“Did he tell you anything more?” I prodded.
“No. Only that he trusted me because I had not been here during her disappearance and because he knew that Rosamund and I were barely acquainted and therefore I could have had no motive for harming her. It was that bland little reassurance that taunted me. I read it over and over again, and it suddenly occurred to me, What if he had known? He might have discovered our feelings quite by chance. Rosamund sometimes kept a diary and she was not always careful with it. What if it had come to light and Malcolm learnt of our relationship? Might he have intended to lure me here under false pretenses? Could a maidservant have known? Had Rosamund confided in her schoolmate Mertensia? The more I considered the matter, the more possible loose ends I imagined. And any one of them might have exposed us.”
“And so you determined to come and discover the truth for yourself,” I added.
“More than that. I always resented the fact that whatever had become of her, he had not been able to prevent it. Had she run away? Then he must have been the source of her unhappiness. In choosing Malcolm for her husband, she must have believed he would bring her comfort and companionship. Somehow he had failed her. And then his letter came, claiming he had proof she had been harmed, and that is when I became angry, blindly, redly angry. All I could think was that he had been able to do the one thing denied me—marry the woman he loved—and he had lost her. He had not kept her safe. He had not protected her. And I wanted justice for Rosamund’s sake, visited both upon her murderer and upon the man who had let it happen. So I decided to come here, prepared to deal justice if necessary.”
“How did we fit into your plan?” I inquired.
Tiberius smiled. “I have never done murder before. I thought an accomplice might be necessary.”
“And you expected we would provide that help? Really, Tiberius. You go too far,” I chided.
“Do I? You are not overly concerned with the law, either of you,” Tiberius replied as he looked from me to Stoker. “You care for justice, but not for how it is achieved. If I executed a murderer, would you really give evidence against me? Or would you help me hide the body?”
“Why the pretense?” I demanded. “Why not just explain what you were after?”
“It’s hardly the sort of thing one asks casually. One simply cannot invite people to engage in a spot of justifiable homicide,” he said. “But I thought that if I could bring you here, if you could see it all for yourself, you would both sympathize.”
“You did not invite Stoker,” I reminded him. “In fact, when he asked to come, you specifically told him he could not.”
Tiberius’ smile was patient. “My dearest Veronica, have you not yet learnt that the surest way to guarantee that Stoker will do something is to tell him he may not? He was twice as eager to come for being forbidden the invitation.”
“Of all the bloody, manipulative—” Stoker began.
Tiberius held up a finger. “Effective. I’ve known how to maneuver you since our days in the nursery. You have not changed.”
“Neither have you,” Stoker replied bitterly. “We are brothers, Tiberius. You could have told me the truth.”
“As you did when Caroline de Morgan was trying to put a noose about your neck?” Tiberius asked. “You have never once turned to me for help. Why should I return the favor?”
The question sat uneasily between them, the silence heavy with reproach.
“Did you kill Malcolm?” Stoker asked bluntly.
Tiberius canted his head and gave his brother a curious look. “I cannot decide which answer you would like most. To hear that your brother is as capable of intemperate violence as you are? Or to hear that he is better than you after all and can resist the most primal of urges, that of the killer.”
“Tibe,” Stoker said in a gentle voice, the nickname one I had never heard before. A relic of childhood? I wondered how long it had been since Stoker, since anyone, had called him that, this elegant and fractured man.
Tiberius drew in a deep, shuddering breath and put his shoulders back. “I did not. I came here with the intention of killing him, and I may do it yet. But I have thus far not harmed so much as a hair upon his head. I give you my word—not as Father’s son, but as Mother’s.”
Stoker gave him a long, level look, then nodded. “I believe you. And I will do everything in my power to keep you from making a murderer of yourself.”
“You may try to stop me,” his lordship said coolly, “but you will not succeed.”
“You should give it another thought,” I broke in. “Having a murder on one’s conscience is no easy thing. I speak from experience.”
His lordship’s mouth went slack, but before he could ask anything further, I held up a hand. “Now, on to business. We must be logical and scientific in our method. If you did not murder Malcolm, where is he?”
“Do you want my word upon it?” Tiberius thundered. “I had nothing to do with Malcolm Romilly’s disappearance. But I swear to you, I vow by all I hold dear in this world and the next, if we find him and it is proven that he had anything to do with Rosamund’s death, I will wrench out his still-beating heart with my bare hands.”
He was breathing heavily, the only sound in the taut silence of the room. Just then, Mrs. Trengrouse appeared, her expression anxious.
“My lord! There you are. I don’t know what to do,” she said, coming forwards in haste.
“Here I am. What is it, Mrs. Trengrouse?”
She hesitated. “’Tis probably nothing, my lord, but I found something on the western beach, outside the tunnels,” she said. “I don’t know what it means, you see, and I am afraid, so very afraid that it means the master is not returning.”
Stoker’s manner was gentle. “What did you find?”
She shook her head, the threads of silver gleaming in the lamplight. “I cannot rightly say. ’Tis like nothing I have ever seen before. But I—” Her voice broke on a sob and Stoker patted her shoulder.
“We will come,” he assured her.
We followed Mrs. Trengrouse through the house and down to the kitchens. “Where is the staff?” I asked as we made our way through the usually bustling offices.
“’Tis their suppertime,” she said. “Cocoa and bread and butter before they finish the dinner preparations.” Stoker gave an appreciative sniff of the aroma of cocoa as she led the way to the tunnels, lighting lamps for us and unlocking the gate. She collected a lantern and went first through the narrow passage; I fell into line behind Mrs. Trengrouse, who kept up a continuous patter of talk as we made our way down to the beach, the brothers walking behind.
We emerged onto the beach just as the sun sank behind the Sisters, the dark rose gold of the light turning to silvery grey. A tiny boat had been beached at the edge of the water, and Mrs. Trengrouse led the way to it, hurrying over the shingle. The waves were rising in the evening wind, lacy whitecaps forming at the crest of each breaker.
“Inside the boat,” Mrs. Trengrouse said, lifting her lantern high so we could see. “Just there.”
The Templeton-Vanes clambered into the little craft, Tiberius more slowly than Stoker. They stood, looking about for a moment before turning to Mrs. Trengrouse in perplexity.
“Now you, Miss Speedwell,” she ordered. “Into the boat.”
In one hand she still held the lantern aloft, lighting the way. And in the other, she leveled a revolver at my heart.
CHAPTER
18
“Well, this is unexpected,” Stoker remarked with a bit of his old hauteur.
“I know,” she said, smiling thinly. “If you had expected it, sir, you’d never have come. Now, into the boat, miss. I’ll not ask again.”
I did as I was bade for the simple reason that I could see no plausible alternative. I was too far away to disarm her, as were the Templeton-Vanes. Stoker put out an arm and braced o
ne booted foot upon the gunwale, hoisting me swiftly to stand in between them.
“What now?” he asked.
“You will row the boat to the First Sister,” she said, nodding towards the rock.
“And if we refuse, you shoot us?” he guessed.
“Beginning with Miss Speedwell,” she assured him.
“What if we row out a bit and turn back?” Tiberius inquired.
“Then I will shoot her before you reach the beach,” she promised. “Your choice is simple, my lord. You and your brother row Miss Speedwell to that rock or risk her life.”
Tiberius opened his mouth, but Stoker thrust an oar into his hands. “Shut up and row, Tiberius,” he ordered.
“I have a number of questions,” I said to Mrs. Trengrouse.
She smiled again, but it was a tremulous, anxious thing. “I imagine you do, but I am no hardened criminal, Miss Speedwell. I am not steeled to enjoy this sort of thing, and the longer you linger upon this beach, the more nervous I become,” she said, waving the revolver again.
“For Christ’s sake, sit down,” Stoker told me, tugging my skirt hard enough that I tumbled to the bottom of the boat. Without preamble he leapt from the boat and gave it a mighty shove, launching it into the water. He gave Mrs. Trengrouse a long, level look, assessing the distance between them, but she merely kept the gun fixed upon me, and he resumed his position in the boat, taking up his oar.
We were perhaps halfway to the island before we dared to speak, keeping our voices low lest they carry across the water to the villainess waiting upon the beach, watching our progress with her lantern lifted high.
“So much for your arsenal of knives,” Stoker said. His face was a mask of pain as he rowed. He had removed his coat with difficulty and a bloodstain was blossoming on the white linen of his sleeve.
“I can only presume that your bad temper is the result of the rowing pulling loose your stitches,” I told him coldly. “As it happens, I am not wearing my boots or my purple corset, and it seemed a bit excessive to strap a knife to my calf just to sit down to tea. I shall know better next time.”
“Next time,” he said in a hollow echo.
“Now, let us turn our considerable energy and intellect to the problem at hand. We might row around the island,” I suggested. “We will soon be out of distance for a decent shot and we could risk pulling for the other side of the island. We would find help there.”
“The current will carry us the wrong way,” Stoker said flatly. “And we cannot row against it all the way around the island.”
“Then what if we—”
Stoker gave a jerk of his head. “We cannot do anything other than what she has ordered,” he said. He looked down between his feet and I realized that the rising sensation of cold I had been feeling was not simply nerves. Seawater was seeping into the boat, filling the tiny hull.
Tiberius swore and began to pull harder at his oar. “She means to drown us.”
“No, she means us to comply,” I corrected. “If she meant us to drown, she would have made a bigger hole.” I inspected the series of small punctures drilled into the hull. Sawdust was floating on the top of the water, and I realized she must have damaged the boat just before coming to find us. A few other granules floated on the surface and I rubbed them between my fingers, dissolving them.
“Sugar,” I pronounced. “She must have packed the holes with plugs of sugar to keep the boat afloat long enough to get us away from the beach.”
Stoker and Tiberius pulled hard for the little isle, and we reached it just as my skirts were beginning to float. We were wet through to the waist. Tiberius vaulted over the side and onto the slippery rock, putting out his arms to me. I jumped, rocking the boat dangerously as Stoker steadied himself. The water was nearly to the gunwale in the boat, and with a single nimble rush, Stoker leapt to the rock, the quick motion thrusting the boat under the water.
“Well, that lets out any idea of rowing back,” Tiberius mused.
I looked around the island. It was a single large rock, mostly flat, rising a little way out of the water. It was covered in seaweed and dreadfully exposed to the rising wind. I shivered in my wet clothes and without a word the three of us huddled together in the center of the rock. We were silent awhile, watching the last of the grey light fade and the stars begin winking to life. Across the narrow channel, the warm golden light of Mrs. Trengrouse’s lantern hovered like a firefly in the gathering darkness for a long time before at last it bobbed away.
Stoker turned towards the horizon, where the sea stretched away as to the end of the world. “‘The vast, salt, dread, eternal deep,’” he pronounced.
“Keats?” I asked.
“Byron, actually.”
“While the two of you natter on about poetry, I should like to point out that Mrs. Trengrouse is well and truly gone,” Tiberius said. “And we are castaways.”
“And me without a flask,” Stoker said lightly.
I reached beneath my skirt. “Have mine,” I told him, passing over the small flat bottle of aguardiente I always carried upon my person.
“Thank Christ,” Stoker said, taking a long pull. He offered it to Tiberius, who refused with a shudder.
“It is not a very good plan, this scheme of Mrs. Trengrouse’s,” Tiberius said. “She has got us out here, now what? We pass an uncomfortable night and then hail a passing boat. She might have purchased a few hours’ peace for herself to finish whatever diabolical machinations she intends, but she cannot hope to escape us.”
Stoker gave me a long look in the starlight before looking to the horizon, where the moon, enormous and glimmering white as an agate, was rising, casting its light across the shimmering sea.
“’Tis the full moon,” he said slowly. He picked up a piece of seaweed in his hand and held it. “And the kelp is damp.”
“What does that signify?” Tiberius demanded. “I vow, when I get my hands on that witch, I will make bloody well certain she goes to Newgate for this. Who does she think she is, forcibly detaining a peer of the realm?”
He went on in that vein for a few minutes, but I picked up a piece of seaweed for myself and looked at Stoker. “Oh,” I said quietly. He nodded.
Tiberius paused in the middle of his diatribe. “What?” he said irritably. “It is bad enough that I am marooned out here like bloody Robinson Crusoe without the pair of you doing that enraging thing where you seem to read one another’s minds.”
“The tide is rising,” I said calmly, marking where the waters had climbed since our arrival.
“So? They do that,” Tiberius returned. “Every twelve hours, I am told.”
Stoker kept his face towards the horizon, the moonlight illuminating his profile like an emperor incised upon the face of a coin. “It is the full moon,” he repeated. “And the kelp is wet.”
Tiberius rolled his eyes heavenwards. “Why does he keep bloody saying that? I can see the damned moon and I do not give a queen’s quim for wet kelp.”
Stoker turned at last, his expression fathomless. “Today is the first full moon after the autumn equinox. The sea will rise, higher than at any other time during the year. And at the last high tide, it rose enough to cover the island completely.”
It took a moment for Tiberius to grasp the full implication of what he was saying. Even in the fitful light I could see him pale, his eyes suddenly bleak. “You mean we shall drown here?”
Stoker shrugged. “I see no boats, brother. It is only a matter of time before the sea closes over us.”
“But the other Sisters,” Tiberius began.
I shook my head. “Too far to swim and pointless. There is no shelter and they are even further out to sea. No trees to provide fuel for a fire and even if there were, I suspect Stoker’s matches are worse than useless.”
He reached into his pocket for his matchcase and opened it. The handfu
l of lucifers inside floated on a little puddle of seawater. “Pulp,” he said succinctly.
“What if we made a great noise and shouted for rescue?” Tiberius asked, somewhat desperately, I thought.
“The wind is blowing the other direction,” Stoker told him with greater kindness than I would have expected. “It will carry the sound away from the island.”
We were silent, each of us locked in our thoughts. Finally, Tiberius burst out. “I do not accept this,” he said, rising to his feet. He stood, magnificent in his rage. “Damn you! This is your fault, you bloody bastard,” Tiberius thundered.
Stoker rose to face his brother. “Say it again.”
“This is your fault,” Tiberius said with brutal clarity.
Stoker’s fist connected with his jaw before the last word was finished. I jumped between them. “Is this truly how you mean to spend our last hours?” I challenged. “Brawling like boys? Tiberius, you are unfair. This is no more Stoker’s fault than mine.”
“It is,” he insisted, rubbing at his jaw. “He let her do this. He had a chance to overpower her on the beach.”
“I would not risk Veronica’s life,” Stoker said simply.
“Why? Because you love her?” Tiberius jeered. “Much good your love will do her now, brother. She dies with the rest of us.”
“But for now, she lives,” Stoker returned. “If I had acted hastily, God knows what that woman might have done.”
A Dangerous Collaboration (A Veronica Speedwell Mystery) Page 29
