Chapter 19
Chapter
When the invitation finally arrived, I had nearly given up hope.
Several rounds of the post had come and gone with George delivering his usual complement of envelopes and circulars.
Bills, invitations, missives from friends—none were welcome to me when I was in a froth of anticipation over further word from Ruthven and his consort.
“It will come when it comes,” Stoker said mildly as he flicked through his own letters after tea.
“I am sure I do not know what you are talking about,” I replied coolly. “Look, here is an invitation to speak in America including my passage and a handsome fee. It is from the Society of Gentlemen Lepidopterists of America.”
“Are there gentlemen in America? I hadn’t noticed,” Stoker returned.
“Ah, a postcard from Figgy Tiverton. She continues well in her studies and has decided to pursue a career in Egyptology. I suppose she has it in the blood. But she may change her mind. I think last month she said she wanted to be a botanist.”
Ordinarily, I would have responded with alacrity to any communication from the young friend whose paths had crossed ours in the course of our third investigation,[*] but not this time.
Instead I pounced upon an envelope headed in a now-familiar hand.
“It is here!” I tore it open with my fingers instead of the kukri, so impatient was I to read the contents.
“Ruthven has written at last! His lordship requests the honour of our presence at a danse macabre at his home tomorrow evening. Rather late tomorrow evening,” I added. “Festivities begin at midnight.”
“The witching hour,” Stoker pointed out.
“Attire is formal and masked,” I told him, passing over the piece of card.
It was weighty stuff, decorated with a border featuring skeletons leading a line of well-dressed people in satins and velvets, feathers in their hair and jewels at their throats.
I had seen such images often enough in the Rosemorran Collection.
The present earl’s grandfather had had a morbid streak, delighting in the hunting down of memento mori.
Anything featuring a skull was fair game, and one corner of the Belvedere was stuffed to the rafters with paintings of skeletons, hair jewellery, and an enormous tapestry featuring Death playing the pipe to lure victims into the grave.
Thankfully, moths had been at it, nibbling away the most gruesome bits.
I turned back to the invitation. The envelope had been sealed with scarlet wax, and the impression in the wax was of a wolf or large dog.
From the wax hung a narrow fold of black silk ribbon, a nicety one did not often see any longer.
It was an old-fashioned embellishment, a detail straight out of a Jane Austen novel.
“Nouveau riche,” Stoker murmured with a moue of distaste.
“Hold your prejudices,” I said. “And drag your formal suit out of mothballs. We have a ball to attend.”
* * *
Stoker’s suit did not smell of mothballs but cedar and lavender, a much more acceptable fragrance.
George helped Stoker to hang it in the shrubbery, where the fresh spring breezes might blow some of the staleness out.
The only difficulty they anticipated would be if Patricia the tortoise took a liking to it and decided to gnaw at the cuffs.
For myself, I had nothing suitable and was forced to borrow my finery from Lady Cordelia.
She was flushed with triumph, having recently published a paper on Boolean algebra.
Or Bodleian geometry. Or Baconian trigonometry.
I confess, I was not listening when she attempted to explain, mathematics being a subject for which I have little aptitude and less interest. But she was pleased with the reception of her work because it caused her to receive a few pieces of hate mail from the male mathematicians she had criticised.
“One is not considered a proper mathematician until another mathematician has threatened to horsewhip you,” she had told me.
As a result of her good humour, she was only too happy to make a loan to me of an appropriate costume for Lord Ruthven’s ball.
It was scarlet—not a colour I usually chose given the violet hue of my eyes—but it seemed to suit the occasion.
The skirts of the gown were unfashionably wide, but all the better for dancing, as Lady Cordelia pointed out.
She was a trifle slimmer than I through the bosom and waist, but her lady’s maid, Sidonie, achieved wonders with a bit of judicious easing of the seams and some aggressive lacing of a borrowed corset.
“Barbarity,” I muttered, but I could breathe well enough thanks to Sidonie’s clever fingers.
“It makes for a prettier line,” Lady C. told me serenely as she smoothed a crease from the skirts.
“I suppose. But you must admit it is a gross miscarriage of justice that gentlemen do not have to submit to the same tortures,” I protested.
“Have you ever worn a starched collar?” Lady C.
’s gaze met mine in the mirror and she smiled.
“And I remember Aunt Wellie telling me of her papa’s getting ready for a ball—so vain that he insisted upon padding his calves, gluing a bit of horsehair to his scalp to cover his bald spot, and wearing a coat two inches too small so that his shoulders would seem wider. That sounds decidedly painful.”
“I hope he split his seams,” I replied. Recalling my earlier precautions when visiting Lord Ruthven, I tied a wide black velvet ribbon about my neck.
Stoker might have established that his lordship’s bona fides were false, but that did not mean he was not a vampire.
In fact, it rather argued for the matter, I decided.
If one outlived all one’s friends and acquaintances, one would eventually have to assume a new identity, and what better than a title which had fallen into extinction?
“Veronica, you look like a kitten ready for judging in a village fete,” Lady C.
protested. “You cannot possibly go out with a ribbon tied about your throat. That has not been the fashion for more than a hundred years.” She referred, of course, to the habit of stylish ladies to go about with a slender red ribbon at the neck during the French Revolution—à la victime, they called it, in reference to those who had shaken hands with Madame Guillotine.
Ghoulish, in my opinion, but handy for my purposes.
“I like it,” I said stoutly. Lady C. did not need to know that I wore it because it afforded me some slight protection against a potential vampire. I bent to lift my skirts, tucking a nicely sharpened stiletto into one of my garters.
“Veronica, really,” Lady C. chided.
“I must be prepared for all eventualities.” My stoutness of heart extended to protecting Stoker at all costs, and I did not trust Asphodel and Lord Ruthven any further than the tip of my nose.
“You expect violence in a ballroom?” Lady C. settled her black velvet evening cloak over my shoulders.
I turned, whirling the cloak into an ebony wing. “My dear Lady Cordelia, I have learnt to expect violence everywhere.”
* * *
Stoker, to his credit, was ready on time and had secured the use of Lord Rosemorran’s private equipage for the evening.
“Are you sure his lordship does not require it?” I asked as he handed me into the elegant carriage.
“He is spending the evening with a new batch of stamps directly from the Philately Society. He shall likely not emerge until morning,” Stoker assured me.
His gaze gleamed in the dim light as he looked at me. “Magnificent,” he breathed, touching his nose to the curve of my ear.
I swallowed hard before swatting him away with my fan. “Behave yourself. I must arrive uncreased if I am to play the part of a lady.”
Stoker laughed and quoted a saucy bit of Scottish poetry about roving hands, but kept his own sturdy grip to himself for the rest of the journey.
We arrived just before the stroke of midnight to find the house illuminated from rooftop to cellar, every window shimmering with a soft golden glow.
We could hear music, but the strains were not a modern dance tune.
The melody was quite different; even the instruments seemed unfamiliar, although after a moment, I could pick out the throaty cries of the violins and a tuneful cello.
“Folk music,” Stoker said. “From the wilds of Austria, I think. Perhaps Bavaria. Someplace with lots of trees and mountains, at any rate.”
“All the better to set the scene,” I observed. The front door was open, a portly gentleman in black and silver livery standing in attendance. He put out a hand for our invitation card, and as I produced it, I ventured a question. “Are you a regular member of staff?”
“No’m,” he said, looking about furtively. “Engaged for the evening from an agency in London.”
“How many of the house staff are in residence?”
He shrugged. “No idea, ma’am. If they’ve staff, we haven’t seen ’em.”
He stepped back, a clear indication that we were to proceed inside, and I darted a glance to Stoker. “Did you hear? No regular staff that they know of. Curious for so large a house, don’t you think?”
“Do you expect Lord Ruthven cleans the house with vampire powers? Or perhaps Asphodel bewitches the silver free of tarnish,” he suggested.
“Mock as you wish, but it is strange, and that which is strange must be explained,” I returned mildly.
A powder room for the ladies had been set up in a small parlour just off the front hall.
and I paused long enough to hand over my cloak and tuck an errant lock of hair into a pin.
Other ladies were busy powdering noses or having loose hems whipped.
One was considering her posture in the mirror, but I required no such assessment.
When Lady C. had been otherwise occupied, I had slipped a series of minuten inside the décolletage of my gown.
The merest slouch would set one to pricking a tender spot if I were not careful.
But it was worth the risk to my own flesh to have another weapon to hand besides my stiletto.
I only regretted I had not dressed my hair with a particularly lethal Spanish comb I had recently acquired.
I was very much looking forward to stabbing someone with it.
Toilette complete, I tied my mask into place, admiring the effect. It was a half mask and not likely to hide my identity, but it evoked images of carnival balls and Venetian debaucheries, and I was determined to enjoy myself.
Refreshed and ready for the evening’s entertainment, I emerged from the powder room to find Stoker settling his mask into place.
“Having a nice time?” I inquired.
By way of reply, he grabbed me firmly above the elbow and towed me towards the ballroom. Before I could register my protest, he murmured into my ear. “I have just seen a man I would swear is Seward Johnson going into the ballroom.”
“Johnson! He claimed he had no knowledge of Ruthven and no contact with any member of the Harpocrates Society,” I said in some irritation.
We had suspected he was the source of Ruthven’s intelligence about us, but it was vexing to have it confirmed.
It was always so irritating when handsome young men were discovered to be liars.
“What is your plan, dearest? Do you mean to confront him in the ballroom?” I asked as I tripped against him. He stopped short, one strong arm circling me as he set me firmly on my feet again.
“My apologies, my love,” he told me. “You are right. I ought to be more circumspect. We have all evening to approach him.”
“Indeed,” I said, tugging at my dress and twitching my mask back into place.
To the casual observer, it would seem as if I were tweaking my appearance, but really I was making certain my weapons were still secured, ready for action should I have need of them.
I stepped in front of Stoker, squaring my shoulders as I took in our surroundings with a swift glance.
“You are twitchy as a cat,” Stoker said, a tiny smile playing about his mouth.
“The saying about pots and black kettles comes to mind,” I replied. “I mean to keep a careful eye upon you tonight. I will not dismiss the possibility that Ruthven means you some mischief.”
“Ruthven merely wishes to recruit me for the Harpocrates Society,” he countered. “Doing me an injury would hardly further that aim.”
“Asphodel, then,” I conceded. “I mislike how she looks at you.”
His dark, velvety brows rose heavenwards. “How does she look at me?”
“As if she were a devout Catholic beholding a succulent beefsteak on a Friday afternoon,” I replied darkly.
“You think she has designs upon my person?” he asked, his mouth twitching further still.
“Do not be so quick to discount the notion,” I warned him. “She would not be the first.”
“There have not been so very many,” he said, lowering his gaze to look demurely through his lashes at me.
“There have been more than I should care to count. But if she thinks to make a mischief here, she had best be on her mettle,” I told him.
He turned then to look me fully in the eye. “Veronica, can it be—are you jealous?”
“The word, I assure you, is not to be found in my vocabulary.”
“Oh, that lofty tone might fool someone who does not know you as well as I, but I know jealousy when I smell it.” He had broken out into a full grin at this point, his teeth gleaming whitely against the rosy hue of his lips.
“I cannot imagine what you are talking about.” I lifted my chin and took his arm as we approached the door to the ballroom. “Come along, Stoker. To battle!”
Skip Notes
* A Treacherous Curse