in the name of God didn't he tell me more?” he murmured. He lifted his head, and his expression was grave. “I ought to have demanded more from him. Instead I allowed him to leave you there with no explanation, only a promise to look after you. Why didn't he tell me?”

I smoothed my skirts. “No doubt he expected to at some future time.”

“That is it,” he said, comprehension breaking across his face. “He expected to tell me because he did not observe a threat to himself, only to you. He was not the intended target of this murder.
You were.
”

I blinked at him. “That is preposterous. I mean it, Stoker. I think you have finally taken leave of your senses.”

“I am fully in command of them, I assure you,” he replied coldly. “And if you would pause for the merest moment and consider what I am saying, you would see it too. Max did not come back to London alone, Veronica. He brought you. He did not take you to his home, but to mine, a place where no one would think to look for you. Good God, woman, he even told you he believed you were in danger! Why is it so difficult for you to believe someone killed Max in order to get to you?”

“Because I am not that interesting,” I told him.

“Someone wanted to get to you,” he went on. “They wanted you so badly they broke into your cottage. They followed you to London and they killed Max.” He softened his voice marginally. “Veronica, who would want to kill you?”

“No one! You have known me for a handful of days, and yet I would wager you know me better than anyone else now living. I am as you see me. There are no mysteries here, Stoker,” I said, almost regretfully. “I wish that I could rend the veil and expose some great secret that would justify what has been done to the baron, but I cannot. I am a spinster reared in a collection of uninteresting villages scattered across England. I write papers about natural history and I collect butterflies and I indulge in harmless love affairs with unattached foreign gentlemen. I know no one; I am no one. Perhaps it was a case of mistaken identity,” I added helpfully.

“There was no mistake,” he returned, his mouth tightening a little. “Someone wanted to harm you—so badly that they were willing to bludgeon an old man for the privilege. You know something.”

“I know nothing,” I insisted, but even I could not deny that whatever had befallen the baron seemed to touch upon me, albeit tangentially. “He did say he knew my mother,” I told Stoker. It was a slender offering of peace, but it was all I had to give.

“Who was your mother?”

I spread my hands. “I have no idea. But if you and I are going to get to the bottom of this, we must stop playing at distrusting one another.”

He curled a lip. “That's rather like a horse thief lecturing the farmer on locking the barn door, is it not? I have come to a conclusion. You insist that you know nothing. I do not believe you. There is a possibility we may both be correct.”

“Go on.”

“It is just possible that you know something you do not realize you know.”

He turned his head, and I noticed the way the lamplight burnished his hair. It had a blue gleam in this light, coal black but with something glimmering in the depths. It was a shame that such hair should be wasted on a man, I thought idly. Any fashionable woman would have given fifty pounds for a wig made of it.

“Veronica?” He waved a hand in front of my face. “Pay attention when I am lecturing you. You can woolgather later.”

“Very well. I admit, I have been less than forthcoming. I am done with it. Ask me what you like. I will tell you whatever you wish to know. I ask only the same courtesy in return.” He opened his mouth, but before he could protest, I went on swiftly. “And I promise to ask only questions that may be pertinent to the investigation. You may keep your own secrets. Are we agreed?”

I put out my hand, and after a long, agonizing moment, he took it.

“Agreed. And as a pledge of good faith, you will take the first turn. He made no effort to find you after your first guardian, Miss Lucy Harbottle, died. It was only after her sister died and left you quite alone that he took the trouble to come to you. That begs the obvious question, what changed with Miss Nell Harbottle's death?”

I considered a moment. “Well, it left me finally and irrevocably alone in the world. I planned to leave Wren Cottage and begin my travels anew. But he could not have known it. I told no one save the vicar, and that only minutes before the baron arrived.”

“Something else, then,” he prompted. “What of your inheritance? Did Miss Nell leave you money?”

I smothered a laugh. “Hardly. There were a few notes and coins in her household box, but I left those behind to compensate the landlord for the damages.”

“Bank accounts? Investments? Jewelry?”

I shook my head at each of these. “The sole household account was in both of our names and has a current balance of sixteen shillings. I have a little money of my own for traveling, but I keep it in a separate account. As to investments, there were none, and Nell did not wear jewelry save a cross that I buried with her. She had never left it off as long as I had known her and it did not seem right to bury her without it.”

His gaze was bright and inquisitive as a monkey's. “Was it valuable?”

I shrugged. “Not in the least.”

Stoker gave a gusty sigh. “What else? What could have brought them together?” He seemed to put the question more to himself than to me, so I sat quietly, letting him think.

He was silent some minutes as he pondered, then began to fire questions at me. “How did your aunts live? If there was no money in the bank, where did they acquire the funds to run the household? Did they have other friends? Did they correspond with anyone? Did they have peculiar habits?”

I put up a hand. “One question at a time if we are to be rational about this. First, the money. I do not know from where it came. A sum was paid into the account every quarter. Aunt Nell was quite discreet upon the subject, but she did indicate it was a family legacy. And before you ask, no, I know nothing of her family save that she and Aunt Lucy were born and bred in London. Aunt Lucy did say once they two were the only ones left, so I presume the money was an annuity to be paid for the duration of their lives. As to friends and correspondence, I can tell you quite certainly they had none of either. They were perfectly content with their own society and went out very seldom. They attended church and occasionally served on committees, but they did not go out of their way to make friends. And once we left a village, they did not engage in correspondence with those we had left behind. What else?”