He said nothing but continued to probe my person with assessing hands. “No broken bones that I can find, and I think if you were to suffer from the shock, it would be in evidence by now. Still, you ought to rest for a day or so.”
He helped me to dress in fresh clothing, and as his fingers lingered on the last button, I closed my hand over his. “Thank you.”
Stoker shrugged. “Little point in being a trained surgeon’s mate if I cannot be relied upon to bandage a few cuts.”
“I am not talking about that. I know what this must have cost you, to put your feelings aside and let me do as I pleased.”
Something akin to anger flared in his eyes and died away as swiftly as it kindled. “No,” he said softly. “I do not think you do know. Furthermore, I do not think you ever will. But at least you understand a sacrifice was made.”
I rose on tiptoe, wincing only a little as I looped my arms about his neck. “I was perhaps overhasty in assuming I knew best how to handle Eliza Elyot,” I admitted.
He reared back, astonishment writ in every feature. “Are you actually saying you werewrong?”
“Certainly not,” I told him. “I merely miscalculated. There were many, many factors to be considered in weighing our plan of attack, and I might have given less consideration to those that proved the most important.”
I leant in for a kiss, but he clasped my wrists in his hands and held me off.
“Say it,” he ordered. “Just three words, but they are poetry. And I want to hear them.”
“I love you,” I told him, tipping my head to the side like a winsome kitten.
“Not that. Say what Ireallywant to hear,” he commanded.
“I don’t see why—”
“Veronica Speedwell. Say. It.”
“Very well,” I muttered. “I was wrong.”
He threw his head back and laughed, the sound of it echoing off the marble walls until the whole of the little bathhouse was filled with his merriment. “My god, I have never been so happy to hear anything in the whole of my life.”
“Enjoy the moment,” I told him tartly. “It will surely never come again.”
***
By the time we returned to the Belvedere, Mornaday was in evidence, as filthy as the rest of us had been but beaming in triumph.
“You ought to have been there!” he crowed.
“What happened?” Stoker asked as we settled ourselves. Wilfred poured out fresh tea, and Mornaday slopped half of his in his saucer as he capered around.
“Victory! That is what happened, my friend, victory.”
“But how?” I asked. “Chief Inspector Abbington was reading you the riot act when we saw you last. I thought he was going to strike you.”
“Oh, he did,” Mornaday said, exhibiting a violet bruise upon his chin. “And just as he did, who should appear? My very own knight in shining armour—Sir Hugo Montgomerie.”
“Sir Hugo! I thought he was at the seaside, nursing his gout,” I put in.
“He was, but all the sea bathing seems to have done the trick. He’s brown as a berry and lost half a stone. Walking like a man ten years younger,” Mornaday said. “And when he saw Abbington hit a junior, he lit into him like nobody’s business. Called him every name in the bookand a few I’ve never heard, shouting that it was beneath the dignity of an officer in the Metropolitan Police to hit a fellow policeman. Abbington must have shrunk half a foot under the onslaught of it. Sir Hugo can be a fearsome man when he’s in a temper,” he added with a shudder.
“Well, at least Abbington has had a bit of a comeuppance,” I said.
“He has had more than that,” Mornaday said contentedly. “He’s been discharged. Relieved of his post entirely—drummed out of the Metropolitan Police forever.”
“Just for hitting you?” Stoker asked. “I am surprised someone didn’t think of giving him a commendation for it.”
Mornaday wagged his finger. “Even you cannot get my goat just now, Templeton-Vane, much as you may try. You are looking at the new Detective Chief Inspector.”