Chapter Twenty-one
She would not give in to the madness that nibbled at the edge of her sanity. She fought it with all of her will, calling on every scrap of mesmeric training that her parents had bequeathed to her in order to do battle with the darkness that threatened to overwhelm her senses.
She wondered if this was the true meaning of female hysteria.
Time passed. She had no way to measure it. Perhaps it was just as well. Counting the seconds, the minutes, and the hours would only make it so much worse.
She sat on the cold stone floor of the coffinlike chamber, clutching the silver pendant in both hands and focusing her concentration. With painstaking effort she built a fragile fortress of calm in the deepest reaches of her mind, a place of peace and tranquillity. When it was prepared, she stepped inside, pulling her besieged nerves in with her.
And then she shut the metaphysical door against the weight of the crushing, breath-stealing night that surrounded her.
She clung to the single certainty that was the foundation upon which she had constructed her inner refuge. That one sure fact was the knowledge that sooner or later Tobias would come to free her.
“Bloody hell, where did she go?” Tobias strode down the hallway to Lavinia’s cozy study, threw open the door, and swept the room with a raking glance. “She has no business disappearing like this.”
Anthony came to a halt beside him. “Perhaps she is merely late returning from some shopping.”
Tobias looked at Mrs. Chilton, who hovered in the hallway. “Did Mrs. Lake go shopping this afternoon?”
“I don’t know, sir.” Mrs. Chilton sighed. “All I can tell ye is that when I got back from the fishmonger’s, she was gone.”
Tobias went to the desk and surveyed the cluttered surface. “From now on there are going to be some new rules around here. When we are in the middle of a case, Mrs. Lake will not go anywhere without first informing someone of her destination and the precise time she expects to return home.”
“Oh, dear.” Mrs. Chilton watched unhappily as Tobias methodically sifted through the items and papers scattered atop the desk. “I really don’t think Mrs. Lake will take well to the notion of more rules, if you’ll pardon me saying so, sir. She’s already a trifle put out by all the instructions and orders that seem to be floating about these days.”
“A trifle put out is nothing compared to my own mood at the moment.” Tobias glanced at the notes on one of the sheets of foolscap. “What’s this? Complete discretion is assured for those clients concerned with matters of privacy and secrecy.”
“I believe Mrs. Lake is still working on the wording of the notice she intends to put into the newspapers,” Mrs. Chilton said.
“She plans to advertise her services in the newspapers?” Anthony’s expression lit with interest. “I say, that is an excellent notion. Should have thought of it ourselves, Tobias. A very modern approach to the business, eh?”
“I told her to abandon the entire idea. She is too stubborn to listen to sound advice.” With a flick of his hand, Tobias sent the sheet of paper sailing into the small wooden trash bin behind the desk. “I warned her of the sort of clients she would attract with that method. She would do better to-” He broke off at the sight of a wadded-up bit of paper in the basket. “Hmm.”
He reached down, scooped up the crumpled note, and smoothed it out carefully on top of the desk.
“What is it?” Anthony asked, moving toward the* desk.
“What we in the profession like to call a clue,” Tobias muttered.
Mrs. Chilton was suitably impressed. “Ye know where Mrs. Lake went this afternoon?”
“I suspect that she went out in response to this note from Edmund Tredlow. Obviously she lacked the common courtesy to leave a message telling anyone where she was going.” He crumpled the note in his hand. She was all right. Nothing was wrong. Just his damned nerves playing up. “Of all the thoughtless, graceless, careless things to do. I shall have a word with her about such behavior.”
Mrs. Chilton gave him an uneasy look. “Sir, I feel I ought to point out that Mrs. Lake has been in the habit of coming and going as she pleases for some time now. Indeed, she is the mistress around here and she makes her own rules for this household. I don’t recommend that ye continue to issue commands and orders about all manner of things the way ye’ve been doing of late.”
“I disagree, Mrs. Chilton.” He went toward the door. “Strict new rules are precisely what is needed around here. It is high time that someone took charge of this household.”
Mrs. Chilton fell back out of his path. “Where are ye going, sir?”
“To find Mrs. Lake and inform her of the new rules.”
But when he opened the door of Tredlow’s shop a short time later, he put aside all thoughts of the stern lecture he intended to deliver. The faint dread that had been chewing up his innards for the past hour or so had not been merely an attack of weak nerves, after all.
“Lavinia.” He hoisted the small lantern he had brought with him and watched the light flare on the stone and bronze statuary. “Damn it, where the devil are you?”
There was no response from the deep shadows.
Anthony stopped in the middle of the crowded showroom and looked around with a baffled frown. “Tredlow must have closed for the night. Surprised he forgot to lock his door, though. Cannot imagine a shopkeeper overlooking such a simple precaution.”
“Neither can I,” Tobias said grimly.
“Perhaps she left before we arrived,” Anthony said. “We may have gone straight past her without knowing it on our way here. She is no doubt home having a cup of tea as we speak.”
“No.”
Tobias did not know how he could be so certain of that, but he was very sure of it. The sense of wrongness here at Tredlow’s was palpable now.
He went behind the counter, intending to take the stairs to the rooms overhead. But he paused when he noticed the heavy curtain that divided the front and rear portions of the shop.
He shoved aside the thick drapery and held the lantern aloft to illuminate a maze of crates, boxes, chests, and statuary.
“Lavinia.”
There was a terrible hush. And then a muffled pounding sounded from somewhere at the back of the cluttered room. The noise echoed in the chamber in such a manner that it was difficult to tell where it was coming from.
“Hell’s teeth.” Tobias started forward, seeking a path through the looming antiquities. “She’s in here somewhere. There are some candles on that table. Take one and search the far side of the room. I’ll take this side.”
Anthony scooped up a taper, lit it, and forged a path through the nearest aisle of crates.
The heavy thuds reverberated again through the storage room.
“I’m here, Lavinia.” Tobias wove a trail through a herd of centaurs. “Keep pounding, damn it.”
He went past a hideous statue of Perseus holding the severed head of Medusa and saw an ancient iron-and-oak door. Some sort of small storeroom, he thought.
Another flood of pounding thudded through the heavy wooden panels.
“I’ve found her,” he called to Anthony.
He set the lantern down amid a cluster of broken pots on a cracked stone altar and examined the iron lock on the door.
“Let me out of here,” Lavinia shouted through the wood.
“Got any notion of what happened to the key?” he called back.
“No.”
Anthony crashed through a row of vases and stopped in front of the door. “Locked?”
“Of course.” Tobias reached into the pocket of his greatcoat and took out the selection of picks he always carried whenever he was pursuing a case. “She wouldn’t be trapped inside if it were unlocked, would she?”
Anthony raised his brows at the brusque words, but he kept his own tone even, almost mild. “Wonder how she came to be inside in the first place?”