A Curious Beginning

“You. I hope we do not meet with any superstitious countryfolk. They will take you for the ghost of a disheveled highwayman.”


He muttered a curse and started off down the narrow lane that led from the village and into the countryside. The moonlight was our only means of illumination, and the going was difficult at times, the lane pitted and rough. We walked for some time without a word passing between us, but as the moon rose directly overhead, I stumbled and he put out a hand to steady me.

“Thank you.”

He hesitated. “I suppose we could rest for a moment if you require it.”

“Not at all,” I returned briskly. “The walking is sufficient exercise to keep me quite comfortable. We should be chilled through if we stopped. But you might tell me where we are bound, so as to pass the time more easily.”

“We are going to friends of mine. They are encamped nearby.”

“Encamped! Are your friends Gypsies, then?”

“They are not. They are members of a traveling show.”

I stumbled again and he swore softly. “Can you not keep your feet, woman?”

“You surprised me,” I said by way of apology. “A traveling show? I am intrigued. What sort of traveling show?”

“You will see soon enough.”

He fell to a moody silence again, but I would have none of it.

“Mr. Stoker, I understand that you are mightily put out with me, and I daresay if the circumstances were reversed, I should treat you with the same unfounded suspicion. But I would like to point out that I have been very cooperative for a victim of abduction, and the least you can do is make a little polite conversation.”

He stopped then and faced me squarely in the moonlight, his face thrown into harsh shadows. “Victim? When, for all I know, you ordered the attack upon the baron?”

I gave him a pitying look. “I know you think it possible, but you are a man of science. You have been trained not to hypothesize until you have developed all of your data, is that not true? Therefore, you must also believe it possible that I am innocent. The baron himself entrusted me to your care. Would he have done so if he believed me to be a dangerous person? Did you yourself not say his precise charge was that I was to be guarded, even at the cost of your own life?”

He said nothing for a long moment, emotions warring upon his face. “He did,” he ground out finally. “And yes, I will concede it is far likelier you are an innocent in all of this than a perpetrator. But you are the only possible connection I have to discovering what happened to Max.” His voice held a note that in another man might have sounded like a plea.

“I understand that, and whether you want to believe it or not, I am deeply sorrowed by whatever calamity has befallen him. I knew him only for the duration of our journey to London, but I believe he was a kind man and he meant to help me, although I think if he could see you now he might question his own judgment at leaving me in your care.”

His mouth opened, then snapped abruptly shut. I said nothing more. My arrow had flown true.

“I will entertain the notion of your possibly being an unwitting participant in this affair,” he said, his voice chill with anger, “but you must understand that I will nurture suspicions against you until I am persuaded otherwise.”

“So long as you give yourself the chance to be persuaded, I am content with that. And you must let me help you discover who did this terrible thing.”

“Out of the question,” he said flatly.

I strove for patience. “Mr. Stoker, I understand you must fear I will somehow turn the situation to my own advantage, but I promise you, I have every bit as powerful a motive as you for discovering the truth behind the baron’s murder. After all, sir, you are not suspected of complicity.”

To my astonishment, his features relaxed a little. Not quite a smile, but almost. “You are rather put out just now. Oh, you’re doing a damned good job of hiding it, but it rankles that I will not accept your word for the matter.”

“I am not accustomed to being doubted, Mr. Stoker. I have been accounted strange and unfeminine by many people, but my word is as good as any man’s. I find it galling that the only remedy is to try to reason with you.”

“What would you prefer? Pistols at dawn?” he mocked.

“If it would persuade you,” I replied stoutly. “Although, if I am honest, I would prefer swords.” My pursuit of the intruder at the cottage might have been fruitless, but it had given me a taste for bladed weaponry.

His gaze was piercing. “I think you actually mean that. You would be very happy to put a bullet in me just now.”

“Or to take one if it cleared my name.”

He shook his head. “The moonlight has addled your brain, Miss Speedwell. I have no intention of arming you, much less facing off in a duel.”