CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
I
n due course, the chill breeze off the Thames drove us down from the tower and we walked the Outer Ward, making a slow loop between the inner buildings of the Tower and its surrounding fortifications.
There were visitors aplenty that day, and we threaded our way between groups chattering in German and Italian and French, guidebooks in hand as they pointed out the various attractions.
“Pity for them the Menagerie has been emptied out,” Stoker said.
“It must have been quite the experience to stand in this place and hear the roaring of lions.”
“They didn’t belong here,” I protested.
“They should never have been brought to this country.”
He raised a brow.
“You find that different from what we do as naturalists?”
“I do.
We preserve the natural dignity of the animal,” I said firmly.
“We study them in the name of scientific inquiry.
The creatures that were kept here were simply trophies, balm to the royal sense of self-importance.”
“Yes, well, royal senses of self-importance require a lot of balming,” he reminded me.
“And we still haven’t finished deciding who is behind the plot against you.”
“Not the royal family, of that I am certain, in spite of your dim view of my father,” I began.
“But I will concede that they have handlers, men who are highly placed and willing to turn a blind eye to a bit of bloody work if it will preserve the stability of the monarchy.”
“A courtier, then.
Very likely.
And how does Mornaday fit into this?”
I considered.
“He might be a private detective, but he might also be precisely as he claims—an inspector with Scotland Yard.
That would make him a reluctant ally to whichever puppet master pulls his strings.
He claims he was tasked by his superior at Scotland Yard with monitoring our activities—perhaps even ordered to secure us.
He has refused because he believes I am no threat, but his masters will not be appeased.
He is torn between the conflicting claim of duty and his own instincts.
In that case, he does the only possible thing: he warns us to flee.
He might be rapped on the knuckles for failing in his job, but he will not be ruined.
And we escape the clutches of whatever forces at Scotland Yard are working against us.”
“Not ‘whatever forces,’” Stoker corrected grimly.
“There is only one division of Scotland Yard that would concern itself with royal scandal—Special Branch.”
“I thought Special Branch were formed to deal with the Irish problem.”
“Originally, yes.
But they have expanded their purview over the past few years.
Special Branch are discreet to the point of secrecy.
If someone close to the royal family wanted something investigated on their behalf, they would go to Special Branch.”
“How convenient to have so many people to clear up one’s indiscretions,” I said with a trace of bitterness.
I felt a rush of cold wind.
It was an atmospheric place, the Tower.
The very stones seemed heavy with the memory of pain.
We fell to silence, and I amused myself watching a Tower raven strut about, preening his handsome feathers as smugly as a lord.
Legend held that if the ravens left the Tower, the monarchy itself would fall, and from his demeanor, it seemed as if this fellow knew his own importance.
One of the guards strode past and the raven quorked irritably at him, scolding him in his throaty little voice.
Stoker started to laugh, but I grasped his arm, digging my fingers into his muscle.
“Stoker, what if Mornaday’s urging us to flee was a warning?”
“Of course it was a warning,” he said, rolling his eyes.
“A rather poor one considering it came after we had already been abducted.”
“Not that,” I told him impatiently.
“What if Mornaday knows of something else, some
other danger.”
“What sort of danger?”
“If Special Branch meant to clear up this particular indiscretion, the only way to do the job thoroughly would be to eliminate me before the Irish could take me in hand.
And we have given them the perfect scapegoat.”
“What on earth are you—” He broke off as the truth began to reveal itself to him.
“Kill you and lay the blame for it at my door,” he said flatly.
“Exactly.
They could manufacture a dozen motives.
Lovers’ quarrel, a falling out over money, some fever of the brain.
Don’t you see?
It answers all of their requirements.
It removes me as a threat and it eliminates the one other person who knows the truth—you.
And they daren’t leave you alive for a trial.
They cannot risk the truth about my birth coming out in the testimony.
They will have to kill you as well.
A prison suicide—taking your own life in remorse or a thwarted attempt at escape.
And everyone will believe it because of your reputation.”
He said nothing, but his complexion had gone very white.
“Stoker, I know you do not wish to discuss your past, but—”
“But you’re quite right,” he said, his voice low and harsh.
“According to public record, I am a violent man—at least if you believe what the newspapers have said about me.
Half of society thinks I am mad and the other half thinks I am the devil.
They could not have chosen a better villain for their melodrama.”
He faltered then, and I put a hand to his arm, rousing him from the painful reverie into which he had fallen.
“What shall we do?”
“We might take Mornaday’s advice and flee,” he said slowly.
“We could go abroad, somewhere on the Continent, and from there make our way around the world, as far from here as possible.”
“And run for the whole of our lives?
Stoker, we would never be free of them.
Can you really imagine a life like that?
Jumping at shadows and wondering, every moment, if it would be our last.
I could not live such a farce, and I do not believe you could either.”
“Even if it saved your life?”
he demanded.
I shook my head.
“Not even then.”
“Veronica,” he said quietly.
“Do not think that I was suggesting anything improper in urging flight.
If we leave together, I will not tarnish your reputation further.
I will marry you.”
I tipped my head.
“Stoker, I have received seventeen marriage proposals and that is by far the most halfhearted.”
“I mean it.
I will take care of you,” he said, tugging a little at his collar.
“Generally when a gentleman proposes marriage he looks rather less like he’s awaiting the tumbril to carry him off to the guillotine.
You may put your mind at ease.
I have as little inclination to marry as you do.
Nor do I intend to flee.
But I believe you will be just as much a victim of this malicious plot as I will.
And I cannot have that.”
I drew in a deep breath of the damp river air and blew it out slowly.
“I have a little money put by in the bank.
Not much,” I warned, “but it is enough to see you out of the country and well on your way.
Madeira, perhaps.
Or the Canary Islands.
From there you can work your way to Africa and eventually Australia.
Australia is full of unsuitable people—you will fit in beautifully.
And just think of all the lovely animals you can stuff.
You should go there for the platypus alone,” I said with considerable more brightness than I felt.
“And what do you intend to do?”
he asked slowly.
“Stay and fight them, of course,” I replied.
He did not answer for a long moment, but when he did his voice was chilly with the coldest rage I had ever heard.
“In spite of what society believes me capable of, I do not strike women,” he said, each word clipped and hard.
“But I can tell you if anything drove me to it, it would be precisely that sort of insult to my honor.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but he went on, each word as pointed as a sword.
“I am many things, Veronica Speedwell, and most of them I take no pride in, but I am still—and will ever be—a gentleman and a former sailor of Her Majesty’s Navy.
And the one thing a sailor does not do is desert his comrades under fire.
If we stay, we go down together, and we go down fighting.”
I put out my hand.
“There is no one I would rather have at my back.
To the end, then.”
He grasped my hand and shook it.
“To the end.”
· · ·
Of course, as had become our habit, we quarreled over what the end should be—or at least Stoker quarreled and I carried on doing precisely as I wished.
“We must return to your workshop to set our plans in motion,” I informed him.
“What plans?”
“To flush them out,” I declared.
“All of them.
I am going to bring them to us, the Irish, Mornaday and his superiors, all of them.”
His voice was strangled.
“Do you mean to get us killed?”
I spoke with grim finality.
“No.
But I mean to be free of this once and for all.
And to do that, I must bring them all together at one time.”
“And how precisely do you propose to do that?”
“Why, by sending them invitations, of course.
Steel yourself, Stoker.
Veronica Speedwell is about to introduce herself properly.”
Stoker was every bit as tiresome about the plan as I expected.
He raised objections on the grounds of my safety, his safety, common sense, and half a dozen other topics that I dispatched with a coolness that would have been a credit to any battlefield commander.
If my knees trembled a little, I dared not show it to Stoker.
I had little doubt he possessed a predator’s sense for weakness.
If he smelled it upon me, he would not stop until he had forced me to give up my plan, and that was something I could not afford.
I must bring an end to this matter, once and for all, no matter the cost.
It was not until I calmly informed him that I would go without him that he capitulated with very bad grace.
He brooded for the rest of the day, and it occurred to me that a man as large as Stoker in a foul mood was a formidable creature indeed.
But if we were to have any sort of working partnership moving forward, he would have to learn that I could not be cowed by any display of masculine posturing.
Nor could I be moved by appeals to logic, emotion, or femininity, all of which he tried, and all of which I rejected.