She was preparing herself for the effort when there was a sudden, wild fluttering of wings to her left. A water bird squawked its displeasure and took off, soaring low across the water.
Pelling came to his senses instantly. He blinked once and then seemed to comprehend immediately that something had gone badly wrong.
“Where am I? What do you think you’re doing?” He raised the pistol. “Did you think you could trick me?”
“Pelling.” Tobias’s voice rang ominously in the fog, echoing eerily among the empty buildings. “Stop or I will shoot you where you stand.”
The threat cast a mesmeric spell over the entire scene. The world around Lavinia went still and hushed.
And then Pelling whirled around, seeking the voice in the fog. “March. Where are you, damn your eyes? Show yourself. I’ll kill her if you don’t.”
Lavinia ran for her life, making for the limited shelter of the lane and the protective cloak of the heavy fog. A few feet could make all the difference in determining whether she lived or died. Pistols were notoriously unreliable beyond a short distance.
“No.” Pelling started to turn back toward her. “You cannot escape me, Medusa.”
“Pelling,” Tobias called again. The voice of doom.
Pelling’s pistol roared. For a terrifying eternity Lavinia expected to feel the impact of the bullet in her back. Then she comprehended that Pelling had fired at Tobias, not her.
“Dear God.”
But the shot had gone wild, she realized. Pelling could not possibly see Tobias in the heavy mist.
“Forget her, Pelling,” Tobias commanded in that eerie voice that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once. “You must kill me first if you are to have any chance of escape.”
Lavinia flattened herself against the nearest wall and peeked around the corner. Pelling had dropped the empty pistol and was fumbling frantically to pull a second one from the pocket of his greatcoat.
“Show yourself, March,” Pelling shouted. Pistol in hand, he turned on his heel, seeking Tobias in the mists. “Where are you, you bloody bastard?”
“Behind you, Pelling.”
Tobias emerged at last from the fog, striding deliberately along the quay toward his target. He held a pistol in one hand. The wings of his black greatcoat snapped above the tops of his boots. An invisible aura of power seemed to coil around him, deepening and growing more intense as he neared his victim.
To Lavinia it appeared as though he gathered energy from the dark mists of the oncoming night and wielded it the way a man wielded a sword.
She felt the breath squeeze out of her lungs. She had seen him in dangerous moods before, but never one such as this.
For the first time she sensed the raw, untrained talent in him and shivered. It was just as well that he had never pursued a career as a mesmerist, she thought.
In that short, dazzling moment of intuitive vision, she knew the shattering truth: Tobias’s wild talents called to whatever it was within her that gave her the ability to practice mesmerism with such power. It was as though the forces of animal magnetism that flowed through him resonated with those that flowed through her.
Tobias was, indeed, dangerous, and some part of him must have sensed it years ago, she thought, even if he had never consciously acknowledged it. That was why he had taught himself such a degree of self-mastery. She wondered if he would ever come to the realization that his ability to control and suppress the forces at work within him only made him all the more of a sorcerer.
“Stay back,” Pelling shouted, voice rising. He sounded completely unhinged now. “Stay back, damn you.”
He raised the pistol and fired.
“No,” Lavinia screamed.
Almost simultaneously, a second shot thundered out of the mists.
Pelling jerked and toppled over the edge of the quay. Lavinia heard a muffled splash.
“Tobias.” She ran forward. “Are you all right?”
Tobias looked at her from the heart of the invisible storm that appeared to seethe around him. He held the pistol at his side. For an instant she was sure she glimpsed dangerous currents of energy in his eyes.
Just your imagination. Get hold of yourself.
“Yes,” Tobias said softly. “I am all right. His aim was off. I think you shook his nerve.”
She looked down and saw Pelling floating facedown in the river. She knew why his aim had been off. It had not been her doing. He had been terrified by the sight of Tobias sweeping toward him out of the fog.
Without another word she went straight into Tobias’s arms. He caught her close and held her against him for a very long time.
It was later, after Tobias had pulled Pelling’s body from the water and lashed it to the back of the cart, that Lavinia thought about the warehouse.
“I want to have a quick look inside,” she said.
Tobias walked toward the front of the cart to untie the horse. “Why?”
“He tried to make me go in there.” She looked at the closed door. “I need to know what is behind that door.”
He hesitated and then retied the reins.
Without further argument, he went to the door of the warehouse and opened it. She walked in slowly, giving her eyes a chance to adjust to the dim light.
The interior was crowded with a number of coiled ropes, empty crates, and shipping casks.
Howard Hudson lay, bound and gagged, in the corner.
Lavinia hurried forward and removed the strip of cloth that sealed his lips. He groaned and sat up so that Tobias could cut the ropes around his wrists.
“Thought you two would never get here,” he said.
Chapter Thirty
That night, after Tobias had dealt with the authorities as only he could, thanks to his many connections, they gathered in the parlor together with Emeline, Anthony, Joan, and Vale.
Her study, Lavinia had quickly realized, was much too small for such a crowd, and it certainly was not impressive enough for the likes of Lord Vale. Not that the parlor was much grander, she thought uneasily. But at least there was more space.
In spite of not yet having received any fees to cover the expenses of the affair, she poured everyone an extra large glass of her precious sherry. Surviving a close brush with a murderer inspired one to be generous, she thought.
“All three of them wanted the Blue Medusa,” she said, sinking down onto the sofa alongside Joan. “Each for a different reason. Howard, I regret to say, actually put some credence in the legends surrounding it. He wanted it for his experiments. Celeste hoped to sell it in order to purchase another rung on the social ladder. And Pelling, who had become quite demented, had concluded that it would give him power over the ghost of the aunt he had murdered in his youth.”
Joan shuddered. “It was a near thing. How fortunate that Mr. March arrived at the Banks mansion just as you were forced into Pelling’s closed hackney.”
“Indeed.” Emeline took a fortifying sip of sherry. “I cannot bear to think about what might have happened had he not seen you and managed to follow you.”
Vale contemplated Tobias, who occupied the chair across from him. “After this incident you will be obliged to concede that there is such a thing as coincidence, eh, March? Joan is right: If you had not happened to call at the Banks mansion this afternoon, you would never have seen Mrs. Lake getting into the hackney.”
There was a short pause during which everyone took a swallow of sherry.
Tobias turned his glass between his palms and looked at Lavinia. He smiled slightly.
“It was not luck or coincidence that took me to the Banks house this afternoon,” he said quietly. “I followed Lavinia because she had left a note informing me of where she had gone. Just as she had promised.”