He brightened considerably at that and Stoker folded the newspaper with maddening precision. “Yes, indeed. I suppose I ought to thank you for arriving when you did. A few minutes later and I might have been dangerously injured,” he said, giving a significant look to the bandages still swathing his torso.
Mornaday’s smile faded. “Yes, well. I did my best, didn’t I? I spent half the night clearing up after you, carting corpses around to keep the prince from being implicated.”
Stoker opened his mouth to argue, but I held up a hand. “If the pair of you mean to brawl, kindly wait until both of you are fit and do it properly, with pistols at dawn. Miss Butterworth and I will serve as your seconds.”
“Speak for yourself, Miss Speedwell,” J. J. said. “I rather think we should let them get on with killing one another. It would save us all a great deal of time and bother.”
“I have had quite enough of pistols,” Stoker said dryly. He gave Mornaday a long, level gaze. “I suppose we really do owe you a debt of thanks. Not just for a timely arrival, but for protecting the prince.”
“I am still not persuaded he is worth it,” Mornaday said with a ghost of a smile. “But you are welcome.” A moment of understanding, perfect and amicable, hung between them. I might have known it would not last long.
“Still, you did leave our rescue rather late,” Stoker said.
Mornaday thrust his hands into his hair. “Do you know how hard it was to find you? You vanished from the club in the middle of the night and I had no notion of where Archibond might have taken you nor where you might have disappeared after.”
“We were at Bishop’s Folly,” I told him unhelpfully.
“You. Went. Home,” he managed, biting off each syllable.
“Well, we got the prince to safety and then assumed Archibond was far too intelligent and de Clare too unnerved to stay in England. It seemed a safe enough proposition,” I said by way of defending us.
Mornaday shook his head. “If only I had gone to you then,” he said, his tone frankly mournful.
“But then you might not have had the opportunity to apprehend the conspirators,” J. J. pointed out with infallible logic. She turned to me and to Stoker. “Poor Mornaday was at a loss once you disappeared from the club. There were records connecting Archibond with the warehouse in Whitechapel, but it took more than a day to put thepieces together, and by that time you had escaped him and he had fled. Mornaday and I could not unravel the next bit of the plot until we compared what we knew and were able to anticipate Archibond’s last desperate gambit—luring you here.” She smiled in obvious satisfaction. “Whilst Mornaday was haring around town in pursuit of Archibond, I was following you. I suspected you were the key to the whole scheme, as much as Mornaday tried to keep your name out of it. And when I recognized you at the club, I knew I had only to go to Bishop’s Folly anytime I wanted to pick up your trail.”
I gave her an even stare. “And you know the purpose of the plot.”
She nodded. “I do. They meant to use a series of scandals to throw this lot off the throne and install you in their place.”
“You are no respecter of institutions,” I commented mildly. “And yet you are willing to protect them. You have not written about this in your newspaper. An ambitious reporter, sitting quietly on the story of the century. It beggars belief.”
She curled her hands into fists. “I am ambitious, and I mean to make a name for myself,” she vowed. “But I will not do it that way, not with that sort of destruction. The cost would be too high. The world is not ready for such anarchy.”
“You are a royalist after all,” I said softly.
“I am a pragmatist,” she corrected. “I want to write stories that will do real good, accomplish some purposeful change. Like speaking with the women who live in Whitechapel,” she said with a nod towards Stoker.
“I will arrange it,” he promised.
“And you will keep my secret?” I asked.
She gave me an assessing look. “Let me be a part of your adventures whenever possible, and I will keep it to the grave, Miss Speedwell,” she said, extending her hand to shake mine.
“That is a bargain, Miss Butterworth.”
•••
Stoker remained in Pennybaker’s care for more than a fortnight before he was permitted to leave. I stayed with him, sleeping in my narrow elephant-bedecked bed next to his in the night nursery. I left him only once—to retrieve clothing from Bishop’s Folly and make our excuses to the earl. I sketched a vague story about an accident, and his lordship, distracted by the new arrival of a set of cameos of polished Vesuvian lava, made suitable noises of sympathy and told us to take as long as we needed before returning. I was delighted to find Lady Wellie on the mend, and took tea with her before I left.
“Well,” she said, eyeing my sling disapprovingly, “I see you have been up to mischief whilst I have been incommoded.”
“A bit,” I conceded. Over tea from her Wedgwood crocodile service, I told her the whole story, including our harrowing adventure with Eddy and his secret return to Scotland.
“I know,” she said calmly.
I blinked, pausing in the act of dolloping a bit of strawberry jam on a muffin.
“You do?”
