She had not let go of him since he had collapsed, unconscious. She dared not let go. She sensed that the link between them was his best hope. Her intuition told her that he was drawing on her strength to mend his shattered senses.
She had dispatched Matt to fetch Charlotte with instructions to bring all of the books on mirrors that were housed in the bookshop. They needed to know more about the strange hand mirror. Nick Sweetwater had arrived with Charlotte and the books. Virginia had been startled to see the two of them together at that hour of the night, but there had been no time to ask questions.
Mrs. Crofton loomed in the doorway, a steaming mug in her hand. “I have made a pot of coffee, as I doubt that any of you will get much sleep tonight.” She looked at Virginia with her usual forbidding expression. “I brought some upstairs for you, ma’am, because I knew you would not be leaving this room for a time.”
Virginia smiled. “Thank you, Mrs. Crofton. I appreciate that.”
Mrs. Crofton dipped her chin in minimal acknowledgment of the gratitude and set the mug on the nightstand. She looked at Owen.
“He is still feverish,” she said. “I’ll bring some more cold washcloths.”
“Thank you,” Virginia said again.
Mrs. Crofton turned and stalked out of the room.
Nick watched her leave. He was clearly awed. When she was on the stairs, he turned back to Virginia. “Your housekeeper is extraordinary. You have two men guarding your house. You rush off into the night with no explanation. You bring an unconscious man into your bedroom and invite several people to join you. And yet she shows no signs of being alarmed.”
“As I have told Owen, Mrs. Crofton is a gem of a housekeeper,” Virginia said. “But I fully expect her to give notice at any moment.”
“She doesn’t appear to be about to do any such thing,” Nick said. He turned back to Charlotte. “Is there anything more about the effects of the Quicksilver Mirror in that book?”
“Only that the device was crafted in the seventeenth century by an alchemist.”
Nick frowned. “That means it dates from the time of Sylvester Jones. I wonder if he made it.”
“I don’t think he had anything to do with it,” Charlotte said. “According to this book, the alchemist was a woman who called herself Alice Hooke.” Charlotte took off her glasses and polished the lenses with a handkerchief. “The only reason I was able to find out as much as I did concerning the history of the mirror in such a short time this evening is because I had already done a considerable amount of research on the subject of looking glasses.”
Virginia glanced at the black velvet bag. “Another mirror has popped up in this case. That cannot be a coincidence.”
Nick looked thoughtful. “I agree with you. It is too much to believe that yet another powerful weapon based on glasslight would show up in this investigation unless there was some connection. But the Quicksilver Mirror is quite different from the curiosities. It is much older, for one thing.”
“And is not a clockwork toy,” Virginia said.
Charlotte tapped the large leather-bound tome she had been reading. “The mirror is much older, so we know it was not made by Mrs. Bridewell. But I agree, there must be some link to the case.”
Nick frowned. “The mirror is a dangerous and no doubt valuable artifact, yet someone entrusted it to a common street ruffian to use against Owen this evening. Someone was very desperate to get him out of the way.”
“Well,” Charlotte said, “I’m afraid all we can do at the moment is wait and see if Mr. Sweetwater is strong enough to recover from the effects of the mirror.”
“He will recover,” Virginia vowed.
“We might have a better notion of his chances if we had some idea of just how strong the attacker was,” Charlotte said.
“We have no way of knowing that now that he is dead,” Tony said.
“He was certainly powerful enough to do serious damage with the damn mirror,” Nick said grimly.
Virginia gave him a sharp, reproving glare. “The one thing we know for certain is that Owen defeated him. That means Owen is the stronger of the two.”
Nick, Tony and Matt exchanged glances. None of them spoke.
“What is it?” Virginia demanded. “What’s wrong? Why are you looking at each other that way?”
Nick cleared his throat. “We don’t really know that Uncle Owen was the stronger in terms of talent, Miss Dean, not for certain.”
“What do you mean?” she said. “He is the one who survived the encounter.”
“But he used a knife,” Tony said, as if explaining a very elementary principle to a not-very-bright child. “Not his talent. The mirror rendered his psychical senses useless.”
Virginia frowned. “What are you saying?”
“Just that Uncle Owen did not survive because of his talent,” Matt said.
“I see,” Virginia whispered. She tightened her grip on Owen’s hand.
Nick looked at the unconscious man. “He is a hunter of a sort, but he is not a true hunter-talent like Tony or Matt. His reflexes, eyesight and coordination are excellent but not preternaturally so.”
“Is that why he carries a knife concealed in his boot?” Charlotte asked.
“No,” Tony said. “He carries a knife in his boot because all Sweetwaters carry knives in their boots.”
“Used to be a dagger,” Matt offered. “But we have moved with the times.”
“Family tradition,” Nick explained. “In keeping with the family motto.”
“Talent is useful, but keep your dagger sharp,” Virginia quoted softly.
“It sounds better in the original Latin,” Tony said.
Virginia gave him a weary smile. “No doubt.”
“Owen’s great talent is his ability to predict the behavior of the monsters,” Nick explained. “Not his speed or his night vision.”
Charlotte looked at him. “I can’t see how the ability to predict the killer’s behavior would have been enough tonight. I mean, he already knew that the footpad was trying to kill him.”
“You’d be surprised,” Nick said. “Owen has a knack for provoking people. He says that if a man can be prodded into losing his self-control, he can be manipulated quite easily, regardless of the level of his talent. I suspect that is exactly what happened tonight.”
Tony looked at Owen. “It does appear that Uncle Owen sliced things a bit close, so to speak, on this occasion, however.”
Virginia shivered. “Yes.”
“Usually he leaves no trace of violence,” Matt said. “But there was a lot of blood in the lane tonight. At first I feared that at least some of it was his.”
Virginia shuddered at the memory of the blood on Owen’s hands and clothes. “So did I.”
“Do you believe that Mr. Sweetwater deliberately provoked his attacker into some reckless move?” Charlotte asked.
“Uncle Owen has a gift for shattering nerves,” Tony said proudly.
Virginia looked at Owen. His profound state of sleep did little to soften the hard planes and angles of his face. Even unconscious, he managed to appear dangerous. His psychical senses had been blinded, but dark energy nevertheless whispered in the atmosphere around him.
“His aura no doubt unnerves some people,” Virginia said.
“Perhaps that is the reason he has never married,” Charlotte said.
Virginia realized that the three Sweetwater men were exchanging yet another mysterious look.
“What now?” she demanded.
Nick cleared his throat. “The reason Owen has never married is because he has yet to find the right woman.”
Charlotte blinked and then smiled. “What a charmingly romantic notion.”
“I’m not certain Sweetwaters can be called charmingly romantic,” Nick said. “But we take marriage very seriously. You could say it’s in the blood. A Sweetwater always knows when he finds the right woman.”
Charlotte stopped smiling and narrowed her eyes. “How very convenient.”