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“Again, inThe Mysteries of Woldolpho—and I am, of course, aware this is true life, not fiction—it transpired that the letter had not been written by the heroine,” Felicity said. “I must demand proof my friend wrote the letter.”
“I will be able to judge if it is in her hand,” Timothy said.
“That will not be necessary.” Asquith snatched the letter from Beatrice. “How dare you accuse me of foul play.”
“We have not done, as such,” Lowell conceded, “but now I feel the need to do so.”
“What a weak accusation leveled without proof,” Asquith scoffed.
“I present myself as proof,” Tabitha said as she limped forward. “As well as the formerly mesmerized Mr. Quincy.”
His relations made much of the strongman, and the bear looked happier by the turn of events. Timothy came nearer her side but was cut off by Alwyn, who wrapped an arm around her waist. “You are hurt,” he said. His eyes flashed amber, and his brows lowered as he assessed her well-being. She gestured to the stage, and he helped her up onto it.
“I fell into a pit in the middle of the wood, one that had been dug with the express purpose that I fall into it so the Duke of Llewellyn would find me. Mrs. Asquith covered the pit with branches of neem”—this produced a reaction from the audience—“with the intent of forcing His Grace to Change—”
As one, they all looked at the players, who squirmed under the scrutiny. Mrs. Peasley took off the mask she was wearing and had a silent exchange of meaningful looks with her husband. Mr. Peasley cleared his throat.
“Change?” he asked. “Do you mean like the animal-people?”
“We know all about that,” Mrs. Peasley said. “Her Grace the Duchess of Osborn, may she rest in peace, took my husband’s dad into her confidence. She let us leave our store of costumes up at Arcadia and all.”
“It was my granddad,” Mr. Peasley corrected.
“Or your great-grandad.” His wife shrugged. “At any rate, it is a secret that has been entrusted to us for generations.”
The bear let out a sorrowful whine.
“Excellent. Then I may speak freely.” Tabitha looked to Lowell for permission, which he granted with a sweep of a hand. “She intended to force His Grace to Change so she may trap him in his Shape.”
“This is a serious accusation.” Lowell nodded to Mr. Bates, who gathered a fleet of footmen around him. “I will send for His Highness, the Prince of Wales, to lend his gravitas to these circumstances.”
“What nonsense.” In the blink of an eye, Asquith also mounted the stage. Mr. Quincy put himself between her and the bear; Charlotte and Ben took their children in their arms and gladly accepted the protection of the pack. “I marvel that the word of ahomo plenusis held in higher regard than one of us.”
“You are one of us, and yet you have more than enough gold on your person to hold many here in their Shapes,” Alwyn said. “Why would that be, unless your intentions were dire? This is very like the way I was tricked into my captivity. A female in distress called to my essential self, and thus Changed, I was caught.”
“What a moving testimony, it makes me want to cry.” Asquith made a sound, as Alwyn had described the cry made by the woman in the alley; he fell to his knees as the lady author produced that dratted pendulum and held it aloft.
It did not affect thehomo plenumas it did theversipelles, who, as one, dropped to their knees as Alwyn had. The players’ bear howled, and Mr. Quincy struggled to calm her. Mr. and Mrs. Peasley looked to Tabitha for direction, and she found she was as frozen in place as the rest of the assembly. Even with the strength of the Alphas in their midst, none could move a muscle at the sight of it.
Had it to do with that blasted stone? As Asquith swept it ’round, the stone shone brighter and brighter and was somehow more threatening than the gold chain from which it hung. Tabitha could not look at it, for though it was designed to subdue the Shifters, it affected her as well. What was her course of action to be? Panic would not do, she must focus, but her breath arrested, her heart fluttered, her pulse raced—her heart fluttered again, as though it were being nudged for attention. She placed a hand on her sternum, and it pulsed again. She took a breath, deep, breathed again, and felt the thrall of the pendulum lessen, just as the lady author made her way downstage to where Alwyn knelt on the ground.
Tabitha limped forward, one step, another, until she set herself between Asquith and the duke.
The lady author raised her arm high. “You are no match for this, Barrington.”
“Am I not?” Tabitha had a choice: stay where she was and protect Alwyn from the mesmerism, or take a risk to save them all.
She knew which choice he would make.
Despite a head-spinning giddiness, Tabitha reached out and grabbed the chain. Both women froze when her hand made contact: the pendulum stopped dead and hung as though drained of its power. The crowd roused to a degree that the lady author sensed the threat. Asquith tugged on the chain, but it would not cede, even to her greater strength. There was another nudge at Tabitha’s heart, and with both hands she wrenched it out of the villain’s grasp. Tabitha tucked it away even as the Alphas, released from the sorcery, rushed Mrs. Asquith.
No sooner had the chain been taken than the snake Shifter slithered away, stage right.
Tabitha’s ankle had taken all the abuse it could, and she sat down, hard. The players’ bear roared without ceasing in the background, and the children shrieked a thousand questions at the top of their lungs. More than one of the smaller Shifters had Changed in a panic and fled in a rush of feathers and fur.
Mrs. Peasley threw her mask to the ground. “If you think we’re following that, you’ve got another think coming.”
Nineteen
