A Murderous Relation

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  My arms and legs were bound, and a blindfold had been secured imperfectly over my eyes. The fabric was soft, a handkerchief perhaps. There was a mildly sore spot on my arm where the needle had penetrated, but otherwise my only complaint was the woolly feeling in my head. I assessed my circumstances with some relief. My clothing felt intact, and there was no telltale soreness about my person to indicate that I had been abused or violated in any fashion save the means of sedation administered by the needle.

  The chair upon which I sat was wooden and sturdy, and I realized after a moment that it was situated with its back to another chair. I pulled forwards slightly and felt the ropes about my chest catch. A deep groan answered, and I was seized by a rush of joy so heady I very nearly collapsed.

  “Stoker,” I said, testing out my voice.

  For an agonizing moment, there was no reply. At last, an answering growl.

  “What in the name of the oozing wounds of Christ is happening?”

  “It appears,” I said slowly, “we have been abducted. Are you injured?”

  “My head feels as though I were on the third day of shore leave,” he said bluntly. “You?”

  “I am perfectly fine except for a curious lightheadedness.”

  “The sedative,” he told me. “The effects should wear off soon. Faster if we had a stimulant.”

  “You mean like coffee or brandy?”

  “Or a nice solution of cocaine,” he said, reminding me that he had once before roused me from a stupor using just such a method.

  I turned my head and scraped my face along the shoulder of my gauzy dress. The gesture was enough to catch the handkerchief, dragging it free. I shook my head and the handkerchief dropped to the ground. I blinked against the sudden glaring light, but a moment’s respite showed that the light was feeble, a single oil lamp situated in the corner, far away from where we were. A narrow bed stood next to it, and atop it, the slender form of the prince, his mouth open and emitting gentle snores. The fact that we had played a role in the abduction of the future king was a good deal more than I could readily comprehend at present, so I made a note of his presence and his regular, even breathing and decided to worry about him later.

  Stoker and I were sitting on wooden chairs, back to back, each of us bound individually and then roped together to keep us upright. If I turned my head as far as possible, I could just make out the edge of Stoker’s body, clothed in his trousers and shirt, his boots gone along with his weapons, I had no doubt. I wriggled a little before letting out one of Stoker’s oaths under my breath.

  “Weapons?” Stoker asked.

  “They’ve taken them,” I replied. “Yours?”

  He paused a moment, shifting in his chair. “I had only the picklocks in my sash,” he reminded me. “Gone, as best I can tell.”

  “And the jewel?” I asked. But I already knew the answer.

  “Also gone.” He gave a little sigh that might have been resignation.

  “Well, it will require all of our ingenuity to escape from this,” I said firmly.

  “You needn’t sound so uplifted by the notion,” Stoker told me.

  “Why not? Have we ever yet been in a situation we could not master? It requires only a little careful consideration and a bit of imagination,” I informed him.

  “Veronica. We have been abducted. Our weapons are gone. My boots and all of our outer garments have been taken. This bloody room is freezing and we will no doubt die of exposure in a very few hours if they do not return to finish us off before that.”

  “Warehouse,” I corrected.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Loose your blindfold and see for yourself.”

  The next few minutes passed uncomfortably as Stoker wrestled with his limitations to remove his blindfold. But at last he did, and he raised his head, no doubt blinking against the dim light as I had done.

  “It is indeed a warehouse,” he said.

  “Thameside?” I suggested.

  “From the odor, not far,” he said. He lifted his chin and sniffed deeply. He had the olfactory sense of a bloodhound, and I trusted his observations in that regard far more than my own. “But it smells more like Whitechapel. Tobacco. Cotton,” he added. When I met him, Stoker had been living on the premises of his taxidermy studio, a vast and decrepit warehouse on the banks of the Thames that was in the late stages of decay. It had been destroyed in a fire, taking the remnants of his life’s work with it. There were dozens of such buildings between the riverside and the crowded dens of Whitechapel.

  “The prince is here as well,” I told him.

  Stoker stiffened. “Bloody hell. Where? How is he?”

  “There is a bed on the other side of the room. He is sleeping peacefully, no doubt still under the effects of whatever they used to render us unconscious. I suspect he will be coming round soon enough,” I finished, more to persuade myself than him. I could not begin to contemplate the fate that would befall us for this misadventure involving the heir to the throne.

  Just then the door opened and a tall, deceptively pleasant-looking fellow entered, bearing a large basin of what appeared to be porridge. He did not seem troubled that I had pushed aside my blindfold, and I blinked up at him. He was enormous, well over six and a half feet in height, with the docile demeanor of a man content never to ask questions or have a complicated thought.

  He carried a pewter mug, and when he lifted it to my lips, I smelt sour beer. I had no thirst for it, but I knew the importance of nutrition and hydration and I forced myself to drink. He spooned a few bites of porridge into my mouth, messily, and I studied him as he moved, noting the slow, resolute motions, the placid expression on his face. This was no mastermind. This was the dogsbody, tasked with menial duties and nothing more. Questioning him would be a waste of breath, but it would be helpful, perhaps, to establish some sort of rapport or at least gain some information.

  I gave him a soft look from beneath my lashes. “Thank you, you’re very kind,” I murmured.

  He grunted and spooned in another bite of porridge. I swallowed it hastily. “What is your name? I should like to know to whom I should be grateful for such courteous treatment.”

  Behind me, Stoker shook once convulsively in what might have been a suppressed oath or a laugh. It was impossible to tell.

  Our captor took a long moment to think of a suitable reply, but at length he managed to utter a few words. “Quiet Dan.”

  His voice had an unmistakable Irish lilt, and a creeping certainty stole over me as Quiet Dan moved to offer Stoker a bit of sustenance. When he had finished, he looked to the prince. Eddy was still sleeping peacefully, emitting tiny snores. He shuffled out again, taking his nasty porridge bowl with him.

  “That porridge was beyond burnt,” Stoker grumbled. “He might at least have put a bit of honey in it.”

  “I think our problems might be of a more generous magnitude than the state of the refreshments,” I replied. “You realize our captor is only a henchman?”

  “I do. That is the sort of fellow who couldn’t plot his way into his own shoes in the morning,” Stoker said.

  “And you detected he is Irish?”

  “The accent is unmistakable. Between Dublin and Limerick, I should think.”

  “How on earth have you deduced that?” I demanded.

  “When Merryweather was born, his wet nurse was from the County Offaly. She used to tell me stories while she fed the little brat,” he said, but there was a fondness, albeit reluctant, when he referred to his youngest brother. “I was quite mesmerized by the size of her bosoms,” he went on.

  “Yes, well, if you can possibly tear yourself from a sail down the river of nostalgia, you might realize that an Irish captor raises one most unwelcome possibility as to the author of this little misadventure,” I said.

  He sighed again. “Uncle de Clare.”

&nb
sp; “Uncle de Clare.”

  The last time we had seen Edmund de Clare, he had thrown himself out the window of Stoker’s riverside workroom, his flesh aflame as he plunged into the filthy waters of the Thames. His corpse had not been recovered, but I had been assured that there was nothing terribly unusual in that. The vagaries of the river meant that there was no way of knowing for certain where a body would emerge, if at all. It was so easy to think of Edmund being swept out to sea and the whole wretched ordeal being finished. Too easy, it seemed.

  “I thought he was dead,” Stoker said. “When a fellow has the flamboyance to catch on fire and plunge out of a window into a filthy river, he ought to have the courtesy to be dead.”

  “You would think,” I replied in a tone of authentic bitterness. “But I always had my doubts. It would be just like him to survive such an escapade only to resurrect himself in order to vex me.”

  “Be easy,” Stoker counseled cheerfully. “It may be an entirely different villain. After all,” he added with a jerk of his head towards Eddy, “he has a fair few enemies. This mayn’t have anything to do with you. Or me.”

  Before I could reply, the door opened again and a man stood silhouetted in the doorway. I had not met him in two years, but I knew him at once.

  “Hello, Uncle,” I said pleasantly. “The last time I saw you, you were on fire. I see you have been extinguished.”

  He came forward, into the light, leaning heavily on a walking stick of Malacca. He had been a handsome man—once. He made his way slowly into the room. One leg seemed twisted and he moved it with great effort; one arm was tied up in a silken sling, the hand covered with a glove. The fire had wrought its damage, but those scars were honest, the twisting of flesh by flame. I had met dozens such men upon my travels—former soldiers, fishermen, explorers. Accidents were common in the realm of natural history. Stoker himself bore the relics of a voyage gone disastrously awry. But this was different. This was a man whose very spirit was damaged, and that was nothing to do with the physical ravages of his ordeal.

  “Your mother used to brazen out her troubles as well,” he said, a glint in his eye. “Or at least she did before she killed herself.”

  “Well, that was uncivil,” I told him, striving to keep the tremble from my voice. “But I suppose I have only myself to blame. Should I have greeted you with open arms? A thank-you for the delicious supper? Or a kiss on the cheek and a compliment on your skills as a kidnapper? You seem to have got so much better at abduction since our last meeting.”

  “God, you’ve a tongue like an adder,” de Clare said. He signaled to Quiet Dan, who came forwards with a small chair. De Clare settled himself carefully, like a man well accustomed to the grip of pain.

  “The years,” I said slowly and with some pleasure, “have not been kind.”

  “No,” he agreed more pleasantly than I would have expected. “They have not.”

  He paused a long moment, studying me. “You are so very like her. It is not enjoyable to converse with a ghost, Niece.”

  “I am not my mother,” I said, my hands curling into fists beneath my bonds. “I am my own person.”

  “That you are,” he said, settling back expansively in his chair. “You have the look of her but none of her gentleness. She was bendable as a willow, our Lily. Beautiful as a faery and twice as wild, but she was weak.”

  “I think you will find that the willow is considered one of the strongest trees in nature,” Stoker offered. “The genus Salicaceae—”

  “Enough,” de Clare said, beckoning Quiet Dan forwards once more. “Another word from you and I shall let him beat your head against the floor until it is soft as a boiled apple.”

  Stoker bristled but said nothing more.

  De Clare turned his attention back to me. “When the Prince of Wales abandoned her, Lily allowed her emotions to get the better of her. She gave way to her despair instead of rising above it. She took her life because she was too weak to live.”

  “Perhaps,” I said, struggling to keep my voice calm, “she was too mired in that despair to see another way.”

  He gave me a narrow look. “Aye, there was another way. She could have made her claim public, forced the prince to do his duty by her.”

  I gave a short laugh. “Do you really think that would have been permitted? She would have been silenced and well you know it. The advisers and lawyers and ministers would have seen to it that her story never became public. She would have been pensioned off and sent abroad with me.”

  Sent by someone like Lady Wellie, came the disloyal thought. And not for the first time, I wondered what Lady Wellie would have done if confronted with the truth of my existence when I was still young enough to be made to go away.

  De Clare leant towards me a little. “Or she would have rocked the monarchy, brought it to its knees. Given us a new queen,” he said with a mocking little bow of the head.

  “So, it is the same plot as last time?” I asked. “You mean to use my quasi-legitimate status as the daughter of the Prince of Wales to call the succession into question and light a scandal that will burn down the English monarchy?”

  “More or less,” he acknowledged.

  “I thought you might have given up, considering you almost died the last time,” I pointed out.

  “Almost is not dead,” he returned. “I survived that ordeal because it was meant.”

  I rolled my eyes heavenwards. “You cannot be serious. You survived through sheer bloody luck and the fact that the window offered a straight drop down into the river to quench the flames. Nothing more.”

  “You see only coincidence and I see the hand of God,” he murmured.

  “If you really believe that God preserved you in order to see this scheme to fruition, you are even more delusional than I first thought,” I said in considerable exasperation. “It is impossible to argue with a mind that does not admit scientific fact and relies instead upon dogma delivered by the hand of an invisible author.”

  “It is a scientific fact that I survived,” he replied, his mouth twisting into a rictus of a smile. “Just as you have. I made a study of your travels, Niece. I know what you have survived. Shipwrecks, volcanoes, landslides. If you cannot see the will of God unfolding there, I pity you.”

  “So, it is the will of God when you get what you want, but you refuse to accept when it crosses your purpose?” I challenged. “How do you know my mother’s suicide was not the intention of God? The succession of the heirs of the current queen? The subjugation of Ireland? To attribute anything to the whims of a capricious deity is the refuge of a limited mind, Uncle.”

  He regarded me a long moment. “You will see it for yourself in time.”

  I glanced to the bed where the prince still slept. “Were you responsible for Madame Aurore’s murder?”

  “In fact,” he said slowly, “I was not.”

  In spite of myself, I believed him. My immediate concern was escaping de Clare’s clutches with both of my companions. A rush of guilt had engulfed me when I spied Eddy’s slender form stretched out upon the narrow bed. My uncle had abducted him in the course of snatching me. The responsibility of that nearly knocked me to my knees, but before I could nurture the hope that de Clare had taken him without knowing his identity, it was dashed.

  “I see the prince is sleeping like a babe, although he is not half so innocent, given his choice of pursuits,” my uncle mused.

  “What do you mean?” I demanded. “Why is he here?”

  “You will see that in due course as well,” he promised.

  “I have no interest in a crown,” I said evenly. “I thought I made that clear when last we spoke, Uncle.”

  “You might have no interest for yourself, and that is a good thing. A woman should not have ambition for herself.”

  “I am so glad to have met with your approval.” I bared my teeth in a semblance of
a smile.

  He went on as if I had not spoken. “But you must have some consideration for your kin, for your faith, for your country.”

  “By kin, you mean the de Clares, whom I have never met save yourself. By faith, you mean Roman Catholicism, a religion I have never practiced. And by country, you mean Ireland, an island where I have never set foot.”

  He blinked at that. “Never set foot? All your gadabout ways, galloping about the world, and you have never seen Ireland, your motherland?”

  I shrugged. “The butterfly population is poor.”

  He swore under his breath. “You have no proper feeling for your heritage,” he thundered.

  “My heritage is my choice,” I replied. “And I choose England.”

  He thrust himself uneasily to his feet with the aid of his walking stick. “You will revisit that decision, Niece, before all is said and done.”

  He cast a quick look at the prince, still lying peacefully asleep. “You might want to get to know your brother a little while there is still time.”

  With those ominous words, he left us. Quiet Dan closed the door behind him, and I sagged a little against Stoker’s back.

  “Well, it appears Uncle de Clare has not relinquished his dream to see you sitting on a throne,” he said dryly.

  “He is mad,” I began, but just then I glanced to where Eddy was lying, eyes wide open as he stared at me in astonishment.

  CHAPTER

  13

  The prince sat up slowly, shaking his head from side to side. “Templeton-Vane,” he said, focusing his gaze on Stoker.

  “Yes, Your Royal Highness. And Miss Speedwell.”

  Eddy blinked several times as he looked at me. “Are you both tied to those chairs?”