A Curious Beginning

“We can speak with this one.”


“You know a barrister? Why in the name of heaven have we been doing this on our own without professional guidance, then?”

“Because I swore to myself I would never speak to him again on this earth.”

“And yet you believe he will help us in a matter as grave as this one?”

“He will.”

“How can you be so certain?”

“He is my brother.”

? ? ?

We arrived at length at Inns of Court and the professional quarters of Sir Rupert Templeton-Vane. Stoker strode in past the protesting clerks and entered his brother’s private office without knocking. The gentleman behind the desk must have been surprised, but he recovered swiftly, and as he rose to his full height, I detected a resemblance. There was something alike in the graceful bones of their faces, but Sir Rupert was a muted copy. Where Stoker was a portrait in oils, his brother was a watercolor, with auburn hair and hazel eyes to Stoker’s black locks and dark blue eyes. Sir Rupert’s complexion was warmer, lacking the Celtic pallor of Stoker’s skin, but their expressions were similar, and I thought as I looked at Sir Rupert there was a cool ruthlessness about his mouth that might make him an implacable enemy if one was foolish enough to earn his enmity.

“Revelstoke,” he said, greeting his brother calmly. “But I believe you prefer Stoker, do you not?”

“I see you have been knighted,” Stoker returned. “That must have made his lordship proud.”

Sir Rupert gave him a thin smile.

“Well, I know only the direst of circumstances would prompt you to call upon me, and therefore I must assume that you require my help. Given our last parting, I can further assume you would only do so if the matter were one of life and death.”

“Your last parting?” I asked Stoker.

“I broke his nose,” he explained with characteristic brevity.

Sir Rupert touched that appendage lightly. “It never healed quite as it was. I saw the best doctors in Harley Street, but there is still a very slight bump. Can you see it?” he asked me, turning his face in profile.

“It lends character to an already handsome face,” I told him truthfully.

“How very kind of you. Stoker, are you going to present your companion so I can greet her properly? Or have you come to inform me that I am a brother-in-law again? In which case I can assure you she is a distinct improvement upon the last.”

I could feel Stoker fairly vibrating with rage at his brother’s cool detachment. The fellow was playing with him, no doubt taking great pleasure in poking the lion, but I was in no mood for such childish sibling tricks.

“Sir Rupert, I am Veronica Speedwell, and I am not your brother’s wife. In fact, I am not entirely certain of who I am.”

The elegant brows rose again. “Miss Speedwell, you intrigue me. Tell me more.”

I looked pointedly at the chairs in front of his desk and his color heightened. “Forgive me. I have been monstrously discourteous. Please, make yourself comfortable, Miss Speedwell, and I will ring for tea. Stoker, sit down. I never did like your trick of looming over me.”

We did as he instructed and in a very few minutes a clerk appeared with a tray of excellent French porcelain and elegant little confections. “I have a weakness for the pastry chef’s art,” he admitted to me as he passed a plate of the tiny cakes. I held up a hand.

“Thank you, but no.”

“For Christ’s sake, Rip, we did not come here for a tea party. We need help.”

Sir Rupert’s nostrils flared delicately. “I never liked that name, and you know it. And there is no reason to dispense with civilities just because you find yourself in a spot of bother.”

“A spot of bother—do you hear the man?” Stoker demanded of me, thrusting his hands into his hair.

“Well, to be fair, we haven’t explained ourselves yet,” I pointed out. I held a hand out for the papers. Stoker surrendered them, and I let them rest on the edge of the desk for a moment, just out of Sir Rupert’s reach.

“First, I need your word, as a gentleman, a Christian, a professional—whatever you care to swear upon, whatever you hold dear. I need your word that what we show you today will never leave the confines of this office. You will never speak of it, never write of it, never send a message by smoke signal or semaphore flag or any other means to any person of what we are about to tell you.”

Sir Rupert’s lightly arch manner dropped away and he leaned forward in his chair. “My dear Miss Speedwell,” he said, in a perfectly earnest voice, “my brother and I may have a relationship that is slightly less cordial than that of Cain and Abel, but I give you my word that I have never betrayed a confidence entrusted to me, and I shall not begin with yours. I swear to this upon everything I hold sacred, and the one thing that Stoker does—our mother’s grave.”