A Dangerous Collaboration (Veronica Speedwell, #4)

by Deanna Raybourn

He put out his hand and I took it, feeling the whole world in the warmth of that clasp.

“I understand plants. People are a different matter entirely.”

“Childbed takes some women that way,” I observed with a shudder. All the more reason never to engage in the practice of reproducing, I decided.

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.

Stoker was everything true and vibrant and alive in the world.

“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.”

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.

“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.”

I would have sold my soul for Stoker’s roughened touch at that moment.

“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.”

But the anticipation of what lay before us simmered within me, and more than once I caught his eyes upon me, warm with intention.