A Curious Beginning (Veronica Speedwell, #1)

by Deanna Raybourn

Mrs. Clutterthorpe, who had no children of her own, was given to such pronouncements.

She was also very fond of issuing directives on how children ought to be weaned, fed, toileted, and taught their letters.

“Mrs. Clutterthorpe, I can hardly think of any fate worse than becoming the mother of six. Unless perhaps it were plague, and even then I am persuaded a few disfiguring buboes and possible death would be preferable to motherhood.”

Is she Wednesday fucking Addams?? Because I love her. Go Queen!!

I stepped past her, then turned back as I reached the hall. “Oh, and you might tell your sources—it wasn’t an American in Sicily. It was a Swede. The American was in Costa Rica.”

I AM DECEASED!! Tell that haggard bitch!!

“Yes, I see what the label states, but the label is wrong. You can tell by the coloration of its lower legs. These are very bright orange with pronounced tiger stripes. Tarsius has green legs. Really, I am quite surprised you did not see it for yourself. I should have thought so avid a collector would have noticed such a difference. Ah well, perhaps you have not had the chance to examine it closely.”

I love her. I love her. OMG I Love her!! Jesus this woman is a whole ass vibe!!!

“Miss Speedwell, I have hiked the length of the Amazon River. I have been accosted by native tribes and shot twice. I have nearly met my death by quicksand, snakebite, poisoned arrows, and one particularly fiendish jaguar. And I have never, until this moment, been quite so surprised by anything as I am by you.”

He shook his head as if to clear it. “I smoked opium once. It felt like listening to you, only rather more mundane.” I tipped my head thoughtfully. “I smoked it once as well. I must say I did not much care for the aroma. It smelled of flowers and gunpowder, which was not unpleasant, but there was something else, something more animalic. Sweaty horse, I think.”

We are, as a gender, undereducated and infantilized to the point of idiocy. But those of us who have been given the benefit of learning and useful occupation, well, we are proof that the traditional notions of feminine delicacy and helplessness are the purest poppycock.”

“I never joke about gangrene, Mr. Stoker. I was reading to one of the patients when he complained of a certain discomfort in the appendage in question. I examined him, and it was painfully obvious that the poor fellow was suffering from a gangrenous toe. It had to come off, and immediately, or septicemia would set in and the fellow would die.”

“I cannot make out if you are the bravest woman I have ever met or the most ludicrous,” he said in a stringent tone. “You ought to be frightened out of your mind, shrieking and swooning and sobbing upon the floor. Instead, you insult me.” “Not at all!

“That is none of your concern. Now, you will answer to the name of Mrs. Stoker whilst we are among my friends. You may address me as Stoker or husband, I care not which.” “What about Lucifer?” I muttered under my breath.

“I have a crow to pluck with you. It just occurred to me—” “It just occurred to you that I was at liberty and might make my escape. Yes, I know. You are a wretched abductor, Mr. Stoker. I suggest you do not take up felonious activity as a career.”

“Very well. I will go and have a shave. And when I return, we can practice for the act.” “An excellent notion. Is there anything I ought to do to prepare?” His smile was thoroughly nasty. “Yes. Paint a bull’s-eye on your chest. I shall be

“Mr. Stoker. I cannot seem to find my slippers.” “They are on your feet, you daft woman. Now, pay attention. I want you to drink this coffee.

“Good girl.

“Where in the name of the oozing wounds of Christ have you been?” he demanded. “In the meadow, as you can plainly see.”

“Should I be in distress? In a meadow? You mean if the cows organize some sort of attack? I have extensive experience with cows. They almost never do that.” “Forget the bloody cows,” he said, clearly making an effort to hold on to his temper. “The baron was killed, murdered in cold blood, or have you forgot that?”

I gave it to him because, in my experience, it is far better to tell a man what he wants to hear and then do as you please than attempt to reason with him.

“Veronica, you gave me your word that you would rest,” he said, his expression thunderous. “I lied, and we can discuss that to whatever length you wish, but later. Have you seen this?”

“My dear Veronica, I am surprised you have not already learned—everyone has a capacity for cruelty. Not everyone gets the chance to exercise it.”

“There are times when it is entirely safe to show one’s vulnerability, to roll over and reveal

the soft underbelly beneath. But there are other times when pain must be borne without a murmur, when the pain is so consuming that if you give in to it, even in the slightest, you have lost everything.”

“Veronica—” he began. “I will not gamble with your life!” His gaze held mine, and I wanted so desperately to look away. But I did not, and in the end, he released my hand.

“You have heard what Lady Cordelia suggests. That we hide out here in safety until the police have found the culprit.” “I did,” he said in a perfectly reasonable tone. “And you agree that this would be the most logical, sensible course of action?” “I do.” “And you understand I mean to do precisely the opposite?” His mouth curved into a slow smile. “I do. Where shall we begin?”

could smother you with that tea cozy and no one would blame me,” he said in a voice thick with emotion. “Whyever should you want to?” “Because, you daft, impossible woman, you have been concealing a possible motive from me for the whole of the time we have been together!”

“I was merely thinking that it may have been a very grave mistake to introduce you to Lady C. If the pair of you ever put your minds to it, you could probably topple governments together.” I smiled as I pocketed the weapon. “One thing at a time, dear Stoker. One thing at a time.” • • •

“I wish you and I had met as children,” I told him suddenly. “I don’t. You would have dragged me behind the nearest hedgerow and had your way with me before I sprouted hairs on my chin.”

“And what should I do when that happens?” “Do not keep it to yourself. Someone reminded me of the story of the Spartan boy and the fox. Someone who ought to take her own advice.”

“You must make her see reason. Get her safely out of the country.” Stoker shrugged. “I cannot even persuade her to stay in the house. What makes you think I can force her to leave the country?”

His gaze narrowed. “Veronica, have you been abducted before?” I waved an airy hand, thinking of my intemperate Corsican friend and a few rather delicate situations in Sarawak and Mexico. “Oh, heaps of times.”

“And there might be more,” he said. I lifted my head to look him squarely in the eye. “I have this day been abducted, nearly drowned, and stabbed a man with a hatpin. I am unsinkable, Stoker. Do your worst.”

We are mere humans, Veronica. We are destined to prefer beauty to ugliness.”

The urge for physical congress is closely linked to that of survival, I reasoned, and we had been fleeing from danger. It had also been, I thought sadly, far too long since my last erotic indulgence.

He raised his hands as if to ward off evil. “Stop. Now. I beg you.” I blinked. “You mean you do not wish to talk about it?” “That is precisely what I mean.” I gave him a repressive look. “Oh, come now, Stoker. Don’t be coy. Tell me. How long has it been for you?”

You are a man with demonstrably strong passions, and yet you live like a monk. What about the solitary sensual pursuits? Do you ever engage in—” “Not. Another. Word,” he thundered. “I cannot believe you would ask me such a thing. And I am not discussing this further.”

“It is the precise color of the wing frills on a White-browed purpletuft, Iodopleura isabellae, from South America,” he replied with such unthinking swiftness that I gave him a searching look.

“For which you blame my gender,” he finished. “Who else? It is men who have kept women downtrodden and poorly educated, so burdened by domesticity and babies they can scarcely raise their heads. You put us on pedestals and wrap us in cotton wool, cluck over us as being too precious and too fragile for any real labor of the mind, yet where is the concern for the Yorkshire woman working herself into an early grave in a coal mine? The factory girl who chokes herself to an untimely death on bad air? The wife so worn by repeated childbearing that she is dead at thirty? No, my dear Stoker, your sex has held the reins of power for too long. And I daresay you will not turn them loose without a fight.”

“No, I am not. I have known enough of women to understand they are as duplicitous and vicious as men. If they are capable of being our equals in malice, why not in our better qualities as well? There are no masculine virtues, Veronica. And none sacred to women either. We are all of us just people, and most badly flawed ones at that.”

“Whatever happens tomorrow, I am glad you will be there.” “You may rely upon it,” he said, but his familiar, mocking smile was not in evidence for once, and I believed he meant it.

Over the course of our relationship, I had had many reasons to be grateful for Stoker’s presence, but never as much as that day.

“Veronica,” he said quietly. “Do not think that I was suggesting anything improper in urging flight. If we leave together, I will not tarnish your reputation further. I will marry you.”

I tipped my head. “Stoker, I have received seventeen marriage proposals and that is by far the most halfhearted.” “I mean it. I will take care of you,” he said, tugging a little at his collar.

“In spite of what society believes me capable of, I do not strike women,” he said, each word clipped and hard. “But I can tell you if anything drove me to it, it would be precisely that sort of insult to my honor.”

“I am many things, Veronica Speedwell, and most of them I take no pride in, but I am still—and will ever be—a gentleman and a former sailor of Her Majesty’s Navy. And the one thing a sailor does not do is desert his comrades under fire. If we stay, we go down together, and we go down fighting.”

“There is no one I would rather have at my back. To the end, then.” He grasped my hand a...

If only his voice had not been quite so gentle; if only he had comprehended me just a little less. I would never have voiced my doubts. It is easy to stiffen one’s upper lip and carry on when you dare not share your cowardice for fear of being misunderstood. But it is a difficult thing to heft one’s burden alone when there is someone willing to share it.

“I have been in it,” he reminded me. “From the first. And I will be there at the last. Whatever happens.”

“What do you think the odds are that we will survive this meeting?” The lump from my throat was gone, and my voice no longer trembled. He considered this a moment. “One in five,” he pronounced. My heart plunged to my feet. “And still you are willing to bet on us?”

His smile was dazzling. “Any man who bets against us is a fool.”

He gave me one last look. “I am going back for my bloody dog!”