CHAPTER EIGHT
“I
wish I had known earlier we were embarking upon a train journey,” I mused aloud as I rummaged in my bag.
“I would have brought more food.
And you needn’t have bothered with first-class tickets, you know.
I would have been perfectly comfortable in third.
Indeed, the trains in certain remote regions of Eastern Europe make no marked distinction between the two.”
Mr. Stoker, who had been watching the lights of the city with a decided intensity, relaxed as the metropolis fell away behind us.
“There is no privacy in third class,” he reminded me.
“Have we need of privacy?”
He did not reply.
Silence lay between us then, heavy and unpleasant, and I thought I would run mad if it persisted for the duration of our journey.
He had still declined to tell me exactly where we were bound, and the omission nettled me.
My frustration demanded relief, and in my experience, men could often be goaded into speaking if one could only lay a hand upon the correct inducement.
In Mr. Stoker’s case, anger might well do the trick, I surmised, and I decided to prod his temper to discover any tender spots I might use to my advantage.
“I must say, this makes an improvement, Mr. Stoker.
I thought you entirely incapable of initiative, but I am very glad to see that I was wrong.
I think there is every possibility of your making a thorough success of yourself if you continue on in this vein.
Of course, one could wish you would turn your energies to something more profitable and wholesome than felonious abduction, but it makes a start, does it not?”
I smiled pleasantly at him, and he glowered at me from his seat opposite.
I was thoroughly satisfied with how swiftly he had turned to anger, and I made a note of it for future encounters.
“I cannot make out if you are the bravest woman I have ever met or the most ludicrous,” he said in a stringent tone.
“You ought to be frightened out of your mind, shrieking and swooning and sobbing upon the floor.
Instead, you insult me.”
“Not at all!
I meant it as a most sincere compliment,” I told him.
“This act demonstrates considerable spirit and an unconventional mind, two qualities the great explorers have always united.
And, more to the point, why should I be afraid?
I have the consolation of a clear conscience, Mr. Stoker.
I know I have in no way contributed to the baron’s misfortunes, and I do not think you believe it either.
This is merely a passing fever of the brain, a momentary whim.
Your reason will restore itself in due course, and we will proceed from there.
In the meantime, I believe the best strategy for me to adopt is one of peaceful compliance, just as one would do with a sleepwalker or a madman.”
“You think me mad?”
“You did just abduct me,” I pointed out reasonably.
“I do not know that I should not call it madness, per se, but you must own it is a bit peculiar.”
I did not bother to explain that it could hardly be considered a proper abduction when I was clearly there of my own volition.
I might have escaped him a dozen times, but it seemed unkind to raise the point when he thought he was doing such a masterful job of keeping me in tow.
I half expected a lecture of some sort, but he had said all he intended to say, and we fell into a sharp silence then.
This time I did not attempt to rouse him from it.
The hours slipped by, and the dusky purple twilight deepened to blackness.
The stars emerged, shyly at first, and then winking brightly, and a lopsided, waxing moon rode above the trees as we journeyed further west into the countryside.
Eventually he dozed, and I occupied myself by thinking of Mr. de Clare.
Clearly he had things to tell me, but it was his misfortune that I had received such excellent instruction at the hands of my Corsican friend.
An accomplished bandit, he had stressed to me the importance, at all times, of following one’s intuition, no matter what logic might dictate.
I had done so at Paddington when faced with the question of accompanying Mr. de Clare, and it was not until I had the leisure of the train journey that I reasoned out why my instincts had insisted upon Mr. Stoker as my companion at the expense of Mr. de Clare.
I had not been conscious of the thought at the time, but I realized, as I listened to Mr. Stoker snoring softly in time with the train wheels, that whether or not the baron had indeed sent him to retrieve me from Mr. Stoker like a parcel, Mr. de Clare had chosen his approach with care.
He had not spoken to me when Mr. Stoker was at hand, but the moment we were divided, Mr. de Clare had presented himself.
Had he truly been a messenger sent from the baron, he would have had no compunction about announcing his purpose to both of us.
Unless.
I looked at my sleeping companion, the features drawn by a creator in a harsh mood, with no softness to spare.
The nose was aggressive, the sort of nose Alexander would have looked down as he conquered the world, and the cheekbones and brows matched it in sharply molded grandeur.
The jaw, though shadowed by the beard, was obviously strong, and the upper lip, what was visible of it, was slender and hard.
Only the gentle curve of the lower lip betrayed him as a sensualist.
That lower lip told stories to which the rest of his face gave a lie, and I wondered which to believe.
Taken together, this collection of features could be hero or villain, martyr or tyrant, and if Mr. de Clare believed him to be my captor, it made perfect sense that he should wait to make his approach until Mr. Stoker was absent.
Had he viewed himself my deliverer from whatever menace Mr. Stoker offered?
It was a chilling thought.
But I remembered again my lessons in Corsica and shook my head stubbornly.
I would not, could not believe that Mr. Stoker would be my doom.
It was only much later that I decided my Corsican friend had much to answer for.
· · ·
We changed trains at Taunton and again at Exeter before alighting at last at Taviscombe Magna.
Here we were the only passengers to leave the train, and I was not surprised there was no one to meet us.
Mr. Stoker gestured impatiently.
“The night air is cold here.
Have you a coat?
Put it on.”
I retrieved a long striped coat from my bag and buttoned it securely.
He merely slung an untidy old frock coat over his shoulders, wearing it as a cloak, and as we moved into the moonlight, I smiled.
“What is so bloody funny?”
he demanded.
“You.
I hope we do not meet with any superstitious countryfolk.
They will take you for the ghost of a disheveled highwayman.”
He muttered a curse and started off down the narrow lane that led from the village and into the countryside.
The moonlight was our only means of illumination, and the going was difficult at times, the lane pitted and rough.
We walked for some time without a word passing between us, but as the moon rose directly overhead, I stumbled and he put out a hand to steady me.
“Thank you.”
He hesitated.
“I suppose we could rest for a moment if you require it.”
“Not at all,” I returned briskly.
“The walking is sufficient exercise to keep me quite comfortable.
We should be chilled through if we stopped.
But you might tell me where we are bound, so as to pass the time more easily.”
“We are going to friends of mine.
They are encamped nearby.”
“Encamped!
Are your friends Gypsies, then?”
“They are not.
They are members of a traveling show.”
I stumbled again and he swore softly.
“Can you not keep your feet, woman?”
“You surprised me,” I said by way of apology.
“A traveling show?
I am intrigued.
What sort of traveling show?”
“You will see soon enough.”
He fell to a moody silence again, but I would have none of it.
“Mr. Stoker, I understand that you are mightily put out with me, and I daresay if the circumstances were reversed, I should treat you with the same unfounded suspicion.
But I would like to point out that I have been very cooperative for a victim of abduction, and the least you can do is make a little polite conversation.”
He stopped then and faced me squarely in the moonlight, his face thrown into harsh shadows.
“Victim?
When, for all I know, you ordered the attack upon the baron?”
I gave him a pitying look.
“I know you think it possible, but you are a man of science.
You have been trained not to hypothesize until you have developed all of your data, is that not true?
Therefore, you must also believe it possible that I am innocent.
The baron himself entrusted me to your care.
Would he have done so if he believed me to be a dangerous person?
Did you yourself not say his precise charge was that I was to be guarded,
even at the cost of your own life?”
He said nothing for a long moment, emotions warring upon his face.
“He did,” he ground out finally.
“And yes, I will concede it is far likelier you are an innocent in all of this than a perpetrator.
But you are the only possible connection I have to discovering what happened to Max.”
His voice held a note that in another man might have sounded like a plea.
“I understand that, and whether you want to believe it or not, I am deeply sorrowed by whatever calamity has befallen him.
I knew him only for the duration of our journey to London, but I believe he was a kind man and he meant to help me, although I think if he could see you now he might question his own judgment at leaving me in your care.”
His mouth opened, then snapped abruptly shut.
I said nothing more.
My arrow had flown true.
“I will entertain the notion of your possibly being an unwitting participant in this affair,” he said, his voice chill with anger, “but you must understand that I will nurture suspicions against you until I am persuaded otherwise.”
“So long as you give yourself the chance to be persuaded, I am content with that.
And you must let me help you discover who did this terrible thing.”
“Out of the question,” he said flatly.
I strove for patience.