I could well imagine it. My mother, beautiful and broken when my father betrayed their marriage in order to marry his Danish princess, had turned to her dearest friends to help her. What misery, what despair she must have felt! And in a moment of anguish, she had reached out to her blood family, hoping they would give me the understanding and love they had never offered her.
What had caused her to regret her appeal? It must have been a deed borne of desperation. Had she acted in a moment of despair and only realized the seriousness of her plea in the cold light of morning? Had she succumbed to a moment of madness? Had she been so sunk in misery that her lonely existence in that austere family had been transformed, in her mind, to security—the kind of stability she wished for her only child?
In the end, she had opted for the found family of her friends to rear me. We had moved often, always eluding something. I never understood the specter that stalked my childhood. A rumor, a whisper, a glimpse of a familiar face, and the aunts would be off again, packing up whatever cottage or modest flat we had taken, and striking out for parts unknown. But theatre people have a wide acquaintance, and we were often forced to slip quietly away from those who might have exposed the aunts for who they really were, who might have seen a familiar profile as he lingered backstage, waiting for his adored to slip behind the footlights, who might have seen a child and done the maths and realized whose child I was.
They were affectionate enough, the aunts. There were stories at bedtime and my first ring net for butterflying and doses of castor oil when I was ill. But there was always a sort of wariness about them as well. Once whilst hunting in Costa Rica, I had discovered a unique golden chrysalis, the most unusual thing I had ever seen on my travels. I had nurtured it carefully and eventually witnessed the birth ofTithorea tarricina, one of the most exotic and beautiful specimens Ihad ever handled. I ought to have netted it; such a find would be worth half a year’s salary. I could have named my price with any aurelian collector in Europe. But I could not bring myself to interfere with something so beautiful, so wild. It belonged to nature and not to humankind. So I watched it testing its damp and trembling wings, trying them on the soft breeze that ruffled my hair. It ought to have lurched and listed, but instead it rose in one great flap of those enormous wings and lifted itself above my head, out of reach and beyond the horizon before I realized what was happening. It was like watching a miracle of creation, and I felt no loss at its passing away from me but only joy that I had been, for however fleeting a time, connected with it.
It was only much later that I realized this was the attitude I sometimes detected in the aunts. They could be occasionally at their ease with me, instructing me on how to roast a chicken or make a bed or turn a seam, but then I would catch a glimpse of something watchful in them, as if they had invited a tiger to tea and were surprised and unnerved at how it lolled upon the hearthrug. I was part of them and none of them, and as soon as I could, I made my way in the world, net in hand, to find others like me. I had met a few in the course of my travels—most were base metal and counterfeit in their charms. But one or two had been like Stoker, bright gold and pure through and through. I had no doubt, for all her failings, my mother was the same. It was no use attempting to explain such things to men like Archibond or—worse—my uncle. What is unrefined can never appreciate what is tempered.
And so I did not try. De Clare was a lost soul; I had seen too clearly the glint of obsession in his eyes. It was the expression worn by fanatics and evangelists the world over, the dogged determination to see only one point of view and entertain no truths but the fantasy in one’s own mind. He would see this thing through to the end, no matter how many people it destroyed. I wondered if Archibond’s cool detachment would prove more amenable to persuasion.
The more I pondered it, the less unlikely it seemed. Archibond had, upon our previous meetings, struck me as dissatisfied with his lot, pricked bloody by the thorns of thwarted ambition. He knew he was a clever man—perhaps more clever than most—but he had not the humility to recognize his own limitations. He feared them, but he could not perceive them, and what might occasionally haunt his wakeful nights was the terror that the world would never understand exactly how clever he was. His progress at the Yard had been stalled; there were few opportunities for him to advance to greatness. I could smell the stink of longing upon him. In spite of his protestations of egalitarian ideals, he yearned for accolades, for a knighthood or a baronetcy, a title to set him above those who were currently his betters but never his equals.
This then was his roll of the dice, as reckless and determined as any wager any gambler had made. I saw the faintest trickle of perspiration at his hairline and I realized he was desperately afraid but he had come too far to back out now. That feeling of being cornered would make him ruthless. He could not go back, so he must go forwards, whatever the price.
I considered all of this in the space of a few seconds before speaking. “That letter is no proof,” I told Archibond gently. “My mother might have been delusional. She did, after all, take her own life shortly thereafter. And you, above anyone, must know the necessity of corroboration.”
His hands curled into fists at his sides. “I cannot speak to your mother’s state of mind, but de Clare will. He will swear to it.”
“He was not there,” I pointed out.
“Yes, but who knows that?” Archibond retorted.
“The Prince of Wales will deny it all,” I told him.
“The Prince of Wales? Who the devil will believe him after it comes out what his family have been up to?” Archibond countered with a flick of the finger towards Eddy.
But I saw the flicker of doubt in Archibond’s eyes. He had plannedthis scheme in exacting detail, but execution was a different matter. Now that he was in the thick of it, he could see the flaws, I was certain. He still believed he could carry out his plot, but the more doubt I sowed, the longer he might hesitate to press forward, purchasing a little time for us. And time was opportunity—opportunity for us to find a way of escape, for someone to discover us, for the hue and cry to be raised about Eddy’s disappearance.
I forced my voice to lightness. “I am curious, Inspector. How do you mean to continue the charade that I am queen in my own right unless I am periodically trotted out to make speeches or open Parliament or even to be crowned? I must be seen by the people. And how can you ever guarantee that I will do so without appealing to them to free me from my pretty gilded cage?”
“Your uncle believes,” he said slowly, “that you will be persuaded to come around.” He did not glance to where Stoker lay, but we both understood his meaning precisely.
“I have seen my uncle’s methods of persuasion,” I said candidly. “Did he tell you he had me abducted once before? Hauled onto a boat to be carried off to Ireland, only I jumped into the Thames rather than let him sail away with me. My uncle has no intention of attempting to persuade me to serve as his puppet queen,” I added. “He has a rather low opinion of me, if you have not yet detected it.”
In spite of himself, Archibond gave a small smile. “He might have mentioned your intransigence a time or two.”
“Exactly. I expect he will establish a government in my name and then have me declared incapacitated in some fashion—perhaps I will be drugged, that is the simplest way. A little prick of a hypodermic and your new queen would be sitting in a corner, talking to herself and wearing a flowerpot on her head, completely incapable of governing. How easy then to have her own uncle established as regent to keep a firm grasp of the government during her incapacity.”
“A plausible enough scenario,” Archibond allowed.
“And one you have discussed?” I guessed.
“It might have been talked of.”
“What is to be your role when my uncle is regent and has control of the entire Empire? There will be no office higher than his. Do you really mean to take orders from that Bedlamite?”
Archibond canted his head to the side. “My dear Miss Speedwell, you persist in believing that your uncle and I are playing the same game, but I can assure you, I am executing a perfect gambit in the chess match of my life whilst he is still sketching naughts and crosses with a fingernail.”
His smile turned suddenly savage. “Do you really believe I would be taken in by his ridiculous Irish sentiment? He drinks and weeps as he talks of a de Clare being Queen of Ireland, did you know that? Do you realize how many bloody songs about Brian Boru I have had to endure? But do give me a little credit, I beg you. I know exactly what your uncle is going to do, and moreover, I know exactly what I will do—not in response to him, but to make him do what I want in the first place. I understand your hope, that I might be open to an appeal based upon our shared sensibility and logic, and I applaud you for it. I would have done the same in your circumstances. But you must understand, my dear. I am far more dangerous than your uncle. He wishes to harm you because he has a grudge for the ills you have done him. I will harm you because it will teach you to obey.”
He accompanied the words with the caress of a fingertip drawn slowly down my cheek. “I will bruise you where no one can see. I will make scars that will never heal. Do not oppose me. Do not challenge me. And above all, do not underestimate me.”
With that, he wrapped a loose tendril of hair about his finger, curling it slowly, drawing me closer as he tugged gently upon it. I couldsmell the fragrance of his hair oil, and I knew I should never forget it as long as I lived.
“I say, turn loose of my sister,” Eddy ordered, drawing himself up with the stiff precision of his training as an officer of the Tenth Hussars.
Archibond regarded him with amusement. Suddenly, he tucked the hair behind my ear and patted my cheek gently. “Be a good girl, Veronica. Whatever happens to you—and to them,” he added with a nod towards my two companions, “is entirely your choice.”
