A Curious Beginning

Finally, she came, in the grandest carriage of all. The equipage was pulled by half a dozen cream horses, perfectly matched. She was smaller than I had expected—and plumper, like an autumn pigeon with its feathers fluffed out against the coming winter. She wore an unapologetically ugly black bonnet and carried a bouquet of roses. I had only ever seen her in profile, on coins and stamps, and it astonished me to find she was smiling. Her teeth were small and not particularly good, but she was clearly happy at this outpouring of joy, reveling in the love and approval of her subjects. She did not turn her head my way as she passed. There was no moment of recognition between us. And I knew there never would be. Whatever unpleasantness her children caused her was their business. She would make it none of hers.

The carriage passed by swiftly, the horses’ hooves clipping briskly as they trotted forward, carrying her on to St. Paul’s for the ceremony of thanksgiving in honor of her reign. The crowd surged forward, moving in her wake to get one final glimpse of their queen. I did not follow them. One look had been enough.

? ? ?

I made my way slowly back towards Bishop’s Folly. I was halfway across Green Park when he found me. I ought not to have been surprised. He had, after all, told me once he could track a jaguar through a jungle for forty miles and never lose it. It would have been child’s play to him to trail my enormous beflowered hat.

“Been to see your granny?” Stoker asked blandly.

I gave him a small smile, which he did not return. “Not that she noticed. But yes. I needed to see her, just once. And now it is finished. I can move forward and put all of this behind me.”

“Can you? There are still one or two questions as yet unanswered,” he pointed out. There was a distance in him I could not bridge, a coldness that had settled over him as soon as the danger had passed. He had retreated once more into the guise of a stranger. I did not know why he had sought me out. Perhaps he merely wanted to weave in as many loose strands as we could. I owed him as much, I thought bleakly.

I sighed. “More than one or two questions without answers. What is the identity of the puppet master—or mistress, rather—pulling at Sir Hugo’s strings? What has become of Edmund de Clare and have we heard the last of him? And was he telling the truth when he said the baron’s death was an accident?”

Stoker fell in step beside me, almost but not quite touching me. “Max believed in chivalry and courage and all manner of old-fashioned things. He died defending the daughter of the woman he loved. He would have chosen that death. And I think he did.”

“What do you mean?”

“He had the chance to throw the doors wide-open on this when he brought you to London. You were in a carriage with him for hours. He might have told you who you were, asked point-blank if you knew of the documents. But he kept it all shrouded in mystery because I think he wanted to face them. It was his own misfortune that he underestimated Edmund de Clare’s desperation.”

“I suppose,” I said slowly. “If only he had told me.”

His expression hardened. “Would you have believed him? A strange man you have never met, telling you that you are the legitimate daughter of the Prince of Wales? You would have bolted out of that carriage at the first chance. And he would have lost you forever.”

I nodded slowly. “You are probably correct. I like to think I would have been too intrigued by his tale to be frightened into flight, but none of us are as brave as we believe.”

“I am not certain of that,” he told me, the words breaking fiercely from him as if he spoke against his will. “I think you are braver than any man I have ever known.”

His eyes were a shade too brilliant for comfort. Some new emotion had been kindled, wrestling against the coldness, and it discomfited me. I did not know what to say, so, as was my wont in times of confusion, I turned to the butterfly—always darting just out of reach, using its mazy flight as defense as well as a means of moving forward. I reached into my pocket and changed the subject.

“Speaking of money, here is your winnings from our wager. I had not forgot. You were entirely correct. The connection was there, only I failed to see it. That is the hallmark of a good partnership, you know—when one partner sees the forest and the other studies the trees. In any event, here you are. A bright, shiny new guinea for your watch chain.”

I proffered the coin and he took it. “I shall wear it with pride. And if I ever run out of money, I will always have the means to buy a bottle of gin,” he told me with a hint of his old raffishness. “Well, I suppose it is time to move on,” he said briskly.

“Of course,” I replied. “This little adventure of ours has cost us dearly. We have almost no money, your collections and home have been lost, and we were very nearly murdered. You would be the most illogical man in all of nature if you did not wish to put it behind you. But having said that, I wonder if perhaps there is not just a little of the daring adventurer left in you.”

He went very still. “What do you mean?”

“I made a proposal to Lord Rosemorran last night.”

I outlined the details, explaining carefully the scheme that his lordship and I had devised, and all the while Stoker listened intently, interrupting only once to ask a question.