CHAPTER
1
London, October 1888
What in the name of flaming Hades do you mean his lordship wants me to officiate at the wedding of a tortoise?” Stoker demanded.
He appeared properly outraged—an excellent look for him, as it caused his blue eyes to brighten, his muscles to tauten distractingly as he folded his arms over his chest. I dragged my gaze from the set of his shoulders and attempted to explain our employer’s request again.
“His lordship wishes Patricia to be married and asks if you will do the honors,” I told him. The fact that the Earl of Rosemorran had made such a request shouldn’t have given Stoker a moment’s pause; it was by far not the most outrageous of the things we had done since coming to live at Bishop’s Folly, his lordship’s Marylebone estate. We were in the process of cataloging and preparing the Rosemorran Collection—amassed thanks to a few hundred years of genteel avarice on the part of previous earls—in hopes of making it a proper museum. With our occasional forays into sleuthing out murderers and the odd blackmailer, we were a bit behind, and his lordship’s latest scheme was not calculated to improve matters.
“Veronica,” Stoker said with exaggerated patience, “Patricia is a Galápagos tortoise. She does not require the benefit of clergy.”
“I realize that. And even if she did, you are not clergy. The point is that Patricia has been quite agitated of late and his lordship has taken advice on the matter. Apparently, she requires a husband.”
Patricia had been a gift from Charles Darwin to the present earl’s grandfather, a souvenir of his travels to the Galápagos, and she occupied herself with eating lettuces and frightening visitors as she lumbered about with a disdainful expression on her face. She was as like a boulder as it was possible for a living creature to be, and the only moments of real interest were when she managed to upend herself, a situation that required at least three grown persons to rectify. But lately she had taken to hiding in the shrubbery, moaning mournfully, until the earl consulted a zoologist who suggested she was, as the earl related to me with significant blushes, tired of being a maiden tortoise.
I explained this to Stoker, adding, “So his lordship has ordered a suitable mate and has every expectation that when Patricia is properly mated, she will be right as rain.”
Stoker’s expression was pained. “But why a wedding? Tortoises are not precisely religious.”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “Of course they aren’t. But Lady Rose is home just now and overheard her father discussing Patricia’s new mate.” I started to elaborate but Stoker held up a quelling hand. The mention of the earl’s youngest and most precocious child was sufficient.
“I understand. But why am I supposed to perform the ceremony? Why can’t his lordship?”
“Because the earl is giving away the bride.”
Stoker’s mouth twitched, but he maintained a serious expression. “Very well. But whilst I am marrying two tortoises, what will you be doing?”
“Me?” I smiled graciously. “Why, I am to be a bridesmaid.”
* * *
• • •
I would like to say that a tortoise wedding was the most eccentric of the tasks to which we applied ourselves during our time in his lordship’s employ; however, I have vowed to be truthful within these pages. Even as I persuaded Stoker to officiate at reptile nuptials, I was keenly aware that we were perched on the precipice of a new and most dangerous investigation. Our previous forays into amateur detection had been largely accidental, the result of insatiable curiosity on my part and an unwillingness to let well enough alone on Stoker’s. (He claims to involve himself in murderous endeavors solely for the benefit of my safety, but as I have saved his life on at least one occasion, his argument is as specious as Lamarck’s Theory of Inheritance.)
We had just emerged from a harrowing ordeal at the hands of a murderer in Cornwall* when we were summoned back to London by Lady Wellingtonia Beauclerk, Lord Rosemorran’s elderly great-aunt and éminence grise behind the throne. For the better part of the nineteenth century, she and her father had made it their mission to protect the royal family—not least from themselves. Lady Wellie meddled strategically, and no one save the royal family and a handful of very highly placed people of influence knew of her power. She dined twice a month with the Archbishop of Canterbury and regularly summoned the Foreign Secretary to tea, and the head of Scotland Yard’s Special Branch held himself at her beck and call. This last, Sir Hugo Montgomerie, was my sometime ally, albeit grudgingly on his part. He knew, as did Lady Wellie, that my natural father was the Prince of Wales. I was unacknowledged by the prince, which suited me perfectly, but my very existence was dangerous. My father had undergone a form of marriage with my mother—entirely illegal, as she was an Irishwoman of the Roman Catholic faith and he was forbidden by law to wed without the permission of his august mother, Queen Victoria.
“Bertie always was a romantic,” Lady Wellie once told me with a fond sigh.
“There are other words for it,” had been my dry response. Lady Wellie did not appreciate levity where her favorites were concerned, and my father occupied a particularly cozy spot in her affections. For that reason, perhaps, she was sometimes indulgent with me, turning a blind eye to my unconventional occupation as a lepidopterist. Butterfly hunting was a perfectly genteel activity for ladies, so long as one was properly chaperoned and never perspired. But I had made a comfortable living from my net, traveling the world in search of the most glorious specimens to sell to private collectors. Even if my parents’ union had been a conventional one, sanctioned by both church and state, the fact that I frequently combined business with pleasure—using my expeditions to exercise my healthy libido—would have made it impossible for the prince to recognize me officially as his child. That Lady Wellie had, in the days of her robust youth, indulged regularly in refreshing bouts of physical congress no doubt influenced her attitude of bland acceptance to my discreet activities.
In fact, she had encouraged them on more than one occasion, at least as far as Stoker was concerned. In spite of his numerous attractions—and the fact that we were both more than a little in love with one another—we had hitherto resisted the more primitive blood urges. Stoker frequently swam in whatever available pond or river provided a chilly respite, and I submerged my yearnings in rigorous scientific study and the odd evening spent sampling the collection of robust phallic artifacts I had been sent by a grateful gentleman who had escaped the noose thanks to our efforts on his behalf.*
But in the course of our most recent adventure, Stoker and I had cast off our reticence at last, acknowledging that the curious mental and emotional bond we shared seemed to comprise a physical element as well. At least that was how I liked to phrase it. The truth, dear reader, is that I was as ready for him as any filly ready for the stud. My blood thrummed whenever he came near, the air crackling between us like one of Galvani’s electrical experiments. It was a mercy that we had not been alone in our train compartment on the journey back to London; otherwise, I suspect the urgent swaying of the conveyance would have proven too much for my increasingly limited self-control.