An Unexpected Peril (Veronica Speedwell, #6)

by Deanna Raybourn

Stoker was never happier than when imparting information, whether one asked for it or not. This, I had observed frequently upon my travels, is common in the male of the species.

in fact, on more than one occasion he observed he would have divorced his mildly homicidal wife far earlier if he had known it would result in people leaving him in peace.

There will always be men who rally to the cause of another man in his moment of disgrace simply because they fear their own so deeply.”

“It sounds as if that last night here, she was fey.” My expression must have betrayed my bemusement for he went on. “It is an old Scots word, it means a sort of hectic happiness that cannot last. It usually presages a disaster.”

“You are the most maddeningly delusional woman I have ever known.”

And he means that with love!

The fact that Stoker and I were the only two people working to organize the thousands of items meant that the museum was projected to open sometime in the middle of the next century.

Lmfao yall are gonna be dead by then

and it occurred to me, not for the first time, that Stoker and I were going to have to be a little more judicious in our acquisitions of animals unless we meant to start a dog circus.

Theyre just collecting dogs atp hahahaha

“Perhaps Lady Rose needs to be taken to a mountain,” Stoker suggested. “And shoved off it,” I finished.

VERONICA LMFAO

Lord Templeton-Vane—Tiberius

TIBERIUS I MISSED UUUUU

Give me a jungle, a forest lush with green and thick with flower-scented air that steamed gently, pulsing with life and promise, and I was a happy woman. This sooty, smirched chill that penetrated one’s clothes and settled into the bones was most difficult to bear in January. The calendar had turned, the days were lengthening, spring was a promise, but it was a long and shiversome season until May blossoms would ripen.

I expected him to wrap it in one of his enormous scarlet handkerchiefs. Instead, he took the fingertip in his mouth, giving it a gentle suck. A jolt of a most arresting sensation coursed through me, so much so that I was entirely incapable of speech.

???????? I AM ALSO INCAPABLE OF SPEECH

I said nothing. I stepped closer, lifting my face to his as I applied a caress to a specific and wholly enthralling portion of his anatomy to assess its readiness. “Veronica!” He grasped my wrists, putting me firmly away. “This is hardly the time or place,” he began. I moved forward again, pressing my hips to his. “That is rather the point,” I murmured. “We will be discovered,” he protested. “Will we?” I breathed, trailing a kiss from his earlobe down his neck. “How very dangerous.” “Veronica.” This time it was a groan and he did not push me aside. Instead he buried his hands in my hair, kissing me as thoroughly as he did everything, which is to say, expertly and with exquisite attention to detail.

OMG. Did not expect this to say the least

“Do not put a hand on me or I will demonstrate for you the Corsican stranglehold taught me by a very nice bandit chief of my acquaintance.” He gave me a wary look as if he doubted my purpose, but he remained where he was, clearly reluctant to risk my willingness to inflict bodily harm. “You seemed eager enough for me to put a hand on you at the club,” he said mildly. “That was different.” My cheeks were hot, beating with blood. “That was when I thought you cared about innocent victims and righting injustices.” “Or,” he said slowly, “was it when there was a possibility we might be discovered and you found yourself excited by the danger of it?”

Veronica lmfao

“Do not put a hand on me or I will demonstrate for you the Corsican stranglehold taught me by a very nice bandit chief of my acquaintance.” He gave me a wary look as if he doubted my purpose, but he remained where he was, clearly reluctant to risk my willingness to inflict bodily harm. “You seemed eager enough for me to put a hand on you at the club,” he said mildly. “That was different.” My cheeks were hot, beating with blood. “That was when I thought you cared about innocent victims and righting injustices.” “Or,” he said slowly, “was it when there was a possibility we might be discovered and you found yourself excited by the danger of it?”

OMG FREAKY

He gave a little laugh and settled back in the seat. His hand crept near mine and I slapped it away. He laughed again and when the cab drew to a stop outside the little side gate at Bishop’s Folly, I sprang from my seat, leaving him to pay. By the time he had sorted out the fare and bade the driver farewell, I was halfway to my vivarium. I did not look back.

THEIR DYNAMIC IS SO FUNNY

It was in the nature of butterflies to live transitory lives, fleeting as they were lovely, and it was with resignation that I watched as they lived out their brief existence, bursting into jeweled magnificence and then, after a few short months of activity, fading into oblivion.

They were miracles of architecture, the lepidoptera, and I felt, along with a pang of loss, a fervent gratitude that I had discovered them as my life’s work. There was nothing so fragile as a butterfly wing, nor anything as lovely.

I missed her dreadfully, and I was not entirely comfortable with that emotion. Between her departure and that of Tiberius, I felt abandoned by my friends, a state of affairs I would not have credited only a year before. I was accustomed to living my life as unfettered as one of my beloved butterflies, and these new bonds of attachment brought with them not only connection and warmth but a dreadful sensation of loss when my companions were not present.

Awwww

and a man for whom I would walk through fire—and, in fact, had upon occasion and in the most literal sense.

For now that I had joined myself in affection to Stoker, I could no longer run from myself as I had once so blithely done. I must, instead, sit and face my demons.

“I can hear you thinking, Veronica,” Stoker said from behind his newspaper. “What is it?”

“My dear Veronica, any person who would consider you an exemplar of any variety of weakness wants his head examined.”

Today, I am distressed to relate to you that the princess cannot be found.”

Whattt

“To impersonate the princess, of course,”

LMAOOOO

I ought to have stared in astonishment or protested or demanded further explanation. Instead, I sat forward, gripping my hands together in excitement. “I will do it.” Beside me, Stoker gave a start. “You must be joking.”

What lmao that was unexpected... Surely she will use this as an opportunity to investigate

“I will do a damned sight more than swear if you think you can simply dismiss dangers to Miss Speedwell with a flap of the hand,” Stoker told him in a tone of ringing finality.

Protective hmmmm

It was only in a moment of tender intimacy that he had admitted to wearing it because it was the one possession he had that I had also owned, and in the darkest days, when he dared not hope I would return his love, it was his consolation.

AWWWWW

“You should put any funds in the hands of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals on his behalf.

Awwww

“So that the house could be given to Alice Baker-Greene.”

Motive (?)

I looked at her work-roughened hands and the marks of fatigue under her eyes. And I thought of the story she knew—a story so explosive it might have detonated a revolution all on its own—and she had not sold it in spite of her necessity. She knew exactly who I was and only her promise kept her from exposing me to the world. She had given her word and would not go back on it, but only then did I realize how much it might cost her and how much she might resent me for it. I thought of my own circumstances as a lepidopterist and what choices I might make if I learnt of the choicest hunting grounds for the rarest of species and could never visit. What a poisonous secret that would be!

Plans are jokes written by men for God’s amusement.”

Dignity and piety, I thought ruefully. If those were the qualities respected most by the Alpenwalders, it was a devilishly good thing I was only pretending at being their princess.

“How very interesting. Perhaps we will duel as well,” he said, touching two fingers to his brow and saluting Stoker in a manner that was clearly calculated to annoy. But Stoker refused to rise to the bait. “I have no objection,” he said mildly.

“It has been altered because you are a very small man.” Stoker, whose inches just topped a perfectly respectable six feet, raised a brow. “Not where it matters,” he said just loudly enough for me to hear.

“Enjoying yourself?” came a voice at my ear. I turned to see Stoker kneeling just behind me in a posture of supplication. “What are you doing on the floor?” I demanded. “Get up at once.” “I cannot sit in your presence,” he told me in mock seriousness. “It is a violation of royal etiquette. But I can kneel in devotion to my princess.” “You are an ass,” I hissed.

“Imperious as a princess already,” he returned lightly. “I think I shall make you clean my walrus when we go home just to put you in your proper place.” He dared a quick wink before resuming his post in the rear of the box. I drank deeply of my champagne. Home. The word was jarring in this context. I had never had a home, not a real one. My aunts and I had moved frequently for reasons I had come to understand only too late. My travels had taken me around the world, drawing me across the globe and back again in pursuit of my beloved butterflies. I never tarried long in any spot for the fear that I would become too rooted, too settled. But with our employment at the Belvedere and the eccentric lodgings of which we had both become fond—to say nothing of our personal attachment—I found myself for the first time perched on the edge of domesticity.

but I will note that the rhythmic movement of a carriage at a brisk trot is most conducive to certain pleasures,

Omg insane

“Do attempt to clot faster, Stoker. We have arrived.”

Lmfao

“Much obliged, madame. I do hope you enjoyed the ride,” he added with a wink as he sprang the horses from the curb. “Of all the cheek,” I muttered. “Did you hear the fellow?”

AHHAAHHAHA

“You are not among the good that has happened to me. You are the best of all that I have known. You are what I searched for when I left that house and wandered this earth, boy and man. You are the part of myself I never thought to find because I did not even dare to dream you existed. You are all that I want and more than I deserve, and I will go to my grave thanking a god in whom I do not believe for bringing me to you.”

???? ARE U KIDDING ME

“I understand you, Veronica, because I am you. I know that England is too small and too safe to contain you because it confines me as well. Do you think a day does not pass that I do not long to be aboard a ship, salt spray in my face and sails snapping in the wind, bound for the other side of the world? We have known such liberty, such wideness of experience that most can only imagine. And we will know such things again,” he promised. “But I should reconcile myself to the fact that whilst we are here, we must take our adventures where we can.”

They know and understand each other so deeply

Do not argue with me, Revelstoke Templeton-Vane. I see you for the seeker of thrills that you really are.”

You are all that I want and more than I deserve, and I will go to my grave thanking a god in whom I do not believe for bringing me to you. I was still smiling when I fell asleep.

I rose and dropped a kiss to his head. “Your trouble, Revelstoke Templeton-Vane, is that you are too sweetly naïve where women are concerned.” His laughter was still ringing in my ears when I left him.

“Veronica, why is there a nude sketch of you in Alice Baker-Greene’s notebook?” “Because that is not me,” I told him. “It is Princess Gisela.”

I KNEW ITTTTTTTT

“I have compared the dates of Gisela’s absences from the Alpenwald to Alice’s expeditions when she climbed with ‘D.’ You are correct. They tally in every particular.”

“They clearly spent much time together, cared deeply for one another—Gisela must have been distraught when Alice died. And yet, as princess, she could never publicly reveal her grief. Imagine her, forced to conceal her emotions all this time.”

“Those whose love is not sanctioned by society are forced to hide their affections. Such a situation can draw people closer together, heightening both passions and tensions. There may be no one in whom they can confide if there are troubles, no one who might advise or give them wise counsel on how to manage such a situation. It is easy then for matters to simply move beyond their control.”

“Without the possibility of loving openly, Gisela and Alice would be forced to conduct their affair in secret, stealing time together.”

“Better than you think. For all my bluster about my family, I still find myself running to them in spite of my best efforts.” He dropped a kiss to the top of my head. “I know you well enough to understand that you are going to do this with or without my blessing so I may as well accept it.”

Awwwwwww