“Maggie is no problem, as you can see.” Pelling tapped the knife against the woman’s shoulder. “I shall slit her throat when it suits me. Until then, she will remain quiet and obedient. Isn’t that right, Maggie?”

Tears leaked from Maggie’s eyes.

“I’m afraid it will not be as simple as that,” Lavinia said. “You see, as long as Maggie is sitting there with a knife at her throat, I will not tell you the location of the Medusa bracelet. And the bracelet is what you are after, is it not?”

“You will tell me,” Pelling said. “Or you will first watch Maggie die very slowly. If you manage to resist the urge to tell me where the bracelet is during that process, I’m sure you will talk when it is your turn.”

“The risk of killing both of us is too great.” Lavinia toyed with the silver pendant, twisting it so that it caught the light that seeped in around the edges of the window curtain. “Much too great. Better to let Maggie go. She cannot hurt you. You are too strong and too powerful to worry about a prostitute who drinks too much gin. No one pays any attention to women like Maggie.”

“Stop it.” Pelling took the point of the knife away from Maggie’s throat and jabbed it at Lavinia. “Stop it right now.”

She flinched and flattened her back against the cushions. But there was little room to maneuver in the close confines of the carriage. Pelling could easily gut her like a fish before she could reach the door if he took a notion to do so.

Maggie opened her eyes and looked at her with an expression of resignation and dread.

“I know what you are trying to do,” Pelling said to Lavinia. “You are trying to put me in a mesmeric trance. But it will not work. My mind is too strong.”

“Yes, you are strong,” she whispered. “Much too strong.”

Pelling was amused. “It’s true. Celeste and Hudson both tried their skills on me. Both failed. If they could not entrance me, you have no chance of doing so, do you?”

“No.” Lavinia watched him steadily and fiddled with the silver at her throat. “My skills are poor, indeed, compared to theirs. And you are too strong. So very, very strong. But the night is coming on. Soon it will be dark. It will be difficult to keep track of two prisoners in the dark. Better to let Maggie go. She can do you no harm.”

Pelling said nothing.

“You are too strong. You do not need her. She is a nuisance. Better to toss her out onto the street. She can do you no harm. You are too strong.”

He was not in a deep trance, Lavinia realized. But there was an odd calm about him now, as if he had come to some conclusion and had formed a plan. She could only pray that he had not decided to slit Maggie’s throat immediately and be done with the matter. The expression in Maggie’s eyes told her that she feared that was precisely what was about to happen.

Without any warning, Pelling reached up and rapped on the roof of the vehicle with the hilt of the knife.

The hackney clattered to a halt.

Pelling opened the door.

Lavinia looked out and saw a portion of a fogbound street. For an instant she feared the worst, that Pelling had chosen an isolated location where he could dump a dead body without fear of being seen.

But the rumble of cart wheels nearby reassured her. A moment later, a farmer’s wagon rattled past and came to a halt in front of a door.

“I don’t need you any longer,” Pelling said to Maggie. He raised the knife.

Maggie cringed and whimpered behind the gag.

Lavinia’s breath stopped in her throat. Her hands felt as though they had been plunged into ice. But she managed to keep her voice low and steady.

“Too strong,” she said in soft, low, soothing tones. “You are too strong. There is no need to kill her. Too strong. No need to take the risk. Better not to risk killing her. You are too strong. No need to take the risk.”

Pelling moved the knife again and sliced through the gag. With the practiced ease of a man who has cleaned his own fish and game, he slashed the knife downward a second time, cutting through the ropes that bound Maggie’s hands.

“Get out, whore. You cannot cause me any trouble. I am too strong.” He pushed Maggie out the door as though she were a bundle of laundry.

Maggie stumbled and crumpled to the paving stones.

Pelling slammed the door and signaled the coachman. The hackney rumbled forward.

“Tell me about Celeste,” Lavinia said quickly. “Tell me what went wrong.”

Pelling held the knife in his hand, the tip of the blade pointed at her midsection. “She tried to manipulate me. Tried to cheat me.”

“You hired her to steal the Medusa bracelet?”

“I had no choice.” Fury leaped in Pelling’s eyes. “I wanted to hire Hudson for the task, not a woman. Word had reached me that, for a price, he would arrange to procure certain valuable items for discreet clients. Gems and jewels and the like.”

He was wrong about Howard, she thought. Surely Celeste had been the thief. But this was not the time to correct his false impression.

“You needed someone to steal the Medusa bracelet?” she asked carefully.

“Yes. I was willing to pay Hudson well for his work. He listened to my proposal and seemed quite interested at first. He told me that he would research the project and give me his decision. But when I returned to conclude the bargain, he informed me that he lacked the nerve to carry out the theft. It was too difficult and dangerous, he said.”

“But Celeste had a different opinion, did she not?”

Pelling snorted softly. “She came to see me a few days later. Alone. She told me that Hudson had turned me down because, after researching the bracelet in an old book he had found, he was suddenly consumed with a desire to gain possession of it himself.”

She caught her breath. Perhaps Tobias had been right when he claimed that Howard had convinced himself that the legend was true. Howard was, after all, very intent on his research. It was just barely possible that in his zeal to pursue his investigations into mesmerism, he might have been tempted to help himself to the Blue Medusa.

“The fool thought that the cameo had powers that he could control.” Pelling moved the knife in a gesture of disgust. “Powers of animal magnetism that would augment his own mesmeric talents.”

“Celeste offered to take on the commission, didn’t she? She made a bargain to steal the bracelet for you.”

“For a price. She was preparing to leave Hudson. She wanted to secure her finances first.”

“I see.”

“I agreed to her terms because I had no choice. She and Hudson removed to London. I followed because I thought it prudent to keep an eye on my investment. One cannot trust a woman.”

Maggie scrambled up off the rough stones, heedless of her bruised knees and the cuts on her palms. She picked up her skirts and ran blindly, her only goal to put as much distance as possible between herself and the rapidly departing hackney.

She would tell Mr. March, she decided. She would find a way to send word to him. It would likely do no good, because it was clear that Pelling intended to slit Mrs. Lake’s throat. Any fool could see that he was a cold-blooded murderer.

But March could kill, too, if necessary, she thought. She knew that in her bones. She had seen it in his eyes that night after the fight in the downstairs hall. He was no monster like Pelling, but he would be ruthless when it came to protecting Mrs. Lake. She was certain of that.

The problem was that by the time she managed to find him and tell him what had happened, Mrs. Lake would probably be dead.

It was hopeless. But she had to try. It was all she could do for the lady who had just saved her life.

Intent on her mission, she never saw the man who had alighted from the farmer’s cart until she collided with him. He caught her by the shoulders and held her still in front of him. Dazed by the impact, she blinked and then found herself gazing into ice-cold, implacable eyes.