A Dangerous Collaboration

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  “I have learnt that better than most,” Stoker told him with icy calm. I stared at him in perplexity. I had seen him so often enraged or in a towering temper, but never this cold composure, this complete and utter placidity in the face of certain death.

  “And still it profits you nothing,” Tiberius returned. “You risk nothing and so you are nothing. You love her,” he repeated, jerking his head towards me. “And yet you have never told her, have you? Well, I am glad of it. She deserves better than you, you bloody fool. She deserves a man who would kill for her.”

  Stoker’s smile was slow and terrible. “You think that is love, brother? That I should kill for her?” He shook his head, his eyes locked with mine. “You are the fool, Tiberius, because you still do not understand. I do not love her enough to kill for her.” He stepped to the edge of the rock. “I love her enough to die for her.”

  And without another word, he disappeared over the edge of the rock and into the blackness of the sea.

  * * *

  • • •

  For a long while I felt nothing at all, only a bone-deep numbness. Eventually I came to feel Tiberius’ arm roped about my waist. I pushed at it, none too gently.

  “Let me go.”

  “Only if you promise not to try to jump again,” he warned.

  “I did not—”

  “You did.”

  After a moment, I gave him a sharp nod and he released me, moving his hand to my shoulder. “There is nothing to do but wait,” he told me.

  I looked at him then and saw that he was older now. The moon had risen higher, hollowing his cheeks and deepening the shadows around his eyes. Four long scratches scored his face from cheekbone to jaw, the blood crusted.

  “Did I?” I gestured towards the scratches.

  “Yes. When I would not let you go after him.”

  I sat down heavily on the rock, thrusting my hands into my pockets in a futile search for warmth. I felt the familiar form of Chester, the tiny velvet mouse. I tried not to think of the fact that this would be our last adventure together. “I suppose I ought to thank you.”

  “Don’t,” he ordered, sitting beside me. “I did it as much for myself as you. I could not have two lives on my conscience tonight.”

  “Then you think—” I did not finish. I could not.

  He shrugged. “The sea is rising, the mist is falling, and the water is as cold as a woman’s heart.”

  “He is a good swimmer,” I said stubbornly. “I have seen him.”

  “He is,” Tiberius agreed. He did not believe, any more than I did, that Stoker could survive the swim to St. Maddern’s, not with the sea rising and a newly stitched wound in his arm hampering his stroke. Tiberius was simply trying to keep me consoled until we should both fall asleep on the rock, bone-chilled and aching with cold, until the sea crept over us and carried us off.

  “Well,” Tiberius said finally, his eyes bright with unshed tears. “I didn’t realize the boy had it in him.”

  “You ought to have,” I told him. “You have known him longer than anyone. You ought to have seen his worth.”

  “I spent most of my life hating him,” he replied. “For no other crime than being Mother’s favorite. I knew the boy, but not the man. He is a stranger to me.”

  “Is he? You are peas in a very particular pod, Tiberius.”

  He gave a short laugh. “How did you come to that conclusion?”

  “You are both sentimentalists.”

  “I do not have a sentimental bone in my body,” he protested.

  “Don’t you? A hardened cynic would hardly have to hold back his tears at a time like this.”

  He pressed his fists to his eyes. “How could he? I cannot bear this, Veronica. I thought losing Rosamund, losing our child, was the worst I would suffer. But this . . .”

  He dropped his hands and the tears he had shed mingled with the blood on his face. “How will we bear it?”

  “We shall not have to,” I told him, nodding towards the creeping sea. It had covered the top of the rock, leaving us a small patch upon which to sit. With every minute, the silvery water came closer, whispering.

  “It sounds as if it were speaking,” I told him. “I wonder if that is how the legends of mermaids and sirens came to be.”

  He shrugged. “I suppose. I wonder if Rosamund . . . do you think she walked into the sea? Is that how it happened? It would have been a peaceful end, I hope.” I thought of the stories Stoker had told me of the sailors he had watched drown and I knew better, but somehow I found it in my heart to lie a little.

  “I hope so too,” I told him, taking his hand in mine. It was large and warm, as Stoker’s were. I noticed again that where Stoker’s were calloused and scarred, Tiberius’ were smooth-fleshed and delicate, the hands of a gentleman. I would have sold my soul for Stoker’s roughened touch at that moment.

  “So, Mrs. Trengrouse is our villainess,” Tiberius said, tightening his grip on my hand. “Why, do you think?” He did not care, I thought. He merely wanted conversation to turn his thoughts from the encroaching sea. He did not want to face death alone and in silence. So I held his hand and I talked as the water rose over our feet.

  “Perhaps she was acting in concert with Malcolm,” I suggested. “She has always been devoted to the Romillys. If he did, in fact, learn of Rosamund’s child, he would have a motive to kill her. And if he were involved in Rosamund’s death, Mrs. Trengrouse might have played the accomplice.”

  “Then where is the devil?”

  I shook my head. “Impossible to say. He might have taken fright that he would be discovered and Mrs. Trengrouse is hiding him somewhere we have not found. He might have killed himself and she is covering for him. He might have fled to the mainland.”

  We discussed the possibilities, batting around theories and abandoning them as the tide rose. My skirts swirled in the black water, and I got to my feet, pulling Tiberius up beside me. “We will stand, together,” I told him.

  “It will only take longer,” he replied.

  “We will stand,” I insisted. “We will meet our end head-on.”

  “Spoken like a true English gentleman,” he said with a wry twist of the lips.

  “I am no gentleman,” I replied. I put my hand back into my pocket to clutch Chester.

  He put his arms about me as the water reached our waists. “We cannot stand much longer,” he said. “My footing is about to go.”

  “Mine as well,” I said. I glanced out to the western horizon, where the other two Sisters were shapeless shadows in the silver mist. Beware the sister, Mother Nance had said. I felt a rush of hysterical laughter fill my throat and swallowed it down hard.

  “Climb on my shoulders,” he ordered. “You might purchase a few more minutes—” Just then his foot slipped and he righted himself, clutching me as we both realized the futility of his plan.

  His expression was agonized. “You would not be here if it were not for me,” he began.

  “Do not,” I told him sternly. “I came of my own volition. I made my own choice, as I have always done. And if I must go, I am glad not to go alone.”

  The sea swirled hard about our waists, tugging at us. Tiberius straightened his shoulders and lifted his chin. “And if I must go, I am glad to go with you, Veronica. It has been my honor.”

  A wave crashed into us then, dragging us apart and tearing us from the rock. Tiberius’ fingers slipped from mine and I opened my mouth to call to him but seawater filled it. I turned my face up just in time to see the moon, that beautiful pearled moon, drift from a cloud and shed her light like a benediction. And then the sea closed over my head and I saw nothing except the great black emptiness of the deep, the vast, salt, dread, eternal deep.

  CHAPTER

  19

  I woke to a hot stripe of sunlight on my face and a cool compress upon my brow. />
  “Finally,” Mertensia said with obvious relief. “I thought you would never come round. We were afraid you might have hit your head upon one of the rocks, but we could find no injury.”

  “I drowned,” I said, levering myself to a sitting position. The room swam about me, spinning like a child’s top. Mertensia pushed me back none too gently.

  “You almost drowned,” she corrected. “You went under twice before they pulled you out.”

  “They?” I asked, the losses of that terrible night crashing over me with the weight of a mountain.

  “The men from the village,” she told me. “They took a boat out to bring you and Tiberius back from the rock. Whatever made you decide to venture out there is quite beyond me, but they launched a rescue boat.”

  “How did they know?” I asked her in confusion.

  “Why, Stoker told them,” she said evenly.

  Blood rushed to my head, pounding in my ears. “Stoker?”

  “Yes,” she said with a benign slowness, as if she were speaking to a backwards child. “He swam back to St. Maddern’s, God only knows how he managed it. He landed on the beach half-dead and then roused the men with the summoning bell. They had a devil of a time putting to sea—it was the highest tide of the year, you know. And they don’t like to be out on the sea on such a night. But he swore and bullied and threatened them until they launched.”

  “He is alive,” I said stupidly. I turned my head to see Chester sitting on the bedside table. One ear was a little lower than it had been, set now at a jaunty angle, and his eyes were different. The beads had been black before but now they shone, winking dark blue in the morning sunlight. I turned back to Mertensia.

  She rolled her eyes. “Isn’t that what I have been saying?”

  “And Tiberius?”

  “Downstairs, eating his second breakfast since he had no dinner. The pair of you had drifted apart by the time the rescue boat arrived. They were able to recover him more quickly because he was directly in their path. You were carried a little distance away and quite unconscious by the time they pulled you from the sea. Old Trefusis himself administered the necessary remedies and I am told he quite enjoyed it,” she added with a sly smile. “And then you vomited up half the sea on him and he was rather less enchanted. But you were still unconscious when they carried you in, and Stoker ordered you put to bed with hot bricks and ladled whisky down your throat until you slept easily. He said rest was the best cure for you.”

  “What time is it?” I asked, scarcely able to take in everything she had told me.

  “Nearly gone noon. And the weather has cleared at last, nothing but glorious sun and clear skies,” she said, flinging the curtains back fully. The single patch of golden light burst into an unbearable brightness that illuminated the entire room.

  “I have to dress,” I told her. She tried to prevent me, but I forced my way past her and she eventually lent a hand, muttering all the while.

  “I could make you a restorative,” she suggested.

  I buttoned my cuffs and tucked Chester into my pocket. “Where is Mrs. Trengrouse?”

  She shrugged. “I do not know. First Malcolm and now Trenny. I do not know what strange happenings are at work here, but I hope soon to have an end to them.”

  “You will,” I promised her. I flung open the door and rushed down to the breakfast room, taking the stairs as quickly as I dared.

  Tiberius was, as she had told me, sitting in state, helping himself to plates of eggs and kidneys and piles of toast. As soon as I appeared in the doorway, he rose. He came to me, his expression a mixture of relief and something more. “My dear Veronica,” he murmured. “You are looking a fair sight better than when last I saw you.”

  I grinned in spite of myself. He held out his hand, but I pushed past it and went to embrace him. His arms came around me and he murmured into my hair. “We are more than family now, I think.”

  “More than family,” I agreed. “Where is Stoker?”

  He resumed his breakfast, taking his seat at the table and buttering a fresh piece of toast. “He took himself off to the village to thank the lads who came out last night.”

  I plucked the toast from his fingers and headed for the door. “More than family,” I reminded him as he protested.

  * * *

  • • •

  I met Stoker on the path from the castle to the village. I was fairly flying down the hill, my skirts gathered in my hands, when I rounded a bend and there he was, suddenly before me. I strode towards him, not slowing my pace. I came upon him like a cataclysm, taking his face in mine and raining kisses upon him until we were both short of breath as if we had run a footrace.

  “Veronica,” he said at last, his expression so full of emotion I could not speak for the fullness of it. I put my arms about him and pressed my face to his chest. “Don’t. Not yet,” I pleaded. “Tell me something mundane.”

  A low laugh rumbled through his chest and I felt his lips upon my hair. “Very well. I have just been to see the village men. To thank them for their courage and skill last night.”

  I nodded and he went on, speaking of things that mattered not at all.

  “They were reluctant to go, but in the end, they overcame their fears and if it were not for them—” He broke off and his grip upon me tightened so that I knew I would never breathe again.

  “Stoker.” The word was weighted with everything I meant to say and could not voice. I retrieved Chester from my pocket. I held the little mouse towards him on my palm with a question in my eyes.

  “You were clutching him when they hauled you aboard. One of his ears was nearly off and the eyes were gone, but I still know my way around a needle,” he said lightly. I thought of the hours he must have spent, sitting at my bedside, putting each stitch into the velvet, slowly and methodically, marking them off like the pearls on a string of prayer beads.

  “Stoker,” I repeated, turning my face to his, offering, asking, waiting.

  He ducked his head, suddenly elusive.

  I turned his face towards mine, almost able to master my emotion. “You think we will not speak of what you did?” I asked.

  “Not now,” he said, and there was a harsh note of pleading I had never heard in his voice before. “I cannot bear to remember, much less to speak of it.”

  “You risked your life to save us,” I reminded him. “Do you regret what you said?” I asked.

  “No. I regret that you heard it,” he countered.

  “Did you not mean it?”

  He drew in a deep breath and leveled his gaze at me. “Veronica Speedwell, I meant it then and I mean it now and I shall mean it with every breath until my last. I love you.”

  I opened my mouth, but he laid a finger upon it. “Not now,” he repeated. “Not here with my brother at hand and murderers lurking in the hedgerows. We have played a thousand games with one another, but the time for that is past. Whatever we mean to be to one another, we will speak of it when these other distractions are no more. We will speak of it—when we are free to act upon it,” he finished, rubbing his thumb across my lower lip.

  His eyes promised much and I shivered with anticipation as I nodded slowly.

  “You are right, of course. This is hardly the place for that sort of thing. Does this mean you will stop torturing me by displaying yourself in various states of undress?”

  “Not a chance.” He grinned. I kissed him again. I did not think of Caroline. She was in his past, buried the moment he dove into the sea to save me. She would not haunt us again.

  * * *

  • • •

  We gathered Caspian and his mother and Mertensia in the drawing room for a council of war. Tiberius explained what Mrs. Trengrouse had done, breaking the news as gently as possible, but Mertensia took it poorly, dissolving into an unaccustomed bout of weeping. Helen, her fears eased, took it upon he
rself to console her sister-in-law, putting an arm around her shoulders and murmuring soothing platitudes.

  Caspian, to my surprise, rose to the occasion. “We ought to search again,” he said. “We can press the entire island into service.”

  “Where do you suggest we look?” I asked Caspian. He shrugged.

  “Damn me if I know, if you will pardon my language. We played sardines all over this house, but apart from the priest’s holes, there are few proper hiding places and none large enough to hold a man for any length of time.”

  I jumped to my feet. “Damn us all for blind fools,” I muttered, taking to my heels. Tiberius and Stoker were hard behind, following as I made my way to Malcolm’s bedchamber.

  “We have already looked here,” Tiberius reminded me. I ignored him as I searched for the mechanism to expose the priest’s hole.

  “Here.” Stoker reached past me to press the bit of carving. The panel shifted and I squeezed into the hideaway. Stoker pushed in behind me, holding a lamp aloft.

  “Look there,” I said in triumph. On the dust of the floorboard was the clear imprint of a shoe, small and pointed. “A woman’s,” I said. “And left since we were here last.”

  “What made you think of this place?” Stoker demanded.

  “That,” I said, pointing to the back of the priest’s hole. “It is paneled where it ought to be stone. I only remembered it when Caspian mentioned the priest’s holes. It struck me as odd at the time, but I was too interested in the traveling bag to explore further.”

  Stoker felt the panel on the back of the priest’s hole, running his hands carefully over the moldings.

  Tiberius stuck his head into the stuffy little compartment. “What the devil are you doing? It is obviously empty.”

  “And it is obviously only an antechamber,” Stoker told him. “Sometimes priest’s holes were made up of more than one chamber, and we ought to have realized it sooner.”