“Are you certain she’s in there?” Gideon asked.

“According to the tradesmen, she is. She’s been using Sir Clarence’s existing accounts, though she hasn’t been spending freely or lavishly,” Clarke confirmed.

“No. If she did, they’d suspect Sir Clarence was not actually authorizing the purchases. She can’t do anything too out of character lest they ask questions. As it stands, I’m surprised she hasn’t been discovered in the lie before. Sir Clarence’s murder was in the papers.”

“She must have some ready cash, enough to keep up appearances,” Clarke guessed.

Mrs. Spencer’s hideaway was a suite of apartments in Bath, a place she had frequented with Sir Clarence years ago, one in keeping with his uncle’s spendthrift ways. The street was not the most fashionable, but that didn’t seem to concern Mrs. Spencer.

While many in Bath were aware of Sir Clarence’s death, Mrs. Spencer hadn’t done anything to call attention to it the way she had in London. Indeed, she was living quietly, but in plain view. She had not done any entertaining since arriving in town.

“Funny that,” he commented before sharing his observation with the others.

“It doesn’t surprise me,” Amelia murmured next to him in the carriage.

She didn’t need to explain why. His brilliant wife was of a mind Mrs. Spencer had lost control of her creation. And she may be right. The current circumstances certainly suggested as much.

So did that make Amelia safer at this moment or less? Gideon was almost certain she was carrying his child. Intent on protecting them both he had initially insisted she remain in their apartments, but she had argued with him, playing on his insecurities regarding the footmen and Manning’s ability to defend against a creature such as a golem.

“And really, it’s not likely Mrs. Spencer has the golem secreted in her closet,” she pointed out. “Not in the middle of Bath.”

Gideon reminded her the Golem of Prague was rumored to be stored in an attic, but eventually, he relented. Letting Amelia out of his sight would cause him more distress than taking her with him, especially since he didn’t go anywhere without a cache of loaded pistols.

Gideon was carrying two on his person, same as Clarke. Given that Lord Worthing was still lame in one leg, requiring the use of a cane, he only carried one. But the footmen and outriders they traveled with everywhere were also heavily armed.

Manning approached the carriage window. “She’s there,” his manservant said.

“Are the other men in position?”

“Yes, my lord. They’re all around the house and the corners of the neighboring streets.”

He nodded approvingly. “Good. Remember, if she gets past us, don’t let her escape. Do whatever you need to do to prevent it. We can’t let her slip through our net.”

They wasted no more time.

As tempting as it was to kick the door down, Gideon settled for the more socially expedient knock. For a long minute, no one answered, but the curtains on the upper story twitched.

He signaled his men, telling them to get ready. He was about to rap again when to his shock, Mrs. Spencer answered the door herself.

“Oh, thank the Lord,” she exclaimed, appearing genuinely relieved to see him.

“I was worried you were dead,” she told them, a wild look in her eye as she turned her head right and left, searching the street.

Mrs. Spencer backed away from the threshold, waving them inside with a hasty “Come”.

Amelia threw him a triumphant glance as she took his arm to cross the threshold. They entered the darkened suite.

It was much smaller than he had originally supposed. And darker. Was Mrs. Spencer in such desperate need of funds she couldn’t afford lamp oil or tapers? Or had she picked up Sir Clarence’s miserly ways?

Suspicious, Gideon pulled Amelia to his left, putting himself between her and the witch.

Mrs. Spencer perched at the edge of a chair. Now that they were all safely inside, her eyes flitted from his face to the others in a manic fashion.

Her behavior was far different from the socially assured woman he’d seen moving through London on Sir Clarence’s arm.

“We know you’re a witch and that you control the golem,” Amelia announced.

Gideon and Clarke looked at each other. They had agreed beforehand to let Amelia start the questioning, assuming Mrs. Spencer would feel less threatened that way. If she refused to speak, then he would step in and take over.

Mrs. Spencer sucked in a breath. “Yes, and no. In a way, no one is controlling it now.”

“So you admit you raised a golem.” Gideon’s voice cold, but far less harsh than the tone he wanted to use with her. “Is it here in Bath?”

“No, I don’t believe so, although…” Her eyes flicked to Amelia. “It is unpredictable now.”

Amelia was about to ask another question when he touched her arm surreptitiously. She looked at him and he shook his head a tiny fraction. It was interrogation technique Phineus had taught him. Establish the facts and let the silence stretch. The person being questioned usually filled in the blanks.

An unseen clock ticked away somewhere behind them. Usually.

“I met Sir Clarence here in Bath,” Ellie Spencer said, smoothing her hands over her skirts. “He knew witchcraft existed and had been in search of a practitioner to hire for some time. I was making my living telling fortunes and conducting séances, but the baronet had grander plans for me.”

Finally, they were getting somewhere.

“What sort of plans?” Amelia asked. Her voice was mild, but her grip on his hand was tight.

Mrs. Spencer looked down. “It varied. In the beginning, he wanted information for his investments. It was not the sort of thing I was accustomed to providing for my clients—oh, I might have insinuated things about windfalls and the like, but no one can tell the future. Before when a client was dissatisfied, I would use a confusion spell on them and send them on their way. It always worked before Sir Clarence. He wouldn’t take no for an answer. When that didn’t work, he offered me hundreds of pounds.

“It was more money than I’d ever seen in my life. I tried to muddle along, however, what he asked wasn’t possible. I couldn’t pull the information he wanted out of thin air. I needed to move in his circles, to find and question the relevant parties. Eventually, I came clean about my limitations, thinking it would be the end of it.”

“But it wasn’t, was it? Sir Clarence had found a witch and he wasn’t ready to give you up.”

Mrs. Spencer nodded. “He was angry when he realized I needed to move in society as he did. Nevertheless, he was sufficiently motivated to provide me with the education and wardrobe I would need… The speech and accent were not difficult. My mother was the result a liaison between a chambermaid and Clyde Burgess, the son of a prominent family in Somerset.

She seemed to be waiting for something. “I’ve heard of the family,” Gideon acknowledged with a nod.

Mrs. Spencer appeared satisfied. “My grandfather provided for my mother’s education, but by the time I came around, he had passed on and there was no more money. But I had enough knowledge to accurately emulate a genteel lady with a little guidance.

“And Sir Clarence provided that guidance?” There was a tiny pucker between Amelia’s brows as if she was surprised he would exert himself to such a degree.

“He hired a companion and told her I was a long-lost relative that needed be polished for the season. It didn’t take me long to capture her mannerisms—all those unconscious little movements the ladies of the upper class are taught from birth. Sir Clarence took me to country parties and we began to work together on his business schemes.”

“More confusion spells?” he asked, remembering the strange disorientation he and Amelia had experienced.

Another nod. “When it seemed expedient. I could hypnotize some of his business partners or other investors. But when information was not enough, then he would ask me to intimidate them.”

“And you didn’t have an issue with that?” Amelia’s voice was hard. Gideon gave her hand a warning squeeze. He didn’t want Mrs. Spencer to stop speaking.

Mrs. Spencer picked at her skirts. She wouldn’t look them in the face. “Honestly, I didn’t think too much about what I was doing. My abilities had never been challenged before. Now they were. I was learning more and more and being rewarded for it. And…by then Sir Clarence and I had become intimate. He promised me if I continued to make myself useful, we would marry.”

Her eyes swung up to Amelia with an almost accusatory expression. “But then you and his son came home.”

She blinked and looked up at the ceiling, face hard. “I didn’t understand Sir Clarence’s obsession at first. It seemed quite natural for him to gripe about the two of you settling so far from his home in Northumberland. When you chose to stay in Kent instead of partaking of the season in London, he wanted me to do something about it. But I had heard his valet talking to the coachman one day. The two implied his son would do well to keep his young bride out of Sir Clarence’s grasp. I understood then there was more to his complaints than a desire to be close to his son. So…I read his journal.”

Her face twisted, and she said no more.

“You read about his plan to sire his son’s heir.” Gideon said it as matter-of-factly as he could, but inside, his stomach roiled.

Mrs. Spencer sniffed and glanced at Lord Worthing out of the corner of her eye, making Gideon wonder if Sir Clarence had written about his son’s lover. “I was angry with Clarence. Despite all I did for him, he had stopped speaking of marriage. Instead, he carped about finding some way to bring his son to heel.

“I knew about golems from my time as a fortune-teller. One of my clients was a wealthy Jew who liked to tell stories. I had traded him my services for some texts on the subject, but they were written in Hebrew and I couldn’t use them—not until I had access to the libraries of the ton. Rich scholars commission translations. I found other texts in English that detailed rituals on various mystical rites, including how to raise a golem for labor. I had been experimenting on how to alter the ritual when Sir Clarence stormed in and demanded I do something to make his son obey him. It was the first time he’d mentioned Amelia, Mrs. Montgomery, by name.”

The witch’s chin firmed mulishly. “I could practically see him salivating. He wrote down fantasies he had about her while she was living in his home when she was younger. He wanted her in easy reach again, seemingly certain that he would be the one to claim her innocence—as if she hadn’t taken lovers abroad while her Sodomite of a husband amused himself.”

The tension in the room heightened with those bitter words, but they didn’t say anything as Mrs. Spencer attempted to catch hold of her temper. “I vowed then and there that Sir Clarence would never accomplish this goal.”

Gideon finally lost his temper. “How did killing Martin with the golem help? Without him to protect her, Amelia was even more vulnerable to Sir Clarence’s schemes.”

“That was an accident,” Mrs. Spencer cried, bursting into tears. “I had just succeeded in raising the golem but was disappointed to learn how stupid it was. It was incapable of following anything but the simplest of commands. But I found a way to overcome that. With the right incantations and a small sacrifice, I could put my mind inside it, see what it saw and touch what it touched.”

Gideon stiffened. A flash of the golem stroking his wife’s nearly naked body rose ran through his mind. He wanted to jump up and shake the woman. Amelia sensed that. Her grip on his hand altered, pressing down to effectively keep him in his seat.

After a few deep bracing breaths, he calmed down. Mrs. Spencer was continuing of her own volition, the words spilling out almost as if she had been waiting to confess all her sins.

“I was only trying to scare Mr. Montgomery into leaving England again, but it all went wrong.” Her hand shook as she raised her arms and then snapped them back to wring her hands in her lap instead. “My control of the creature was tenuous at best so early on. I could not judge the dimensions properly. I did not mean to kill him, but he simply flew over that railing.”

Amelia was stone-faced, staring at the woman in disbelief. “Martin never harmed a living thing in his entire life. He was the sweetest, kindest man that ever walked this earth.”

Mrs. Spencer said nothing, her eyes on her skirts.

“Sir Clarence took over the golem later, didn’t he?” Gideon asked before the woman decided to stop speaking altogether.

After a time, she continued. “Because of his preoccupation with Mrs. Montgomery—the countess I mean—Sir Clarence had stopped coming to my bed. We also stopped planning schemes together. He left me to my own devices for a while, but unbeknownst to me, he would periodically go through my papers. It was there he learned about my experiments with the golem. He was thrilled. He demanded I summon one he could control.”

“And you did,” Amelia supplied tonelessly.

“Yes,” Mrs. Spencer said, exhaling sharply. “Over time he became quite adept at managing it. When the countess began to move in society again he was ready.”

“By this time, I knew he would never marry me. I had begun to look for another protector…but I was still angry.” She looked at Amelia. “I hated you and Clarence both.”

“So you plagued with Sir Clarence’s blessing and didn’t care how it affected her,” Viscount Worthing said.

Mrs. Spencer grew red in the face. She fixed her attention on the darkened window and didn’t answer.

“How did it go wrong?” Gideon asked.

“It was about her, of course,” she said, gesturing at Amelia. “He wanted finer control over the creature, and over larger distances. One had to be quite close to manipulate it. By then, you had made your intentions clear. You were going to make Amelia your countess. But Sir Clarence intended to stop you.”

She broke off and shrugged. “I don’t know if he planned to kill you with the golem or simply carry Amelia away. We quarreled over his plans. I reminded him of his promises to wed and he spat on me. He told me he’d never marry Amelia, a cit’s daughter, so why would he wed gutter trash like me?”

Her eyes were blazing, hurt fueling her words. “In a rage, I raised the golem and I strangled him with it.”

Gideon glanced at Amelia, but her face was impassive. He knew Mrs. Spencer was leaving some details out. He’d seen the body and Sir Clarence hadn’t been merely strangled.

“But he’s a part of it now, isn’t he?” Gideon asked.

The words hung in the air, unacknowledged, but he knew he was right. Some part of Clarence lived in the beast now. The way it reacted to Amelia in the woods—the way it had touched her was proof.

The witch opened her mouth. “I didn’t know that could happen. I still don’t know how…except…”

“Except what?” His temper strained, making the words clipped.

“Part of the ritual giving Clarence control over the golem involved using his blood. We used it to write the words that fuel it, a mixture of the holy and the profane. His name is also part of the script we placed in the creature’s mouth.” She shook her head. “Consequently, the creature possessed a bit of his anima. That is how he controlled it.”

“And when you used it to kill him, it took more of this anima?” That would explain the creature’s behavior.

If it absorbed even a fraction of Sir Clarence’s twisted desire for Amelia… Gideon’s jaw clenched tight as he suppressed a shudder.

Her shrug was infuriating, but he fought hard not to let it show. “I believe so. It stopped responding to my commands then and there. It’s wild now. I don’t know how to stop it.”

Those last words cast a pall over the others in the room. They had come here hoping for answers and a way to put an end to the menace once and for all. Answers they now had, but not a solution.

Everything Mrs. Spencer had told them confirmed his worst fears—there was a monster out there, and it wanted his wife.

“What about the sacred words? Can’t we simply remove them?” Amelia asked.

Mrs. Spencer’s eyes flared. “I tried. It wouldn’t let me near its mouth.”

Gideon stood and began to pace. “No. If there are some of Clarence’s memories in there—and it appears there are—then it would guard against that.” He stopped and removed the rough pottery finger from the pocket of his waistcoat and held it up.

“What about this? I shot this off with a pistol. Can it regrow fingers or limbs?”

Mrs. Spencer frowned. “I don’t think there are enough pistols in the world…but no, it can’t regrow itself. But if it remembers what Sir Clarence remembers, then perhaps it could try to repair itself.”

Gideon held up a hand. “But what if it had a big enough shock and was shattered all at once?”

“If the blows destroyed the head as well, then yes, but I have to believe that it would fight back.” Mrs. Spencer raised her arm and drew her sleeve up, revealing a string of deep black bruises.

His mind went to the fingerprint marks Sir Clarence had left on Amelia’s arms all those months ago. These were bigger, more misshapen, but the similarity was there.

Hell was too good for his uncle.

“We could try and gather a group of men with axes,” Clarke said, speaking for the first time.

“I doubt you’d find enough that wouldn’t run for cover if they saw such a thing in the flesh—or clay as it were,” Lord Worthing said.

“We only need a few brave souls.”

Amelia swung to face him. “A few? My Lord, we need an army.”

“Which conveniently we have,” he pointed out. “Between the two of us we employ enough servants to make a stand against a besieging army, but we won’t need them to fight. I have something else in mind.”

He glanced at Mrs. Spencer, unsure if he could trust her enough to detail his plans in her presence.

She seemed to understand his reservations. “What about me? Are you going to have me hung? Or burned at the stake?” she asked bluntly.

Gideon and Amelia exchanged a glance. Part of him wanted to absolve the witch. If not for Sir Clarence, she wouldn’t have ended up on this twisted path. But if he was reading her reactions correctly she had taken some pleasure in casting her nefarious spells. She wasn’t remorseful for the damage she had inflected—only for getting caught.

Amelia watched him with her hands folded in her lap. Like the others, she waited for his decree.

Despite being a former spy, Gideon had never had to decide a person’s fate before. He had been a soldier in a way, one who carried out the orders and directives of his superiors—even when he’d been forced to kill.

As an earl, he would eventually make decisions that would profoundly affect the lives of hundreds of people, but this was the first and most direct application of the power of his title.

He made eye contact with Clarke, who seemed to understand his dilemma.

“You can’t stay in England,” he said finally.

Mrs. Spencer paled. “You’re having me transported?”

His nod was short and sharp. “A woman of your abilities will survive well enough on her own in the colonies or Australia. I will even provide you with a small sum to get started—but you can’t stay here. And don’t even think about trying to evade the authorities. Through your actions, you caused the death of at least one innocent man, perhaps more if we investigate what you and Clarence got up to together.”

She opened her mouth, her gaze shifting between him and Amelia as if to remind him that he had her now because Martin was gone, but she wisely chose not to speak.

“I want to leave immediately.”

Naturally. So long as the wild golem was at large, she’d be safer putting an ocean between her and it.

“As you wish,” he said before signaling to the others that it was time to depart.

He had a trap to bait.