A Dangerous Collaboration (A Veronica Speedwell Mystery) Deanna Raybourn (books to read for self improvement .TXT) 📖

the stairs. I put my foot to the first step and ran headlong into a broad chest. Strong arms came about me, and a hand clamped over my mouth.

Warm breath that smelt of peppermint humbugs stirred the air next to my ear and there was the softest brush of lips as he whispered.

“Not a sound. Tiberius is wakeful.”

I gave a nod and Stoker withdrew his hand from my mouth but his arms were still firmly clasped about my person. “I presume you mean to investigate the music room?”

I nodded again and the arms relaxed as the lips brushed my ear again. “Then I am coming with you.”

It was just as well that I should not speak. The unexpected proximity of him had set off a most interesting and violent reaction within me. I felt warm—very warm indeed—where his body made contact with mine, and unbearably cold where we did not touch. I attributed the sensation to the chill of the stone stair upon which I stood and the thinness of my night attire.

With a purposeful gesture, I pushed him away, fancying I detected a glint of something like amusement in his expression. It must have been a trick of the fitful moonlight slanting through the open arrow slit of the tower, I decided, following him silently down the winding stair. We crept past Tiberius’ closed door, and I paused, detecting no sound from within.

At the foot, a nightlight burned in a glass chimney set upon a stone plinth, casting feeble light towards the end of the wide passage. Keeping to the shadows, we made our way to the music room, slipping like wraiths through the half-closed door. Stoker shut it softly behind us as a precaution before lighting a single candle from one of the music stands. The sudden flare of light nearly blinded me, but I bent hastily to the task at hand. I inspected the harpsichord thoroughly, from its lacquered case to the strings that formed its innards, running my hands over the ivory and black keys, careful to draw no sound from them.

“What precisely are you looking for?” Stoker inquired. He had made no move to help me, merely stood with his back to the door, arms folded over his chest as he watched me.

“I will know it when I see it,” I pronounced.

He grinned. “You don’t know, do you?”

I pulled a face. “I am not mechanically minded,” I admitted. “Have you any suggestion?”

He came forward, standing very close behind as he reached over my shoulder to point. “The likeliest way to accomplish a trick like this is to fashion a clockwork mechanism to create the effect of an instrument playing itself. It would have to be housed just here,” he added, his arm brushing mine as he reached.

I peered closely into the lacquered cabinet of the harpsichord, but I saw nothing amiss, no devices or contraption that might have accounted for the instrument playing by itself.

I stepped back, frustrated. “How could it have been done, then?”

Stoker shrugged. “It cannot. Not with this instrument. Someone had to actually touch the keys in order to make the music.” He trailed his forefinger along the edge. “A handsome piece,” he said, “and an expensive one, if a little gaudy for my taste.”

He was not wrong. Each panel of the instrument’s case was painted with a different allegorical scene of passion—Venus and Adonis, Jupiter and Europa. They had sprung from the brush of a master, I realized, rendered with uncommon skill and delicacy.

“The artist has put in little jokes,” I told him. I bent to show him a goat with a wreath of laurel tipped drunkenly over one horn, a puppy stealing a beribboned slipper.

“Clever,” he murmured, peering closely. “He has managed to give the animals almost human expressions.” His shoulder was pressed companionably to mine, and if I turned my head, even the slightest, my mouth would brush his cheek. I straightened at once, brushing in my haste against the rack above the keyboard, sending sheets of music tumbling to the floor, a single harsh note ringing out in the silence.

“How clumsy of me!” I exclaimed, diving beneath the harpsichord to retrieve the sheets.

As I went to replace them, I noticed another picture I had not yet seen, one that had been concealed behind the display of sheet music and positioned just where a musician might see it when playing by heart. Situated above the keyboard, this image was the most beautiful of all, an exquisite depiction of Jupiter and Leda. The god was in the midst of his transformation from swan to man, his form beautifully sculpted and entirely human, but his arms still broad and powerful wings, stretching to embrace his beloved. She was crowned in roses, her face turned into the strong column of Jupiter’s neck. He was in profile, but something about his posture caught my eye. I leant near, holding the candle close to the painted face. It was small, the entire figure of the god no bigger than my finger, and I had to stand quite near to see it clearly.

“How lovely!” I breathed. I pointed and Stoker came to stand behind me, looking at the god and his ladylove in the throes of their erotic embrace.

“Rather gives one ideas,” he murmured. I swallowed hard and darted a glance at him, but he did not look at me. Rather, his gaze was fixed upon the little painting. He bent swiftly and gave a sudden exclamation.

“You unspeakable bastard,” he muttered. He turned to me. “Look.”

“I did. It’s lovely,” I began.

“No,” he instructed, taking my shoulders firmly in his grasp and forcing me to bend closer to the painting. “Look.”

For a moment I was conscious only of his hands gripping me through the thin fabric of my nightdress. I could feel the warm clasp of each finger just at my collarbones, and the thumbs, pressing either side of my spine, stroking gently as he pushed me. I bit back an involuntary moan as my eyes