A Curious Beginning Read Online Free PDF Page B

to be a governess or a companion, what sort of adventure do you wish to seek out?”
    I wiped my mouth of crumbs and began to explain. “I am a student of natural history, all branches. I subscribe to all of the major journals on exploration and discovery. As you might deduce from my butterfly net, lepidoptery is my particular specialty. I hunt butterflies as a profession, filling orders for Aurelians who lack the means or the desire to hunt their own specimens,” I added.
    But the baron was not listening. An expression of wonder stole over his face, and he sat back, his mournful little sandwich untouched. “Of course,” he murmured. “Stoker.”
    â€œI beg your pardon?”
    He collected himself. “A very old and very dear friend of mine—Stoker. He is just the man to help us now. He will keep you safe, child.”
    My brow furrowed. “Baron, I realize I have been somewhat reckless in accepting your offer of transportation to London, and I have been quite cavalier in thinking that I must do as you bid me. But I do not believe I can countenance the notion of staying with this Mr. Stoker. He is even more a stranger to me than yourself. You must tell me something of him.”
    â€œStoker is a complex fellow, but I have never known a man more honorable. He owes me a debt of gratitude, and his own conscience will not permit him to fail me if I call upon his aid. I would trust Stoker with the thing I hold most dear in the whole of the world,” the baron said.
    â€œYou would trust him with your life?” I challenged.
    â€œNo, child. I would trust him with yours.”

CHAPTER FOUR
    I t was very late when we arrived in London—or very early, I suppose, for dawn was upon us, pale pearl grey light washing over the city as it began to wake.
    â€œOnly a few minutes more,” the baron promised, and he sat upright in the carriage now. His shoulders had slumped with fatigue the last several hours, and I had managed to sleep a bit, curled over my traveling bag with the baron keeping watch on the road behind. But as we came into the city I rose, rubbing at my eyes and pinching my cheeks and pinning my hat more firmly upon my head. My previous visits to London had been brief ones en route to other lands, confined to stuffy train stations and unsavory cabs. The sight of the great sprawling gloom of the metropolis enthralled me.
    â€œYou like the city,” the baron said with a twinkle in his eyes. “I should have thought a natural historian would prefer the country.”
    â€œI love it all,” I told him somewhat breathlessly. “Every arrival in London is the beginning of a new story.” I tore my gaze from the view of the city and gave him a smile. “I wonder if I shall divide my life scientifically into the periods B.B. and A.B.—before the Baron von Stauffenbach and after. Have you set me off on great adventures, then, Baron?” I teased.
    But the baron made no reply. The carriage rocked to a stop and he instructed me to alight, taking my carpetbag himself as I carried my butterfly net. My grasp of London geography being tenuous at best, I had a notion we were somewhere east of the Tower on the north bank of the River Thames, but that was all I could determine. The neighborhood was in the heart of the docklands, filled with warehouses and cheap lodgings and people who looked—and smelled—distinctly unwashed. Gulls wheeled overhead, shrieking for food, and the heavy, greasy aroma of frying fish filled the air.
    â€œStoker’s workshop is in the next street,” the baron said, guiding me over the broken pavement with a hand under my elbow. “This is not the most salubrious quarter, but I did not think it wise to have my own carriage stop directly at his door.”
    We maneuvered through a narrow alley that debouched into the next street. The baron stopped at a nondescript door at the very end of an even more nondescript wall.