Quicksilver - Amanda Quick [88]
“Owen will recover,” Virginia said. She tightened her grip on his hand. “He is strong. I can feel his energy. He just needs time to heal, that’s all.”
They were crowded into her small bedroom. Owen was tucked into the bed. Matt and Tony had placed him there after carrying him back from the lane. He was in a profound but restless sleep. Mrs. Crofton had decreed that he be covered with only a sheet because he was feverishly hot. Virginia knew that the fever was psychical in origin, a result of the severe injury that had been done to his senses.
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