A Dangerous Collaboration

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  He yawned and stretched. “Lord, it’s late. I ought to let you get to sleep. But I wanted to acknowledge your remarks last night. I was in danger of making a very great fool of myself, but you pulled me back from the brink. Thank you for that.”

  “Well, making a great fool of oneself is something I know a little about,” I said lightly, tasting the words as bitter as pith on my tongue.

  He rose and put out his hand. “So let us shake hands upon our new understanding. Friends, boon companions, partners in work and even these ridiculous investigative pursuits you seem to attract.”

  I took his hand and he shook mine with the heartiness usually reserved for one’s stalwart drinking companions.

  “I am glad we understand one another at last,” he told me. “I have missed our conversations.”

  “As have I,” I told him truthfully. I forced another smile as he bade me good night.

  He closed the door quietly behind him as he left. I sat for a long while, staring into the flames and thinking about what a close thing it had been. I had perched on the edge of the precipice, ready to leap, only to find I had no wings at all.

  “Clever Veronica,” I said wryly. “You thought to protect him from being hurt and instead you have mauled yourself.”

  The fact that I had saved him from further pain was a very small consolation.

  * * *

  • • •

  The next morning I took a hearty breakfast alone again. According to Mrs. Trengrouse, the gentlemen had scattered to their various occupations—Malcolm to estate business, Tiberius to his correspondence, Caspian to some frivolity or other (this said with an indulgent air), and Stoker for a row around the island. I was not surprised at the last. Stoker never liked being confined indoors for too long; he had a keen appreciation of the therapeutic effects of physical exertion. I understood the inclination well.

  I tamped the impulse to charge out in search of my own exercise and instead read the newspapers, relieved to find the Whitechapel killer had not struck again. But there were endless stories about the murders in gruesome detail and the ghoulish speculation turned my stomach. I flung them aside and settled instead to writing up a plan for accommodating my glasswings in the vivarium in London, but it was no use. I could not banish the cloud which had descended after my conversation with Stoker.

  Determined to exorcise my prickly mood, I threw down my pen and went to change into my hunting costume, emerging from my room just as Stoker descended from his.

  “Good morning,” I said cordially. “How was your sail?”

  “Instructive,” he replied. His hair was ruffled and his cheeks flushed from exertion. His mood was markedly better than I had seen in some time. He hesitated, then grinned. “I’ve found something you will enjoy. Come with me.”

  I needed no further encouragement. For just a moment it felt like an adventure of old, and I followed, my spirits rising with every step. He led the way through the pantries, buttery, carvery, and assorted other domestic offices, greeting the staff and startling a scullery maid busily engaged in a frantic embrace with the boot boy in the game larder.

  “How dreadfully unhygienic,” I remarked as they scuttled out.

  We moved on through the kitchen proper, where Stoker collected a sandwich from the cook—not one of the dainties she usually cut for tea but an enormous affair stuffed with rare roast beef and good Cheddar and spread lavishly with mustard. He gave a little moan of satisfaction as he bit into it, and she beamed at him.

  “I do like to see a gentleman with a healthy appetite,” she said, urging another on him. “You’re a fine figure of a man, you are. You need another.”

  I waved her off. “If he has another, he’ll not keep that fine figure for long.”

  Stoker blew her a kiss and pointed to a low door set in the far wall. “That’s where we are bound.”

  “Where does it lead?” I asked.

  “The wine cellars, miss,” the cook replied promptly. “Mrs. Trengrouse is down there now, but ’tis proper dark, it is. Mind you take a lantern.”

  I busied myself lighting one since Stoker was still ravishing his sandwich. At his encouragement, I led the way through the little door and down the flight of stone steps. There was a pool of warm yellow light at the bottom, and I could see Mrs. Trengrouse with a sturdy-looking man in the rough clothes of the islanders, working together to fill a large wine barrel from a smaller cask.

  She looked up as we descended. “Good morning to you both. Come to explore the tunnels again, Mr. Templeton-Vane? Did you meet Mr. Pengird yesterday when you gentlemen rode about the island?”

  Stoker swallowed the last of his sandwich and inclined his head. “I did indeed. Manager of the vineyard, I believe?”

  The fellow nodded. “Aye, sir. That I am.”

  “Mr. Pengird has just brought the first pressing of this year’s grapes,” she told us. “We have no fine vintages of the island wines, I’m afraid. Everything is mixed together and let ferment. Mr. Malcolm believes that the dregs of the old wine give the new wine character.”

  “Right he is,” Mr. Pengird said stoutly. “We’ve made wine in these parts since the days of Elizabeth. The older the cask and the older the leavings from the mature wine, the better the new wine. And this year’s grapes are a rowdy bunch, they are. Just you taste.” He put down the small cask and drew off two tiny glasses, handing one each to Stoker and to me.

  “Will you not taste, Mrs. Trengrouse?” Stoker asked kindly.

  Before she could reply, the vintner gave a bark of laughter. “Not our Mrs. Trengrouse,” he said with a jovial nod towards the housekeeper. “She’s teetotal, she is, sober as a judge.”

  Mrs. Trengrouse shook her head. “It is not fitting for a housekeeper to indulge in spirits, Mr. Pengird.”

  He laughed again, urging us to drink. Mrs. Trengrouse gave us a sideways look but said nothing. The grape juice, unmatured and unfermented, tasted harsh and sour to me, but Mr. Pengird helped himself to a portion from my unwiped glass.

  “That’ll put hair on your chest, it will, missus,” he promised.

  Mrs. Trengrouse gave him a quelling look. “I can finish the rest of the cask, Mr. Pengird,” she said. “I am sure you have other tasks awaiting your attention.”

  “Oh, not me, missus,” he said with a broad smile. “I’ve only these casks to bring up for the master. He does love the first tasting,” he added, pouring out a little more into the glass he held and finishing it with a pronounced smack of the lips. “’Tis sweet this year,” he said with a wink, “on account of my Anna and her dainty feet.”

  “I beg your pardon?” I asked faintly.

  “We tread the grapes here, missus, just as in the old days. Some vineyards use a stone, but not for us, no. We choose the fairest maidens on the island to have a go at pressing the grapes, and this year my Anna had the honor of the first pressing.”

  Stoker and I exchanged slightly queasy glances. Little wonder Mrs. Trengrouse did not drink the local wines! She darted us an apologetic little look while she stuck the cork firmly into the large barrel and handed the small cask back to Mr. Pengird. “Thank you, Mr. Pengird. I will be certain to convey to the master what a treat this year’s vintage will be.”

  “You do that, missus,” he said with another wink. He gathered his little casks and moved to the far wall, to an iron gate set in the stone.

  Stoker took the lantern from me. “I wanted to show Miss Speedwell the tunnels, Mr. Pengird. If you are leaving that way, we will go with you.”

  “Aye, sir,” said Mr. Pengird before he turned to me. “Now, you see, miss, the whole island is riddled with them. Natural caverns, they is. The first fellows used them for living in, until the castle were built and the houses and the village proper. Then the tunnels were put to use as a place to hide away in case of invasion. More than once a ship of villains landed on these sho
res and sailed clean away again when they found not a soul on the whole of the island.”

  “What are they used for now?” I asked.

  “Lord love you, missus, they’m used for nothing at all save keeping a man dry when the rains come and he has to get from one part of the island to another.”

  “Where precisely do the tunnels go?” Stoker put in.

  Mr. Pengird tipped his head, scratching his broad belly. “Well, now, let me have a think. There’s the great tunnel that led from the main beach to the village, but that’s been wrecked for seventy year or more. Caved in, it did, and killed a few good men and ruined a batch of Napoléon’s best brandy, it did.” He gave me a wink. “Them days, the tunnels were used for smuggling, and it’s no crime to tell it now, for the present master would never hold with such doings. But his grandfather weren’t so proper, and he liked him a bit of French brandy and some silks for his missus. Many’s the load that were brought through the tunnels in those days.”

  “But that tunnel has been blocked for the better part of a century?” Stoker prompted.

  “Aye, sir. That leaves the two small tunnels, one from the village up to the castle, and one from the castle down to the western beach, the one that overlooks the Sisters,” he explained.

  Mrs. Trengrouse lifted her own lantern from a peg on the wall. “I will leave the gate unlocked so you may come back up this way when you have finished.”

  Mr. Pengird scratched himself again. “I’ll lead you to where the tunnels branch and then you can find your way,” he told us. “Farewell, Mrs. T.!”

  She bade him good-bye and the last we saw of her was a pale face shining in the darkness of the receding cellar. Pengird led us through the iron gate and into a cave that gave way almost immediately to a narrow tunnel. There was enough room for Stoker to stand upright, but little more than that, and I wondered how the smugglers and seamen had managed through the centuries.

  Mr. Pengird must have intuited my thoughts, for he called back, “This is why we use the small casks to bring the wine,” he explained. “More trips but a shorter distance by far. Now, mind your heads, for the land slopes away here and down.”

  The tunnel took a sharp drop at this point, growing steep, punctuated at places with short flights of steps cut into the living rock and handrails of knotted rope. In other places, the floor of the tunnel was flat enough to permit easy walking, but we were always descending, and I thought what a devilishly hard time they would have hauling heavy goods.

  Once more Mr. Pengird anticipated me. “The last master put in a hydraulic lift, he did, for bringing goods up from the beach. Used to bring his wife’s mother up that way, for the lady were so stout she could not climb it herself,” he added with a wheezing laugh. Suddenly, the tunnel divided and he stopped.

  “This is where I leave you.” He pointed to the right. “This branch goes to the village, it does, right up into the smithy.” He indicated the left branch. “Here’m what you want. Just follow it straight down to the beach and you’ll not come to harm. The tide is out, so you’ve naught to fear from the sea, but mind you come back up sharpish. The tide’ll turn in three hours and you’ll not want to be caught at the bottom.”

  “Is it dangerous?” I asked.

  “Only if you’ve not the legs to carry yourself up,” Pengird returned with a grin. “But the beach is covered and the tunnel floods up the first twenty feet or so. Nothing but the sea beyond until you reach the First Sister.” He touched his cap and set off, shouldering his empty casks and whistling a merry tune.

  Stoker and I turned towards the beach tunnel, holding the lantern aloft to cast the light as far as we could down the dark hole. “Mind your step. It’s slippery here,” he warned. He put out his hand and I took it, feeling the whole world in the warmth of that clasp. The air in the tunnel was fresher than I would have expected, smelling of seaweed and salt.

  “We’re close now,” he called, and just as he did I noted a lightening just ahead. The tunnel made a slight curve and we emerged onto a narrow shingle of rocky beach. Offshore, thrusting upwards out of the sea, the smallest of the Sisters lay, its barren rock lapped by the grey waters. A gull stood atop, giving us a baleful eye across the water.

  “She doesn’t look terribly inviting, does she?” I asked Stoker. But the beach itself was heavenly. The sun had emerged for a brief time, gilding the stones and warming the air. I stripped off my stockings and shoes and settled myself at the water’s edge to wait as I dabbled my toes in the surf. The water was frigid and I drew my feet back as gooseflesh dimpled my legs.

  Stoker did not join me. Instead he stripped off his clothes without a word and strode into the waves, plunging ahead with a strong swimmer’s stroke until only his seal-dark head was visible.

  He swam for some time, back and forth, parallel to the horizon and across the current until at length he emerged from the sea, taking up his trousers and pulling them on with deliberately provocative slowness. Water dripped from his black locks, running down the solid breadth of his chest and the flat plane of his belly. I turned back to the horizon. I pretended not to watch, but set my face to the sea, studying the gull as it flapped away from the tiny isle, wheeling overhead and making mournful noises as it searched for a likely fish. There was a flash of movement on the rocks at the edge of the shingle, a bird, no doubt, coming to inspect the shingle for an unlucky crab.

  Stoker eased himself down onto the beach, pulling on his shirt but leaving it open and affording me a tantalizing glimpse of the hardened muscles that moved easily under his skin. I reminded myself forcibly that we were only to be friends, as established by the conversation of the previous night. No alluring display of masculine charms should distract me from that.

  “You will catch your death swimming in water that cold,” I told him sternly. “You might take a cramp and drown.”

  A tiny smile played about his lips. “How good of you to concern yourself with my health. But you needn’t fear. I have no intention of drowning.”

  “They say it is a peaceful death.”

  Stoker shuddered. “It isn’t.”

  I said nothing, and after a moment he went on. “I’ve seen it. Twice. Sailors who went overboard, once during a storm and that was not so terrible. At least it was quick. We saw him thrashing and fighting the waves as they rose higher and higher, but we couldn’t come about. There was no chance to save him, and believe me, there was nothing peaceful about it.”

  “And the other?”

  He shook his head. “A rigger slipped from the mast. He missed the deck by inches and plunged straight into the sea. It was calm that day. If he’d known how to swim, he could have saved himself. But he never learnt.”

  I raised my brows and he explained. “Most sailors never learn. They think a quick death by drowning or shark is better than lingering on when there is no hope. This fellow was one of those. He couldn’t keep himself afloat. In the time it took us to come about, he was gone. But we could hear him, gurgling and choking and screaming for help until there was nothing but silence—that terrible silence that was worse than all the begging in the world.”

  I shuddered and he leant a strong shoulder into mine.

  “No more dread stories of death on the high seas,” he promised. “Shall we make ourselves an adventure today?”

  “I am surprised you men haven’t got together to go and shoot something. I thought that was what gentlemen did for fun,” I said lightly.

  He laughed and the warm honey of the sound filled me to my bones.

  “I thought we had established that I am no gentleman. Besides, I no longer hunt.”

  “Neither do I,” I admitted with a rueful smile. “I thought my reluctance to capture live specimens was an aberration, an effect of being confined to London, but as it happens, I was no more successful in Madeira. I restricted myself to taking specimens which had died of natural causes.”
>
  “Speaking of Madeira,” he began slowly.

  I broke in, cutting him off ruthlessly. “Young Caspian is something of a devil. I forgot to tell you that he and Malcolm were having a row yesterday. Something about Caspian needing to make his own way in the world. I don’t know what the precise trouble was, but money seems to be the answer.”

  I held my breath, waiting for him to retrieve the subject of Madeira, but he was content to let it lie. For the moment. He shrugged. “I suppose Caspian is asking for money which Uncle Malcolm will not supply,” Stoker guessed.

  “That would be my assumption.”

  Stoker rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I wonder how much of an allowance Malcolm has made to Helen and how much she shares with Caspian. He might have exceeded it on some trifle. Gambling? Women?”

  “Those are the likeliest dissipations for a young gentleman,” I agreed. “Just once, I wish a fellow would ruin himself with extravagant purchases of fossils or a penchant for expensive footwear.”

  Stoker snorted. “I have seen Caspian Romilly’s shoes. He is not indebted to his cobbler.”

  “His mother might be,” I suggested. “Not indebted to a cobbler. But she might be a source of trouble. I have seen evidence that she drinks. Perhaps she has an unfortunate admirer, someone with whom she has been indiscreet.”

  “She is still a handsome woman,” Stoker said in a pensive voice.

  “More so than her sister-in-law.” The words slipped from my mouth before I could halt them.

  A sudden gust of wind stirred Stoker’s hair like a lazy hand. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said, keeping his gaze averted from me as a tiny smile played about his lips. “Mertensia has her own charms.”

  This observation did not trouble me in the slightest as I am not prone to such petty emotions as jealousy. A trifling irritation I could not place made my voice sharper than usual.

  “As does her brother.”