There was often mockery between the brothers. It was one of the ways they demonstrated affection. In fact, anything short of actual fisticuffs was to be encouraged. The last time they had had a significant difference of opinion, the matter had ended with Tiberius lightlystabbing Stoker. (Considering the fact that Stoker had just dislocated Tiberius’ shoulder, a stabbing was not an entirely inappropriate reaction.)
But now there was an edge to Stoker’s facetious enquiry, an impatience that seemed to mask a flash of real temper. It did occur to me that Stoker’s anger flared just when I mentioned that Tiberius and I had been travelling together, and I suppressed a surge of resentment. I was a woman grown, and no matter what bonds of devotion tied me to Stoker, I would not be made to feel I had done wrong in spending time with a man I considered to be a friend. A very great friend, in fact. Tiberius was a restful companion in his own way. He had, upon several occasions and with complete thoroughness, indicated that he was entirely aware of my personal charms and under other circumstances might have been inclined to act upon them. Yet with his innate sense of honour, he would never trespass upon the boundary I had established between us. For Stoker to entertain, for even a moment, the notion that there was anything untoward in my travelling with Tiberius was not to be borne. But I would deal with that insinuation later, I decided. Tiberius’ necessity was of the moment.
“Stoker,” I said, returning the subject to the matter at hand, “I am certain Tiberius’ request, whatever it may be, is nothing so frivolous.”
“Not frivolous, but perhaps imaginary,” Tiberius said with a frown.
“Imaginary? Like a wolpertinger?” I asked sweetly.
“Now, see here,” Stoker began. I smiled. Goading him was ever one of my favourite occupations, and how I had missed it!
The smile stopped him in his tracks. He broke off with a growl and turned to his brother. “What is the trouble?”
Tiberius smoothed the crease in his trousers, as if playing for time. “Nothing terribly serious, except that—” He paused and gave us an apologetic little grin. “Except that I am rather concerned I am about to be murdered.”
CHAPTER
3
Stoker and I stared at Tiberius, waiting for some acknowledgment that he was japing us, but none was forthcoming.
“Did you have anyone in particular in mind for committing the dastardly deed? Or is this a more general concern?” Stoker enquired politely.
Tiberius’ smile thinned. “It is entirely particular,” he assured his brother. He reached into his coat for his notecase and extracted a pair of newspaper cuttings. He passed them to me and I skimmed them quickly before handing them on to Stoker.
The cuttings were death notices, one written in rather florid German and taken from a newspaper published in Baden-Baden. The other was French, snipped from a Parisian periodical. The German cutting concerned the death of a gentleman called Kaspar von Hochstaden, a fossilist from Munich who had come to Baden to take the waters for his gout. His death was sudden but not entirely unexpected given his precarious health. The second cutting concerned the death of Alexandre du Plessis, a bon vivant whose end had come after suffering induced, it was supposed, by a bad oyster.
There was nothing particularly remarkable about the cuttingsexcept for the notations which had been added by hand. In the margin of the German newspaper, dated the previous June, was a large numeral one. The French cutting was from August and carried a bold, slashing numeral two. And in the margin of this, penned in a crabbed, anonymous hand, were the wordsYou will be next. Prepare your soul. VENGEANCE FOR LORENZO.
I regarded Tiberius as Stoker studied the cuttings. “I would suggest that anyone eating oysters in August has only himself to blame for his misfortunes, but these notes indicate something more nefarious. Do you know these men?”
He nodded. “Yes. Although it has been many years since I have seen or even heard from either of them.” He paused, his gaze resting upon Stoker, whose furrowed brow grew more creased the longer he read. Stoker looked up.
“The Seven Sinners?” he asked softly.
“Just so,” Tiberius said.
“Perhaps one of you would be good enough to inform me what we are talking about,” I suggested.
Tiberius gestured towards the empty steins of beer upon the table. “I think we will require something stronger than that.” Rather than ringing for the innkeeper to wait upon us, Tiberius rose and went to the sideboard, returning with a bottle of some dark liqueur and a trio of glasses. He poured out a measure for each of us and we drank. The stuff was dark and thick as treacle, sweet and tasting strongly of plums. Tiberius sipped at his slowly, pausing to stare into the depths of his glass as if scrying for answers. The silence stretched out, taut as a bowstring, and I realised the heightened atmosphere was coming from the viscount himself. He was reluctant to speak, it seemed, as if giving voice to his fears might make them real.
“Tiberius?” I prodded.
He sighed. “Very well. The Seven Sinners is the pompous name agroup of us adopted at Cambridge. It was silly, boyish nonsense, of course. We weren’t really all that vice-ridden.” He paused to smile. “It was some years before I became truly accomplished at debauchery. But we were twenty-one and wild to see something of the world. I cannot remember who, but someone suggested a Continental trip of some duration.”
“A sort of Grand Tour?” I suggested.
Tiberius shrugged. “An outmoded custom, even in ’sixty-five. But we were a cosmopolitan group. Kaspar was our resident German. Alexandre was from Lyon. There was another Englishman besides me, and a Scot. And two Italians. We were none of us eager to take up the mantle of responsibility, so we persuaded our parents that a bit of polish might be just the thing to finish us as gentlemen.”
“ ‘Mantle of responsibility’?” Stoker choked a little on his plum brandy. “What responsibility did you ever have besides sitting around and waiting for Father to die and pass on the title?”
“I did, as you well know, accompany him on numerous trips to the Continent to engage in missions of discreet diplomacy,” Tiberius replied coldly.
“Missions of overt profit, more like,” Stoker countered. “Father never visited a country without plundering it.”
Tiberius inclined his head. “Be that as it may, Father saw the value in travel, as did the parents of the others. It was arranged that we would organise the tour around visits to one another’s homes. Kaspar’s family hosted us at their castle on the Isar. Alexandre’s people had a château in the Loire Valley, and so forth. Naturally we slipped away whenever possible to take in the glittering sights of the nearest cities, but it was, on the whole, a sedate and thoroughly relaxing way to spend a year.”
He fell silent a moment, a faraway expression in his eyes. “We used the time to explore our interests. Pietro Salviati and I were musicenthusiasts, so we took the others to the opera in Milan. We visited private collectors to see the paintings that Alexandre admired. It was churches for Benedict Tyrell. Kaspar and Lorenzo d’Ambrogio were keen amateur natural historians and wanted to see our coastline at Cherboys.”
