Because Revelstoke Vortigern Templeton-Vane was no ordinary man, I reminded myself. From the moment of our acquaintance, he had proven that he was there, always, eternal and unchanging as the Earth itself. His own heart had been so badly flayed that only scraps remained, and yet he risked them with me. He was unique in every possible way, my equal in courage and curiosity, and I understood that the love of such a man was as rare as a jewel.
But how to show him I was, once and forever, his? He had made me many demonstrations of his affections, and yet where wasmygrand gesture? We had neither of us the inclination for marriage, but there had to be some action that might show him precisely what I would risk for him.
I brooded over the question for some time before my gaze fell upon the volume of Ovid that always accompanies me upon my travels. I took it up, and theArs Amatoriafell open to a much-loved page. I had even pencilled lightly below my favourite passage. And then I knew exactly what to do.
•••
I might have changed once more into the garments I had purchased in Paris, those designed to ensorcell and enchant, but I did not. Stoker had loved me first as a woman of action, a scientist who dared all and feared nothing. I donned instead my working costume, the apparel of an explorer, dauntless in the face of certain peril. From my flat boots to my trousers to my neatly buttoned shirtwaist, I was the very picture of competence and daring.
When I was ready, I went onto my small balcony and straddled the balustrade, edging onto the stone coping that ran just below. It was narrow, that coping, scarcely four inches wide, and I had to go slowly as I made my way towards the corner. I had one or two close calls with gravity and one particularly nasty moment involving a gargoyle, but above me, light glowed from Stoker’s window, beckoning me ever onwards. I eyed the stout creeper that grew around it, the lacy tendrils surrounding the embrasure, the leaves gilded by the illumination from his room.
Unfortunately, the stone coping ended there, just a few feet short of my destination. I perched upon my little ledge, assessing my options, until my toes began to cramp and I had to make a decisive move.
“Fortune favours the bold,” I reminded myself sternly as I launched my body into the ether. At the last moment, I grasped the creeper, arresting my fall. I hit the wall with an audible thud, and after a moment, I heard the window above me open. A dark and beloved head appeared, the face scowling into the night.
I hissed and he looked down, his mouth falling open in astonishment.
“Veronica, what in the name of Christ and his assorted saints are you doing down there?”
“I have come to woo you!” I called back.
Catching my tongue between my teeth, I began to climb. It was not an easy endeavour. Hampered by the slickness of the creepers, twining and vining their way across the stones—it had rained earlier that day—I slid back several times before coming near enough that Stoker was able to reach down and offer a hand. His other arm was still bound in its sling, and he winced a little as he hauled me over the parapet and into the room. I pushed off with my toes to help lighten the burden for him, but I rather miscalculated and we landed with an audible thump on the floor, Stoker upon his back with my body draped fully over his recumbent form.
He lifted his head, gasping a little, although whether from pain or passion, I could not be entirely certain. “Veronica,” he managed, but I laid a finger over his lips.
“No. It is my turn,” I told him firmly. “You were right to be angry with me for not coming to you at once when I discovered Harry and I were not married. I was, quite simply, afraid.”
“Afraid?” He blinked furiously. “Of what?”
“Afraid of an unguarded heart, of giving myself fully to anyone again after making such a wreck of things the first time. I have shielded myself from true friendships, from you. Always I have held something back so that I could never again be so hurt from my own mistakes.”
I paused and drew a deep breath. “But no more. Stoker, I loved you when the world was new. I love you now. And I will love you until the Earth is burnt away and the stars themselves turn to dust. For we are two souls with but a single thought, two hearts that beat as one.”
He smiled, a slowly ripening smile that promised everything. “You learnt Keats for me.”
“Learnt Keats? My beloved, I would burn the Earth to cinders and blow the ashes to the four winds just to be near you. Now, take me to bed and let me show you.”
We did not, in fact, make use of that particular piece of furniture for some hours. There was the floor—made comfortable by an especially plush carpet—a hassock which proved a singularly useful prop, and an armchair just commodious enough for us to accomplish a position which I am reliably informed by certain obscure volumes of Roman poetry is called the Leaping Dolphin.
By the time we at last tumbled into the bed, it was more in the interest of repose than recreation, and we slept intertwined until dawn streaked the chamber with the first rosy shimmers of the new day. I gathered my garments and crept hurriedly down the back stairs to my room just before Lily appeared with my morning tea tray.
“How are things this bright and beneficent morn, Lily?” I asked as I poured a gently steaming cup of Assam.
She shook her head. “Sixes and sevens, miss. Polly came back—she decided she would rather work under Mrs.Brackendale than marry the undergardener after all—but she has given notice yet again.”
“Whatever for?” I asked. The comings and goings of the maids were not of particular interest, but I liked Lily and I was feeling extremely cordial to everyone that morning. (Physical congress, I have often observed, is as revivifying to the spirit as to the body, and the congress I had just enjoyed invigorated me enough to make me feel quite benevolent indeed.)
Lily went on as she tidied the room. “She says her room is haunted, she does. Claims she were up the whole of the night, hearing such moanings and groanings as would make your hair stand on end.”
I paused in my sipping. “Where is her room, exactly?”
“The upper floor, this side of the house, miss. Above Mr.Revelstoke’s room,” she said as she built up the fire. I drank more tea as she went on. “It were just the house settling, I told her, but she said no house ever made such sounds as that. Bangings and rattlings and thumpings until all hours. Not a wink of sleep she got.”
“Oh dear,” I murmured. She finished with the fire and turned.
“Why, miss, you’ve gone quite pink. Is the fire too hot, then?”
I sipped my tea. “Everything is just fine, Lily. Just fine indeed.”
