CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE #3
Her teeth were small and not particularly good, but she was clearly happy at this outpouring of joy, reveling in the love and approval of her subjects.
She did not turn her head my way as she passed.
There was no moment of recognition between us.
And I knew there never would be.
Whatever unpleasantness her children caused her was their business.
She would make it none of hers.
The carriage passed by swiftly, the horses’ hooves clipping briskly as they trotted forward, carrying her on to St. Paul’s for the ceremony of thanksgiving in honor of her reign.
The crowd surged forward, moving in her wake to get one final glimpse of their queen.
I did not follow them.
One look had been enough.
· · ·
I made my way slowly back towards Bishop’s Folly.
I was halfway across Green Park when he found me.
I ought not to have been surprised.
He had, after all, told me once he could track a jaguar through a jungle for forty miles and never lose it.
It would have been child’s play to him to trail my enormous beflowered hat.
“Been to see your granny?”
Stoker asked blandly.
I gave him a small smile, which he did not return.
“Not that she noticed.
But yes.
I needed to see her, just once.
And now it is finished.
I can move forward and put all of this behind me.”
“Can you?
There are still one or two questions as yet unanswered,” he pointed out.
There was a distance in him I could not bridge, a coldness that had settled over him as soon as the danger had passed.
He had retreated once more into the guise of a stranger.
I did not know why he had sought me out.
Perhaps he merely wanted to weave in as many loose strands as we could.
I owed him as much, I thought bleakly.
I sighed.
“More than one or two questions without answers.
What is the identity of the puppet master—or
mistress, rather—pulling at Sir Hugo’s strings?
What has become of Edmund de Clare and have we heard the last of him?
And was he telling the truth when he said the baron’s death was an accident?”
Stoker fell in step beside me, almost but not quite touching me.
“Max believed in chivalry and courage and all manner of old-fashioned things.
He died defending the daughter of the woman he loved.
He would have chosen that death.
And I think he did.”
“What do you mean?”
“He had the chance to throw the doors wide-open on this when he brought you to London.
You were in a carriage with him for hours.
He might have told you who you were, asked point-blank if you knew of the documents.
But he kept it all shrouded in mystery because I think he wanted to face them.
It was his own misfortune that he underestimated Edmund de Clare’s desperation.”
“I suppose,” I said slowly.
“If only he had told me.”
His expression hardened.
“Would you have believed him?
A strange man you have never met, telling you that you are the legitimate daughter of the Prince of Wales?
You would have bolted out of that carriage at the first chance.
And he would have lost you forever.”
I nodded slowly.
“You are probably correct.
I like to think I would have been too intrigued by his tale to be frightened into flight, but none of us are as brave as we believe.”
“I am not certain of that,” he told me, the words breaking fiercely from him as if he spoke against his will.
“I think you are braver than any man I have ever known.”
His eyes were a shade too brilliant for comfort.
Some new emotion had been kindled, wrestling against the coldness, and it discomfited me.
I did not know what to say, so, as was my wont in times of confusion, I turned to the butterfly—always darting just out of reach, using its mazy flight as defense as well as a means of moving forward.
I reached into my pocket and changed the subject.
“Speaking of money, here is your winnings from our wager.
I had not forgot.
You were entirely correct.
The connection was there, only I failed to see it.
That is the hallmark of a good partnership, you know—when one partner sees the forest and the other studies the trees.
In any event, here you are.
A bright, shiny new guinea for your watch chain.”
I proffered the coin and he took it.
“I shall wear it with pride.
And if I ever run out of money, I will always have the means to buy a bottle of gin,” he told me with a hint of his old raffishness.
“Well, I suppose it is time to move on,” he said briskly.
“Of course,” I replied.
“This little adventure of ours has cost us dearly.
We have almost no money, your collections and home have been lost, and we were very nearly murdered.
You would be the most illogical man in all of nature if you did not wish to put it behind you.
But having said that, I wonder if perhaps there is not just a little of the daring adventurer left in you.”
He went very still.
“What do you mean?”
“I made a proposal to Lord Rosemorran last night.”
I outlined the details, explaining carefully the scheme that his lordship and I had devised, and all the while Stoker listened intently, interrupting only once to ask a question.
“He is serious this time?”
“Indeed.
He wants to make the Belvedere at Bishop’s Folly into a proper museum.
And he cannot do that until the collections are cataloged and expertly prepared for display.
Once that is done, expeditions will have to go out and secure the specimens to fill in the collections.
It is enough work to keep us busy for twenty, nay, thirty years if we like.
We have a home base here in London and expeditions when we long to go out into the field—
funded expeditions,” I corrected.
“His lordship means to collect subscriptions from his wealthiest friends to underwrite the cost.
Between expeditions we will each draw an appropriate salary, and his lordship will turn over the Belvedere for our work.
He is also prepared to offer us a place to live.
He mentioned the smaller buildings on the estate, the little follies Lady Cordelia pointed out to me when we arrived.
His lordship says it will be a small matter to have them fitted out properly for us each to have a small residence of our own.
I have already claimed the Gothic chapel,” I warned him, “so mind you do not cast your eyes upon it.”
I held my breath as he considered, and in that moment of stillness it seemed all of eternity slipped past.
Empires rose and fell and wars were fought and children were born and lived and grew old and died before he answered, and the worst of it was that I could not show him by word or gesture how very much his reply would mean to me.
We were stalwart companions at arms, partners in adventure.
I asked nothing more of him than that.
He stared at me, his expression inscrutable.
“I feel as if I have been dropped into a whirlwind.”
“You have not answered,” I pointed out.
“I would be a fool to refuse,” he said simply.
“And I am no fool.”
The tightness in my chest eased and I could breathe once more.
This was not the end, then.
Whatever this strange connection was between us—it was not yet finished.
He shook his head as if to clear it.
“I am glad this is not the end,” he said, echoing my thoughts, and then he hesitated a moment, his gaze intent, his hands curling into fists as if to keep himself from reaching out.
But the moment passed, and when he spoke, I had the oddest sensation it was not what he intended to say.
His voice was casual and his manner relaxed.
“Well, Veronica, I can say in all sincerity I have never known anyone like you.
You have thought of everything.”
“I tried,” I said modestly.
“It must be difficult for people to surprise you,” he said, looking out over the great green sweep of the park.
“It seldom happens,” I admit.
“Well, then I shall take great pride in this,” he said, withdrawing a packet of papers from his pocket.
He handed it to me.
“What is this?”
But I already knew.
“Call it a birthday present.
I noticed the date on the documents.
You are five and twenty today.
Happy birthday, Veronica.”
Still I stared at the packet in my hand, almost unable to comprehend what he had done.
“Those are the original papers proving your identity,” he told me gently.
“Both the papers your mother turned over to Max and the set the Harbottles left for you in the bank.”
For a long moment I could not speak, and when I did, the words came out in a torrent.
“But I burned those!
You saw me.”
“You burned the packet I gave you.
That is what I was doing when you thought I was writing up my notes on the elephant mount.
I was creating a dummy version for you to destroy.
I did agree that destroying the packet was the only way to buy your freedom,” he assured me, “but I thought it would accomplish the same thing if you only
appeared to destroy it.”
“But why—”
He looked into the distance, his gaze fixed far away.
“Everyone deserves the truth, Veronica.
What you do with it is your affair.
But you should not have the choice made for you just because some people are frightened by the facts.
Burn it, publish it, throw it in the Thames—the decision must be yours and no one else’s.”
I turned the packet over, running my finger across the tape.
I thought of the lives damaged and destroyed by what it represented—my mother, dead of a broken heart.
Prince Albert, my father, the baron—all had been touched by the truth in those lines.
A high price had been paid for the actions of a boy not yet twenty and the girl he loved.
“It is time to let the ghosts rest in peace,” I said finally.
“You mean to destroy it, then?”
he asked.
I slipped the packet into my pocket and put my arm through his.
“Someday,” I told him.
“But not just yet.
For now it is enough that I have it and we are safe.
Now, back we go to Bishop’s Folly, where we can begin to plan our museum.
It’s a pity Lord Rosemorran’s grand elephant was destroyed in the fire.
It would have made a lovely piece for the entrance.”
“The entrance!”
The firm muscle of his arm twitched in outrage.
“You must be mad.
That elephant would have been my masterpiece.
He has another, even larger, and this one I will finish, and when I do, it will go in the center of the museum as the star attraction.”
“Of all the ludicrous ideas,” I began.
We bickered happily all the way back to Bishop’s Folly, as I had expected we would.
Whatever Stoker and I undertook, we should never do so without a feisty discussion and a pitched battle of wits.
But, far from discomfiting me, that notion caused my spirits to rise and my steps to quicken with anticipation.
Exploration beckoned and we would answer its clarion call to continents uncharted and seas unsailed; we would travel them together and perhaps even unravel a mystery or two as well.
A thousand adventures lay before us, and I could not wait to begin them.
As the excellent Arcadia Brown, Lady Detective, so often proclaimed, “Excelsior!”