An Unexpected Peril (Veronica Speedwell #6) -Deanna Raybourn Page 0,71

ferocious guardian at the gate and took exquisite care of the property as well as the organization itself. Her exacting standards meant that there were no creaking hinges, no groaning floorboards to betray my presence. Inside the hall, a night-light burned, a single gas jet illuminating the interior. I groped my way up the stairs, keeping one hand lightly on the stair rail as I moved, fingertips skimming the freshly polished wood. It smelt strongly of beeswax and lavender. I forced myself to move slowly, advancing a step with each new breath, willing my heartbeat to calmness. The walls were thickly hung with paintings and photographs, framed maps and expedition gear. The last thing I needed was to upset one of them and send something crashing down to rouse the household. Hestia slept on the premises, I recalled, and there were a few rooms always reserved for members who did not live in London but wished to use the club as a sort of base camp whilst in the city. Heaven only knew how many women might be sleeping under that roof while I crept about, but my plan was to leave them to their slumbers.

The door to the exhibition room was unlocked. As I turned the knob, I heard a soft noise—a footfall? a snore?—and instantly stopped, standing as still as one of Stoker’s stuffed specimens. I waited an eternity, but there was no further noise, only the occasional gentle creak of an old house settling its bones against the icy weather. After a thousand heartbeats, I slipped inside the room, shutting the door gently behind me. I took the precaution of turning the key in the lock and slipping it into my pocket. Without it, there would be a delay of several hours at least before anyone was able to gain access to the room and discover the theft of the notebook.

I was conscious at once of how cold it was in the room, far colder than the rooms downstairs, and I shivered as I crossed the carpet to the display case where the notebook had been locked. It was darker here as well. No night-light softened the darkness, and the heavy draperies had been drawn across the window. It was a large French window giving on to a small, balustraded parapet that overhung the ground floor, making the house far more attractive than the buildings with flat façades, I thought, but desperately drafty in winter, it seemed. The draperies even stirred a little in the chill of the night air, and I realized I could, quite possibly, leave that way, eliminating the need for a return trip through the club. All it required was a convenient bit of ivy or even a few architectural embellishments upon which to place my weight. I was no climber in the fashion of Alice Baker-Greene—or even as skilled as Stoker in such matters—but butterflying required considerable scrambling over rocks, hauling oneself up and down steeply scrubby hillsides and modest mountains. I had more than once launched myself into ravines or over a precipice, and the thought of doing so under these conditions caused my pulse to quicken with excitement.

So distracted was I by such thoughts that once I struck a vesta, the burst of light blooming into the darkness and dazzling my eyes, I did not realize at first that the door of the case stood open, a twisted wire lodged in the lock. On the shelf, where the notebook had been left, there was only an empty place. I like to think that my wits might have functioned more quickly had my eyes not taken a moment to adjust to the change in the light, but the truth was, I had approached the endeavor far too complacently. When I am coursing along the trail of a most elusive butterfly, I must still be watchful, vigilant against poisonous vipers, assorted venomous spiders, rock falls and sinking sands, and the occasional brigand. In the cushioned security of the Curiosity Club, those lessons deserted me, and I did not scent danger until it was upon me.

The drapery at the window bellied out with a sudden frosty gust, and I realized too late that the window was not poorly fitted and drafty—it was open. The gust caused my vesta to gutter and die just as a figure launched itself at me from behind the drapery. I had but a fragment of a second’s warning. I dodged to my right, eluding the heaviest part of