“For which I am immensely sorrowful,” he replied. “One cut rope does not a murder make.”
“It does if that cut rope meant a woman plunged to her death. Ow!” I swore as a bit of glass jammed into my finger.
“Let me see,” he ordered. “Here in the light.”
I went to stand next to him, extending my finger where a bright bead of ruddy blood stood. He peered at it, then took a slender knife from his pocket. Stoker’s pockets were invariably a repository for all manner of oddments—coins, vestas, paper twists of sweets, great crimson handkerchiefs, assorted glass eyeballs, lockpicks. One never knew what lurked in there, but Stoker always managed to produce the proper tool for any occasion. He bent his head to the task, plying the knifepoint so quickly and deftly that I never felt the splinter move. He dropped it into the dustpan with a delicate clink and the blood welled afresh. I expected him to wrap it in one of his enormous scarlet handkerchiefs.
Instead, he took the fingertip in his mouth, giving it a gentle suck. A jolt of a most arresting sensation coursed through me, so much so that I was entirely incapable of speech.
After a moment, he removed my finger from his lips, examining it in satisfaction. “The suction and the saliva help with clotting,” he told me. “Of course, it is not a technique one would care to employ on anyone to whom one was not intimately connected.”
I said nothing. I stepped closer, lifting my face to his as I applied a caress to a specific and wholly enthralling portion of his anatomy to assess its readiness.
“Veronica!” He grasped my wrists, putting me firmly away. “This is hardly the time or place,” he began.
I moved forward again, pressing my hips to his. “That is rather the point,” I murmured.
“We will be discovered,” he protested.
“Will we?” I breathed, trailing a kiss from his earlobe down his neck. “How very dangerous.”
“Veronica.” This time it was a groan and he did not push me aside. Instead he buried his hands in my hair, kissing me as thoroughly as he did everything, which is to say, expertly and with exquisite attention to detail. I was just reaching for the hem of my petticoat when he gave a maidenly gasp and thrust me away. “Veronica, what has got into you? That is quite enough,” he said, straightening his disordered garments. He buttoned his shirt, finishing just as Lady C. appeared. I dropped the last splinter of glass into the dustpan.
“Hestia has spoken with the Alpenwalders. It has been decided the less said about this the better,” she told us, her expression grim.
“The Alpenwalders! What business is it of theirs?” I demanded.
Lady C.’s tone was even, but it seemed an effort. “They are underwriting the expenses of the exhibition and Hestia felt obliged to inform them of this development. They were most insistent upon discretion. They have a horror of any sort of bad publicity.”
“Reasonable enough,” Stoker put in. “If the mountaineering business is already suffering thanks to Alice Baker-Greene’s death, then any news story which revives the whole sordid business must be unwelcome.”
“Exactly that,” Lady C. said. “And Hestia agrees with them. She will have a joiner come tomorrow to fit a new panel of glass to the cabinet. In the meanwhile, the room is to be kept locked at all times and I will keep the key.”
“What of the thefts?” Stoker inquired.
“At Hestia’s encouragement, I will of course write to Mrs. Baker-Greene to inform her of the loss of the summit badge,” she said evasively.
“And the rope?” I challenged.
She smoothed her skirts. “There is no need to mention it further.”
“You cannot possibly mean to condone theft,” I began.
“I am not condoning anything because I do not know who has perpetrated this deed and it will profit no one to pursue it,” she pointed out in a too-reasonable voice. “It is out of my hands, Veronica, and the decision has been made. The matter goes no further.” She looked around. “Very tidy,” she said, giving an approving nod. “Your hard work is much appreciated. Now, if you do not mind, I have to leave and I am under orders to permit no one to remain without either myself or Hestia in attendance.”
“You do not trust us alone in the exhibit we are helping to mount?” I asked, my voice dangerously calm.
“It is not a matter of trust,” she said, moving towards the door. “It is a matter of knowing when to let things be for the greater good.”
She escorted us from the room and locked it firmly behind us, pocketing the key. “Thank you for your assistance today. You have been most helpful.”
“Not as helpful as we might,” I protested, sotto voce. It occurred to me to storm Hestia in her aerie and demand she take the matter seriously, but I did no such thing. To begin with, I had Stoker in tow, and gentlemen were not received in the offices except by prior appointment. And, if I am to be honest, I was distracted and unhappy at the turn of events.
“I am rather put out with Lady C.,” I quibbled as Stoker and I journeyed back to Bishop’s Folly. “I thought she had more spirit than to simply accept a directive from on high. She seems to forget that we are highly experienced in these matters and brushes us aside as if we were kitchen maids! Come to think of it, she might as well have summoned maids to tidy up that mess and I wonder she did not.”
“She needed people she could trust,” he pointed out as he stared at the passing scenery.
“She did not trust us,” I reminded him. “She set us to clearing up and then ordered us out.”
“She trusted us with the truth of the burglary.”
“Until she decided to take orders from Hestia and sweep the whole matter under the carpet,” I said darkly. It was the first time Lady C. and I had even approached a falling-out. We had traveled together the previous year and she had shared confidences with me that I knew she had enjoyed with no other soul on earth. It rankled then that she would not trust me now with something so much less personal.
“I thought we were friends,” I muttered when Stoker did not reply.
He continued to stare out the window, distracted.
I poked experimentally at his ribs, and he jumped a mile. “What in the name of seven hells was that for?” he asked, rubbing at his torso.
“I was abusing Lady C. Your response to that ought to be one of undiluted support for my position.”
“I was friends with Lady C. before you and I were ever acquainted,” he reminded me. “And I happen to think she is right in this case. The Alpenwalders are a notoriously touchy lot. It would no doubt sour relations between our countries to pursue this incident.”