A Dangerous Collaboration

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  “I find seriousness to be the least seductive of all the virtues.”

  “I didn’t know any virtue tempted you,” I replied. “And you have quite neatly evaded my question. Why did you come?”

  “Save your breath to cool your porridge, as my old nanny used to say,” he told me with a malicious gleam in his eye. “You’ll get nothing out of me. I am closed as an oyster.”

  No matter how hard I pried, Tiberius would tell me nothing more. The storm had risen, hard rain beating against the windows as wind shrieked and howled as it swirled around the tower. He rose from his recumbent position.

  “It is time for you to go to bed, Veronica.”

  I did not move. “You had a purpose in bringing me here. I don’t believe it was simply to do me a good turn and send some glasswings my way. You still have not told me my role in all of this.”

  He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I don’t know,” he said, and it was as close to honest as I was likely to get from him. “All I can tell you is I suspected Malcolm might have something up his sleeve. I suppose I hoped that with you and Stoker here, strangers amongst them, he might behave a little better and not make the whole thing so bloody awkward.”

  “If you knew this was going to be a difficult situation, why accept the invitation in the first place?”

  To my surprise, he decided to answer. “Have you ever turned over a stone just to watch the nasty things wriggling underneath?”

  “I think every child has.”

  His mouth thinned into a cruel smile. “I am no longer a child. There’s a baser word for what I like to do. Let us simply say that kicking over this particular stone amuses me.”

  “Then let us hope you do not get stung.”

  CHAPTER

  8

  I was not entirely surprised to find Stoker sprawled in an armchair in front of the fire in my room.

  “You should not be here,” I told him with some severity as I closed the door. “If the maid finds you in the bedchamber of your brother’s fiancée, it will cause all manner of talk.”

  He waved a hand. “Let them gossip. It might bring Tiberius down a peg or two.”

  “Your concern for your brother is touching.” I took the chair next to his, propping my slippered feet upon the hearth.

  “Tiberius has a distinctly nasty side which you have never seen,” he reminded me.

  “So you have mentioned. I might point out that while I am perfectly well aware that his lordship can be imperious and willful, to me he has been unfailingly courteous.”

  “Only because he wants something. He has lured you down here with the promise of glasswings but he has an ulterior purpose, I’d stake my life on it.”

  I refused to give him the satisfaction of agreeing with his suspicions although I entertained a host of my own. “Your cynicism is fatiguing, Stoker. It is entirely possible that his lordship simply thought to do me a good turn. You forget he has already provided me with luna moths and a grove of hornbeams for the vivarium.”

  “Making it all the more likely that when he imposes himself upon you, you will agree to his terms—no matter how ridiculous.”

  “Such as?” I demanded.

  “Such as this ludicrous masquerade of pretending to be his fiancée,” he said, lifting his brows in a gesture of exquisite mockery.

  “You know why he felt it necessary. A respectable woman cannot travel alone with a man to whom she is unattached. It was the simplest means of offering me protection against the positively medieval norms of our society. Besides,” I added with a touch of malice, “I rather enjoyed the masquerade. Who would not appreciate the attentions of a gentleman of such sophistication?”

  He shook his head, then leant back in his chair, crossing his legs at the ankles and lacing his fingers behind his neck. “I refuse to believe your head could ever be turned by the façade of elegant manners and excellent tailoring. I credit you with better judgment than that.”

  “Tiberius is one of the most eligible men in London. Only a fool would refuse to at least consider the prospect of marriage to him. You have a decidedly low opinion of my pragmatism,” I told him.

  “I have a lower opinion of my brother. You do not know him, Veronica, not really. He plays the gentleman, but he is nothing of the sort. He sharpened his claws on the back of my childhood and he has got worse with age.”

  “Why?” I was curious in spite of myself. I liked the viscount and had little desire to hear Stoker’s flagellation of his character, but I was careful enough of him to be inquisitive.

  Stoker shrugged. “He was old enough to pick up the servants’ gossip and realized I was Mother’s son but not Father’s.” Stoker seldom discussed the fact that he was the product of his mother’s brief liaison with an artist commissioned to paint her portrait during what might best be described as a “difficult patch” in her marriage to the previous Viscount Templeton-Vane. After bearing Tiberius, the heir, and Rupert, the spare, she had produced Stoker, a brilliantly blue-eyed cuckoo in the nest. The youngest, Merryweather, dated to a hectic period afterwards in which the viscount and his wife had attempted to reconcile.

  He went on. “He used to torture me about it, but after a while he lost interest.”

  “He simply ‘lost interest’? That doesn’t sound like Tiberius. He’s tenacious as a wolverine. What did you do to make him lose interest?” I demanded.

  Stoker gave me a bland look. “I might have set fire to his bed. Whilst he was in it.”

  “Enchanting. What do you know of his relationship with Malcolm Romilly?”

  Stoker paused to think. “By the time Tiberius made friends with Malcolm, he and I had little to do with one another. Tiberius was not terribly happy at home, and neither was I. We both spent as much time away from the family seat at Cherboys as possible. Tiberius came here for school holidays and I eventually ran off to join the circus,” he added. In his case, it was no mere turn of phrase. Stoker had indeed run away with a traveling show before joining Her Majesty’s Navy. His youth had been a singularly adventuresome one.

  “Tiberius is forty,” I reminded him. “Those holidays were long ago.”

  “But formative ones,” Stoker said, rubbing thoughtfully at the shadow darkening his jaw. His battle to keep his beard in check was ongoing and uphill. “And he kept returning, long after they left school. I think Tiberius was happiest here. Father couldn’t berate him for every little misstep. There were no expectations put upon him. And with Malcolm’s parents gone, they had the run of the place.”

  “What happened to the elder Romillys?”

  “Dead. Their boat capsized on a rough sea between here and the mainland. I can’t remember the rest of it, but both of Malcolm’s parents were drowned. Malcolm was only twenty-two or so. He inherited the property and guardianship of Mertensia and Lucian.”

  “What a dreadful responsibility for so young a man,” I mused.

  “Indeed. I sometimes think Tiberius envied him that.”

  “Why so?”

  “My brother spent the better part of two decades waiting to wear a dead man’s shoes.” The last Lord Templeton-Vane, Stoker’s presumptive father, had died only the previous year. With his passing, Tiberius inherited the title, the country seat, the London town house, and the family fortune. Little wonder he had chafed at the waiting.

  “His friendship with Malcolm is one of long duration, then,” I ventured.

  “The longest of his life, I should think. Although with Malcolm’s retreat from the world, I don’t think they have been in communication for the past few years.”

  “Since Rosamund Romilly’s disappearance.” I stared into the fire for a long moment, drawing up my feet and wrapping my arms about my knees. “What do you think of Malcolm’s plan to play the investigator?”

  “I think he is a desperate man who cannot face the notion that his wife r
an away.”

  “Without her bag?” I asked, turning to face him.

  “Why not? If she were desperate enough to get away, she might leave everything behind.”

  “Desperate! What could possibly drive a bride from her own wedding feast to running away like a common criminal in a matter of hours?” I broke off.

  “What?” he demanded.

  “Tiberius did mention a story from their boyhood. It seems Malcolm Romilly once choked a boy at school—so severely he was sent down for it.”

  “There you are,” Stoker said with some satisfaction. “He might have frightened his bride by a display of temper that had her rethinking her entire future with him.”

  “But if she did run, where did she go?”

  “I do not know, and furthermore, I do not care. I have had my fill of runaway wives,” he added, bitterness twisting his mouth. His own former wife had left him to die in the Amazon and then dragged his name through the gutter in order to win her divorce. I could well understand his reluctance to involve himself in another marriage’s woes.

  He went on. “I shouldn’t be surprised if she were living somewhere in the Argentine with a farmer husband and eight brats. After all, it is the simplest explanation.”

  “Shaving yourself with Occam’s razor these days?” I asked sweetly.

  “Always. How many brides succumb to nerves on the day? How many get cold feet thinking of the commitment they have undertaken? How many cannot face it in the end?”

  “Well, that is a cruel trick to play upon poor Malcolm if it’s true,” I pointed out.

  “I have experience with the cruelty of women,” he reminded me.

  “How much do you know about Malcolm and the others?”

  He stared into the fire. “I cannot say I know much about any of Tiberius’ friends. The last time he was here, I was rather occupied in Brazil,” he reminded me, gliding neatly over the fact that he had been recovering from life-threatening injuries and being jilted by his faithless bride. Stoker had spent the better part of three years under the influence of strong drink and women of negotiable affections; that is to say, his consolations were bottoms—those of both bottles and whores. I had had my own opportunity to experience the viciousness of the former Caroline Templeton-Vane, thanks to our most recent foray into the investigative arts.* I shuddered at the memory and decided to bring the conversation back to the subject at hand.

  “Still, it is an interesting puzzle,” I said.

  “If you have half an ounce of sense, you will leave it be,” he told me, his tone unusually stern. “You needn’t play the game just because Malcolm wants you to.”

  “Game! I hardly think such an inquiry could be called a game. The man is clearly distraught and in need of answers.”

  “He would be better off letting the dead lie,” Stoker replied.

  “You were interested enough to listen to gossip about her disappearance at the tavern today. Besides, a moment ago you said she ran off, now you refer to her as dead,” I mocked. “Make up your mind. Is she a wayward bride or a murder victim?”

  “She is none of my concern, and if you are wise, you will make her none of yours.”

  “Oh, do go away and stop bossing me about,” I told him. “I already told you that you should not be here.”

  “Ah, yes. Poor brother Tiberius’ reputation,” he said in a mocking tone.

  “Never mind the fact that my own reputation would be in tatters,” I reminded him.

  He slanted me a quizzical look. “Your reputation has never concerned you much before.”

  I did not turn to meet his eyes. “You are in a nasty mood and I am tired. Have you said all you came to say?”

  “In point of fact, I came to apologize. I have already apologized to Tiberius as well.”

  I raised a brow in his direction. “You have apologized? Of your own free will? Do you have a fever? Shall I call someone?”

  He passed a hand wearily over his face. “Go on. I deserve that, and a hundred more just like it.”

  I turned to him, almost concerned. “You are contrite and reasonable. I don’t much like it.”

  He shrugged. “I am sincere. I acted rashly, coming down here and thrusting myself into your little escapade. But Tiberius has always known how to prod me. If I did not know better, I would say he wanted me to come. But he denies it.”

  “You and Tiberius have spoken?”

  “After a fashion. He is still maddeningly opaque when it comes to his intentions with regard to you, but we all know this engagement is a thorough sham.”

  I rolled my eyes. “His intentions with regard to me are nothing I cannot manage, and even if they were, they are not your affair.”

  He fell silent a long moment, and I would have given a piece of my soul to have known his thoughts. My own were so disordered, I could not trust myself to speak. It was the smell of him, I thought idly. Whenever he was near, I detected leather and honey and something more—unplaceable but fresh and sharp like the wind off the sea.

  I turned my head and studied his profile, the proud thrust of the nose, the long, elegant line of the jaw as his head tipped back. A lock of black hair fell across his brow, curling just above his eye. His collar was undone and the pulse beat slow and steady in the hollow at the base of his throat. His hands rested lightly on the arms of the chair, strong, capable hands that had held my life within them more than once. They were the hands of an aristocrat, beautifully shaped with long, tapering fingers, but also the hands of a workingman, broad of palm and heavy with calluses. They were hands that had never failed me.

  I looked again to the pulse beating at the base of his throat and heard its echo in my own ears.

  I swallowed hard, my lips parted. Now, I realized. This very moment, when everything slowed and time itself seemed to hold its breath. This was the moment to mend whatever I had torn. I had only to say the word and declare myself. Three short syllables stood between this present wretchedness and the terrifying bliss of baring my soul to him. I had pushed him away for his own sake, I had convinced myself. I had taken my own cowardice and framed it as an act of generosity. I had told him he needed to exorcise Caroline, but I was the one she haunted, that monstrous beauty with a soul as dark as sin. I was the one who trembled at the thought of being compared to her, of being found lacking somehow. For all my bravura displays of confidence, Caroline had become my bête noire, pricking my self-certainty because I feared above all things in the world becoming just such a woman—capable of inflicting the most profound of wounds upon someone I loved.

  But no more. As the fire crackled upon the hearth and the little clock chimed the hour of midnight, I counted the strokes as they ticked off, telling myself that when it reached twelve, when the last echo faded away, I would take my heart in my hands and speak the truth at last.

  One. Would I preface it with an apology for my capriciousness? The casual injuries I had dealt him?

  Four. How could the seconds slip past so quickly? My heart beat faster, each thud quicker than the chime of the clock.

  Seven. So few seconds left before I would speak and change our lives forever.

  Ten. Only two more chimes and I must speak. But how to begin?

  Eleven. Stoker.

  Twelve. It was time.

  I drew in a deep breath and my lips parted, joy and trepidation stretching my heart so full I could scarce contain it within me.

  Suddenly, he turned his head to meet my gaze. “You were quite right, Veronica,” he said in a casual tone.

  “I—I’m sorry, what was that?” I had begun to speak, had pushed the first syllable from me but nothing more. His remark cut smoothly across my words.

  “Last night, what you said about Caroline. I did not want to hear it, and I daresay I was forty different varieties of rude, but you were right.”

  I felt dizzy, the heat
of the fire suddenly much too hot even as my hands and feet went very cold. “I was?”

  He smiled, a ghost of his usual grin. “Do not take it too much to heart and lord it over me. I am unaccustomed to eating crow and I find it not to my taste. But you were right.”

  I forced my voice to lightness. “It is my usual state of affairs,” I quipped with a smile so fragile it seemed made of glass.

  He went on, oblivious to my piercing anguish. “I gave it much thought last night. As ever, you know me better than anyone. You see in me what I cannot see in myself, and that is the purest form of friendship.”

  “Friendship,” I said in a faint echo.

  He leant forward, eager in his obvious sincerity. “Friendship. I have come to realize that you have been right to insist upon preserving that above all else. Romantic inclinations, physical impulses, those are of the moment. They do not last in the way that real companionship does.”

  “Like a dog,” I said dispiritedly. So I was to be little more than Huxley to him, a dutiful companion at arms, waiting to join in his endeavors, earning a pat on the head and a marrowbone for my troubles.

  “It is a new thing for me, to count a woman as my closest confidante,” he went on. “I have not always appreciated the camaraderie of the fairer sex. I have not always been willing to listen to the counsel of women, but you are so like a man sometimes that I find myself coming around.”

  “I am like a man,” I repeated dully.

  “Well, not in looks, obviously,” he said, still sober as a parson. “But in your manner. You are forthright and direct in conversation, playing none of the games that ladies play. You offer only the truth, however painful.”

  I scrutinized him for signs of malice, but there was nothing in that open, guileless gaze except conviction. “What a martinet you make me sound,” I murmured, forcing the words past the ache in my chest.

  He smiled kindly. “No, never that. More like a devoted governess at times, always willing to give a dose of medicine when needed, no matter how disagreeable.”

  There was no possible response to that observation, so I made none. I merely stared at the fire and wished for a quick and painless death.