A Dangerous Collaboration (Veronica Speedwell, #4)

by Deanna Raybourn

I had alternately cursed and congratulated myself on my narrow escape from possible domesticity—a fate I regarded as less desirable than a lengthy bout of bubonic plague.

If he meant to wound me, he could have chosen no sharper blade than indifference.

I was introduced to her and it was like finding part of myself that had been somehow walking the earth without me. She was my other half when I had not realized I was incomplete.”

there is no better remedy for low spirits and a poor complexion than a healthy and revivifying bout of copulation, I believe—and

There is nothing like a healthy bout of coitus or fisticuffs to drain the tension out of a man.

I removed a delicate violet silk corset from the compartment, holding it up as Stoker blushed furiously. “This is my favorite, I think. Each stay is actually a slim blade of excellent Italian steel,” I told him, demonstrating how quickly I could remove one from the bodice.

“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.”

“Stoker.” The word was weighted with everything I meant to say and could not voice. I retrieved Chester from my pocket. I held the little mouse towards him on my palm with a question in my eyes. “You were clutching him when they hauled you aboard. One of his ears was nearly off and the eyes were gone, but I still know my way around a needle,” he said lightly. I thought of the hours he must have spent, sitting at my bedside, putting each stitch into the velvet, slowly and methodically, marking them off like the pearls on a string of prayer beads.

“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.” I opened my mouth, but he laid a finger upon it. “Not now,” he repeated. “Not here with my brother at hand and murderers lurking in the hedgerows. We have played a thousand games with one another, but the time for that is past. Whatever we mean to be to one another, we will speak of it when these other distractions are no more. 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.

Adventure roared in his blood as it did in mine, and once more we would embark together. “So, another adventure,” he said, a slow smile spreading across his features, illuminating his face like a pagan god. “Shall we begin? Hand in hand?” “And back to back,” I added with 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. “Come on, then,” he directed. I grabbed his hand and raced with him into the westering sun. “Excelsior!”