A Dangerous Collaboration (Veronica Speedwell #4)(96)

“It sounds as if it were speaking,” I told him. “I wonder if that is how the legends of mermaids and sirens came to be.”

He shrugged. “I suppose. I wonder if Rosamund . . . do you think she walked into the sea? Is that how it happened? It would have been a peaceful end, I hope.” I thought of the stories Stoker had told me of the sailors he had watched drown and I knew better, but somehow I found it in my heart to lie a little.

“I hope so too,” I told him, taking his hand in mine. It was large and warm, as Stoker’s were. I noticed again that where Stoker’s were calloused and scarred, Tiberius’ were smooth-fleshed and delicate, the hands of a gentleman. I would have sold my soul for Stoker’s roughened touch at that moment.

“So, Mrs. Trengrouse is our villainess,” Tiberius said, tightening his grip on my hand. “Why, do you think?” He did not care, I thought. He merely wanted conversation to turn his thoughts from the encroaching sea. He did not want to face death alone and in silence. So I held his hand and I talked as the water rose over our feet.

“Perhaps she was acting in concert with Malcolm,” I suggested. “She has always been devoted to the Romillys. If he did, in fact, learn of Rosamund’s child, he would have a motive to kill her. And if he were involved in Rosamund’s death, Mrs. Trengrouse might have played the accomplice.”

“Then where is the devil?”

I shook my head. “Impossible to say. He might have taken fright that he would be discovered and Mrs. Trengrouse is hiding him somewhere we have not found. He might have killed himself and she is covering for him. He might have fled to the mainland.”

We discussed the possibilities, batting around theories and abandoning them as the tide rose. My skirts swirled in the black water, and I got to my feet, pulling Tiberius up beside me. “We will stand, together,” I told him.

“It will only take longer,” he replied.

“We will stand,” I insisted. “We will meet our end head-on.”

“Spoken like a true English gentleman,” he said with a wry twist of the lips.

“I am no gentleman,” I replied. I put my hand back into my pocket to clutch Chester.

He put his arms about me as the water reached our waists. “We cannot stand much longer,” he said. “My footing is about to go.”

“Mine as well,” I said. I glanced out to the western horizon, where the other two Sisters were shapeless shadows in the silver mist. Beware the sister, Mother Nance had said. I felt a rush of hysterical laughter fill my throat and swallowed it down hard.

“Climb on my shoulders,” he ordered. “You might purchase a few more minutes—” Just then his foot slipped and he righted himself, clutching me as we both realized the futility of his plan.

His expression was agonized. “You would not be here if it were not for me,” he began.

“Do not,” I told him sternly. “I came of my own volition. I made my own choice, as I have always done. And if I must go, I am glad not to go alone.”

The sea swirled hard about our waists, tugging at us. Tiberius straightened his shoulders and lifted his chin. “And if I must go, I am glad to go with you, Veronica. It has been my honor.”

A wave crashed into us then, dragging us apart and tearing us from the rock. Tiberius’ fingers slipped from mine and I opened my mouth to call to him but seawater filled it. I turned my face up just in time to see the moon, that beautiful pearled moon, drift from a cloud and shed her light like a benediction. And then the sea closed over my head and I saw nothing except the great black emptiness of the deep, the vast, salt, dread, eternal deep.





        CHAPTER





19


I woke to a hot stripe of sunlight on my face and a cool compress upon my brow.

“Finally,” Mertensia said with obvious relief. “I thought you would never come round. We were afraid you might have hit your head upon one of the rocks, but we could find no injury.”

“I drowned,” I said, levering myself to a sitting position. The room swam about me, spinning like a child’s top. Mertensia pushed me back none too gently.

“You almost drowned,” she corrected. “You went under twice before they pulled you out.”

“They?” I asked, the losses of that terrible night crashing over me with the weight of a mountain.

“The men from the village,” she told me. “They took a boat out to bring you and Tiberius back from the rock. Whatever made you decide to venture out there is quite beyond me, but they launched a rescue boat.”

“How did they know?” I asked her in confusion.

“Why, Stoker told them,” she said evenly.

Blood rushed to my head, pounding in my ears. “Stoker?”

“Yes,” she said with a benign slowness, as if she were speaking to a backwards child. “He swam back to St. Maddern’s, God only knows how he managed it. He landed on the beach half-dead and then roused the men with the summoning bell. They had a devil of a time putting to sea—it was the highest tide of the year, you know. And they don’t like to be out on the sea on such a night. But he swore and bullied and threatened them until they launched.”

“He is alive,” I said stupidly. I turned my head to see Chester sitting on the bedside table. One ear was a little lower than it had been, set now at a jaunty angle, and his eyes were different. The beads had been black before but now they shone, winking dark blue in the morning sunlight. I turned back to Mertensia.