A Dangerous Collaboration (A Veronica Speedwell Mystery) by Deanna Raybourn (english novels for students .txt) 📕

him, biting off each word. I heard the scrape of chair legs and the slamming of the chair against the floor as he must have thrust himself to his feet. I had just enough time to move a few feet down the corridor and pretend to be deeply immersed in the study of a painting when Caspian emerged, his color high and his hands clasping and unclasping furiously.

He brushed past, taking no notice of me in his rage, and I crept to the open door. Malcolm Romilly was righting the chair—or at least attempting to. It had been broken in Caspian’s fit of temper, and his uncle stared down at the pieces ruefully. He glanced up then.

“Ah, Miss Speedwell. Please come in.” A tiny smile, half-embarrassed, touched his mouth. “You must have heard something of my nephew’s departure, I gather.”

“It would have been difficult not to,” I admitted. “I do not mean to pry.”

He took up the pieces of the chair and put them behind the door. “It is hardly prying when Caspian was shouting fit to shake the rafters. I have not seen my nephew in some years, and I am sorry to say I detect no improvement in his character. Caspian can be . . . difficult. He wants settling down.” He gestured. “Do come in, Miss Speedwell,” he urged.

It was an impressive room, lined with bookshelves and furnished with several groupings of comfortable armchairs as well as a handsome mahogany desk and a pair of high Stuart armchairs covered in ruby velvet that had been gently nibbled by moths. “Family treasures from the days of Queen Anne,” he told me. “The fabric has long since been discontinued and I could not bear to re-cover them.” The whole room had the same shabbily contented air as those chairs. The maps hanging upon the wall were foxed; the bindings of the books were so well-worn, the gilt titles were rubbed down to the leather. But an air of serenity hung over the place, and the view from the windows was incomparable.

Or at least it would have been had a heavy fog not obscured the view. Grey mist hung like shrouds at the windows, swirling about the casements like fingers of the dead, looking for a way in.

He gestured for me to take one of the Stuart chairs in front of his desk, and I did so, spreading my skirts smoothly over my knees and returning to the subject of his nephew. “So many young men his age do want settling down,” I said with some sympathy. “Perhaps a long voyage,” I suggested. “To dangerous lands. A few perils are just the thing to shape a young man’s character.”

The smile deepened. “And a young woman’s. I understand you have traveled the world on your expeditions. You are V. Speedwell, the regular contributor to the Journal of Aurelian Contemplations, are you not?”

“I had no notion you read it!” I exclaimed. “You made no mention of it at dinner, and Tiberius led me to believe you were not terribly interested in butterflies.”

“I must confess, my knowledge is limited to our own glasswings, but after our conversation last night, I rooted out the latest copies of the journal. My father used to subscribe and I never got around to stopping them from coming. I was terribly impressed with your articles.”

“You are too kind,” I murmured.

“Not at all,” he assured me. “I will tell you, Miss Speedwell, I rather suspected that Tiberius had inflated your interest in the glasswings as a means of securing your invitation. He is such a curious fellow, I admit I have never entirely understood him in spite of our many years of friendship. It is the difficulty in making friends with a man so much cleverer than oneself,” he finished with a self-deprecating smile.

I made the proper noises of protest, and he held up a hand. “I harbor no illusions about my abilities or my defects, I can assure you. I am aware of my limitations and my worth, which is more than most men, I think.” His genial gaze turned thoughtful. “I wonder, will his lordship make any difficulties about your hobby when you are married? Surely the Viscountess Templeton-Vane cannot continue in trade.”

His manner was deliberately nonchalant, but there was a tautness to his hands as he rested them upon his desk and a bright inquisitiveness to his gaze. There was something about my relationship with Tiberius that unsettled him, but I could not imagine what it might be.

I smiled. “I would never give up lepidoptery, not for any man,” I told him truthfully.

“What if he insisted?” he pressed.

“I should insist harder,” I assured him.

“Yes, I rather think you would,” he said with a slow nod. He was silent a moment, then seemed to give himself a little shake as he assumed the manner of a genial host once more. “I do hope you are finding your visit a pleasant one.”

“I am indeed. The island is a fascinating place.”

He brightened. “Do you really think so? In that case, I must apologize for the fog. If not for the cloud, you could see all the way to the Three Sisters.”

“Three Sisters?”

He took down one of the framed maps upon the wall and pointed. “Here we are in the castle. Just to the west, off this little bit of beach, lie three smaller islands in a row, each more barren than the last.” They were marked out in thick black ink upon the map, a delicate chain of islands set in a perfectly straight line pointing towards the horizon. I realized then that these were the little isles I had spied from my window upon rising that morning.

“Why are they called the Three Sisters?”

He smiled. “Are you familiar with Cornish folk, Miss Speedwell? We are a superstitious lot. We cannot see a simple geological formation without attaching a myth to it. But sometimes, just sometimes, there is more than myth at work. The story goes that when the castle was built, this