Chapter 34
Chapter
After the other two had taken their leave, Stoker and I remained in the snuggery, dogs curled at our feet—apart from Vespertine, who decided my feet would make an especially nice bed.
“Now you come back, traitor,” Stoker chided him. “You do realise you were consorting with a murderess last night.”
“Would we, in fairness, call her a murderess?” I asked. Stoker lay sprawled upon an ancient Turkey carpet, the silk pile worn clean away in places. Huxley the bulldog had pushed Nut quietly out of the way to nuzzle against Stoker’s thigh and was noisily worrying a juicy lamb bone.
“She provided the poisons, even if she did not always know their intended use,” he said. “Let us call her at least an accomplice.”
“She was not the author of the plot,” I reminded him. “She was a…a supporting player in their little tragedy.”
He snorted. “I think Maurice Quincey would consider her to have taken a leading role. Remember the putsi he carried—a charm of protection against witches. He was afraid of her. And he made demands of Ruthven and Johnson, not her.”
“Because they had access to Von Hilsing’s wealth!” I protested. “What could Asphodel have given him?”
Stoker shook his head, his thick black hair shining in the lamplight.
“He said nothing to Asphodel because I think that was the point of the blackmail. I would wager the threat he held over their heads was not to go to the authorities—it was to tell Asphodel of what he had seen transpire between Ruthven and Johnson.”
“Wager?” I perked up.
Stoker rose and lifted me to my feet, placing his thumb under my chin and tipping my face up to his. “You already have the guinea. But next time? Double or nothing.”
[The interlude that followed bears no relevance to the investigation of this ghastly case and is therefore redacted.]
When the fire had died down and the air was filled with the assorted gentle snores of our pets, the first watercolour shadows of the gloaming settling over the gardens, Stoker and I finally rose. Hand in hand we descended the stairs to the ground floor of the Belvedere.
“I think I shall ask Tiberius to arrange a dinner for the Brisbanes,” I told him as we walked. “They might be interested in knowing how it all turned out.”
“If we must,” Stoker said with a pained expression. “So long as you promise there will be no dancing afterwards.”
“I promise.”
We had come to the bottom of the stairs, and he turned as if to leave, but I paused, canting my head, brows raised.
“What is it?” he asked sleepily.
“There is one more mystery to unravel, my love,” I told him.
I turned towards the private workspace he had created.
He made no attempt to dissuade me; Stoker is far too familiar with my ways to mistake the situation when defeat is at hand.
He followed me with a sigh as I tugged the concealing tarpaulins free, revealing the project at which he had been labouring so diligently.
“I presume there is a reasonable explanation for this,” I began politely.
“Veronica, there is, I assure you.”
“I do hope so. Given that you were so entirely dismissive of the possibility that vampires might exist, you can, I am certain, comprehend my astonishment to find you working on this.” I sketched a dramatic gesture with my arm, encompassing all of the creature that loomed above us.
“Now, that is an entirely different matter,” he began.
“Is it? Is it indeed? Pray, do explain how one creature from myth is an idea so ludicrous that you will not even consider the possibility of its existence, but another is such a reasonable notion that you are happy to create one?”
“It seemed a good idea at the time,” he muttered.
“Stoker, it is a unicorn.”
“Yes, yes, it is,” he said, and a light of something that must have been pride kindled in his eyes. “A rather good one, I think.”
“Rather good” was a tremendous exercise in understatement.
The creature was stupendous. In illustrations from fairy stories, such beasts are rendered the size of large deer or perhaps ponies.
But Stoker did nothing by halves. This specimen had had its origins in a draught horse of monumental proportions, measuring nineteen hands at least. Its coat was snowy white, the mane and tail rippling in silken waves that glinted with silver threads he had skillfully interwoven with the animal’s natural hair.
The hooves, enormous things the size of dinner plates, had been leafed in silver and burnished to shimmer in the light.
But none of these embellishments compared to the magnificence of the horn. Set neatly in the centre of the brow, it shimmered like mother-of-pearl, spiralling to a lethal-looking point. It was proportional to the rest of the body, rising some three feet into the air.
“The horse was a Percheron, I suppose,” I remarked.
He nodded. “From a farmer in Belgium. It died quite suddenly during a thunderstorm, and the owner did not have the heart to burn him, as he was so beautiful. He wanted him put to a greater use.”
“And the horn?” I asked.
“The tusk of a narwhal. An antique I purchased at auction. It wanted a bit of polishing, but it was remarkably straight.”
I circled the specimen, taking it in from all sides.
It had been posed in a rearing position, its weight balanced precariously yet perfectly on its hind legs, the forelegs raised in a suggestion of a salute.
The eyes were dark with a watchful gleam, as if daring the viewer to venture closer.
The effect was one of danger and beauty and power that was held in check, but only lightly.
Come near and risk being crushed, it seemed to say.
I rounded back to where Stoker stood, watching me intently.
“It is magnificent,” I told him truthfully. “Who is it for?”
“The Duke of Albany. Do you know him?”
I furrowed my brow, trying to place the name. “The peer who has been in the newspapers, agitating for Scottish independence?”
“That is the one,” he said with a grin. “He is rabid on the subject, almost to the point of treason. Tiberius had him to dinner and Albany mentioned he wanted a very particular commission—one he was prepared to pay handsomely for. Tiberius put me forward for the job.”
“And a handsome one you have made of it,” I remarked, looking again to the unicorn. “It seems a trifle large, even for the home of a duke.”
“Oh, he doesn’t mean to keep it at his home,” he said. “Albany has purchased a warehouse in Rotherhithe that he means to convert to a club for like-minded Scotsmen. It shall have pride of place there because the unicorn is the symbol of Scotland herself.”
“How very fitting,” I said. I reached for his hand. “The work is exquisite. You ought to be very proud.”
“I am, rather,” he said. He squeezed my hand in return, then dropped it to replace the tarpaulins, shrouding the beautiful image in darkness once again. “I have only a few minor details to finish, and then he will be ready for collection. Once the duke has settled his bill, of course.”
He finished tucking the unicorn away from sight, then extinguished the work lamps. From high above, a shaft of morning light pierced the gloom of the Belvedere, illuminating him like a Renaissance painting.
“What do you mean to do with the money?” I asked, brushing an errant lock of witch-black hair away from his brow.
He slipped his arms about my waist, moving his mouth to my ear. “Well, usually a commission is enough to buy some books or a new coat when mine is threadbare, but this one is a little more significant.”
“Shall you buy two coats?” I teased. If my voice was a little breathless, it was only because his lips had begun to trace a slow path from the curve of my ear to my collarbone, then back again.
He did not answer for a long moment, preferring to bend his attention to other tasks, and when he had finished, I was far more breathless, as was he.
“I thought,” he said slowly, tipping my face up so that he could see it better, “that it might be a worthwhile thing to use the commission for a trip.”
I blinked. “A trip? What sort of trip?”
“The Templeton-Vane-Speedwell Expedition has a rather nice ring to it,” he said, his lush mouth curving into an inviting smile.
“Expedition to where?” I demanded, poking him sharply in the chest with my index finger.
“Wherever we decide. Someplace that has butterflies for you and something of interest to me. I am partial to fossils, you know.”
“I do know,” I said, reaching up on tiptoe to express my enthusiasm in a way he was certain to appreciate. When I had kissed him as thoroughly as a man has ever been kissed, I pressed my forehead to his, my arms still looped about his neck. “And I know something else.”
“What is that, my incomparable, adorable Veronica?”
“That the Speedwell-Templeton-Vane Expedition has a much better sound.”
He opened his mouth to argue, but I stopped it with another kiss.
I felt the laughter rumbling in his chest, and when he lifted me off my feet, it seemed for just a moment that I had taken wing.
Justice had been served, albeit imperfectly, but the man I loved beyond all others was safe and sound, and we were to embark—at long last!
—upon an expedition of our own. Excelsior!