“You realize you will have only enraged her further,” Stoker pointed out.
I shrugged. “She hates me in any event. And she cannot be certain that I was the one who told J. J. about her endeavors.”
“It would take precious little to find out,” he said.
“If she is as clever as Harry says, she will have brushed the dust of London off of her shoes and taken herself far away. In making her crimes public, I have made England a dangerous place for her.”
“And won yourself an implacable enemy,” he said, his eyes never leaving my face.
“I am not afraid of her,” I told him, squaring my shoulders. “If she wants a fight, she is welcome to bring one. We have unfinished business in any event,” I added, touching the length of velvet ribbon at my throat. The cut had healed cleanly, leaving a slender pink line. I had taken to tying a ribbon to conceal it, but I was reminded of her every time I had occasion to use the looking glass.
I would have continued the conversation, but Stoker had already turned away, as he had so often done in the preceding days. We had spoken little and never anything of real importance. We discussed the collections and evaluated one another’s articles for publication; we exercised the dogs, and Stoker, as I anticipated, spent a good deal of his free time sewing small coats for the eternally shivering Al-’Ijliyyah. But further than that, we did not tread. We walked carefully around one another, as if picking our way across the dangers of Dartmoor, fearing to step into a bog and drown if we moved too quickly or in the wrong direction.
And finally, one brilliant morning, I could bear it no longer. I had been working in the vivarium, attending to a particularly beautiful and demanding brood of Agrias claudina—the adults feed on rotting fish and the smell, as has been pointed out to me on several occasions and by numerous people, is less than wholesome. Suddenly, as I watched the brilliant scarlet slash of wings, I was filled with a melancholy I could not bear. Division from Stoker, in any form, was like an amputation of the soul, and I would do anything to bridge the abyss between us.
I made my way to the Belvedere, where I found Stoker precisely where I anticipated—with his thylacine. He had made great progress with the beast, conjuring a lifelike appearance so convincing, I could fairly hear the snarl from its open jaws. But Stoker, like all genius, is never content with the obvious. Besides the creature’s ferocity, he had paid homage to its intelligence, fashioning eyes of such cunning coupled with understanding, I should not have been surprised if the beast spoke to me.
“It is extraordinary,” I told him truthfully. Stoker turned in obvious surprise. So intent had he been upon his work, he had not heard me enter. As he often did when in the throes of his efforts, he was stripped to the waist, covered in sweat and sawdust and streaks of glue. His hair, always overlong, was a tumble of black waves, his jaw heavily shadowed by unshaven beard. He was filthy and looked every inch the disreputable pirate. And he was the loveliest thing I had ever seen.
He looked at his trophy. “Yes, he has come along well, hasn’t he,” Stoker said, but it was no question. He knew the value of his work. There was no one in England, indeed in all of Europe, to touch him for skill and for artistry.
“You should be very proud,” I ventured. “His lordship will want him in pride of place when the museum opens.”
“In another forty or so years,” Stoker agreed with a small smile.
“Stoker, you must know how sorry I am—” I began.
His jaw tightened. “The fault is as much mine. I understand why you did not tell me about Harry. I understand why you married him, and I understand why you wanted to leave. I even understand why you did not wish to speak of him after you believed him dead. There is no power or pain as devastating as a first love.”
He stepped towards me and raised his hand as if to touch me but dropped it back to his side. “I understand all of that, and I can even forgive it. I have done as much. As we have always known, Veronica, we are the same, you and I.”
“Quicksilver, we said. And the rest of the world is mud,” I reminded him.
“Just so. And yet, for all that I understand and all that I forgive, I cannot forget. I cannot forget that when you might have relied upon me, you felt that you could not. And I have to wonder, where does that leave us?”
I stepped towards him and reached for his hands. Filthy and scarred, strong and sensitive. I pressed a kiss to the back of one. “For too long I have resisted allowing anyone else to be responsible for me. I have loved you but held you at bay, determined to withhold part of myself. I am willing now to put my happiness into these hands.”
My head was still bent when I felt the pressure of his lips upon my hair. Gently, slowly, he withdrew his hands and stepped back.
“Oh,” I said quietly.
“Veronica, you are his legal wife,” he replied, his eyes bleak with heartbreak.
“If you think for a moment that I care for him—”
“Of course not. I admit that I have wrestled with jealousy as any mortal man might, but I am content that whatever feelings you once had for him are long dead.”
“Then why?” I asked.
“Your feelings must have changed, but I am not certain that his have,” he told me.
“What does that matter to me?” I demanded. “To us?”
“If he did not care for you, he would have secured a legal separation, a divorce even.”
“If he did care for me, he would not have abandoned me to die in a volcanic eruption,” I reminded him icily.
“You are his legal wife,” he repeated. “And I know what it means to have someone break that bond. I want to believe that you are entirely mine, but in the eyes of the world, you belong to him.”
“I belong to no one,” I reminded him. “Except myself. And I wish to be with you. Harry Spenlove made himself irrelevant to me when he left me six years ago. Do not let him come between us now.”
For an instant, I thought I had swayed him, but he said nothing for a long moment, and when he spoke, it was in a voice thick with emotion. “I need time, Veronica.”
I forced a smile. “We have all the time in the world,” I assured him. “I will be here.”
* * *
• • •
The next day, I arrived at the Belvedere to find Stoker absent. The thylacine had been finished, eyeballs brightly polished, the coat brushed and gleaming. Two envelopes and a parcel lay upon my desk. The first envelope was stamped, the address written in a hasty scrawl. I withdrew several pieces of paper. On top was a legal document followed by a brief note.
My dearest Veronica—Please accept this as a token of my gratitude. I do not expect that you will think of me, but I hope that this ensures that if the name of Harry Spenlove ever crosses your mind, a smile will follow. H.