A Dangerous Collaboration (Veronica Speedwell #4)(95)

We were silent, each of us locked in our thoughts. Finally, Tiberius burst out. “I do not accept this,” he said, rising to his feet. He stood, magnificent in his rage. “Damn you! This is your fault, you bloody bastard,” Tiberius thundered.

Stoker rose to face his brother. “Say it again.”

“This is your fault,” Tiberius said with brutal clarity.

Stoker’s fist connected with his jaw before the last word was finished. I jumped between them. “Is this truly how you mean to spend our last hours?” I challenged. “Brawling like boys? Tiberius, you are unfair. This is no more Stoker’s fault than mine.”

“It is,” he insisted, rubbing at his jaw. “He let her do this. He had a chance to overpower her on the beach.”

“I would not risk Veronica’s life,” Stoker said simply.

“Why? Because you love her?” Tiberius jeered. “Much good your love will do her now, brother. She dies with the rest of us.”

“But for now, she lives,” Stoker returned. “If I had acted hastily, God knows what that woman might have done.”

“You might have bested her,” Tiberius said. “Yes, there was risk, but risks must be taken in life, have you never learnt that?”

“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.