The Third Circle Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  BY JAYNE ANN KRENTZ WRITING AS AMANDA QUICK

  OTHER TITLES BY JAYNE ANN KRENTZ

  BY JAYNE ANN KRENTZ WRITING AS JAYNE CASTLE

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  a member of

  PENGUIN GROUP (USA) INC.

  NEW YORK

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS Publishers Since 1838

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Copyright © 2008 by Jayne Ann Krentz

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. Published simultaneously in Canada

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Quick, Amanda. The Third Circle / Amanda Quick. p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-4406-3839-8

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Inter-net addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  FOR MICHELE CASTLE

  With thanks for being a terrific sister-in-law.

  Looking forward to the next family cruise!

  1

  La e in the reign of Queen Victoria...

  THE HEAVILY SHADOWED gallery of the museum was filled with many strange and disturbing artifacts. None of the antiquities, however, was as shocking as the woman lying in a dark pool of blood on the cold marble floor.

  The ominous figure looming over the body was that of a man. The wall sconces were turned down very low, but there was enough light to reveal the silhouette of his boot-length overcoat. The high collar was turned up around his neck, partially concealing his profile.

  Leona Hewitt had only a split second to register the frightening scene. She had just rounded a massive stone statue of a mythical winged monster. Dressed as a male servant, her hair pinned beneath a masculine wig, she was moving swiftly, almost running in her frenzied effort to locate the crystal. Momentum carried her straight toward the man who stood over the body of the woman.

  He turned toward her, his coat sweeping out like a great black wing.

  She tried frantically to alter her course, but it was too late. He caught her as effortlessly as though she were a lover who had deliberately flown into his arms, a lover he had anticipated with great eagerness.

  “Silence,” he said, very softly, into her ear. “Do not move.”

  It was not the command that stilled her utterly but rather the sound of his voice. Energy pulsed through every word, flooding her senses like a great ocean wave. It was as if some mad doctor had forced an exotic drug straight into her veins, a potion that had the power to paralyze her. Yet the fear that had sluiced through her a moment ago vanished as if by magic.

  “You will remain silent and motionless until I give you further instructions.”

  Her captor’s voice was a chilling, oddly thrilling force of nature that swept her away into a strange dimension. The muffled sounds of drunken laughter and the music from the party taking place two floors below faded into the night. She was now in another place, a realm where nothing mattered but the voice.

  The voice. It had forced her into this bizarre dream state. She knew all about dreams.

  Comprehension flashed through her, disrupting the trance. Her captor was using some sort of paranormal power to control her. Why was she standing so still and passive? She should be fighting for her life. She would fight.

  She summoned her will and her own senses the way she did when she channeled energy through a dream crystal. The wavering sense of unreality shattered into a million glittering fragments. She was suddenly free of the strange spell, but she was not free of the man who had her pinned against him. It was a lot like being chained to a rock.

  “Bloody hell,” he muttered. “You’re a woman.”

  Reality, together with fear and the muted sounds of the party, returned in a startling rush. She started to struggle wildly. The wig slid forward over one eye, partially blinding her.

  The man clamped his hand across her mouth and tightened his grip on her. “I don’t know how you slipped out of the trance, but you had best keep silent if you want to survive this night.”

  His voice was different now. It was still infused with a deep and compelling quality, but his words no longer resonated with the electrifying energy that had briefly turned her into a statue. Evidently he had abandoned the attempt to employ his mental powers to control her. Instead, he was doing it the more traditional way: using the naturally superior physical strength nature had bestowed on the male of the species.

  She tried to kick his shin, but her shoe skidded on some slick substance. Oh, heavens, blood. She missed her target, but her toe struck a small object on the floor beside the body. She heard the item skitter lightly across the stone tiles.

&nbs
p; “Damnation, there is someone coming up the stairs,” he whispered urgently into her ear. “Can’t you hear the footsteps? If we are discovered, neither one of us will get out of here alive.”

  The grim certainty of his words made her suddenly uncertain.

  “I’m not the one who killed the woman,” he added very softly, as though he had read her thoughts. “The murderer, however, is likely still in this house. That may be him returning to clean up after his crime.”

  She realized that she believed him, and not because he had put her back into a trance. It came down to cold logic. If he were the killer, he would no doubt have slit her throat by now. She would be on the floor beside the dead woman, blood pooling around her. She stopped struggling.

  “At last, signs of intelligence,” he muttered.

  She heard the footsteps then. Someone was, indeed, coming up the stairs into the gallery; if not the killer, one of the guests perhaps. Whoever he was, there was an excellent chance that he was quite drunk. Lord Delbridge was entertaining a large number of his male acquaintances this evening. His parties were notorious, not only for the unlimited quantities of fine wine and excellent food but also for the bevy of elegantly dressed prostitutes who were always invited to attend.

  Cautiously, her captor removed his hand from her mouth. When she made no attempt to scream, he released her. She pushed the wig back into place so that she could see.

  His fingers closed around her wrist like a manacle. The next thing she knew, he was drawing her away from the body and into the deep shadows cast by what appeared to be a large stone table set on a massive pedestal.

  Halfway toward his goal, he leaned down just long enough to scoop up the small object she had kicked across the floor a moment earlier. He dropped whatever it was into his pocket before pushing her into the space between the heavy table and the wall.

  When she brushed against one corner of the table, a tingle of unpleasant energy crackled through her. Reflexively, she pulled back, flinching a little. In the dim light she could see strange carvings in the stone. It was no ordinary table, she realized with a shudder, rather an ancient altar, one used for some unholy purposes. She had felt similar splashes of acid-dark energy from several of the other relics housed here in Lord Delbridge’s private museum. The entire gallery reeked of troubling emanations that made her skin crawl.

  The footsteps were closer now, moving from the top of the main staircase into the hushed gallery.

  “Molly?” A man’s voice, slurred with drink. “Where are you, my dear? Sorry I’m a bit late. Got delayed in the card room. But I haven’t forgotten you.”

  Leona felt her companion’s arm tighten around her. She realized that he had sensed her involuntary shudder. Unceremoniously, he pushed her down behind the shelter of the stone table.

  Crouching beside her, he drew an object out of the pocket of his coat. She sincerely hoped that it was a pistol.

  The footsteps came closer. In another moment the newcomer would surely see the dead woman.

  “Molly?” The man’s voice sharpened with annoyance. “Where the devil are you, you silly girl? I’m not in the mood for games tonight.”

  The dead woman had come up to the gallery to keep a tryst. Her lover was late, and now he was about to find her.

  The footsteps halted.

  “Molly?” The man sounded bewildered. “What are you doing on the floor? I’m sure we can find a more comfortable bed. I really don’t . . . bloody hell.”

  Leona heard a choked, horrified gasp followed by a flurry of footsteps. The would-be lover was running, fleeing back toward the main staircase. When he passed in front of one of the sconces, Leona saw his silhouette flicker on the wall like an image in a magic lantern show.

  The man in the black coat was suddenly on his feet. For an instant Leona was dumbfounded. What on earth did he think he was doing? She tried to grab his hand to pull him back down beside her. But he was already moving, gliding out from behind the shelter of the dreadful altar. She realized that he meant to step directly into the path of the fleeing man.

  He was mad, she thought. The fleeing lover would no doubt conclude that he was being confronted by the killer. He would scream, bringing Delbridge and the guests and the staff up into the gallery. She readied herself for a desperate flight to the servants’ staircase. Belatedly another plan occurred to her. Maybe it would be better to wait and try to blend in with the crowd when it arrived.

  She was still trying to decide on the best course of action when she heard the man in the black coat speak. He employed the same strange voice that had temporarily frozen her into complete immobility.

  “Halt,” he ordered in deep, rolling tones that resonated with invisible energy. “Do not move.”

  The command had an immediate effect on the running figure. The man scrambled to a stop and stood motionless.

  Hypnosis, Leona thought, comprehending at last. The man in the black coat was a powerful mesmerist who somehow augmented his commands with psychical energy.

  Until now, she had not paid much attention to the art of hypnosis. It was, generally speaking, the province of stage performers and quacks who claimed to be able to treat hysteria and other nervous disorders with their skills. Mesmerism was also a subject of much lurid speculation and anxious public concern. Dire warnings of the many fiendish ways in which hypnotists could employ their mysterious talents for criminal purposes appeared regularly in the press.

  Regardless of the intentions of the hypnotist, the business was said to require a tranquil atmosphere and a quiet, willing subject. She had never heard of a practitioner of the art who could freeze a man in his tracks with only a few words.

  “You are in a place of complete stillness,” the hypnotist continued. “You are asleep. You will remain asleep until the clock strikes three. When you awaken you will remember that you found Molly murdered, but you will not remember that you saw me or the woman who is with me. We had nothing to do with the murder of Molly. We are not important. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  Leona glanced at the clock standing on a nearby table. In the light of an adjacent sconce she could just barely make out the time. Two-thirty. The hypnotist had bought them half an hour in which to make good their escape.

  He turned away from the frozen man and looked at her.

  “Come,” he said. “It is past time to leave this place. We must get out of here before someone else decides to wander up those stairs.”

  Automatically she put one hand on the surface of the altar to push herself to her feet. The instant her skin came in contact with the stone another unpleasant sensation, almost electrical in nature, swept through her. It was as though she had touched an old coffin, one in which the occupant did not lie in peace.

  She snatched her hand away from the altar, rose and hurried out from behind the relic. She stared at the gentleman standing statue-still in the center of the gallery.

  “This way,” the hypnotist said. He went swiftly toward the door that opened onto the servants’ stairs.

  She jerked her attention away from the entranced man and followed the hypnotist down an aisle lined with strange statues and glass cases filled with mysterious objects. Her friend Carolyn had warned her that there were rumors about Lord Delbridge’s collection. Even other collectors as obsessed and as eccentric as his lordship considered the artifacts in his private museum extremely odd. The moment she had arrived in the gallery, she had understood the reasons for the gossip.

  It was not the design and shape of the artifacts that appeared peculiar. In the dim light she was able to discern that most were ordinary enough. The gallery was crammed with an assortment of ancient vases, urns, jewelry, weapons, and statuary—the sort of items that one expected to encounter in any large collection of antiquities. It was the faint but disturbing miasma of unwholesome energy swirling in the atmosphere that stirred the fine hair on the nape of her neck. It came from the relics.

  “You feel it, too, don’t you?” t
he hypnotist asked.

  The soft question startled her. He sounded curious, she thought. No, he sounded intrigued. She knew what he was referring to. Given his own talents it was not surprising that he was as sensitive as she.

  “Yes,” she said. “I feel it. Quite unpleasant.”

  “I have been told that when you cram a sufficient number of paranormal relics into one room, the effects are noticeable even to those who do not possess our sort of sensitivity.”

  “These objects are all paranormal?” she asked, astonished.

  “Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that each has a long history of having been associated with the paranormal. Over time they absorbed some of the energy that was generated when they were used by those with psychical abilities.”

  “Where did Delbridge find all these strange relics?”

  “Can’t speak for the entire collection, but I do know that a fair number were stolen. Stay close.”

  She did not need the command. She was as eager to get away from this place now as he was. She would have to return another time to find the crystal.

  The hypnotist was moving so quickly she had to run to keep up with him. It was only her men’s clothes that made that possible. She would never have been able to move so swiftly in a woman’s gown, with its layers upon layers of heavy fabric and petticoats.

  Her senses tingled. More energy. It came from one of the objects around her but the currents were decidedly different. She recognized them immediately. Crystal energy.

  “Wait,” she whispered, slowing to a halt. “There is something I must do.”

  “There is no time.” The hypnotist stopped and turned to face her, black coat whipping around his boots. “We’ve got half an hour, less if someone else comes up those stairs.”

  She wriggled her fingers, trying to free her hand. “Go on without me, then. My safety is not your affair.”

  “Have you lost your senses? We have to get out of here.”

  “I came here to recover a certain relic. It is nearby. I am not leaving without it.”

  “You are a professional thief?”