A Curious Beginning

He hesitated, my hand still in his, his eyes searching my face. “I leave you in the best care—better than my own, child. I will send word soon.”


“Please do,” I replied with a touch of asperity as I flicked a glance at Mr. Stoker. He curled a lip by way of reply.

The baron hesitated. “You must know, if it were in my power to tell you everything . . .” he began. I held up a hand.

“I have come to know you a little in the course of our journey. I believe you to be a man of honor, Baron. It is plain that you are bound by strong loyalties. I must respect that.”

“Respect it, but you do not like it,” he finished with a kindly twinkle.

“And it is apparent you have come to know me a little too,” I acknowledged. “I will bid you farewell in the German fashion then. Auf Wiedersehen, Baron.”

He clicked his heels together a second time and pressed my hand. “God go with you, Miss Speedwell.”

He left then, and Mr. Stoker saw him out, returning a moment later to find me studying his specimens again. “The baron did not tell me you were a taxidermist when he suggested I stay with you,” I said pleasantly.

He returned to his elephant, taking up his tools. “I am a natural historian,” he corrected. “Taxidermy is merely a part of what I do.”

He offered neither a seat nor refreshment, but I was not prepared to stand on ceremony. I found a moth-eaten sofa lurking under a pile of skins and moved them aside enough to perch on the edge—carefully, for I noticed a leg of the sofa was missing, replaced with a decaying stack of volumes from the Description de l’égypte. “It is very late—or very early. And yet you are at work.”

He said nothing for a long moment, and I wondered if he meant to annoy me with his silence. But he was merely examining his glue, and as he began to apply it, he called over his shoulder. “I have not yet been to bed. I gather from Max that you traveled through the night. If you wish to sleep, shove the hides aside and take the sofa.”

I sighed at this bit of churlishness, but fatigue won out over pride, and I began to move the hides. Suddenly, something in the bundle growled and I jumped back, nearly upsetting a case of fossilized eggs as I did so.

“For the love of God, watch what you’re doing!” Mr. Stoker thundered. “’Tis only Huxley. He shan’t hurt you.”

I peeled away the hides to reveal a bulldog, squat and square, regarding me with statesmanlike solemnity. I slipped him a bit of cheese from my bag and he settled back happily, content to let me take the rest of the sofa. I curled behind him, feeling oddly contented with the warm, furry back of him pressed to my belly, and almost instantly I fell asleep.





CHAPTER FIVE


I woke some hours later, stiff and cold. The fire had burned down, but Mr. Stoker was once more working without his shirt, displaying his rather splendid musculature as well as his intriguing collection of tattoos. I regarded him through the veil of my lashes for some time as he labored, stretching a piece of elephant’s skin tautly over its padded armature. It required finesse, I realized, for at times he was brutally strong, using the sheer mass of his muscles to force the weighty hide into position; at others he was gently coaxing, his hands as deft as a musician’s. His language altered as well, for as he sweated and shoved, he swore like any common sailor, but as he persuaded, he murmured in a seductive whisper, enticing the beast to do his bidding. He looked younger then, less commanding, and I realized he was probably not so very many years older than myself, but something had hardened him. Only a certain softness at the mouth as it curved in pleasure at his work spoke of any gentleness in him. And the scars were commentary to his courage, for whatever animal he had faced seemed to have taken his eye and nearly his life. I wanted to hear the story, but I knew better than to ask. He did not seem inclined to confidences, and such a story must perforce be an intimate one.

So I yawned loudly, stretching my arms above my head and giving him time to resume his shirt before I sat up. Huxley nudged my hand and I gave him more cheese, scratching him soundly behind the ears.

“He is not a lapdog, for Christ’s sake,” his master growled. But Huxley merely rolled over onto his back and offered his belly. I scratched him thoroughly before I rose and went to look at the elephant.

“You have managed quite a lot. How long was I asleep?”

“Four hours, more or less.”

“Very impressive that you accomplished so much in so little time,” I told him.

“It is still a damned sight too slow,” he lamented. He gestured towards the whole of the beast. “The trouble is securing this section without pulling the stitches there. The clamps are not holding as well as I would like.”