Earl of Chester.
I slipped my hand into my pocket and retrieved my little velvet murine companion. Eddy might have been given a Chester of his own, but his would always be the second, I reflected. I replaced the book and went back downstairs, tucking Chester the First away in safety. I smiled to myself and propped Eddy’s photograph on my desk where I could look at it from time to time as I worked. Our paths would take us very different places, but they had crossed once. And that was enough.
* * *
• • •
It was a cool and windy day in November when we decided to return the Templeton-Vane jewels to Tiberius’ house. The fox-tooth tiara had been cleaned, albeit with a broken fang or two, but the armillae shone as brightly as ever. We had both of us enjoyed our time at Mr. Pennybaker’s house. It had been a holiday of sorts, a respite from the real world and all its attendant horrors. We had rested in comfort and security as our wounds healed. Stoker had taken up a needlework project, and I had read aloud to him from the latest natural history journals, although to be entirely honest, these were often cast aside in favor of Stoker’s favorite French novels. Mr. Pennybaker spent a good deal of time with us, telling entertaining tales of his own adventures—most of them quite unexpected for such a diffident little man. (And one or two so delightfully salacious that I was sent out of the room on an errand during the telling. I prevailed upon Stoker to relate them later, which he did in lurid detail.)
We left him with a pang of regret, but it was time. The wind had risen, sharp and laced with the first frost of the season. The spiderwebs in the hedgerows were dotted with pearls of ice, and each lovely ruby berry was sheathed in a thin, diamond-hard layer of the stuff. The whole world sparkled that morning, and we returned to the Belvedere with a sense of homecoming.
Of course, the place was absolute bedlam. The dogs—Vespertine included—were outraged at the fact that Cook’s cat had escaped the kitchens and was sitting on top of Lady Rose’s hermitage, scolding them all as she sat, just out of reach of their most determined efforts to drag her from her perch.
Patricia the tortoise, whose wedding day had arrived at last, was destined for disappointment when the crate bearing her bridegroom had finally been released from Customs. Procured at great trouble and expense by his lordship, the male tortoise proved much more youthful—and smaller—than his fearsome wife. She outweighed him by some sixteen stone and he was so tiny as yet she might have worn him for a hat.
She moaned her disapproval and lumbered away just before Lady Rose’s efforts with her brother’s tea bore fruit of the most noxious variety. Charles was busy being sick in the shrubbery amidst the howling dogs and the moaning tortoise and the sound of the earl remonstrating with his youngest child when Stoker took me firmly by the hand. He retrieved the biscuit tin with the tiara and the armillae and whistled up a hackney, giving the driver Tiberius’ address.
We arrived to find the house shrouded in darkness.
“Locked up tight as a drum, she is,” the driver said shrewdly. “Won’t be no one to look after you, it seems.”
“No matter,” Stoker said, handing me from the carriage. “I have a key.” He paid the fellow and sent him off. I followed Stoker not to the front door, which was heavily barred and bolted, but down the stairs to the area door. He fitted his key to the lock and in a moment we were inside the sleeping house, the very air muffled.
“Hungry?” he asked as we passed through the kitchens.
“It would not do much good if I were,” I observed, peeking into the pantry. “The larders are bare. Tiberius must have given orders to clear them out to avoid mice whilst he is away.”
Stoker grinned. “But I’ll wager the wine cellar is full.” He vanished down a narrow stairway to a little cellar where Tiberius stored his prized vintages. He emerged with a dusty bottle of great antiquity.
“Chambertin, 1803,” he said with a flourish.
“Is that good?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea. But he kept it locked up, so I know it must be valuable.”
“You seem intent upon robbing Tiberius blind,” I pointed out.
He tipped his head. “I think, after our escapade in Cornwall, he rather owes us.”
“I quite agree,” I said as he retrieved his knife. In a moment, he had sliced through the wax seal and pulled the cork. He poured us each a measure of wine, and it ran red as rubies and smelling of berries and smoke.
“To another successful adventure,” he proposed. We touched glasses and sipped, and that wine was like nothing I had ever tasted. There was a silken quality to it, and a ripeness that beat like wings in my blood, and I looked at him over the rim of the glass and realized we were alone, entirely alone, with no prospect of interruption, no duty, no obligation.
He drained his glass and picked up the bottle. I said nothing, but there was no need. I followed him as he made his way through the house, the town home he had known since boyhood. He needed no illumination to find his path, and it was not until we reached Tiberius’ guest suite that he lit a candle.
“Tiberius always orders the gas to be restricted whilst he is away,” he explained. “But there are plenty of candles and the water will be hot if you want a bath.” The plumbing at the Roman baths at Bishop’s Folly had still not been repaired, and I longed for a proper soak, but Stoker was playing for time. He was a little nervous, as I was. We had no excuses save fatigue to keep us apart. This then was the moment we must choose to move forwards together—or remain forever divided, friends but nothing more.
I, too, played for time. I went into the bathroom, a luxuriously tiled little chamber where a massive copper bath stood in splendor. It filled quickly and I hurled in great handfuls of salts with trembling hands. I was aware of a new wakefulness, an urgency that caused my limbs to shake. I stepped out of my clothes, noting the fresh pink scars like tiny stars on my shoulder, marks of a warrior, I decided. Great clouds of steam rolled through the room as I unpinned my hair, letting it fall until the ends trailed in the foaming water.
I lay back in the bath, the water lapping my shoulders as I closed my eyes. I thought of all the dark times Stoker and I had both endured. I thought of the risks we had taken for one another, the bullets and knives and near drownings, the fires and furies we had faced down because we would always stand, back to back, against the world. If I ever lost that stalwart devotion, I did not think I could survive it. I had never in the whole of my life known such perfect companionship, the quarrels and the laughs, the moments of complete and unspoken understanding. He was not another half, for I was whole unto myself. But he was my mirror, and in him I saw reflected all that I liked best in me. I saw honesty and pride, loyalty, and a willingness to stand, however difficult, in service of one’s principles. He was a twin soul to my own, and if I had not loved him so much, I would never have feared so much losing him.