With that he stalked out, leaving Archibond to give me a slow smile. “Well, it appears I have underestimated you, Miss Speedwell. I shall not make the same mistake again. Your uncle and I have a gentlemen’s agreement and we will abide by it.”
He turned, whistling a little tune as he left. The others followed, and I heard him whistling still as the door closed behind them. It was not until I heard the rasp of the key in the lock that I realized what he was whistling. “God Save the Queen.”
I took a seat on the floor, resting my head against the wall.
“Thank God. I thought those chattering bastards would never leave,” Stoker said.
I looked down to find him grinning at me. He moved slowly to stand.
“I thought you were dying,” Eddy told him in obvious relief.
“It would take more than those Irish hooligans to kill a Templeton-Vane. I’ve been hurt worse by Tiberius just for taking his horse without permission. But they were enjoying it rather too much, and I have no fondness for pain. I thought if I pretended to swoon they might lose interest, and they did. They have no imagination,” he added. “They only like administering a beating if they can hear you scream.”
“That is quite enough,” I told him, shuddering
Stoker rubbed his hands together briskly. “All right, then. I want to get out of this bloody place and put an end to this madness once and for all.”
“Agreed,” I said, more briskly than I felt. “What do you suggest?”
He stared at me. “Suggest?”
I gaped at him. “Really, Stoker. You are the only one of us to have the lay of the land, a crucial bit of intelligence if we are to effect an escape. And what else were you doing when you were lying around with all the feverish activity of a pygmy sloth? You might have been developing a scheme for our liberation.”
“My scheme was to try to get out through the door and that did not end in success,” he returned coolly. “The least you two might have done is develop another plan. I don’t know what you think my life has been up until this point, Veronica, but until I met you, there was very little call for me to elude abductors and murderous thugs.”
“Feathers,” I said in some irritation at his sudden lackadaisical attitude. “You’re just being difficult because you are in pain. I know for a fact that you were engaged in actual warfare.”
“If you are referring to the Siege of Alexandria, might I remind you that I stood on the deck of a ship as it lobbed cannon fire ashore? I was not exactly vaulting through the rigging with a cutlass in my teeth,” he replied.
“Still, this is child’s play compared to that.”
“It bloody well is not! I had the might of Her Majesty’s Navy, which included some rather ferocious guns and a few thousand sailors at my side. Here I have—”
“You have me,” I told him, lifting my chin.
He broke off and grinned again. “Well, I daresay the Egyptians would have been a damned sight more cowed by you than the navy’s guns.”
“And me,” Eddy said, drawing himself up with visible effort at regaining his courage. I knew then what Stoker had been playing at. By refusing to take the mantle of leadership, he forced Eddy to put aside his fears and step into the breach. Necessity will always triumph over nerve in a person of character, I reflected.
Stoker gave him a look of quiet approval. “Very well, what do you propose?”
Eddy paced the room slowly, studying it from every angle. It was excruciating in its slowness, but he got there in the end, and when he pointed to the clerestory windows, I nearly gave a shout of triumph.
“The windows?” he said in a hesitant voice.
Stoker and I exchanged glances. “It is possible,” Stoker said finally.
“Can you climb?” I asked Eddy.
He nodded. “Six years on Royal Navy ships. Although those were ropes, not stones,” he added doubtfully.
“It is a beginning.” Stoker’s tone would brook no hesitation now. “Shall I go first?”
“It must be me,” I insisted.
“I am a better climber,” he objected.
I looked at the windows again, marking the slender dividers between them, and then eyed Stoker’s broad torso. “Your shoulders will never fit through,” I said.
“Dash, I hadn’t thought of that,” Eddy said, his moustaches turning down in dejection.
“That is a problem for later,” Stoker said. “For now, we will worry only about how to get there.”
I bent and unlaced the slippers on my feet, tying them securely together and slinging them about my neck. I looped up the modest knee-length skirts of my tunic, knotting them high on my thighs.
Stoker was making his own preparations, stripping off the shirt that strained across the breadth of his shoulders. I caught my breath at the sight of the bruises, dark violet and enormous, blossoming over his ribs. Here and there the skin was lacerated, the blood sticky and dark.
“This is going to hurt,” I told him.
“No doubt,” he said, and he smiled at me, a smile of such dazzling devotion and good humor that I vowed to myself whatever happened in the whole of my life I would never forget that moment when, in spite of everything—my insistence upon involving us in yet another perilous undertaking, my murderous relations—he threw himself into this adventure with the whole of his heart. And I vowed then that whatever became of that night’s work, I would endeavor to meet him in the same spirit, headlong into what life threw at us.
He handed his soiled shirt to Eddy. “It isn’t very nice, but there is a chill tonight and I daresay I will not feel the cold as acutely as you.” It was the truth, but not the whole truth. None of us wanted to think about the fact that we would, if successful, shortly be traversing insalubrious streets of the capital with the future king looking as disreputable as if he had just committed a series of felonious assaults. At least Stoker’s ragged shirt would conceal the prince’s distinctive tattoos as well as keep him that tiny bit warmer.
Eddy did not hesitate. He, who was accustomed to the finest linen and cleanest garments, took the shirt streaked with blood and sweat and donned it gratefully.
Stoker put himself into position and braced his thigh, slapping it once as he looked at me. “Up you go.”
I stepped on his leg and his hands came around my waist, vaulting me upwards until I could find a handhold. I pushed upwards with my feet, clinging to the stone like a limpet. I put my hand out and groped blindly for a place to grip.
“There is no handhold,” I protested. Stoker had climbed up next to me, spreading his arms and legs across the corner to hold him fixed into place.