The Mysterious Death of Mr. Darcy (21 page)

However, Darcy had not experienced the same level of confidence, as had his wife. Edward had told Darcy of the futility of speaking to either Stowbridge or Glover. “With the military, I have often known incompetence, but not of such a marked nature,” his cousin had observed with discernible contempt. Now, as he half listened to the colonel's poorly disguised opinions, Darcy wondered, not for the first time, what course he should choose. Part of him wished to turn his back on the bedlam surrounding his Cousin Samuel's death. His involvement in the investigation had placed him in danger and had given Elizabeth a terrible fright—one he suspected had affected her more than his wife was willing to admit. Further, his loyalty must lie with Pemberley and the legacy he had sworn to honor. However, part of that honor meant that Darcy must do all he could to restore order to Samuel Darcy's inheritance.

“There was no apparent blow or gun wound,” Edward announced. “Yet, obviously, Hotchkiss did not die from natural causes.”

Cowan grumbled, “A man does not lie down in a field to die with his arm sticking from the ground. Hotchkiss certainly did not cover himself with dirt.”

Darcy noted the shiver, which Elizabeth attempted to mask. He asked evenly, “Is it significant that Mr. Hotchkiss met his demise less than a fortnight before my cousin's return from the East? Is there evidence to connect Hotchkiss's passing with my family loss?”

Edward set his lips into a tight line. “Like everything else we have uncovered, there are no clear connections. It is very vexatious. Yet, the number of coincidences indicates we are missing this puzzle's centerpiece: the one that holds it together.”

Elizabeth stood, and the gentlemen scrambled to their feet. “I find today's incident has robbed me of my good manners this evening. If you will excuse me.” She made a quick curtsy.

In concern, Darcy stepped before her. “Allow me to escort you to your chambers, Mrs. Darcy.”

Elizabeth glanced about her: He knew what she would say before the words slipped her lips. “That is not necessary,” she said softly.

Darcy smiled easily. He had thought at one time to never know this woman; now he took great comfort in her being his other half. “I did not say it was a necessity. Rather, it is my pleasure.” Darcy extended his arm, and Elizabeth slipped her hand about his forearm. “I will return in a moment,” he said to the others.

As they departed, he overheard Cowan saying, “I think we should make inquiries into other recent disappearances or deaths, especially those directly associated with Woodvine Manor.”

Darcy observed his wife's countenance as she leaned heavily against him. They remained silent as they slowly climbed the main staircase. It was not like Elizabeth to know fear, and Darcy suspected her recovery from their recent personal loss had been less efficient than Mrs. Reynolds had assured him it would be. When they reached her room, Darcy held the door for her and then followed his wife into her sitting room. “Do you wish me to ring for Hannah?” he asked as she circled behind the chairs to reach for a small box on her escritoire.

“No.” Elizabeth took a seat in a nearby chair. “But if you will light a brace, I would appreciate it.”

Darcy retrieved the candelabra while Elizabeth opened the box. “What have you there?” he asked over his shoulder.

“The journals. Your cousin's words,” she said as she returned to the page she had marked. “It is apparent that we must discover this house's secrets, and who better from which to learn them than Samuel Darcy. Mr. Franklyn also reads the late Mr. Darcy's words, but the gentleman reads only about your cousin's scientific discoveries and not of Mr. Darcy's home and his relationships. I cannot believe there is no news within these pages regarding Mr. Hotchkiss's withdrawal.”

Darcy set the brace on the table beside her chair. “I have been thinking,” he said as he casually sat upon a stool at her feet, “that if we do not have a definitive answer to what has occurred here by Monday next that we should leave it to the authorities. Or Rardin and I could hire a bevy of investigators more experienced in the fine art of deception to do the job. I will dismiss the staff, except for the Holbrooks, and you and I will visit Lyme or Bath for the remainder of our time away from Pemberley.”

Although he had attempted an untailored tone, his wife had seen through his ruse. “Oh, Fitzwilliam, I do so love your need to protect those you affect. How we could know such happiness if you had not is unfathomable. In a cause of compassion and honor, you were able to get the better of yourself, but I shall not have you make another sacrifice for my sake. Your family's name is my mine, and some day it shall be our child's name. I shall not have it soiled by those working outside the law.”

Darcy protested, “But it is too much. A woman should not be exposed to such perfidy.”

Elizabeth's eyebrow rose in a familiar challenge. “I am not of the set with which you are most familiar, Mr. Darcy.”

He leaned forward to kiss her nose's tip. “I am well aware of the differences, Mrs. Darcy, and I offer no complaints.”

Elizabeth caressed the line of his jaw. “Then be the man with whom I fell in love. Restore your family name, and then escort me home to Pemberley.”

Darcy's finger brushed her lips. “I remain your servant, my love.”

Darcy woke from a deep sleep. He and the colonel and Cowan had sat up late devising a plan of action. By the time he had returned to her quarters, Elizabeth had been sleeping soundly. On silent feet, he had undressed and crawled in beside her. With a loving nudge, he had snuggled Elizabeth in beside him and closed his eyes. That had been some three hours prior. Now, with only the darkness surrounding him, Darcy was immediately on his feet. Slipping on his breeches and his discarded shirt, he trailed a dim light under his wife's sitting room door. “Elizabeth,” he said softly as he stepped into the room, but it was empty. “Elizabeth?” he said automatically.

Since they had married, Darcy had found it impossible to sleep alone; yet, occasionally, his wife had accused him of stealing away the bed's warmth, and so she had left her own bed to find comfort in his. Therefore, expecting to find Elizabeth wrapped in his bedclothes, Darcy crossed through his dressing room and into his own dark chamber, but it, too, was empty. “Where in bloody hell?” he grumbled as he exited through the exterior door.

Taking a candle, which he lit from the waning wall sconce, he set out on a search for his wife. Unfortunately, his exploration revealed nothing: not in the library or his cousin's study or the drawing rooms or the estate's kitchen. And with each failure, Darcy's panic rose.

He shook a sleeping footman awake. “Have you knowledge of Mrs. Darcy's whereabouts?” he demanded.

The man scrambled to his feet and straightened his uniform. “No, Sir. Would you have me look for your wife, Sir?”

Darcy shook his head in the negative. “Tend your post. I will send word if I require your assistance. My wife is likely asleep in one of the empty rooms with a book across her lap,” he said casually, although he felt anything but casual. He had previously searched all the rooms to emerge empty-handed.

He turned toward the back staircase. Circling through the servant passageways, he peered into closets and pantries and was just about to mount the stairs to his cousin's rooms to seek Edward's assistance when the kitchen door to the vegetable garden opened and his wife slipped into the muted light of his candle.

Elizabeth gasped when she saw him and clutched at her chest. “Fitzwilliam!” she hissed. Her hand fluttered to her slender neck. “You gave me such a start!”

One part of him wanted to bind her to him. He had never been so happy to see anyone. The other part wished to scold her for providing him an avenue for his worst nightmares. Thankfully, his desire to have her in his arms won out, and Darcy clasped her to him. “Thank God,” he whispered as he caressed her hair. “I was so frightened.” Darcy kissed the top of her head. “Where have you been?”

Elizabeth stepped from his embrace. She glanced toward the half-open door leading to Mrs. Holbrook's small room. “Perhaps we might take our conversation upstairs,” she suggested before stepping around him and mounting the servants' stairs to the family quarters.

Darcy scowled. He almost wished he had chosen the scolding instead of the embrace. He snatched up the candle and shielded the light with his free hand. With his frustration building with each step, he followed his wife through the narrow passageway. Once inside their shared sitting room, Elizabeth tossed her cloak across a nearby chair, and Darcy realized that she wore her nightshift and a light wrapper. On her feet were her evening slippers.

He closed the door silently behind him and pointedly set the candleholder upon the table. “What were you thinking?” he asked before he thought to soften his tone. “You went out in the night's middle dressed so!” He gestured with a fluttery flick of his wrist.

Immediately, Elizabeth's ire rose as well. She said coldly, “I was thinking, Mr. Darcy, of solving this mystery so we might return to the safety of Pemberley.”

He said flippantly, “It is fortunate that your inclination and your spontaneity should accord so well.”

She strode into her bedchamber, and Darcy was forced to follow once more. By the time he had reached the room, his wife had relit the candles with a strike of a flint and a rolled paper tube. When she turned to him, she said bluntly, “I do not wonder at your disapprobation, upon my word. Obviously, by your mind, I possess a great defect of temper, made worse by a very faulty habit of self-indulgence. Yet, you should know my mind, Mr. Darcy, and I shall not have it!”

“Have what?” Darcy said boldly. “If I recall, it was you who left our bed and sought the dark recesses of the vegetable garden.”

“Do not be ridiculous!” she asserted.

Darcy stormed toward her. She stood before the hearth with her arms wrapped about herself as if for protection, but her chin rose in defiance. Even though Darcy recognized her vulnerability, he did not guard his tongue. “First, I have offered you a yet-to-be-disclosed offense, and then I was ridiculous for worrying over your disappearance.”

Hot tears sprang to his wife's eyes, and Darcy knew instant regret. Through trembling lips, Elizabeth rasped, “I have discovered it all, Fitzwilliam. I know of the dead horse and how close you came to meeting God today.” He felt each of her words as if someone had physically struck him.

Instantly, he scooped her into his arms and sank into an overstuffed two-armed chaise. Darcy cradled her on his lap as he covered her face with a storm of kisses. “Oh, Sweetheart,” he whispered into her hair. “I never meant to deceive you. You must realize, Lizzy, that my intentions are always to protect you.” He lifted Elizabeth's chin with his fingertips and lowered his mouth to hers. Since the first time Darcy had held her in his arms and had kissed her with all the passion he possessed for her, this was where he felt most complete. He could spend the rest of his life as such and never complain.

When his lips slid to her neck's column, Elizabeth warned, “You shall not wish to live with the woman I shall become if you ever lie to me again, whether on purpose or by omission.”

Despite the tension of the last few minutes, Darcy smiled against her skin. “Yes, Ma'am,” he teased as his tongue drew a line along her collarbone. With a deep sigh of satisfaction, Darcy set her from him. “What else must you know of the incident with the horse?”

Elizabeth lowered her eyes. It was a trick she had learned among the Bennets and one he had noted after their betrothal. His wife hid her smile of triumph when she managed to discover the truth of forbidden subjects. On the occasion of his discovery, he and Elizabeth had known each other intimately, and his wife had lingered in that wonderful stupor, which fogs a person's brain following such splendor. In a moment of weakness, Elizabeth had told him of how her mother had kept seedier tales from her daughters' notices, and how she and her sisters always discovered the sordid details. “Ours was a house rife with tattle. The servants. The tradesmen. My sisters. Both Jane and I held knowledge of a man's expectations long before we were Out in Society.” So, despite her subservient pose, Darcy knew her curiosity would win out.