“As comfortable as possible under the circumstances, although you must admit these are hardly fitting surroundings for a future queen. Oughtn’t there to be silk sheets and roasted duck on gilded plates?”
He ignored my jibe. His gaze was restless, and there was a new wariness about him. I wondered if he was losing his nerve for the enterprise. Perhaps he was discovering for himself how difficult it was to work with someone so devilishly bent upon his grandiose ideals.
“Tell me, Inspector, how precisely do you anticipate being able to prove my claim? I am quasi-legitimate at best,” I said in a deliberately pleasant tone.
“Your grandmother de Clare passed away earlier this year. In going through her effects, your uncle discovered a letter from your mother communicating the details of her marriage as well as your conception and birth.” He twitched a little, his manner one of acute discomfort. “In the letter, she entrusted your care to your grandmother. She made it quite clear that she intended to destroy herself.”
“You have my mother’s suicide note?” I demanded.
“We do,” he affirmed.
“If I was to be given to my grandmother to rear, then why did I stay with the aunts?”
He shrugged. “Apparently your grandmother de Clare was a good Catholic. She never forgave your mother for her act of self-destruction. In spite of your uncle de Clare’s best efforts, she could not be made to see the potential benefit to keeping you in her custody. She was content to let your mother’s friends have the charge of you. By the time your uncle managed to discover their names and whereabouts, they had changed their names and taken you to England.”
“They wanted me,” I said, hardly able to comprehend that the aunts—a courtesy title, for they were no kin to me, having been my mother’s dressers during her time in the theatre—had gone to such lengths to keep me with them.
“They were, by all accounts, devoted to your mother,” Archibond said quietly. “It was most likely a moment of weakness that caused her to write to your grandmother. No doubt she repented it, urged them to take you before any of the de Clares could find you.”
I could well imagine it. My mother, beautiful and broken when my father betrayed their marriage in order to marry his Danish princess, had turned to her dearest friends to help her. What misery, what despair she must have felt! And in a moment of anguish, she had reached out to her blood family, hoping they would give me the understanding and love they had never offered her.
What had caused her to regret her appeal? It must have been a deed borne of desperation. Had she acted in a moment of despair and only realized the seriousness of her plea in the cold light of morning? Had she succumbed to a moment of madness? Had she been so sunk in misery that her lonely existence in that austere family had been transformed, in her mind, to security—the kind of stability she wished for her only child?
In the end, she had opted for the found family of her friends to rear me. We had moved often, always eluding something. I never understood the specter that stalked my childhood. A rumor, a whisper, a glimpse of a familiar face, and the aunts would be off again, packing up whatever cottage or modest flat we had taken, and striking out for parts unknown. But theatre people have a wide acquaintance, and we were often forced to slip quietly away from those who might have exposed the aunts for who they really were, who might have seen a familiar profile as he lingered backstage, waiting for his adored to slip behind the footlights, who might have seen a child and done the maths and realized whose child I was.
They were affectionate enough, the aunts. There were stories at bedtime and my first ring net for butterflying and doses of castor oil when I was ill. But there was always a sort of wariness about them as well. Once whilst hunting in Costa Rica, I had discovered a unique golden chrysalis, the most unusual thing I had ever seen on my travels. I had nurtured it carefully and eventually witnessed the birth of Tithorea tarricina, one of the most exotic and beautiful specimens I had ever handled. I ought to have netted it; such a find would be worth half a year’s salary. I could have named my price with any aurelian collector in Europe. But I could not bring myself to interfere with something so beautiful, so wild. It belonged to nature and not to humankind. So I watched it testing its damp and trembling wings, trying them on the soft breeze that ruffled my hair. It ought to have lurched and listed, but instead it rose in one great flap of those enormous wings and lifted itself above my head, out of reach and beyond the horizon before I realized what was happening. It was like watching a miracle of creation, and I felt no loss at its passing away from me but only joy that I had been, for however fleeting a time, connected with it.
It was only much later that I realized this was the attitude I sometimes detected in the aunts. They could be occasionally at their ease with me, instructing me on how to roast a chicken or make a bed or turn a seam, but then I would catch a glimpse of something watchful in them, as if they had invited a tiger to tea and were surprised and unnerved at how it lolled upon the hearthrug. I was part of them and none of them, and as soon as I could, I made my way in the world, net in hand, to find others like me. I had met a few in the course of my travels—most were base metal and counterfeit in their charms. But one or two had been like Stoker, bright gold and pure through and through. I had no doubt, for all her failings, my mother was the same. It was no use attempting to explain such things to men like Archibond or—worse—my uncle. What is unrefined can never appreciate what is tempered.
And so I did not try. De Clare was a lost soul; I had seen too clearly the glint of obsession in his eyes. It was the expression worn by fanatics and evangelists the world over, the dogged determination to see only one point of view and entertain no truths but the fantasy in one’s own mind. He would see this thing through to the end, no matter how many people it destroyed. I wondered if Archibond’s cool detachment would prove more amenable to persuasion.
The more I pondered it, the less unlikely it seemed. Archibond had, upon our previous meetings, struck me as dissatisfied with his lot, pricked bloody by the thorns of thwarted ambition. He knew he was a clever man—perhaps more clever than most—but he had not the humility to recognize his own limitations. He feared them, but he could not perceive them, and what might occasionally haunt his wakeful nights was the terror that the world would never understand exactly how clever he was. His progress at the Yard had been stalled; there were few opportunities for him to advance to greatness. I could smell the stink of longing upon him. In spite of his protestations of egalitarian ideals, he yearned for accolades, for a knighthood or a baronetcy, a title to set him above those who were currently his betters but never his equals.
This then was his roll of the dice, as reckless and determined as any wager any gambler had made. I saw the faintest trickle of perspiration at his hairline and I realized he was desperately afraid but he had come too far to back out now. That feeling of being cornered would make him ruthless. He could not go back, so he must go forwards, whatever the price.
I considered all of this in the space of a few seconds before speaking. “That letter is no proof,” I told Archibond gently. “My mother might have been delusional. She did, after all, take her own life shortly thereafter. And you, above anyone, must know the necessity of corroboration.”
His hands curled into fists at his sides. “I cannot speak to your mother’s state of mind, but de Clare will. He will swear to it.”
“He was not there,” I pointed out.
“Yes, but who knows that?” Archibond retorted.
“The Prince of Wales will deny it all,” I told him.
“The Prince of Wales? Who the devil will believe him after it comes out what his family have been up to?” Archibond countered with a flick of the finger towards Eddy.
But I saw the flicker of doubt in Archibond’s eyes. He had planned this scheme in exacting detail, but execution was a different matter. Now that he was in the thick of it, he cou
ld see the flaws, I was certain. He still believed he could carry out his plot, but the more doubt I sowed, the longer he might hesitate to press forward, purchasing a little time for us. And time was opportunity—opportunity for us to find a way of escape, for someone to discover us, for the hue and cry to be raised about Eddy’s disappearance.
I forced my voice to lightness. “I am curious, Inspector. How do you mean to continue the charade that I am queen in my own right unless I am periodically trotted out to make speeches or open Parliament or even to be crowned? I must be seen by the people. And how can you ever guarantee that I will do so without appealing to them to free me from my pretty gilded cage?”
“Your uncle believes,” he said slowly, “that you will be persuaded to come around.” He did not glance to where Stoker lay, but we both understood his meaning precisely.
“I have seen my uncle’s methods of persuasion,” I said candidly. “Did he tell you he had me abducted once before? Hauled onto a boat to be carried off to Ireland, only I jumped into the Thames rather than let him sail away with me. My uncle has no intention of attempting to persuade me to serve as his puppet queen,” I added. “He has a rather low opinion of me, if you have not yet detected it.”
In spite of himself, Archibond gave a small smile. “He might have mentioned your intransigence a time or two.”
“Exactly. I expect he will establish a government in my name and then have me declared incapacitated in some fashion—perhaps I will be drugged, that is the simplest way. A little prick of a hypodermic and your new queen would be sitting in a corner, talking to herself and wearing a flowerpot on her head, completely incapable of governing. How easy then to have her own uncle established as regent to keep a firm grasp of the government during her incapacity.”
“A plausible enough scenario,” Archibond allowed.
“And one you have discussed?” I guessed.
“It might have been talked of.”
“What is to be your role when my uncle is regent and has control of the entire Empire? There will be no office higher than his. Do you really mean to take orders from that Bedlamite?”
Archibond canted his head to the side. “My dear Miss Speedwell, you persist in believing that your uncle and I are playing the same game, but I can assure you, I am executing a perfect gambit in the chess match of my life whilst he is still sketching naughts and crosses with a fingernail.”
His smile turned suddenly savage. “Do you really believe I would be taken in by his ridiculous Irish sentiment? He drinks and weeps as he talks of a de Clare being Queen of Ireland, did you know that? Do you realize how many bloody songs about Brian Boru I have had to endure? But do give me a little credit, I beg you. I know exactly what your uncle is going to do, and moreover, I know exactly what I will do—not in response to him, but to make him do what I want in the first place. I understand your hope, that I might be open to an appeal based upon our shared sensibility and logic, and I applaud you for it. I would have done the same in your circumstances. But you must understand, my dear. I am far more dangerous than your uncle. He wishes to harm you because he has a grudge for the ills you have done him. I will harm you because it will teach you to obey.”
He accompanied the words with the caress of a fingertip drawn slowly down my cheek. “I will bruise you where no one can see. I will make scars that will never heal. Do not oppose me. Do not challenge me. And above all, do not underestimate me.”
With that, he wrapped a loose tendril of hair about his finger, curling it slowly, drawing me closer as he tugged gently upon it. I could smell the fragrance of his hair oil, and I knew I should never forget it as long as I lived.
“I say, turn loose of my sister,” Eddy ordered, drawing himself up with the stiff precision of his training as an officer of the Tenth Hussars.
Archibond regarded him with amusement. Suddenly, he tucked the hair behind my ear and patted my cheek gently. “Be a good girl, Veronica. Whatever happens to you—and to them,” he added with a nod towards my two companions, “is entirely your choice.”
He left us and I turned to Eddy. “Well done, Eddy.”
He bristled. “One does not like to threaten another gentleman with violence, but I will not let any man bully my sister.” He deflated a little then. “Although I must say, he is a chilling sort of monster, isn’t he? I rather thought you were going to be able to twist him round your little finger at first.”
I shook my head slowly. “No. Not a man like Archibond. That was never going to be possible.”
“Then why did you play up to him, behaving as if he were the only true gentleman and your Uncle de Clare was a dangerous madman who must be stopped?”
“He is a dangerous madman who must be stopped,” I pointed out. “But Archibond is the true devil in the deal. He is far more cunning and ruthless than Edmund de Clare. Uncle has the old Irish grudge of hating the English coupled with the same sort of monomania one sees in those of very low intellect.”
“What makes you say that?”
“I daresay you have never met a butterfly collector, Eddy,” I told him. “Not a proper one. Most folks are content with a broad collection, amassing as many different types as they can. A true fanatic wants every specimen, dozens of a singular species, and the quality does not matter. They will pay almost as much for a moldering old wreck that’s crumbling to dust as they will something freshly netted and still smelling of the meadow. They want everything because they cannot bear another collector to have anything. They might make coherent conversation or present themselves as normal, but scratch the surface and you will find an absolute fiend, incapable of sharing or empathy or rational understanding. They are driven by one desire only and that is to amass more than anyone else has.”
“But how does that translate to low intellect?”
“To be of truly high intelligence, one must have an understanding and appreciation of other people, an ability to empathize and relate.”
“I suppose he does,” he said with a nod towards Stoker.
I paused. “Revelstoke Templeton-Vane could be beaten senseless, drugged, and half out of his wits and he would still be twice the man Archibond is on the best day of his life.”
After a moment, Eddy nodded. “I can see that. So what now?”
“We wait,” I told him. “Archibond will no doubt speak with my uncle and with any luck they will quarrel and give us some time.”
“Time enough for what?” he persisted.
“Time to make a miracle.”
CHAPTER
17
I do not mind admitting that the next hours were the darkest I had yet spent in that place. Stoker exhibited alarming signs of needing proper medical attention—the most alarming of which was agreeing when I suggested such a thing.
“You never think you require a physician,” I pointed out.
He gave me a small smile. “Perhaps just this once.”
My mind whipped back to a similar situation when he had been shot for my sake and we sat for hours, waiting for help that might never have come. This time there was no bullet to blame, only the booted feet of those ruffians who had broken his ribs and likely punctured a lung. He spat up blood from time to time and his breathing was labored, and when he smiled, it was a ghost of the smile I knew so well. Only the feel of his hand in mine was the same.
I used the last of the water in the pitcher to bathe his brow.
“I was going to drink that,” Eddy protested feebly. “But I daresay his necessity is the greater,” he added swiftly at the murderous expression on my face.
He had obviously been thinking, for when he spoke again, he ventured a question. “What do you suppose they mean to do to disgrace me? How will they blacken my name?”
I considered giving him a comfortable lie, but he had already risen to the occasion more than once during our ordeal, and I thought it best to pay him the c
ompliment of the truth.
“I expect it all began with Madame Aurore and the star. You gave her an expensive trinket that could easily be traced back to you.”
“But she was going to return it,” he protested. “As soon as I told her I had had second thoughts on account of Alix, she swore she was going to give it over.”
“Was she?” I asked, giving him a moment to think.
“Well,” he said slowly, “she said she was, but I suppose she might have been telling an untruth.”
“Let us presume she was,” I said kindly. “Did she ask for the jewel in the first place?”
“Oh yes, down to the exact engraving on the back,” he affirmed.
“The engraving that connected the gift definitively to you,” I pointed out.
“Dash! You’re quite right,” he said unhappily. “It didn’t occur to me then, you see. I just wanted to help out a friend. But once I gave it to her, I realized unscrupulous persons might use it to make a scandal, and I was worried it might get to Alix’s ears. My family are no strangers to gossip,” he added darkly.
“I’m certain,” I murmured. “In any event, that was when you asked for the jewel’s return, is that correct?”
“Yes, and she never came out and refused, but she put me off. Said she had it laid away for safekeeping and it would take some trouble to retrieve it.”
“Madame Aurore kept all of her jewels in her personal safe,” I reminded him.
“So she did! I ought to have recollected that,” he said, tugging at the ends of his moustaches.
“When did she send word that she would return the star to you?”
“Oh, the day of the masquerade. She sent a coded wire to me at Balmoral and said if I wanted the star I had to come to her and she gave a time, saying it was quite urgent and if I didn’t retrieve it then, she could not be held responsible for what became of it.”
“And you did not view that as a threat?” I demanded.
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