A Dangerous Collaboration (Veronica Speedwell #4)(25)

Hardly realizing what I was doing, I whirled upon my heel, hands fisted as I raised my arms and unleashed a Viking berserker battle cry and launched myself down the path, directly at my pursuer. There was a flurry of activity, limbs entangling as we went down. Somehow my pursuer got the upper hand and landed atop me, driving the air out of my lungs as I fell. He was a weighty fellow and I shoved with a massive effort, but could not dislodge him. I drew back my knee and rammed it upwards, earning a howl of pain and outrage for my efforts.

“Unhand me or I shall tear you apart like hounds on a fox!” I demanded with the last of my breath.

“I should bloody well like to see you try,” came a familiar voice in a low, grating growl. He gave a great shudder and rolled off of me and onto all fours, panting heavily. I struggled to my knees and whooped air into my lungs. When I could speak again, I used one of his favorite oaths.

“Stoker, will you kindly tell me what in the name of bleeding Jesus you are doing here?”

“Returning to the castle, obviously,” he said as he staggered to his feet. “Until you decided to assault my person. Really, Veronica, what on earth possessed you?”

“I thought you were a criminal assailant,” I admitted. “You ought to have declared yourself.”

“To whom?” he demanded. “I had no idea you were here. That wretched fog is obscuring everything.”

“I heard you plainly enough,” I told him. I was unsettled by coming upon him so unexpectedly. We had left things so badly fixed between us that I could hardly anticipate a cordial conversation, and the knowledge irritated me. “Why have you come back on your own? I thought the gentlemen of the party were taking a grand tour of the island together.”

“Yes, well, one can only admire so many lumps of rock before a quarry grows tiresome. I decided to explore the village instead. I had a pint with the innkeeper and then the blacksmith and his apprentice and a brace of farmers turned up for a little refreshment.”

“The innkeeper? I suppose you mean Mother Nance? She might have warned me you were lurking about the village. And you must be the pirate her grandson told me about,” I added with a glance at his eye patch.

“Ah, young Peter. That boy is going to go far in life. He has the natural instincts of a criminal. He has managed to blackmail me into teaching him how to use a sword.”

“I know,” I told him darkly. “What I do not know is why you decided to get to know the locals. Unless . . .” I let my voice trail off suggestively.

“Unless?” he prompted.

“Unless you are curious about Rosamund Romilly’s disappearance and decided to ask a few questions.”

“Certainly not,” he said stoutly.

“Liar!” I whirled on him. “Swear to me on whatever you love best in the world that her name did not come up in conversation. Swear on Huxley,” I ordered.

“For God’s sake, you’re dancing around like a damselfly. Of course it came up,” he told me in a flat voice. “Rosamund’s disappearance was a nine days’ wonder. It was the most interesting thing to happen here in three centuries, but no one knows anything. No one saw anything. And there are as many versions of what happened to her as there are people on this island.”

I stopped in front of him, forcing him to halt in his tracks. “Stoker. Indulge my curiosity.” I raised my chin.

He gave a gusty sigh. “Veronica, have you ever talked to a Cornishman? A proper one? For more than three minutes running? They are the most superstitious folk in the British Isles, and that’s saying something. For every fellow who suggests she ran away with a lover or threw herself from a cliff, there are five more saying she was taken by piskies or mermaids or knackers or, just possibly, a giant.”

I blinked at him. “A giant?”

“The Cornish love their giants.”

“Dare I ask about the knackers?”

He folded his arms over the breadth of his chest. “About two feet tall with blue skin and pointed ears and content to make their homes underground. Something like an Irish leprechaun from what I gather, only one isn’t supposed to ask much because they’re thoroughly bad-tempered and malevolent.”

“They sound just the sort to make off with a bride on her wedding day,” I pointed out.

“Veronica, in the name of seven hells, please tell me you are not giving serious consideration to the idea that knackers abducted Rosamund Romilly.”

“Of course not.” I pulled a face. “But what the people around her believe is almost as significant as what actually happened. Very often, golden nuggets of truth may be found in the deepest waters.”

“That is a dreadful analogy. To begin with, gold is usually found in shallows,” he said.

I held up a hand. “No lectures on metallurgical geology, I beg you. Besides, I have no doubt they were having a very great laugh at your expense. I would wager that pulling the leg of the casual traveler is a well-established sport in this part of the world.”

“Of course it is,” he replied with an unexpectedly agreeable air. “Which is why I stayed long enough to buy every man a pint and winnow out at least a little kernel of wheaty truth from the chaff of gossip.”

He slanted me a mischievous look. “Very well,” I told him tartly. “Yours is the better metaphor. Tell me, what grains of truth did you discover?”