“And in exchange you will not interfere with me?” I asked. “You will not speak to the newspapers?”
He reached out to take my wrist. His fingers wrapped around my cuff and he drew back with a sharp exclamation of pain as the minuten pierced his skin. Tiny drops of blood beaded his fingers. “Some things never change,” he said with a rueful look at the prick marks on his hand.
“I am never entirely without defenses, Harry. You should remember that.”
I stalked away from him, anger lending speed to my steps and distracting me from my footing. I walked for some time, over rises and down hillocks, until at last I had run out my rage. I set my foot down, expecting to find solid ground beneath me, but the earth itself seemed to shift. I had stepped into a puddle of mud, I realized, and made to withdraw my foot. Instead, it stuck fast, with all the tenacity of a hand gripped about my ankle.
“Blast and damnation!” I muttered, dropping my net to the firm path and bending over to plant my hands in such a manner as to gain purchase to pull my foot free.
But I had underestimated the strength of the suction of this little patch of bog. It crept up my nether limb, seizing foot, ankle, then shin in its embrace. The weight of the mud dragged at me, slowly, inexorably. I reached out for my net and drove it hard into the nearest bit offirm ground. Taking it in a firm grip, I pulled with all of my might, pushing down with my free foot in order to break the seal of the bog.
With a violent crack, the pole of the net snapped in my hands, sending me flying backwards as my free foot slid out from under me. I caught myself at the last second, wrapping my hands in a tuft of moor grass to prevent my body from being sucked entirely into the mire. My leg was now imprisoned up to the top of the thigh, and my free leg was inching perilously close to it. Something in the grasses I held gave way then, and I slid backwards, my second leg now firmly in the grip of the bog. I moved it experimentally and felt myself slide further still, the mud cold and heavy against my hips.
“This will not do,” I said severely. I still held half the pole in my hand, and with an Herculean effort, I plunged it once more into the ground, taking care to bury it deep enough this time. I wrapped both hands around the small portion that remained aboveground, pulling myself forwards, one painful inch at a time. Time moved with the slow thickness of treacle, but it was most likely only a few minutes before I was able to feel solid ground beneath my hips. Danger still lurked, I reminded myself. One false move and I should slip back into the welcoming embrace of the bog mud.
With infinite care, I pulled the makeshift stake free and drove it home again, stretching out my arms to secure it as far into safety as I could. I inched forwards again, this time hearing my feet come free with a decidedly loud sucking sound. A person with little experience of such places might have attempted to stand at this point, but I knew better. I pulled my legs to my chest and rolled, over and again, until I was on trustworthy ground. Then I sat, breathing hard and cursing myself for a fool. As I had explained to Effie Hathaway on our first day, I knew well enough how to care for myself in such situations. And yet. The first rule my guide had impressed upon me was the importance of avoiding such peril in the first place. “The easiest quicksand to get outof, Miss Veronica,” he had said with an emphatic gesture, “is the one into which one never gets.” I had always enjoyed his unique turns of phrase, and that was one that had remained with me always.
At least until now, I reminded myself with some bitterness. It has been my experience that when one is accosted by a lowness of spirits due to some failing in one’s character, it becomes a habit to seek out and prod any other failing. Self-loathing is a habit, and one I could not afford to indulge. I doubt I should have castigated myself so thoroughly on my mistakes in the bog had I not already felt akin to a worm in light of my association with Harry Spenlove. I was not entirely certain which I deplored more—the fact that I had married him in the first place? The knowledge that I had not been completely truthful with Stoker? The opportunity I had not seized to tell Stoker the full story the previous night? Or the sordid little scene in which I had just engaged with my erstwhile husband? I was tempted to keep his secret, not solely to protect Stoker, I reflected as I lay in the moor grass. My exertions had stripped me of my emotions and pretenses, leaving me to face the unwelcome truth: I was inclined to protect Harry because I believed there was a grain of truth to his story. It might well have been no more significant than a speck of sand in an hourglass, but it was enough to cause me considerable consternation.
With a muted roar, I rolled onto my stomach and thrust myself onto my knees and then to a standing position. I was covered in mud and would no doubt be sore when the agitation of the experience had worn off. I required a hot bath and clean clothes. My attempt at adventure had come to an ignominious end.
CHAPTER
16
I had no sooner entered the Hall than I encountered Stoker, still dressed in his frock coat, wrenching his collar free from his shirt, neckcloth in hand. He stared in consternation at my dishevelment.
“Veronica! What has befallen you?” He would have embraced me, but I put up a hand to prevent him.
“Do not touch me, I am dripping in moor mud,” I said. “I am unhurt. Merely a mishap.”
“A mishap! You are covered from brow to boot in the stuff,” he added, wiping a thumb over my cheek.
“I was careless,” I said truthfully. “I stepped into a bog. No matter. I extricated myself. Nothing lost but my pride. And my equipment,” I added, brandishing the pieces of my broken net.
“You have others,” he said by way of consolation.
“But this was my favorite. I could only afford the most inferior equipment on my first expedition, but with the sale of a rather spectacular set of luna moths, I was able to afford this,” I explained, looking at the sad ruins. A net is not merely a lepidopterist’s tool in trade. Over rills and rocks, through meadow and marsh, the net is never out of one’s hand. It is the constant companion, the partner in chase, theaccomplice in victory. I had carried this particular net for six years. Next to the tiny grey velvet mouse in my pocket, a legacy from the father who would not acknowledge me, it was my most treasured possession. Nay, not possession. Friend. My net knew my failures; it had witnessed the places where my courage had deserted me. But it knew also my triumphs, the moments when I had faced down insurmountable adversaries and set my teeth against the storm, determined to carry the day.
He glanced about, to make certain we were alone, I think, for he pitched his voice low. “Mrs.Desmond said Jonathan Hathaway has gone for a walk upon the moor. Did you see him?”
“I did,” I admitted. I had no wish to expand upon the conversation, but with the windows of the house overlooking the moor, it was entirely possible that we had been spotted.
“And?” Stoker pressed, his expression searching. “Were you able to form any conclusions as to his veracity?”
“I cannot say,” I replied.
He thrust an impatient hand into his hair. “I suppose that is understandable. You last saw him under extraordinary circumstances more than half a decade ago. People change.”
“But still you wish I had a more definitive answer to give you,” I suggested.
He smiled obliquely. “I am content to remain with my thylacine for as long as it takes to secure him for travel, but the minute he is safely packed, I shall want him back in London so I can examine him properly.”
I silently cursed the thylacine even as I fretted over Harry Spenlove’s true motivations in playing at being Jonathan Hathaway. When I was with him, it was entirely possible to believe his intentions were semi-honorable. To come to tranquil rest after years of racketing around the world, to enjoy the benevolent affections of agrandmotherly figure—these were understandable, even laudable intentions. Upon occasion, in the darkest of the small hours of morning, I would lie awake and wonder how I had come to be enthralled by such a devious and unprincipled character. He had charm, to be sure, and a certain vivacity one could not help but admire.
And yet. Alone, personal attractions had not been enough to win my hand. I was too wary, too like a butterfly, content to sample the many delectable offerings in a field of particularly enticing specimens. But Harry had been different, and with a rush of unpleasant self-knowledge, I understood why. Like Stoker, he had a slender ribbon of pain woven into the fabric of his soul. He troubled to conceal his—whilst Stoker, when I met him, was content to display his foul temper to anyone—but the root of the suffering was the same: abandonment. Two such different men, yet their wounds were very nearly identical. I had been drawn to them as wounded things, not to heal them, but because I sensed in them kindred spirits, for my own soul bore lacerations of its own, and with that realization came a sudden and ungovernable anger. I had existed, in almost perfect contentment, for quite a long time without that knowledge, and the implacable storm of it breaking so swiftly over my head left me adrift. For a tuppence, I would have boarded the first train out of Shepton Parva and left them all.
“Will it matter?” I burst out.
