A Curious Beginning (25 page)

“I might ask you the same thing,” I said coolly.

A child of perhaps six years stepped out from behind the bird. Her Sunday frock was streaked with something that looked suspiciously like golden treacle and her hair ribbon was dangling loose as if she had just been dragged through a bush backward.

“I am Rosie,” she said solemnly.

“No, she isn't.” Lady Cordelia's maid, Sidonie, appeared as if out of thin air, taking the child by the hand. “She is
Lady
Rose. Her father is Lord Rosemorran.”

The child looked at me closely. “Who are you?” she demanded with an imperiousness that would have done credit to an empress. As a rule, I did not much like children, but I might learn to like this one, I decided.

“I am an adult person who is not answerable to children.”

Before she could formulate a response, Stoker appeared.

“Hello, Lady Rose,” he said, sweeping her a formal bow.

“Stoker!” the child crowed. She flung herself at him for an embrace, but Sidonie put a dampening hand upon her shoulder.

“Lady Rose, you have the manners of a savage. Greet Mr. Stoker properly.” She herself gave him a nod, darting a gaze up at him through lowered lashes. “Mr. Stoker, it is good to see you again. I hope that you are well.”

“Very,” he said solemnly before turning to the child. “And how are you, little Rose?”

“Tolerable.”

Tolerable! The child had the soul of a dowager in an infant's body. She indicated me with a graceful wave of her hand. “Do you know this person?”

“I do indeed,” he said.

“Her eyes are peculiar. I have never seen eyes that color. What color is that?”

“It is the precise color of the wing frills on a White-browed purpletuft,
Iodopleura isabellae
, from South America,” he replied with such unthinking swiftness that I gave him a searching look.

“A White-browed purpletuft? I am afraid I am not familiar with that bird,” I said quietly.

“It was something I happened to notice. Nothing more,” he replied in haste. He flushed a little, and if his remark did not cause Sidonie to take notice, the sudden color of his complexion did. She gave me a look of frank speculation as Stoker turned again to the child. “Miss Speedwell is a friend of mine and of your father's and your aunt Cordelia's,” he added significantly.

It was the mention of Lady Cordelia's name that did the trick. She sketched me the briefest of curtsies.

I gave her a casual nod just as her aunt appeared. “There you are! Rose, you have been stealing treacle from the kitchens again, haven't you?”

“No,” the child said, widening her eyes innocently.

Lady Cordelia bent and put a finger to the child's cheek, then popped it into her own mouth. “Treacle. Sidonie, take Lady Rose to her room. I shall be up directly.”

The pair of them left, little Rose dragging her feet until Stoker slipped her a sweet behind Lady Cordelia's back. Sidonie cast a lovelorn look over her shoulder at Stoker as she went.

“I do hope my niece hasn't been disturbing you,” Lady Cordelia said to me. “She and her brother arrived late last night rather unexpectedly, and we are between governesses at present.”

“Not at all,” I said, very nearly meaning it. Lady Rose had the potential to be an interesting young acquaintance.

“She was just discovering that Miss Speedwell lacks the maternal instincts,” Stoker said blandly.

Lady Cordelia gave me an appraising look. “Miss Speedwell is not the only one.”

I would dearly have loved to pursue that line of discussion further, but Lady Cordelia was clearly harried.

“Forgive me, but I must attend to the children. According to Cook, Rose has drunk an entire tin of treacle and will no doubt be sick very shortly, and little Arthur keeps trying to ride Betony.”

“Doesn't his lordship spend time with his children?” I asked. “It is Sunday, after all.”

Her voice was carefully neutral. “Sunday is Ambrose's day of contemplation. He withdraws from all company and spends the day in his rooms, reading.”

“How fortunate,” I remarked. “For him.”

She inclined her head and left us then, and I turned on Stoker with scorn. “O, the perfidy of men.”

“What have I done?” he protested.

“Nothing at present, but you are the only representative of your sex I have at hand to abuse. Take your lumps for your brothers.”

He settled himself into the armchair opposite. “Ah, I understand. You think his lordship should play nursemaid to his own children.”

“I think he ought to take a greater interest in the formation of their intellect and character as well as their discipline. Why must it be left to poor Lady Cordelia to herd them about like so many recalcitrant sheep? Lady Rose is a pretty child and precocious as well, but it ought not to fall solely to her aunt to guide her.”

“You are seeing the Beauclerks at their worst,” he told me. “It is always difficult on Lady C. when a governess gives notice.”

“And who is responsible for engaging the governess? No doubt Lady Cordelia. Who runs the household? Manages the servants? Supervises the children's education? Settles the accounts? Lady Cordelia. I think his lordship takes wretched advantage of her generosity.”

Stoker threw his head back and laughed. “If you believe that, you don't know Lady Cordelia. Believe me, if she wanted things to be different, they would be. Yes, she is responsible for everything of significance that happens here at the Folly as well as at their Cornish estate. As you say, she supervises the children, the households, the accounts, and I daresay even Lord Rosemorran himself. But it suits her.”

I gave a snort of derision. “Believe it if it consoles you. I still say she is thwarted in her true ambitions.”

“And what are they?”

“I don't know yet. I only know she doesn't bore me as much as other ladies of my acquaintance.”

He gave me a thoughtful look. “You are making a friend there.”

“Perhaps. It is something of a relief to find another woman of intelligence and sound common sense. I have not met many, I can assure you.”

“For which you blame my gender,” he finished.

“Who else? It is men who have kept women downtrodden and poorly educated, so burdened by domesticity and babies they can scarcely raise their heads. You put us on pedestals and wrap us in cotton wool, cluck over us as being too precious and too fragile for any real labor of the mind, yet where is the concern for the Yorkshire woman working herself into an early grave in a coal mine? The factory girl who chokes herself to an untimely death on bad air? The wife so worn by repeated childbearing that she is dead at thirty? No, my dear Stoker, your sex has held the reins of power for too long. And I daresay you will not turn them loose without a fight.”

He raised his hands. “Not from me. I say liberate the women and let them go out and earn wages and write laws and have the vote. They cannot do worse than their lords and masters.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You are not joking.”

“No, I am not. I have known enough of women to understand they are as duplicitous and vicious as men. If they are capable of being our equals in malice, why not in our better qualities as well? There are no masculine virtues, Veronica. And none sacred to women either. We are all of us just people, and most badly flawed ones at that.”

“Yes, some of us are suspiciously lacking in virtue,” I said with a significant look. “For example, I believe the maid, Sidonie, would like very much to misbehave with you.”

He mumbled a reply to the effect that I was daft, and I raised a brow at him. “Surely you are not so unaware of your effect upon the girl. She stares like a moonstruck calf whenever you are near. Even Lady Cordelia made mention of it.”

“I might have noticed,” he said grudgingly.

It occurred to me then that Stoker's raffish appearance—the pierced lobe, the unruly locks, the glowering expressions—were not merely expressions of his own tastes and values; they might well be a sort of protective coloration, taken on to shield himself from the predation of voracious ladies. Of course, they would also serve to attract an entirely different sort of woman, the kind not easily put off by a little handsome savagery. For those of us who liked our men well roughened, his appearance was the fulfillment of a lifetime's dreaming of pirates and ne'er-do- well rogues. I might have enlightened him on the devastating effect of going about looking like a highwayman, but the risk he might scrub himself up to look like a parson was too horrifying to contemplate.

“Lucky for you that Lady Cordelia seems to have the girl firmly in hand. She is a good friend to you. I am rather surprised she doesn't harbor a tendresse for you herself.”

“Our relationship is not like that,” he said firmly. “Lady Cordelia is only, has ever only been, a friend.”

“She is very attractive,” I mused. “And you have your own charms. I am surprised the two of you have never even had a passing dalliance, a moment of . . . something.”

He hesitated, then sat forward, glancing about again to make certain we were not overheard. “Lady Cordelia is everything I admire in a lady. She is kind and patient and endlessly selfless. But while I admire her virtues, I cannot help that they leave me cold. Give me a flawed woman with warm blood in her veins instead of ice water any day.”

For a moment his gaze lingered upon me, intense and full of unspoken meaning. But he turned quickly away to examine a bit of Egyptian enamelware someone had left lying around. “But why has she never pursued
you
? I mean, you are entirely disreputable in appearance, but you are from a good family. You are an Honourable. That is not too far down for an earl's daughter to lower herself if she has a mind.”

“We are friends, and that is all we shall ever be,” he repeated firmly.

He fell silent again, and I might have returned to my book, but I did not.

“Stoker, what do you think we are going to find tomorrow?”

“I do not know,” he said slowly. “But I know whatever it is, whatever ugly truths are resting in that bank, you will face them squarely. You have an odd sort of courage, Veronica. It will see you through.”

“Whatever happens tomorrow, I am glad you will be there.”

“You may rely upon it,” he said, but his familiar, mocking smile was not in evidence for once, and I believed he meant it.

W
e spent the rest of that rainy Sunday installed in the Belvedere, eating sandwiches that Lady Cordelia sent and poking about the collections. I was highly amused to discover Stoker laughing over a print of Cabanel's
Fallen Angel
—no doubt appreciating the resemblance—and we quarreled happily over the proper arrangement the earl should take for organizing his glorious but haphazard collection. (I favored chronological order, while Stoker championed a thematic approach.) When he was not looking, I managed to unearth a color plate of the White-browed purpletuft. It was an altogether unremarkable bird, but the puffs of violet feathers were so strikingly beautiful that I stared at it for a long time, thoughtfully tracing each tiny plume with a fingertip.

We retired early, and I believe both of us slept poorly, for we were awake and ready to leave far earlier than our errand required. The packet we had taken from the baron's study went into Stoker's pocket for safekeeping. He had replaced the back of the compass and tinkered with it until it worked again, and this I pinned once more to my bodice. I had the oddest sense that at last we were embarking upon the final leg of our adventure, and it was with mingled excitement and nostalgia that I took my leave of the Belvedere. Whatever befell us, our interlude together could not last much longer, and I would miss it.

There were no signs of pursuers as we made our way to Oxford Street, although we took the precaution of a circuitous route. I was being given a thorough education on London's various alleys and byways and parks, and although I always preferred countryside or wilderness, there was something arresting about the great city. Bunting had been hung in honor of the Jubilee, and the streets were teeming with a certain energy I suspected the city had not known before. There was anticipation, as the royal procession was only a few days away and dignitaries were arriving from the furthest reaches of the globe to fete the queen. Her image scowled from commemorative plates and flags, from placards and tea towels, Her Majesty, Victoria Regina, the Empress-Queen.

I studied a tooth mug on display in a window near the bank as we waited for that establishment to open. “She is really not a very attractive woman,” I observed to Stoker. “All popeyes and lack of chin.”

“The Hanoverian influence,” he said shortly. “It would take some very strong genes to counter the German strain.”

“Hm. Perhaps a healthy dose of French blood,” I began, but before I could finish my thought, the door of the bank rattled.

“Ready?” Stoker asked.

I gave him a brisk nod and set off, knowing that he would be at my heels, faithful as a hound. The edifice before us was not the main Bank of London; that building was in Threadneedle Street, where it had stood for some two hundred years. This branch had been opened during the Regency, designed with all the elegant restraint that implied. Along the way, someone had decided this was no longer sufficiently imposing for a bank and had festooned the symmetrical façade with a succession of neo-Gothic embellishments culminating in a tiny clock tower that chimed out the hour as we approached. As soon as we were inside, I requested an audience with the bank manager, and within a very few minutes we had been escorted to his office. He was a cadaverously thin man with great flapping ears, ears that caught all the secrets his clients cared to whisper, I wagered.

I proffered the key. “This key fits an item that was left in your care by a Miss Harbottle. I am here to retrieve whatever is in your keeping.”

The careful face gave nothing away. He did not take the key but merely gave me a long, level look. “I was told only to release the contents of the box to a Miss Veronica Speedwell.”

“I am she.”

A thin smile touched his lips. “You will understand that I must necessarily take precautions, Miss Speedwell. Miss Harbottle requested a proof of your identity.”

“What proof do you require?”

The smile deepened, and there was an unmistakable twinkle in the sad eyes. “She said that I was not to release the box to you unless you introduced me to Chester.”

“Who the devil is Chester?” Stoker demanded.

I put up a hand to quell his questions. I reached into my pocket and drew out the tiny grey velvet mouse. “May I present Chester?”

The manager bowed. “Precisely as described to me. In that case, I will fetch the box.”

Stoker's brows were still raised when the manager returned a few moments later with a plain strongbox. “Your key fits this lock, Miss Speedwell. The box belongs to us, but you are free to remove the contents. I can offer you a quarter of an hour's privacy before my first appointment.”

He withdrew with enormous tact while I fitted the key to the lock. It turned with only a slight protest, yielding almost at once. Inside the box was a packet similar to the one we had found in the baron's study. This one had been wrapped in a single large sheet of foolscap and tied with black tape. A blob of black sealing wax showed that it had never been opened since it had been placed in the bank for safekeeping.

I lifted my eyes to Stoker. “What if it is proof that my father murdered my mother?” I asked. “What then?”

“Then we will decide what to do with it,” he said firmly.

I broke the seal. Within the packet were a handful of papers, but these were not like the ones we had taken from the baron's study. His collection had been newspaper cuttings and letters and photographs. These were official documents, stiff with the weight of authority.

“It is my birth certificate,” I breathed. “It details the birth of a baby girl in Ireland on 21 June 1862—my birthdate. The mother is Lily Ashbourne.” I stopped speaking abruptly, the words stuck in my throat.

“And the father?” Stoker asked.

I could not speak. I handed him the paper.

“Yes, here is the date and the mother, just as you said, and the father—” He looked at me, nearly dropping the paper. “This cannot be.”

I swallowed hard. “But it is.”

“‘Mother, Lily Ashbourne,'” he read slowly.

I held up a hand. “Don't,” I commanded, my voice sharp.

But he did not stop.

“‘Father, His Royal Highness, Prince Albert Edward, The Prince of Wales.'”

I was not aware of intending to sit, but I found myself supported by a small armchair, Stoker kneeling at my side. “Illegitimate daughter of the Prince of Wales,” I managed finally in a voice very unlike my own.

“Jesus Christ,” Stoker said, and I knew from his tone it was not a blasphemy but a prayer.

“What more?” I demanded.

His face was pale, his eyes fathomless as he held out a second document to me. “Not illegitimate.”

“That is not possible,” I said. But I took the paper from him with trembling fingers and read the words for myself, a simple string of vowels and consonants that, linked together, changed everything I thought I knew in the space of a heartbeat.

Certificate of Marriage
. All of the details were there—the names of bride and groom, the date, the signature of the priest.

“Surely it was bigamous,” I protested. “Surely this cannot be authentic.”

“It can and it is,” Stoker said stubbornly. “And it means Mornaday was correct. You are in danger, Veronica. Terrible danger.”

Over the course of our relationship, I had had many reasons to be grateful for Stoker's presence, but never as much as that day. I was stunned, unable to think, and it was Stoker who thrust the documents into his pocket, pulled me to my feet, and propelled me from the bank and into the watery sunshine. The city was the same; the same odors of horse and coal smoke still hung in the air; the same bustle of tradesmen and nannies pushing prams and fashionable carriages jostling with market carts still rang in my ears. But everything had changed.

He guided me along Oxford Street towards Hyde Park. We passed a bookshop, and sudden inspiration lit his face. “Walk on towards the park,” he ordered. “Give the Marble Arch a wide berth, for God's sake. The police have a small station there and the last thing we want is to attract their attention. Don't look around. Just keep walking. Once you are inside the park, turn left onto the first path. Take a seat on the first bench you come to. I shall join you as soon as I can.”

I did not even have the presence of mind to ask what he meant to do. I merely walked on as he had commanded, nearly getting myself run over as I crossed the teeming street into the park without looking twice. The curses of the cabmen were still ringing in my ears when I found a bench. I forced myself to sit calmly, reciting the names of every butterfly I had captured while I waited. I had just reached
Euchloe cardimines
when Stoker appeared, holding his arm somewhat awkwardly against his chest.

“Why did you stop in the bookshop?”

“Because we needed this,” he said, drawing out a slim volume with a green kid cover.
A Brief History of the British Royal Family with Notes Regarding European Connections
. “I would have preferred Debrett's but it was too bloody huge to fit under my coat.”

“You stole it?”

“I haven't any money on me. Do not scruple—I will send them the price of it in due course, but our necessity was greater than the bookseller's, I believe.”

He rifled the pages until he came to the entry he was seeking. “‘HRH, The Prince of Wales, Albert Edward. Date of birth . . .'” He trailed off, then gave an exclamation of triumph. “Here it is, ‘Marriage to HRH Princess Alexandra of Denmark, 10 March 1863.'”

He sat back, the book falling to his lap. “Ten days before my mother died,” I said tonelessly.

“It fits,” he agreed. He took the rest of the documents from his coat pocket. “There is a statement from the priest, signed and witnessed. He presided over your parents' marriage and your birth as well as your mother's death. The same priest whose obituary we found in the baron's study.”

“He was the one person who had been there for everything,” I said.

“Not quite.” He pointed to the names of the witnesses on the marriage certificate. “Baron Maximilian von Stauffenbach and Nan Williams, spinster. Your erstwhile aunt Lucy. No doubt she confided everything to her sister, whom you knew as Nell Harbottle. When Nell and the baron died, those were the last links with this marriage, your birth.”

“Except me.”

“Except you.” He replaced the papers carefully and tucked the book into his coat. “You realize what this means, Veronica.”

“Do not say it,” I warned.

“The Prince of Wales' marriage to Princess Alexandra is bigamous. Their children, all of them, are therefore illegitimate. You are the only legitimate child of the Prince of Wales.”

I took the book from him and passed a finger down the line of issue to the Prince and Princess of Wales. Albert Victor, born just two years after my own birth. George. Louise. Victoria. Maud. And a poor little mite called Alexander who had died within a day of being born. Five living children, all styled princes and princesses—my half brothers and sisters, and every last one of them illegitimate because their parents had been married ten days before my mother's death.

“It is not possible,” I protested fiercely. “It cannot be.”

“We have the documents. We have
you
,” he pointed out.

“But my parents' marriage cannot possibly be legal.”

“There might be difficulties with the heir to the throne marrying without his sovereign's consent,” he conceded.

I leaped upon the point. “And if that is the case, then all of this goes away.”

“No, it does not,” he said patiently. “Even if your parents' marriage could be set aside and you were found to be illegitimate, this is still a scandal that could tarnish the monarchy irreparably. The Prince of Wales has always managed to escape condemnation for his affairs, but this is too much, Veronica. His other liaisons have all been nine days' wonders because his fixers managed to sweep them under the carpet. But they cannot sweep aside a marriage certificate and a grown daughter. Whether the marriage was legal or not, the prince married Princess Alexandra whilst believing himself married to your mother. He committed bigamy—knowingly.”

He paused to let me absorb the information. I gave him a nod and he went on, still patient as he led me through the mire we had found ourselves in. “The Princess of Wales is the daughter of the Danish king, remember. How do you think her father will feel when her honor is thrown in the gutter? If Denmark supports her—and it most assuredly will—the Germans and Austrians will be right there to oppose them. They have been spoiling for a fight with Denmark since that ridiculous tussle over the Danish succession. And do you really think the Austrian and German empires will take sides without the Russians wading into the conflict? If they get involved, that will draw in the Ottoman Empire. Then Greece and Sweden will come. This one fact—your legitimacy—is the first domino in a series of events that could topple thrones, Veronica. There are people who would give a great deal to keep that from happening.”

“Or take a great deal,” I said, thinking of the baron, dead in his own home by some miscreant's hand. My uncle's? My father's? I thought of the elegant Prince of Wales and pushed that thought aside. I could not believe the bon vivant of the British royal family would stoop so low as to order a man's murder in cold blood. “But how are we to discover the truth? We cannot simply present these documents to a solicitor and ask.”

“That is exactly what we are going to do,” he said, his face set in grim determination. He tore the entry on the Prince of Wales from the
Brief History
and stuffed it into his pocket before rising and taking me by the hand.

“Where are we going?”

“Chancery Lane. We are going to Lincoln's Inn.”

As much of a blow as the morning's revelations had been, they did not prevent me from arguing against the plan. “Stoker, we cannot simply appear in Lincoln's Inn to speak to a barrister without an appointment.”