A Curious Beginning

He swore softly. “Whatever you think you may know about Ireland, forget it. I have told you I cannot say more, but yes, Mr. de Clare and his friends are Irish, and you must give them a wide berth if you wish to live long enough to celebrate your next birthday.” He turned anguished eyes to Stoker. “You must make her see reason. Get her safely out of the country.”


Stoker shrugged. “I cannot even persuade her to stay in the house. What makes you think I can force her to leave the country?”

I put a quelling hand to Stoker’s arm. “Do not alarm Mr. Mornaday, Stoker. Can you not see he is aggrieved on our behalf? And we owe him so much already.” The helmsman brought us gently up to the little landing, and Mornaday handed us onto the dock before pointing out the quickest route to a main thoroughfare.

I extended my hand to him. “Thank you for your many kindnesses. I hope if we meet again it will be under very different circumstances,” I told him. He saluted and the little boat slipped away as swiftly as it had come, nimbly dodging the larger craft upon the water as it made its way upriver.

Stoker turned to me with an expression of frank skepticism. “You are not actually thinking of leaving the country.” It was not even a question, and I gave a little sigh of pleasure that he was beginning to know me so well.

“Of course not. But why give Mr. Mornaday something to worry about? He seems such a nice fellow.”

“A nice fellow!” Stoker snorted. “He bribed people I once considered friends to give information about us—a deed that will not go unpunished.”

“Something to save for a rainy day,” I promised him. “In the meantime, we must return to Bishop’s Folly and get into some dry clothes and apply ourselves to the mystery at hand. We have much to talk about.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE


In spite of Mornaday’s blithe assurances that we should easily secure a cab, we walked some distance before finding an empty hansom whose driver seemed entirely incurious about taking up two bedraggled passengers. Stoker gave him the address of Bishop’s Folly and we settled against the seat quite close together—for warmth rather than from any more affectionate motivation.

After a moment, Stoker began to smile.

“What is so funny?” I demanded.

“You. I never imagined you would actually understand my signal.”

“You mean your melodramatic attempts at Morse code by drumming your fists on the deck? It’s a wonder every boatman on the Thames didn’t understand it.”

He rolled his eyes heavenward. “Forgive me for failing to find a more subtle means of informing you of my intentions, but I was improvising. I’ve never been abducted before. I shall do better next time.”

I gave an unladylike snort of laughter. “I think we managed, all things considered. And for a first-timer at abduction, you did very well indeed.”

His gaze narrowed. “Veronica, have you been abducted before?”

I waved an airy hand, thinking of my intemperate Corsican friend and a few rather delicate situations in Sarawak and Mexico. “Oh, heaps of times.”

He opened his mouth to speak but thought better of it, and we journeyed back to Bishop’s Folly in soggy silence.

I was surprised to find upon reaching the Belvedere how quickly the place had come to seem like a home of sorts—borrowed, temporary, but a home nonetheless. I stoked the fire in the snug and put the kettle on while Stoker rummaged about and unearthed a bit of slender rope. He secured one end to a caryatid’s wrist and the other to a narwhal’s tusk, fashioning a makeshift and rather exotic clothesline. I made first use of the little domestic office to tidy myself and was just hanging my things upon the clothesline to dry when Stoker emerged from his own efforts, toweling his hair, his shirt opened loosely at the throat.

“All of my sweets, at the bottom of the Thames,” he grumbled. I rummaged among the tins of provisions and found a bit of honeycomb candy. The pieces were stuck together, but he occupied himself happily in breaking them apart and when he put the first piece into his mouth, he closed his eyes and sighed in unadulterated pleasure.

I took an inventory of all that I had lost. “A hatpin, my violet hat, and Lady Cordelia’s revolver, all gone,” I mourned. But my little velvet mouse had survived the dunking. I had placed him in a warm and discreet spot next to the stove whilst Stoker had been occupied drying himself. Naturally, I did not think of Chester as a child’s keepsake; he was a mascot of sorts and nothing more, but Stoker would no doubt make a fuss and I was in no mood to be laughed at.

I was annoyed enough to find my compass had been thoroughly wetted, and I dried it carefully, clucking as I turned it this way and that in an effort to get the arrow to move.

“Blast. I think the water has got inside and ruined it,” I muttered.

Stoker came to my side and peered over my shoulder. “Let me. I do like to tinker a bit,” he said, taking the compass from me. “Where did you get this?”

“Aunt Lucy. She told me it would always show me the way home again, and I have worn it every day since.”