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

can be a stickler about such things. What if he took offense and decided to withdraw his offer of the glasswing larvae? How dreadfully disappointing that would be.” His voice trailed off suggestively, letting the insinuation do its work.

I had, as he had known, no choice. “I will not lose the glasswings,” I said forcefully.

“Then we are in agreement,” he said, settling back with a broad smile. “And you will naturally forgive me for taking the precaution of sending a wire to our host with that information just before we departed.” Before I could respond, he gestured with an elegant hand, imperious as Jove. “Now, if you will reach into the hamper beside you, you will find a bottle of rather good champagne. I think a toast is in order.”

The next hours passed in a haze of succulent food and drink and amiable company as the viscount and I talked and laughed and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. The champagne was not the only delight to be found in the hamper. His lordship—or Tiberius, as I had been instructed to think of him—had laid in a supply of delicacies to last the better part of a week.

“I thought the journey was to be completed by nightfall,” I told him as I helped myself to a tiny pie with a featherlight crust and a filling of herbed chicken.

“And so it should be, but there is no reason for us to deny ourselves as much pleasure as possible along the way,” he remarked. I might have taken that for a proposition, but he merely selected a sandwich of the thinnest, whitest bread filled with slivers of perfectly roasted beef and lashings of horseradish sauce. “Divine,” he pronounced.

“You have a crumb upon your lip,” I told him. He put out his tongue in search of it and missed. Laughing, I moved forward and touched my fingertip to the corner of his mouth. I had not considered the intimacy of such an action. It was the sort of thing I might have done to Stoker, and I had come to enjoy a similar although less intense rapport with the viscount.

But if I was slow to appreciate the familiarity of the gesture, Tiberius was not. He held my gaze with his, all mockery fallen away as he leant forward. He parted his lips, taking my finger into his mouth as he removed the crumb. His eyes locked with mine, he gave a gentle suck, and I felt the blood beat in my veins.

He released my finger and sat back with a slow, deliberate smile. “Delicious. As I suspected it would be,” he told me. And I knew he did not mean the crumb.

•   •   •

For the rest of the journey—and make no mistake, to travel from London to the tip of Cornwall takes hours—the viscount behaved with almost perfect decorum. He still made the odd remark that might have been construed as inappropriate by Society’s standards, but nothing that imperiled my virtue, slight as it was. And he did not touch me again. Instead he applied himself to my comfort, insisting upon opening the window when the compartment grew stuffy and asking intelligent and penetrating questions about lepidoptery. I was no fool. I was familiar enough with the machinations of men to know when I was being catechized simply so that a gentleman might appear to marvel at my accomplishments, thereby endearing himself to me. But Tiberius was more skilled than most. I almost believed that he was sincerely impressed with the breadth of my knowledge.

Almost. To test him, I spent the better part of an hour describing the Gypsy moth in exhaustive detail. If I am honest, which I have sworn to be within these pages, I will admit that I embroidered most of the facts and invented some out of whole cloth. Throughout my recitation, he kept his expression attentive and even offered thoughtful comments from time to time.

“You don’t say,” he remarked at one point. “The Gypsy moth has a furry tail and feeds solely on Madagascar lizards. How frightfully interesting.”

“No, it isn’t,” I corrected. “Because I made it up. Lymantria dispar do not have furry tails, nor do they eat lizards. No moth does. I was merely testing your ability to pretend to be interested. It is a prodigious skill, my lord. You lasted fifty-seven minutes.”

He looked aggrieved, then smiled. “You were supposed to call me Tiberius,” he reminded me.

“And you have no need for this pretense. Why play at being interested in moths, of all things?” I asked.

“I am not interested in moths,” he admitted. “But I am interested in you.”

“That,” I told him without a blush, “is entirely apparent.”

“Good.”

He sat forward, hands resting upon his knees. They were good hands, like Stoker’s, beautifully shaped, although Tiberius’ were unstained by chemicals and glues and the various other nasty things that habitually fouled Stoker’s. These hands were strong and clean, the nails trimmed and the moons stark white.

“You have never done a day’s work with those hands,” I told him.

“No, but I’ve done many a night’s,” he said, reaching one out to cup my cheek.

“My lord,” I began.

“Tiberius,” he reminded me, leaning forward still further until his name was a breath across my lips. I was just trying to make up my mind whether to let him kiss me—the viscount was after all a very handsome man—or to give him a polite shove, when the train jerked to a stop, flinging him backwards onto his seat.

“Oh, look. We’ve arrived in Exeter,” I said brightly.

CHAPTER

3

After changing trains at Exeter, we carried on to Padstow, where we changed yet again, the trip requiring a further leg on a smaller railway to Pencarron and then a transfer to a quaint little quay full of fishing boats bobbing at anchor. They were brightly painted, as were the houses clustered on the hillside that rose sharply above the curved arm of the shore.

The sea air was bracing and fresh, and Tiberius, with no