“I would give them half the earth if it stopped them harming a hair of your head,” I said fiercely.
He wrapped his arms about me, clumsily because of the chains, which clinked and clanked. It was a noisy but ever so effective embrace. “I have no intention of giving them the diamond. It belongs to the maharani,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument. “And I will see justice is done.”
Just then the door opened and Mrs.MacGregor appeared. “What a charming picture of domesticity!” she said in an arch voice. She came near to us, an action she dared since her compatriot was standing directly behind her, arms folded, a revolver now stuck into his belt. It was a much larger weapon than hers, and something in the gleam in his eye told me I might have misjudged how willing the pair might be to engage in an act of violence. Mrs.MacGregor was holding a key, tapping it idly against one cheekbone as she circled us.
“Where to begin?” she mused, almost more to herself than us. She stepped up to Stoker and surveyed his face, running her gaze from the dark tumble of his overgrown locks to the silvered scar that ran from his eye to the sharp plane of his cheekbone. She put out a finger to trace it, making a sympathetic sound deep in her throat.
“Whoever did this to you ought to be horsewhipped,” she said softly. “To mar such handsomeness is a crime.”
“I killed the creature responsible,” he replied.
The lovely mouth curved into a smile of pure delight. “I am glad tohear it.” She cupped a hand under his chin and lifted it, turning his head this way and the other. She was looking at him the way Stoker looked at his thylacine, and I did not much care for it.
She ran her hand down his shoulder and the length of his muscled arm, pausing only when she reached the iron cuff at his wrist. Slowly, she slid the key into the hole of the cuff, pushing herself forward so that her torso was almost touching his as she turned it. With a decisive click, the cuff sprang open and she gave a breathy sigh. She repeated the process for the cuffs on his legs and rose with a slow smile.
“There. Is that not better, my lamb?” she asked. “Now, you will come with me for a little conversation. Göran will walk behind us, so you must not think to misbehave,” she warned. Stoker gave an anguished glance back at me, but she poked him in the back with the key. “Walk on, my dear. She will be perfectly fine without you.” Once he had passed through the door, she came back to where I stood. “When we are settled, Göran will bring you food. Try not to be too lonely,” she said with a wolfish grin.
“Oh, do not worry about me,” I said carelessly. “My only fear is for Stoker. You are precisely the type of woman to bore him to sobs.”
I had judged, correctly, that she prided herself on her allure. The very suggestion that her charms might not appeal would prick her temper like nothing else. What I had not judged was exactly how she might give vent to that temper.
Still smiling, she reached out and slapped me, hard enough that tears sprang to my eyes. Later, when questioned about what happened next, I maintained that returning her blow was the only possible course of action. I laced my shackled hands together and landed them with a crack and set her back upon her heels. Her head snapped, shaking loose a few of her lush dark curls, and when she touched a finger to her lips, a bead of blood bedewed the tip.
If I had been free of my restraints, I daresay I would have bested her. I had been, after all, educated in the rudiments of physical combat by a genial Corsican bandit with whom I spent a most illuminating few weeks. He favored a sort of unhinged recklessness that I admired, although the Chinese monk with whom I shared a lifeboat after a modest shipwreck in the South China Sea counseled discipline and technique. When entering the fray, I have frequently forgot the monk’s training—I suspect regular practice is necessary in order to quash the natural impulses to mayhem. I have, as I have related, instead generally launched myself into the fracas with some fair imitation of a Maori battle cry or an Irish war whoop. (Stoker deplores this vocal embellishment, but I maintain it is a highly effective means of unsettling one’s opponent.) In any case, there was no opportunity for the sort of refinements I had developed in the course of my tuition. There was only rage, white-hot and rooted in the audacity of this woman to lay hands upon me after eyeing the man that I loved as if he were the prize bull at the market fair.
Of course, that was my mistake. Mrs.MacGregor had no horse in the race, as it were. She was simply toying with us, whilst my own emotions were very much engaged. That enabled her to step back and judge where her next blows might best be placed for the maximum impact with the least effort.
She doubled up her fist, the key gripped in her palm, and bent, pushing from the knees like any boxer of merit might have done. She hit me once, in the stomach, driving the wind from my lungs. I doubled over, twisting to avoid the next punch, but she had anticipated this and swung her fist in an expert arc, catching me neatly in the kidney. I dropped to my knees, whooping for air even as my hand grasped a bit of the slack chain.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” she said, stepping back smartly out of reach. “Sit down and mind your manners,” she advised. “I do not think I willhave Göran bring you any supper after all. You can eat when your gentleman friend does. If I choose to leave you any teeth,” she added, snapping hers at me for good measure.
She left then, the imprint of my hand standing out bright red against the pale olive of her complexion. It was a small satisfaction.
CHAPTER
25
The next few hours passed as slowly as any I have endured. I marked the passage of time by the candle as it burned away. The air in the room was close and warm, and I began to wonder idly about suffocation. But by peering at the coal doors, I could just make out slender gaps between the boards through which the setting sun drove the last rays of light, and if light could enter, so could air. It was long after these gilded bars had faded to blackness that the door opened once more. I had tortured myself with thoughts of what Mrs.MacGregor and the taciturn Göran might be doing to Stoker, particularly in view of my intemperate provocations. I had failed to consider the woman might revenge herself upon Stoker, but the fact that she knew him to be dear to me would make him a perfect target for her ire.
I do not know how long I remained alone, but it required considerable discipline to keep my thoughts productive. I slipped once or twice into elaborate fantasies involving the many and comprehensive ways I could employ to inflict pain upon Harry Spenlove should our paths ever cross again, and this greatly cheered me when the hours dragged on.
I was just imagining him tied to a roasting spit, being turned in front of a merry blaze, basted in oils, a plump and juicy apple in his mouth, when the door opened. I expected Stoker, battered and bloody, but instead, Mrs.MacGregor stood in the doorway, dressed in an entirely different ensemble to the traveling costume she had worn before. As it happened, I had been quite correct about crimson suiting her complexion. She fairly glowed from the richness of the scarlet velvet against her skin—a good deal of which was on display. The garment she wore was a sort of wrapper or dressing gown, edged with lavish plumes of feathers dyed to match the velvet. It was cut far lower than decency would permit any garment to be cut, and the skirt was likewise split to her hip. Her hair was unbound, waving in a dark cloud to her waist, and I could smell even at a distance her fragrance—something musky and almost feral.
“I thought I would come to see how you are,” she said in a conversational tone. A small, knowing smile played about her lips. She looked entirely pleased with herself, sleek as a cream-fed cat, and when she moved into the room, she fairly undulated.
“I find the accommodations perfectly acceptable,” I assured her. “Although if you mean to make a habit of this sort of thing, you really must find some rats. All of the best dungeons, however makeshift, have rats.”
She laughed, a rich, mellow sound. “Do you know, Miss Speedwell, I think if we had met under different circumstances, I might have liked you. Or perhaps I would still want to break your fingers one by one, who can say?”
“The feeling, Mrs.MacGregor, is entirely mutual,” I replied.
She came near, circling the column to which I was bound, running her hands up the chains. “I am glad to see you haven’t been misbehaving,” she said, looking over the iron cuffs at my wrists and ankles.“Not even a scratch from a hairpin. No obvious attempts to escape. What a biddable and obedient little prisoner you are!”
Still grasping the chains, she leant near, putting her face close to mine. Her lips were rosy and plump, her eyes bright. “I must congratulate you, Miss Speedwell, on your choice of companions.”
“Harry Spenlove is no companion of mine,” I retorted. She smiled.
“I meant Mr.Templeton-Vane,” she said. She leant closer still. “So few men have mouths that taste of honey.” Her mouth hovered near mine. “Can you smell him upon my breath?”
