“I understand exactly why Harry fell in league with you,” I told her, ignoring her question.
“Oh?”
“He likes to be the most intelligent person in the room. You must have made him feel a veritable Cicero,” I said.
I expected the slap, but it still stung when the blow landed. She anticipated I would retaliate, so she stepped back sharply and yanked hard upon the chain at my foot. I tumbled to my knees, cracking them hard upon the stone floor. The jolt rattled my teeth and she took the opportunity to seize my hair, pulling my head back until my spine cracked.
I did not see the blade, but I could feel the cool edge of it bite into the flesh of my throat.
“I thought, as women, making our way in a man’s world, we might be in sympathy with one another,” she said. “But I see I was wrong. Very well. No more games, Miss Speedwell. Let us be quite clear. Your gentleman friend has been most uncooperative with regard to giving me Harry’s whereabouts or the location of the diamond. I believe you know both of these things.”
“I do not,” I told her hoarsely. It was the truth, if only in a technical sense. I knew the Eye of the Dawn had been concealed in the Belvedere, but as to its exact location, I could search a dozen years and never find it amongst the heaps of boxes and barrels and crates. For a moment, the temptation to tell her at least that much rose within me. I could endure any torment she chose to inflict upon me, but not knowing where Stoker was or whether the villainous Göran was currently abusing him with knives was almost more than I could bear. But Stoker had insisted upon serving justice, and I would not let him down, I vowed. Restoring the jewel to its rightful owner was worth a bruise or two.
During these ruminations, Mrs. MacGregor seemed to grow impatient. She tightened her hold on my hair. “And if you did know where they were, would you tell me?”
“I should think not,” I managed.
The edge of the blade bit in further and I felt a slow dampness seeping into my collar.
“You really are the most tiresome woman,” she said.
“You are not the first to observe it,” I admitted. She released me so abruptly that I fell forwards, landing hard upon my hands. I put my fingertips to my throat and drew them back, wet and ruddy.
“Do not worry, Miss Speedwell. It should not scar. But I can do much worse and for much longer.” With that, she delivered a robust kick to my side, knocking me into the wall.
She did not bother to shackle me fully again when she left. I lay on the floor, forcing myself to breathe slowly and shallowly so as not to aggravate the pain in my ribs.
I had crawled to one of the mattresses and was lying very still when the door opened and Stoker was pushed inside. To my surprise, he did not look much the worse for wear. A few expected bruises were empurpling his cheek, and his hand was bandaged with what must have been the remains of his shirt, for he was naked to the waist. Mrs. MacGregor kept her revolver trained upon him whilst Göran locked him into his set of shackles, murmuring what I could only assume were threats in Swedish. He held up his clasp knife and opened it, putting the blade near to Stoker’s face as he continued to speak.
“Yes, my God, man, I know. I may not be fluent in any of the Scandinavian tongues, but a threat of that sort requires no common language,” Stoker told him in some irritation.
Mrs. MacGregor said something in Spanish—my grasp of the language is limited to formal Castilian and not the colloquialisms of South America—and Göran backed away, still smiling at Stoker. She turned on her heel, saying nothing in farewell, and Göran slammed the door, bolting it firmly from the outside.
“Stoker,” I said calmly, “you seem to have misplaced some of your clothing. And I believe those are the marks of Mrs. MacGregor’s fingernails upon your iliac furrows.”
Stoker blushed to the roots of his hair. “Veronica,” he began.
I held up a hand. “Let us pass swiftly through the accusation, excuse, and recrimination phase of this conversation. Mrs. MacGregor kissed you—against your will, which is decidedly an affront. No one should be handled against his will,” I said primly. “But I perceived the lady’s condition when she visited me earlier. It seems that you may have returned one or two of her caresses. And I am not angry if you did.”
He blinked. “You are not?”
“No. I know why you did. You thought to elicit information from her by cleverly turning the tables. She intended to seduce you, so you decided that your best plan would be to play along with her, perhaps even introduce a few caresses of your own in order to lower her defenses.”
He shook his head. “I may live ninety years and never will I understand how the workings of your mind can so closely intuit mine.”
I shrugged. “I would have done the same in your position. In fact, I might have done the same with the wretched Göran, but he provided me no opportunity for seduction. It was the best strategy under the circumstances. And she is a most attractive woman. It is not as if the effort would have been unpleasant,” I added, cutting my eyes around to where he sat, looking entirely miserable.
“Not entirely,” he admitted in a low mutter.
I cleared my throat. “Then let us discuss its effectiveness. What did you learn?”
It was his turn to shrug. “Very little for the amount of time we spent together. Much of it was taken up with dinner.”
“Dinner?” My stomach gave a hopeful rumble. Julien’s fruit tart had been slender sustenance.
“Six courses,” Stoker said. At my expression, he made an attempt at consolation. “But the champagne was an indifferent vintage and the duck was overcooked.”
“Duck? I do love a nice duck,” I said mournfully. “The house appears thoroughly decrepit. Where did you engage in such debaucheries as roast duck?”
“She has fitted out one of the rooms as a sort of boudoir,” he said, blushing furiously again. “I daresay the walls are still crawling with damp, but there’s a good deal of satin and scarves draped about to conceal it, and the food was brought in, I suspect.”
“Salome could not have done better,” I said brightly. “Now, what does she want?”
“The Eye of the Dawn, which we knew. And Harry. She does not know where he is at present, and she seems to be getting anxious that the diamond may be slipping through her grasp.”
“She questioned me along the same lines, although she was rather less winsome in her attentions,” I said sourly. “How did she even know to abduct us? We have never been in public with Harry, never been seen together. No one knows of our connection to him, although she suspects he and I may have known one another at some point.”
“Apparently they have been keeping a weather eye upon Hathaway Hall. She said Harry was supposed to bring her the diamond and that she had been cheated. When he did not arrive to hand off the jewel, she sent Göran into the local pub, where he bought Tom Carter a few pints in exchange for any information about guests at the Hall. Carter obliged and said we had come just before the diamond was taken and left just after it went missing.”