His eyes took on a significant brightness. “Is it the rose-colored one from Paris?”
“It is,” I replied. He stared off in the middle distance for some time, the rose corset having proved a particular favorite of his—in fact, on the occasion of its first appearance, he had not removed it at all, preferring to tender his attentions while it and the matching rose garters remained in place—until I snapped my fingers to get his attention.
He came to with a start, but a smile of fond reminiscence still played about his lips. “And you are quite certain you have nothing upon your person which you can use against our captors?”
“I do hate to dash your hopes, but I am afraid I am dressed for calling at the Sudbury, not my working costume,” I said, plucking at the heavy violet velvet of my day dress. “I have no knives, no pins, not even a handy bit of garrote wire.”
“Garrote wire?” he asked in a choked voice.
“I purchased it during our trip to the Alpenwald,” I explained. “I was studying a cheese wire one day, and it occurred to me what a nice garrote it would make with those lovely little wooden handles. And so easy to tuck into a pastille tin! Unfortunately, it is in my reticule,” I added darkly. “Which that woman has taken.”
Stoker looked distinctly unnerved. “Do you really mean to strangle someone with a cheese wire?”
“No one ever thinks it will be necessary until it is,” I replied calmly.
“Touché. But as to your assessment of our predicament, you are entirely correct. And they have left us here a few hours, enough time to come to terms with our situation and become a little uncomfortable. Soon, they will come, either to bring food or to take me out and begin their interrogation.”
“To which I say, give them what they want,” I told him.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Give them the Eye of the Dawn. You know where it is hid. I do not. Therefore, it is up to you to tell them the truth. The diamond is what they want. And possibly Harry. Give them both and let us go and have a nice dinner.”
His laugh was incredulous. “Veronica, do you really expect them just to let us go after that? We have seen their faces. We can identify them. Hardened criminals do not let witnesses live.”
“How do we know they are hardened?” I countered. “They engage in financial schemes and plots. They may be most reluctant to actually shed blood. Besides, I am quite certain they are anticipating trouble from us. If we are amenable and cooperative, it might prove profitable for all of us.”
“And the diamond? Are we simply to hand over a jewel of immense wealth that does not belong to us?”
“I would give them half the earth if it stopped them harming a hair of your head,” I said fiercely.
He wrapped his arms about me, clumsily because of the chains, which clinked and clanked. It was a noisy but ever so effective embrace. “I have no intention of giving them the diamond. It belongs to the maharani,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument. “And I will see justice is done.”
Just then the door opened and Mrs. MacGregor appeared. “What a charming picture of domesticity!” she said in an arch voice. She came near to us, an action she dared since her compatriot was standing directly behind her, arms folded, a revolver now stuck into his belt. It was a much larger weapon than hers, and something in the gleam in his eye told me I might have misjudged how willing the pair might be to engage in an act of violence. Mrs. MacGregor was holding a key, tapping it idly against one cheekbone as she circled us.
“Where to begin?” she mused, almost more to herself than us. She stepped up to Stoker and surveyed his face, running her gaze from the dark tumble of his overgrown locks to the silvered scar that ran from his eye to the sharp plane of his cheekbone. She put out a finger to trace it, making a sympathetic sound deep in her throat.
“Whoever did this to you ought to be horsewhipped,” she said softly. “To mar such handsomeness is a crime.”
“I killed the creature responsible,” he replied.
The lovely mouth curved into a smile of pure delight. “I am glad to hear it.” She cupped a hand under his chin and lifted it, turning his head this way and the other. She was looking at him the way Stoker looked at his thylacine, and I did not much care for it.
She ran her hand down his shoulder and the length of his muscled arm, pausing only when she reached the iron cuff at his wrist. Slowly, she slid the key into the hole of the cuff, pushing herself forward so that her torso was almost touching his as she turned it. With a decisive click, the cuff sprang open and she gave a breathy sigh. She repeated the process for the cuffs on his legs and rose with a slow smile.
“There. Is that not better, my lamb?” she asked. “Now, you will come with me for a little conversation. Göran will walk behind us, so you must not think to misbehave,” she warned. Stoker gave an anguished glance back at me, but she poked him in the back with the key. “Walk on, my dear. She will be perfectly fine without you.” Once he had passed through the door, she came back to where I stood. “When we are settled, Göran will bring you food. Try not to be too lonely,” she said with a wolfish grin.
“Oh, do not worry about me,” I said carelessly. “My only fear is for Stoker. You are precisely the type of woman to bore him to sobs.”
I had judged, correctly, that she prided herself on her allure. The very suggestion that her charms might not appeal would prick her temper like nothing else. What I had not judged was exactly how she might give vent to that temper.
Still smiling, she reached out and slapped me, hard enough that tears sprang to my eyes. Later, when questioned about what happened next, I maintained that returning her blow was the only possible course of action. I laced my shackled hands together and landed them with a crack and set her back upon her heels. Her head snapped, shaking loose a few of her lush dark curls, and when she touched a finger to her lips, a bead of blood bedewed the tip.
If I had been free of my restraints, I daresay I would have bested her. I had been, after all, educated in the rudiments of physical combat by a genial Corsican bandit with whom I spent a most illuminating few weeks. He favored a sort of unhinged recklessness that I admired, although the Chinese monk with whom I shared a lifeboat after a modest shipwreck in the South China Sea counseled discipline and technique. When entering the fray, I have frequently forgot the monk’s training—I suspect regular practice is necessary in order to quash the natural impulses to mayhem. I have, as I have related, instead generally launched myself into the fracas with some fair imitation of a Maori battle cry or an Irish war whoop. (Stoker deplores this vocal embellishment, but I maintain it is a highly effective means of unsettling one’s opponent.) In any case, there was no opportunity for the sort of refinements I had developed in the course of my tuition. There was only rage, white-hot and rooted in the audacity of this woman to lay hands upon me after eyeing the man that I loved as if he were the prize bull at the market fair.