“Veronica?”
I blinked to find Stoker staring at me quizzically. “I beg your pardon?”
“You were woolgathering,” he told me. “I called your name twice. What on earth were you thinking about?”
“Never mind,” I said hoarsely. I fixed a cordial smile to my lips. “Won’t you introduce me to your friend?”
He nodded. “It is stable enough for you to come inside.” He put out his hand and I took it as I stepped into the shadowy belly of the beast.
“Careful of the paint there,” he advised. “It is still wet.”
The creature smelt of fresh glue and wet plaster. The sculpted rib cage formed a curving back wall, each bone fitted with a sconce to provide illumination.
“I have been working by candlelight to make certain of the effect during the dinner. It is rather successful,” he said, looking thoroughly pleased with himself.
“My god,” I breathed as the flames flickered suddenly. It was a visionstraight from the depths of Hell, the small fires dancing over the bones. I was reminded then of the first time I had seen Stoker, in a similar state of dishabille, working to remount a massive elephant amidst a litter of bones and specimen jars.[*] He turned to me then, his eyes bright with excitement.
“Here, come out and see what I have done with the head,” he urged. We climbed out of the beast and moved to the front. He pointed to where he had installed a lamp in the head of the creature. “I have made the eyes translucent so they will glow.”
I circled slowly, taking it all in. It was monstrous and unnerving and I could only imagine how unsettling it would be to dine in such surroundings. “I love it,” I told him truthfully.
“It is as faithful a representation as I can manage without ever seeing the fossil in situ,” he explained. “I changed the angle of the neck. You can see here from the way the vertebrae are seated—” There was more,muchmore, but I confess I did not hear it. Stoker was never so happy as when he was engaged in his work, and although this creature was merely a facsimile of a Megalosaurus, the chance to apply recent findings to its appearance was an activity calculated to delight him. Somehow, for all their quarrels and grievances, Tiberius had struck upon a task that beguiled him more than any other I could imagine. And this pleasure seemed to dim his annoyance with me—at least so long as he enthused about his model, he was prepared to lower his guard just a little. It was an imperfect rapprochement; none of the troubles between us had been settled, but at least the rough waters had calmed a little. I listened, happy for the moment for us to be, even if fleetingly, as we once were.
He broke off several minutes later. “Why are you smiling? You do not care for dinosaurs.”
“No, I do not.” I said nothing more, wondering if he would intuit my thoughts.
He cocked his head, his eyes gleaming. “You have the most peculiar expression, Veronica. Are you going to try to seduce me now?”
Before I could respond, I felt a sharp rap upon my arm.
I turned to see a pair of shrewd eyes regarding me from below a ruffled cap.
“Nanny MacQueen, I believe,” I said faintly. “I am Veronica Speedwell.”
“I know who you are,” she told me. “And it is past time we had a chat. Come with me.”
I turned to Stoker, but he spread his hands helplessly even as he grinned at my discomfiture.
“And you put on a shirt, Stokie. I’ll not have you taking a chill and me left to nurse you back to health,” she told him severely.
“Yes, Nanny,” he said, obediently reaching for a shirt.
She poked me firmly in the ribs. “Come along, then. I haven’t got many years left and I’ll not waste them waiting for the likes of you.”
Nanny pivoted on her dainty heel and stalked over the footbridge, never glancing around, so certain was she of being obeyed. And obey I did, trotting meekly behind as I followed her to a small, sedate Georgian house that had been tucked neatly into a copse between the coast path and the rose alley.
If Nanny MacQueen were an old family retainer from a storybook, she would have had a quaint little cottage covered in rambler roses with polished copper pans hanging over a merry hearth and a pretty calico cat sleeping in a basket. But Nanny MacQueen was not that sort of retainer. She led me into an elegantly proportioned room furnished with excellent Regency pieces of fruitwood inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and the only pet in evidence was a fat grey parrot that stood upon its perch and regarded me with as much obvious distaste as its mistress.
She pointed to a low chair upholstered in pearl-pink silk. “Sit,” she ordered. When I had done so, she rang a little bell and a cowed maidservant trotted in with a tray. Upon it stood a bottle and two smallcrystal glasses. Nanny dismissed the maid with a wave and poured out equal measures of a cloudy yellow liquid, handing me a glass.
“Parsnip wine,” she told me. “Of my own making.”
Why people insist upon fermenting vegetables for wine when grapes are handily abundant is a thing I shall never understand, but I could hardly make such an observation to her. She was watching me closely, and I realised the parsnip wine was a test of sorts.
Very well, I decided. I should prove myself. I took a deep draught of the wine and instantly understood that I had made a terrible mistake. When one is drowning, the whole of one’s life is said to flash before one’s eyes in a sort of magic lantern show with oneself in the starring role. Death by parsnip wine is not half so pleasurable. At least when one drowns there is the possibility of choking in a bit of air. With parsnip wine, there is only fire, an explosion of flame behind one’s nasal cavities searing a path straight to the belly.
Tears filled my eyes and I choked out a word. “Delicious.”
