A Treacherous Curse (Veronica Speedwell, #3)

by Deanna Raybourn

“I ASSURE YOU, I AM perfectly capable of identifying a phallus when I see one,” Stoker informed me, clipping the words sharply. “And that is no such thing.”

I had long since discovered upon my travels that men are largely the same no matter where one encounters them. And if one is prepared to let them discourse on their pet topics of conversation, one can generally get on with things quite handily without any interference.

He looked like precisely what he was: a man in his prime with a good deal of experience and precious little regard for Society’s expectations.

“Heaven forbid we stand between a man and his wife’s blancmange,” Stoker murmured. Sir Hugo reached for a pillow to heave at him, but I lifted a hand. “Do not distress yourself, Sir Hugo. Stoker is merely teasing. I will drop something into his tea later to revenge you.”

“What was it that Napoleon said, my lady? ‘Impossible is a word only to be found in the dictionary of fools.’”

“Boys!” I said sharply. “There will be no brawling with your shirts on. Kindly remove your upper garments and give them into my keeping.”

“Mornaday, bearbaiting has been illegal for more than fifty years and it requires a special stick,” I told him. “Behave yourself.”

“You haven’t asked about her. Not really.” “I shall not,” I promised him. “When you want to tell me, you will.” Still he did not look at me, but he reached out and brushed a fingertip over my hand. It was a tiny thing, that gesture, but the whole world was contained within it—gratitude, partnership, understanding. I had taken lovers around the world, more than a score of them at last count, but Stoker was the nearest thing I had ever known to an actual partner. And I knew better than to ask him for what he could not give.

“But I have to wonder why the Lord of the Underworld would disport himself in a Marylebone garden, particularly in these temperatures.”

How, you may wonder, did I—a woman of diminutive inches and slender build—manage to rescue a man of Stoker’s prodigious size from a burning building? Reader, I carried him.

“Most people are incapable of understanding a woman like you,” he said simply. “You defy comprehension.”

“You enjoy your games, Mrs. de Morgan. That much is obvious. And baiting Stoker obviously gives you tremendous pleasure. But let me make one thing perfectly clear: so long as I draw breath, you will not hurt him again.”

“In love with her? It seems impossible now, but I thought so. I thought it was love, but I was so very wrong. I have never known love, at least not until—” He broke off sharply and took a swift drink. My heart thudded against my ribs, and I was conscious of a single thought. Not like this.

“Do not fear for me, Veronica. The devil takes care of his own.”

Figgy might protest, but her loyalty to her father was still paramount. She had a child’s hero worship for the man, and I pitied her the day she would find his feet were—like all men’s—made of clay.

Henry Stihl turned to me, his eyes wide. “Was that a fallen woman?” “I should rather call her an entrepreneur,” I told him seriously.

I loved every minute of that strange adventure, and more than once I looked across to find Stoker grinning at me in the hellfire of the brazier. I smiled back at him, reveling in our new adventure.

I glanced at the wall where the photographs of the members were hung. Past and present they were arranged, a gallery of women of accomplishment, women of stalwart spirit and indomitable courage. And in spite of my misgivings, I knew I had found a home.

“Because there is no power on earth that could make me abandon our friendship. There is no deed you could confess so dark that it would make me forsake you. You said of us once that we were quicksilver and the rest of the world mud. We are alike, shaped by Nature in the same mold, and whatever that signifies, it means that to spurn each other would be to spit in the face of whatever deity has seen fit to bring us together. We are the same, and to leave you would be to leave myself. Make of that what you will.”