A Curious Beginning

He darted a glance to the end of the road, where a carriage stood waiting. That glance at the conveyance seemed to decide him. I brandished the sword stick again, but he simply reached out, batting the blade aside with one thick hand while he grabbed my wrist with the other. He gave a sharp twist and I cried out, dropping the stick.

He began to drag me towards the carriage. I dug in my heels, but to no avail. My slender form, though athletic and supple enough for purposes of butterflying, was no match for this fellow’s felonious intent. I lowered my head and applied my teeth to the meatiest part of his hand, just above the seat of the thumb. He howled in pain and rage, shaking his hand hard, but would not loose me. He put his other hand to my throat, tightening his grip as I bore down with my teeth like a terrier upon a rat.

“Unhand her at once!” commanded a voice from behind. I glanced over my shoulder to see the Continental gentleman from the lych-gate. He was older than I had thought; at this distance I could see the lines about his eyes and the heavy creases down each cheek, the left crossed with his dueling scars. But he drew no sword against this miscreant. Instead, he held a revolver in his hand, pointing it directly at the fellow.

“Devil take her!” the intruder growled, shoving me hard away from him and directly into the gentleman’s arms. My newfound champion dropped the revolver to catch me, setting me on my feet again with care.

“Are you quite all right, Miss Speedwell?” the gentleman inquired anxiously.

I made a low sound of impatience as the villain reached the end of the road and vaulted into the waiting carriage. The horses were swiftly whipped up and the carriage sprang into motion as if the very hounds of hell were giving chase. “He is getting away!”

“I think perhaps this is a good thing,” was my companion’s gentle reply as he pocketed his revolver.

I turned to him, noticing for the first time that his brow was bleeding freely. “You are hurt,” I said, nodding towards his head.

He put a tentative finger to the flow, then gave me a quick smile. “I am rather too old to be dashing through hedges,” he said with a rueful compression of the lips. “But I think it is not so serious as my other hurts have been,” he told me, and my gaze flicked to his dueling scars.

“Still, it ought to be cleaned.” I took a handkerchief from my pocket, not one of those ridiculous flimsy scraps carried by fashionable females, but a proper square of good cambric, and pressed it to his face.

I smiled at him. “This was rather more adventure than I had expected in the village of Little Byfield. Thank you for your timely interference, sir. I was prepared to bite him to the bone, but I am glad it proved unnecessary. I did not much care for the taste of him,” I added with a moue of displeasure.

“Miss Veronica Speedwell,” he murmured in a voice thick with the accents of Mitteleuropa.

“I am. I believe you have the advantage of me, sir,” I said.

“Forgive me for the informality of the introduction,” he said. He produced a card. “I am the Baron Maximilian von Stauffenbach.”

The card was heavy in my fingers. It bespoke wealth and good taste, and I ran my thumb over the thickly engraved crest. He clicked his heels together and made a graceful bow.

“I am sorry I cannot offer you a place to sit,” I told him as we made our way into the kitchen. “Nor a cup of tea. As you saw, I seem to have been intruded upon.”

The baron’s eyes sharpened under his slender grey brows as he glanced about the wreckage of the room. “Has anything of importance been taken?”

I moved to the shelf where a tiny tin sewing box shaped like a pig usually stood in pride of place. It had been dashed to the floor and rolled to the corner. I was not surprised the housebreaker had overlooked it. Aunt Lucy had firmly believed in hiding one’s money in plain sight, reasoning that most thieves were men and that a man would never think to look for money in so homely and domestic an article as a sewing box. I fetched it, crawling upon my hands and knees to do so. It customarily held all of the Harbottle wealth in the world, a few bank notes and some miscellaneous coins. I shook it and it rattled—a slightly less lively sound than it had given before I had paid the undertaker.

“No. That was the only thing of value and it seems to be untouched. Strange that he did not smash it open—perhaps he did not notice it in his haste. He has made a complete mess of the kitchen. I shall be ages clearing it up,” I said peevishly.

The baron fell silent a moment, as if considering things carefully, then shook himself, muttering, “It is the only way.”

“I beg your pardon, Baron?”

“Nothing, child,” he said kindly. “I do not wish to alarm you, my dear, but I am afraid I must speak plainly now. You might be in danger.”