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

He stopped and fixed me with a disbelieving stare. “You know that?”

I sighed. “Stoker, I am twenty-six years of age. I have traveled around the world three times, and I have met scores of men, some of whom I have known far more intimately than you can imagine. I promise you, I can smell a burgeoning seduction from across the room. I am no fainting virgin,” I reminded him.

“Then why in the name of bleeding Jesus are you going with him?”

“He promised me Romilly Glasswings,” I said simply.

“And that is all it takes? Bought with a butterfly?” he said in a particularly harsh tone.

“Oooh, how nasty you can be when you are sulking,” I observed.

He turned to his buffalo, wrenching out the sawdust in great, choking clouds. The original taxidermist had thrown in whatever he could to absorb moisture—sawdust, newspaper, bits of cloth. The stuffing had made cozy nest material for all manner of rodents. Tiny bones flew through the air with horrifying regularity as Stoker worked in a frenzy. After a few moments, he stopped.

“I am not sulking. I am concerned,” he told me, his voice soft and gentle now, but the words clipped at the end, as if admitting them caused him pain.

“I can take care of myself.”

“That is what I am afraid of.”

“I will not be gone long. His lordship and I settled the details before he left—a fortnight at most.”

He nodded, his witch-black hair gleaming in the lamplight. I waited for him to rouse himself to temper again, waited for the inevitable repetitious clash of wills, but it did not come. When Stoker and I disagreed, a frequent occurrence if I am honest, it was a thing of beauty—volcanic and ferocious. I took it as a mark of the highest affection and respect that he fought with me as he would a man, and I gave him no quarter either. Our rows were legendary on the Marylebone estate, with frequent wagers amongst the staff as to which of us would prevail. (The safest bet, I need not reveal, was always upon me.)

But this time Stoker simply refused to rise to the occasion. I knew he was angry at his brother’s presumption. Any invitation or gift that had come from the viscount in the past had been met with rage on Stoker’s part. The skeletons in their cupboard of childhood troubles danced vigorously. The viscount’s overtures were intrusions, Stoker believed, encroachments on something he held dear and that belonged to him—me. Even though our relationship had not progressed past a firm friendship and perfect companionship, he resented any attempt by the viscount to win me to his side. I anticipated our quarrels on these occasions. I enjoyed them. But this time, Stoker merely worked at his buffalo, his jaw set and his gaze averted.

“Well, I suppose I ought to pack,” I said finally. “We leave in the morning. His lordship wants to take the early train from Waterloo.”

“Don’t forget your hot-water bottle,” he said, baring his teeth in a ghastly impression of his brother’s smile. “I should hate for you to get cold in the night.”

I returned the smile. “Do not worry on that account,” I told him. “I know well enough how to keep warm.”

•   •   •

I rose in good time the next morning, fairly fizzing with anticipation as I washed and dressed and gulped a hasty breakfast. Is there any feeling as delicious as the beginning of a new adventure? To be perched upon the precipice of a fresh endeavor, poised for flight, the winds of change ruffling the feathers, ah, that is what it means to be alive! I glanced around my quarters, but to me they had assumed an air of emptiness. Everything I truly cared about was packed into my carpetbag; the rest was merely trappings. I gathered two last items for the journey—the latest installment of the adventures of Arcadia Brown, Lady Detective, and the tiny grey velvet mouse I had carried since infancy. Wherever I had ventured in the world, from the misty foothills of the Andean mountains to the lush islands of the South Pacific, Chester had been my constant companion. He was a little the worse for wear these days, his velvet thinning in some places and one of his black-bead eyes a trifle loose. But I would have sooner traveled without my head than without my stalwart little companion.

I stepped outside and drew in great breaths of morning air, but not even the choking soot of London could stifle my elation. At my feet, the dogs—Stoker’s bulldog, Huxley, and Lord Rosemorran’s Caucasian sheepdog, Betony—romped along as I made my way to the Belvedere to take my leave of Stoker. He was already there, immured once more in his buffalo. To my acute disappointment, he wore a shirt, and his usually disordered locks were rather neater than was their habit.

“Good morning,” I said in a cordial tone as I rummaged in a biscuit barrel for a few scraps to throw the dogs. They quarreled over the largest—a bit of moose antler from the Canadian wilderness—before Huxley surrendered it as a courtship gift to Bet. She rolled ecstatically on the ground, waving her enormous paws in the air and upsetting a model of the Golden Hind made out of walnuts as Huxley watched, his deep chest puffed out proudly.

Stoker merely grunted by way of reply.

“I am leaving, then.”

He withdrew his head from the buffalo. He appeared tired, and he was wearing his eye patch, a certain sign that he had fatigued himself. It was a reminder of an accident he had suffered in the Amazon that had nearly taken his eye and his life. He still bore a slender silver scar that ran from brow to cheek, and from time to time, he had recourse to the black patch to rest his weaker eye. I never minded as—coupled with the golden rings in his lobes—it gave him the look of a buccaneer. A rather bored buccaneer at present. His expression