I sighed. “No, but your perfume is giving me a dreadful headache. If you could step back just a little,” I urged.
She blinked, then laughed. “Oh, you think I am jesting.” She edged aside the ruffled neckline of her gown, baring her throat to reveal a broad, plummy bruise.
“Do you recognize his handiwork?”
“Yes,” I told her truthfully. “He is an enthusiastic practitioner of the osculatory arts.”
“Not at first, if I am honest,” she told me in a confiding tone. “He put up such a lovely struggle against kissing me back. But one is always at an advantage with well-bred gentlemen. That early training to be polite to a lady is difficult for them to resist, especially when the natural impulses are roused. In my experience, a direct approach is the most effective. They simply cannot find it in themselves to protest when an attractive woman puts her tongue into their mouths.”
“I do not imagine such situations are often found on the syllabus at Eton,” I agreed.
She smiled again, shaking her head. “He is such a delectable study in contrasts. The tattoos and the earring, the work-roughened hands—they suggest a certain coarseness. But the speaking voice! Such elegant diction in those deep tones of his. It sends a shiver down thespine. And the deftness of those hands...” She trailed off dreamily, but she watched me closely.
I yawned a little and she darted a hand in to rattle one of my chains. “Am I boring you? It is hardly sporting of me to keep you chained up like a little pet bird, is it?” She delved a hand into her cleavage and extracted a key. With a quick twist of the wrist, she unlocked one of the cuffs. It fell to the stone floor with a clatter.
“You know,” she said in a conversational tone, “you are exactly the sort of woman Harry Spenlove might find diverting. There is something unusual about you, Miss Speedwell. I heard you were a lady scientist and expected something quite... different,” she told me, her full lips curving into a smile. “So, I wonder, did Harry ever misbehave himself with you? You can tell me. It is, after all, just us ladies.”
I rubbed at my chafed wrist with my other hand. It was still bound by its iron cuff; Mrs.MacGregor might claim she wanted to be sporting, but she was not stupid enough to set me free entirely.
“I understand exactly why Harry fell in league with you,” I told her, ignoring her question.
“Oh?”
“He likes to be the most intelligent person in the room. You must have made him feel a veritable Cicero,” I said.
I expected the slap, but it still stung when the blow landed. She anticipated I would retaliate, so she stepped back sharply and yanked hard upon the chain at my foot. I tumbled to my knees, cracking them hard upon the stone floor. The jolt rattled my teeth and she took the opportunity to seize my hair, pulling my head back until my spine cracked.
I did not see the blade, but I could feel the cool edge of it bite into the flesh of my throat.
“I thought, as women, making our way in a man’s world, we might be in sympathy with one another,” she said. “But I see I was wrong.Very well. No more games, Miss Speedwell. Let us be quite clear. Your gentleman friend has been most uncooperative with regard to giving me Harry’s whereabouts or the location of the diamond. I believe you know both of these things.”
“I do not,” I told her hoarsely. It was the truth, if only in a technical sense. I knew the Eye of the Dawn had been concealed in the Belvedere, but as to its exact location, I could search a dozen years and never find it amongst the heaps of boxes and barrels and crates. For a moment, the temptation to tell her at least that much rose within me. I could endure any torment she chose to inflict upon me, but not knowing where Stoker was or whether the villainous Göran was currently abusing him with knives was almost more than I could bear. But Stoker had insisted upon serving justice, and I would not let him down, I vowed. Restoring the jewel to its rightful owner was worth a bruise or two.
During these ruminations, Mrs.MacGregor seemed to grow impatient. She tightened her hold on my hair. “And if you did know where they were, would you tell me?”
“I should think not,” I managed.
The edge of the blade bit in further and I felt a slow dampness seeping into my collar.
“You really are the most tiresome woman,” she said.
“You are not the first to observe it,” I admitted. She released me so abruptly that I fell forwards, landing hard upon my hands. I put my fingertips to my throat and drew them back, wet and ruddy.
“Do not worry, Miss Speedwell. It should not scar. But I can do much worse and for much longer.” With that, she delivered a robust kick to my side, knocking me into the wall.
She did not bother to shackle me fully again when she left. I lay on the floor, forcing myself to breathe slowly and shallowly so as not to aggravate the pain in my ribs.
I had crawled to one of the mattresses and was lying very still when the door opened and Stoker was pushed inside. To my surprise, he did not look much the worse for wear. A few expected bruises were empurpling his cheek, and his hand was bandaged with what must have been the remains of his shirt, for he was naked to the waist. Mrs.MacGregor kept her revolver trained upon him whilst Göran locked him into his set of shackles, murmuring what I could only assume were threats in Swedish. He held up his clasp knife and opened it, putting the blade near to Stoker’s face as he continued to speak.
“Yes, my God, man, I know. I may not be fluent in any of the Scandinavian tongues, but a threat of that sort requires no common language,” Stoker told him in some irritation.
Mrs.MacGregor said something in Spanish—my grasp of the language is limited to formal Castilian and not the colloquialisms of South America—and Göran backed away, still smiling at Stoker. She turned on her heel, saying nothing in farewell, and Göran slammed the door, bolting it firmly from the outside.
“Stoker,” I said calmly, “you seem to have misplaced some of your clothing. And I believe those are the marks of Mrs.MacGregor’s fingernails upon your iliac furrows.”
Stoker blushed to the roots of his hair. “Veronica,” he began.
I held up a hand. “Let us pass swiftly through the accusation, excuse, and recrimination phase of this conversation. Mrs.MacGregor kissed you—against your will, which is decidedly an affront. No one should be handled against his will,” I said primly. “But I perceived the lady’s condition when she visited me earlier. It seems that you may have returned one or two of her caresses. And I am not angry if you did.”
