A Dangerous Collaboration (Veronica Speedwell, #4)

by Deanna Raybourn

“I must say, her bedside manner is rather gentler than yours. But I know whose I would rather have.” Something in his face eased and I smiled again.

“You really do comprehend me.” “Yes,” he agreed. “And you are a bloody sight more challenging than Latin, believe me.” He went on. “I also know that if you found yourself unexpectedly with child, you would put aside your obstinacy and come to me for help.”

“Whatever the situation required. I would have traveled with you to the furthest ends of creation. I would have delivered the child. I would have married you and given the damned thing a name if you wanted.”

Ahhhhhhhh

“Stoker—” I murmured. His hand moved up, his palm cupping my jaw as his thumb stroked my earlobe. I tipped my head back, arching my throat towards him as I twined my arms about his neck, careful not to disturb his wound. He put his mouth to the pulse in my throat, kissing a trail from my ear to the neck of my nightdress. I slid my hands into his hair, my lips parting as I said his name again on an exhalation of the sharpest, most exquisite anticipation.

OMG IS THIS REALLY HAPPENINGGG

I took it, pulling in enough smoke to blow an elegant ring.

She would exist for so short a time, but her existence brought something irreplaceable to the world. Perhaps her beauty was all the greater for the fact that it was fleeting.

“I am not certain if you are aware, but you have an effect upon women.” “Not all women,” he corrected.

I made the mistake of glancing up into his face then. A smile played about his lips, and his eyes were bright with amusement. “Veronica,” he murmured. I stepped back so sharply I nearly lost my balance. “She is coming,” I told him. “Try to be less adorable.”

Unable to bring himself to be rude to her by means of short responses, he instead took the opportunity to give her lengthy lectures of such catastrophic dullness that only a saint could have possibly endured them with patience.

“Hearts are the same as bones, you know,” she said as she picked up her tankard again. “Are they?” “Aye. One may be broken into a thousand pieces, but when they are bound together again and a heart is made whole, the love it gives will be all the fiercer.”

There is no heart as pitiable as one that cannot love.”

“Veronica. I realize that your feelings for Tiberius have clouded your judgment, but do try not to be quite so much a woman.” I gaped at him in mute outrage.

STOKER I COULD SLAP U RN

It weren’t just her that vanished, it was the master’s child,” Daisy said, shaking her head sorrowfully. But I had a different thought entirely.

shoot, no child = no heir - helen ?

she was already missing and my child with her,”

OMG IT WAS TIBERIUS’S, SHOOT

“My dearest Veronica, have you not yet learnt that the surest way to guarantee that Stoker will do something is to tell him he may not? He was twice as eager to come for being forbidden the invitation.” “Of all the bloody, manipulative—” Stoker began. Tiberius held up a finger. “Effective. I’ve known how to maneuver you since our days in the nursery. You have not changed.”

LMAO

And in the other, she leveled a revolver at my heart.

omg

Tiberius opened his mouth, but Stoker thrust an oar into his hands. “Shut up and row, Tiberius,” he ordered.

😭😭😭

“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.”

ahhhh

“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.”

OMG.

And without another word, he disappeared over the edge of the rock and into the blackness of the sea.

STOKER DID U FUCKING JUMP

“Yes. When I would not let you go after him.”

OMG

I grinned in spite of myself. He held out his hand, but I pushed past it and went to embrace him. His arms came around me and he murmured into my hair. “We are more than family now, I think.”

awww

I met Stoker on the path from the castle to the village. I was fairly flying down the hill, my skirts gathered in my hands, when I rounded a bend and there he was, suddenly before me. I strode towards him, not slowing my pace. I came upon him like a cataclysm, taking his face in mine and raining kisses upon him until we were both short of breath as if we had run a footrace.

🥹🥹🥹

“Veronica Speedwell, I meant it then and I mean it now and I shall mean it with every breath until my last. I love you.”

WAR IS OVER

We will speak of it—when we are free to act upon it,” he finished, rubbing his thumb across my lower lip. His eyes promised much and I shivered with anticipation as I nodded slowly. “You are right, of course. This is hardly the place for that sort of thing. Does this mean you will stop torturing me by displaying yourself in various states of undress?” “Not a chance.” He grinned. I kissed him again. I did not think of Caroline. She was in his past, buried the moment he dove into the sea to save me. She would not haunt us again.

ahhhhh

“He is still alive. And he is not alone.”

shoot is it rosamund?

“A life of my own! That is an impossible dream for a woman in service. Your life belongs to them.

For decades Mrs. Trengrouse had effaced herself until she was nothing other than an automaton, moving through her master’s life with no thought beyond serving him and thereby winning his regard, taking care of a family that was never quite her own.

I handed over the bottle I had taken from the night table. A tiny skull was etched at the corner of the label. “Nor ever again, I should think.”

oh shit

I had lain awake more than one night, torturing myself with frankly indecent thoughts, and I had noticed Stoker had taken to swimming in the cold Atlantic waters twice a day to dampen his ardor.

“I am rather sorry to see the end of our time here,” I told him. “I am not,” he said. “I have plans for you in London.” “London,” I breathed, closing my eyes. “London,” he repeated. “Where it will be just the two of us. No Tiberius, no Romillys. No murderers, no former wives, no moldering corpses. Just us.”

AWWW

a grin. “The better to see our enemies.” Back to back was also how butterflies copulated, but I thought it best to save such an observation for a more intimate moment.

lmfao