A Dangerous Collaboration (Veronica Speedwell #4)(60)

He held up a hand. “It can only have been managed by a human hand. A clockwork mechanism is a damned likelier explanation than a phantom.”

I shook my head. “We searched the harpsichord from tip to toe and found nothing to suggest it had been meddled with. I think someone must have played it and fled through the hidden passage,” I finished. “Which means it could not have been anyone at the séance.”

“Or our miscreant might have left a music box in the passageway and been with us all along,” he countered. “Any of the guests or family might have done that.”

“Or some supernatural agency—” I began.

He snorted. “I still don’t believe it.”

“Of course you don’t. Neither do I. I simply think we ought to consider every possibility before settling on one. There must be an explanation we have not yet discovered. But we will.”

He tipped his head to give me a curious look. “Why?”

“What do you mean, ‘why’?”

“Why must we penetrate the mystery here? Why do we care?”

I blinked at him. “Because it is a mystery? Have you no proper curiosity? No feeling for the challenge?”

“Veronica, we have upon three occasions involved ourselves in such exploits. We have been almost drowned in the Thames, very nearly immolated, chased through the vilest sewers of London, and—no little thing, I should add—I was shot. Explain to me the allurements of such activities, if you will.”

“You were abroad in the night, ready to investigate the music room before I was,” I reminded him.

“Only because I knew you were going to do it and I meant to keep you from trouble,” he countered smoothly. “I should far rather a calm and quiet life with my specimens and my studies.”

“Now, that is the veriest horseshit,” I returned succinctly.

“Language, Veronica,” he said with perfect mimicry. Oh, how I exulted then! To be engaged in an investigation once more, sparring with Stoker, was to be more myself than at any other time. I felt a rise of excitement and a sudden ferocious joy as heated as that of any butterfly hunt. Even taking a Kaiser-i-Hind on the wing had not afforded me as much pleasure as this.

“You thrill to the chase as much as I,” I reminded him happily. “You simply like to pretend that such feats of bravado are entirely at my instigation so that you can appear to be the rational and steady one whilst I am given to flights of fancy and ridiculous adventures. And yet, not a single one of those escapades was undertaken without your eager assistance.”

“Assistance?” His voice rose incredulously. “I thought I was the hero of our antics.”

I tipped my head, studying his tumbled hair and bruised face. “No, I have always thought of you as my Garvin.”

“Your Garvin. As in Arcadia Brown’s half-witted sidekick,” he demanded.

“Garvin is not a half-wit,” I reminded him. “He is simply less gifted than his female companion and must defer to her courage. And expertise. And intuition.”

He said something far fouler than his brother had uttered and slid lower in his chair. “That’s a fine how-do-you-do,” he muttered. “Nothing but a bit of muscle.”

“Nonsense,” I soothed. “You are also quite pleasant to look at. Not now, of course, with your lip stuck out like a sulky mule and that bruise blossoming on your face. But when you make an effort, you are very nearly handsome.”

It was the rankest lie. Stoker was not nearly handsome; he was utterly delectable, not in spite of his flaws but because of them. The scar and the untrimmed hair and the signs of rough living only made him seem all the more real. Tiberius might have presented the picture of a perfect gentleman, fresh from his tailor’s bandbox, but Stoker was everything true and vibrant and alive in the world.

To my astonishment, he did not continue to sulk. He suddenly sat up straight, fixing me with a sharp eye. “What did you mean about Tiberius? How is he connected to all of this? And how did his portrait come to be on the harpsichord? I presume he was in love with Rosamund.”

I related to him all that Tiberius had told me of his ill-fated relationship with the lady and his subsequent disastrous marriage. Throughout the recitation, Stoker was silent, studying his feet, his expression inscrutable. When I had finished, he blew out a deep breath.

“That unspeakable bastard,” he murmured. “Who knew he could actually make me feel sorry for him. I never knew things were so bad. He was Father’s pride and joy, you know. The heir to the kingdom,” he said, throwing out his arms expansively. “I was only ever the cuckoo in the nest.”

“Your father does not sound the sort of man to accept his wife’s indiscretion easily,” I mused. “Why did he acknowledge you as his son?”

Stoker gave me a thin smile. “Because he knew it would hurt her more to have me there, every day, under his power and her with no means of protecting me. Under the law, I was his child, and he could beat me or starve me and there wasn’t a bloody thing she could do about it. It was a subtle and sophisticated cruelty, like everything he did.”

“Did he often beat you?” I asked, careful to avert my gaze. I had learnt some time before that looking upon Stoker’s pain was a thing I could not easily bear.

“No,” he answered. “That was the subtlety at work. He knew it was far more effective to do it only very occasionally and without provocation. I would never know when it was coming or why. He thought that would keep me in line, and for a while it did. His tortures of Tiberius were of a more mundane variety.”