The Lady's Jewels

by Perpetua Langley

  Now, the post had been delivered to the breakfast room. Elizabeth could see from the handwriting that Georgiana had got another letter from Mr. Darcy, and one from Mrs. Annesley, who was due to arrive the next week. For herself, Elizabeth had just one from Jane.

  She tore it open.

  My dearest Lizzy,

  We are all topsy-turvy here and I think you shall presume I joke when I tell you the news. But sister, I do not joke. Lydia is engaged to Mr. Collins.

  None of us understand how it has happened. Lydia does not seem pleased and I am certain she does not like him. Worse, I overheard a conversation between mama and Mr. Collins in which he hinted that he was not at all sure that he had even asked. As you might imagine, mama would not hear of such an idea and even mentioned a breach of promise suit.

  So, they are engaged.

  I hardly know what to make of it. Upon my own engagement, the house was filled with happiness. Now, there is a heaviness in the air and there is no pleasure in the news, least of all from the two involved in it. Still, Lydia has been quite determined about the whole thing. The day it occurred she set off to Meryton and announced it far and wide.

  I really did think she would marry an officer, I cannot quite comprehend how she has settled on Mr. Collins. I must only hope that it is for the best. I do not like to be cruel, but Lydia’s looks have suffered greatly by her habits this past year and I did notice at the last assembly she sat out for a few dances. Perhaps the mutual enthrallment of officers and Lydia has faded and she thought she’d better be practical? I really do not know!

  In any case, if there is one person pleased, it is mama. Though she does say she will be in a temper if you do not bring somebody home from London as nobody has been given a better opportunity than her Lizzy.

  I do hope you enjoy your stay with Lady Castlereagh. I am certain you enjoy Miss Darcy’s company as she is lovely. Has Mr. Darcy called on the house? Charles tells me he has stayed on at Pemberley for some time, but that he planned to relocate to the London house for Christmas.

  Also, Lizzy, and I am not certain how to express this since it has been expressed to me so vaguely, but Charles keeps hinting to me that Mr. Darcy has been out of sorts on a matter to do with his heart, and that my dearest sister is the cause. I do not know what you will make of that, as I certainly do not know what to make of it. Each time I press Charles on his hints, he only tells me that all will be revealed in time. If you DO know what to make of it, I pray you write me all about it as I am rather on tenterhooks at the moment.

  All my love,

  Jane

  Elizabeth dropped the letter.

  She hardly knew what to think. Mr. Darcy should be in high spirits by now, congratulating himself on his near escape. Why should he be out of sorts?

  She felt both elated and terrified. What did it mean? Would he approach her again? And, if he did so, would she have the resolve to refuse again? She should refuse, that she knew. It was not only in her own best interest, but in his as well. The question was, would she have the courage to refuse again? Would she have the courage to turn away from the thing she wanted the most?

  Darcy sat in his study at Pemberley. He’d read the letter from Lady Castlereagh four times. It was gratifying to know that Miss Bennet would stay on through Christmas. He had thought that would be the case, as Georgiana’s letters had been filled with the idea. In truth, Georgiana’s letters had been filled with Miss Bennet in general.

  He’d had an impulse to race to London shortly after returning to Netherfield, but Bingley had pointed out that it might be unwise. It would be better, he thought, to allow some time to pass after his wretched proposal and Lady Catherine’s awful visit. Time would soften the impressions in Miss Bennet’s mind.

  Darcy had reluctantly agreed, and while he waited for time to assist him, he’d taken on a task he knew must be done. He’d gone to Rosings and had a stern conversation with his aunt. He’d made it clear that if he could prevail upon her to do so, he would marry Miss Bennet. His aunt had been nearly apoplectic. Anne had merely sat as she always did, looking as if she were not of this world. He’d not even stayed the night.

  After that visit which had been too long in coming, he’d retreated to Pemberley and counted on Georgiana’s letters to keep him apprised of Miss Bennet. His sister reported that Miss Bennet did not go out in the evenings, and Darcy was not sorry for it. It would have been all too likely that she would have caught somebody’s eye, and that somebody would strike her as a deal more pleasant than Fitzwilliam Darcy.

  Darcy re-read Lady Castlereagh’s letter again. It was unsettling how direct the lady was in her assessment of all the ways in which he’d gone wrong and her unflagging opinion that Miss Bennet was his match. It was downright alarming what she thought he ought to do about it.

  So public? He would no doubt appear a fool and experience utter humiliation. He would be the talk of every drawing room. No, he would be the joke of every drawing room. He, a Darcy, a joke.

  Still, it was a chance. And if anybody deserved utter humiliation, it was himself.

  He would do it.

  Lady Castlereagh swept into the breakfast room. “Ah, Miss Bennet, I am glad to find you here. Almacks is to have a Christmas ball, as there are so many people in town just now. I think you will find this useful.”

  The lady handed Elizabeth a small card that read:

  Ladies Voucher

  ALMACKS

  Deliver to

  Miss Elizabeth Bennet

  Ticket for the Christmas Ball

  on the Wednesday of December 23rd 1812

  It was sealed in red wax and signed Lady C.

  “My dear Lady Castlereagh,” Elizabeth said, gazing in wonderment at the voucher, “it is extraordinary that you should have managed this on my behalf, but—”

  “Miss Bennet, it is not at all extraordinary. Did you think that when the other ladies heard of your bravery in the face of a villain and the extraordinary assistance you provided in saving my coachman and recovering my jewels, that you would be turned away? You have hidden yourself away here and so could not know it, but the story of your cleverness and heroism has been told in every drawing room in London. Everybody wants to be introduced to Elizabeth Bennet.”

  “Elizabeth!” Georgiana cried out in glee. “How marvelous!”

  “I am sure I do not understand it,” Elizabeth said. “I thought nobody was to know of—"

  “Nobody does know of Georgiana’s exchange of letters with Wickham. They only know that Wickham tried to injure Darcy by kidnapping his sister and you came to the rescue.”

  “But I only did what anybody—"

  “You saved Georgiana, that is what you did,” Lady Castlereagh said. “Now, I have allowed you to secret yourself away here long enough. I insist you come to the ball and I have ordered a seamstress to arrive here to help with a dress. I will not brook any refusal on the matter.”

  “A new gown,” Georgiana said. “Oh, it will be such fun to see how it comes out. And Elizabeth, you must come home afterward and tell me absolutely everything. Who was there? Who did you speak to? Who did you dance with? I will wish to know everything!”

  Lady Castlereagh said, “The seamstress with be here at two,” and strode from the room.

  Elizabeth sat back. It seemed that, whether she wished it or no, she was going to the Christmas ball at Almacks.

  The seamstress did indeed arrive at two. She was an elegant Frenchwoman and she took in Elizabeth with a discerning eye.

  Lady Castlereagh and Georgiana sat together on a sofa in Elizabeth’s bedchamber as Madame Renard circled round her. The seamstress paused and turned to Lady Castlereagh.

  “She is short, no? I think not too much embellishment. We do the gown simple to elongate and make elegant. No ribbon at the waist, it does no favors. I think velvet. Others will be in silks, making attempt to dazzle—this will be restrained and striking. We do it in a darker color to elevate the lady’s coloring.”

&nb
sp; “I trust your judgment and skill, madame,” Lady Castlereagh said.

  Georgiana was silent and Elizabeth thought she looked rather frightened of the dressmaker. No doubt she thought of when it would be her own turn to be sized-up by the lady. Elizabeth was rather frightened herself. She’d never owned a dress in velvet and she’d never worn a color more daring than a pale yellow.

  As Madame Renard took her measurements and her assistant wrote them in a notebook, Elizabeth noticed three small faces peeking around the doorframe. The pups had got adventurous of late and had taken to daringly leaving the nursery to explore. Elizabeth had caught them more than once sitting at the top of the staircase and looking down that abyss as if it were the Himalayan mountains.

  Wednesday, Thursday and Friday scampered in with wagging tails.

  “Ah, my darlings,” Lady Castlereagh said to them, “now you are interested in the making of a lady’s gown, I suppose?”

  By way of answer, all three pups wagged enthusiastically and promptly wet the floor.

  Madame Renard stared at the growing puddles and muttered, “Excentriques Anglais.”

  It was two days before the ball and Elizabeth was surprised to find Mr. Quinn at Lady Castlereagh’s doorstep. He was shown into the drawing room and Elizabeth felt it was a welcome distraction. She was all nerves at the thought of stepping through the doors of Almacks.

  “My lady,” he said, bowing with his usual flourishes to Lady Castlereagh. “Miss Darcy and Miss Bennet.”

  “Mr. Quinn,” Lady Castlereagh said, “I am delighted to see you. How is it that you have managed to tear yourself away from Miss Lucas?”

  Mr. Quinn blushed and stammered, “Only very reluctantly, but I felt I must apprise you of certain facts. We have got a full confession from Wickham.”

  Elizabeth glanced at Georgiana to see how she would take the news. She appeared serious, but not unduly alarmed.

  “Is there something in it that we do not know already, Mr. Quinn?” Lady Castlereagh asked.

  “We knew most of it, to be sure,” Mr. Quinn said, “though there were certain facts we could not have guessed at. I thought you might be interested to finally discover how you received your bump on the head.”

  “I presume that scoundrel hit me with something, is that not right?” Lady Castlereagh said.

  “It is not. You were not struck,” Mr. Quinn said. He turned to Elizabeth. “Can you guess, Miss Bennet?”

  “Can I guess, Mr. Quinn?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Do try,” Mr. Quinn said encouragingly. “I think you will deduce it if you think carefully.”

  Elizabeth thought through what she knew of the case, combined with the new fact that Lady Castlereagh had not been struck when they’d all assumed she had been.

  She smiled. It must be the one clue they had never been able to work out. “The unidentified drops on the carriage seat,” she said. “The drops we were convinced were blood, though Lady Castlereagh had not bled, and then Doctor Kellerman disabused us of that idea. If Lady Castlereagh was not struck, she must have been drugged. Am I right, Mr. Quinn? Were the drops from drugged wine?”

  Before Mr. Quinn could answer, Lady Castlereagh said, “Goodness! I do remember having a small cup of wine, as I usually do when I grow tired of a journey. How extraordinary that I did not notice that the bottle was missing when I was found. Miss Bennet, you went to fetch me water from the same cup and I recall that after drinking it, I felt rather tired as I rode in the cart to your house. There must have been remnants of it still remaining.”

  “And Monday and Tuesday drank from the same cup,” Elizabeth said, laughing, “and must have received small doses of it, which would explain how I was able to order them into the cart and then they laid down rather than jumping out on the way down the hill.”

  “I did think you were rather masterful with them,” Lady Castlereagh said. “They are not usually as cooperative as that. Particularly with a stranger.”

  “And so,” Elizabeth said, “Lady Castlereagh hit her head as she fell, once the drug overcame her. This would explain Warpole’s report of what Wickham, then known as Mr. Cratchet, said to him in the wine cellar—that the lady would only take a nap and be none the worse for it.”

  “Precisely, Miss Bennet,” Mr. Quinn said, looking pleased. “I was certain you would work it out.”

  “Elizabeth is so clever,” Georgiana said, “is she not?”

  “Indeed so,” Mr. Quinn said. “Until this case, I had never considered a woman’s mind suitable for solving crimes. Now I see the error of my ways. Once we are married, Miss Lucas will assist me in my cases for as long as she cares to do so. How extraordinary that my wife shall be a partner in my work.”

  “There is nothing extraordinary about it, Mr. Quinn,” Lady Castlereagh said. “I have long helped my lord with various duties. A marriage is a partnership before it is anything else.”

  At the mention of marriage, Elizabeth turned away.

  “Ah well,” Lady Castlereagh said, “when the time is right, all will be as it should.”

  Mr. Quinn appeared puzzled by the statement, but he shrugged and went on. “The only other thing of interest that Wickham revealed is that stealing your jewels had come to him after he had managed to get into your house as one of your lord’s secretaries. He had been looking for a way to hide in Darcy’s own neighborhood and perhaps steal from him when he got the idea. Apparently, it amused him to be in the house and under Darcy’s nose without being found out.”

  “However he came upon the plan,” Lady Castlereagh said, “he is now where he belongs. Let us all leave Wickham behind from this day forward.”

  Elizabeth thought that was very wise counsel.

  Darcy paced his dressing room. He would see Miss Bennet in a matter of hours. He knew he would only have one chance to redeem himself from a disaster of his own making. Lady Castlereagh had been to the house to confirm the arrangements. She was delighted with the scheme and delighted with his nerves and delighted to be the architect of it all.

  As he could not afford to get it wrong this time, Darcy had made various attempts to write out all he would say in hopes that he could memorize a speech. Bingley had come up to town to help in the matter, and Darcy had been surprised at the various changes he’d made to his first effort. It seemed that he had no talent whatsoever at wooing. There had been a slew of lines that he’d thought quite good—for example, that Miss Bennet’s visage was that of a goddess—that Bingley had summarily crossed out.

  After more than a few rewritten efforts, Bingley had thrown the last into the fire. He’d stared at his friend and said, “Find the truth in your heart. Say that. No more and no less.”

  Darcy did not discount the advice, but just now his mind was filled with nothing. He felt that he could not reach for one thought, one sentence to utter.

  Blast it—why could not he think?

  Elizabeth stood in her bedchamber, Madame Renard hurrying round her to make the final alterations to her dress. It was a lovely dark blue velvet and she thought the Frenchwoman knew her business—it did far more for her coloring than pale colors ever had.

  There was no ribbon round the waist and Elizabeth had to admit that its removal seemed to give her some height. There were small velvet rosettes around the neckline and sleeves, but it was otherwise unadorned. The superior fabric and exquisite fit were to be the embellishments, rather than bits and bobs from the sewing basket. It was elegant, and yet the most simply constructed garment she’d ever worn.

  “It is lovely, Elizabeth,” Georgiana said from her perch on the bed. “You are lovely. You will be the toast of the ball, I am sure.”

  Elizabeth laughed. “I shouldn’t think so. This is not an assembly at Meryton. I am to be faced with the cream of London society. I only hope to survive the evening unscathed.”

  Lady Castlereagh sailed in, rustling in one of her brocade silks. She took in Elizabeth and said, “Très charmant!”

  Madame Renard curtsied. “I d
o the mademoiselle well, no?”

  “Very well, madame,” Lady Castlereagh said. “She looks just as she should.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Elizabeth had always counted herself as a calm and unruffled individual. While many a lady was all nervous laughter at a ball, wondering who would ask and terrified of being seen sitting out, she took it all in good stride. The carriage ride to Almacks had presented her with a new and foreign set of nerves. There was nothing calm and unruffled about her now.

  Never, before this moment, had she trembled at the thought of being presented to the high and mighty of London society. Why should she have, since the possibility of such a thing was remote. She supposed that had she thought of it in the safety of Longbourn’s drawing room, she would have presumed herself more than prepared to face down any duke in the land.

  It was not so, however.

  Lady Castlereagh had noted her silence and her trembling hands and kindly spoken to her. Elizabeth was to know she entered this bastion of decorum arm in arm with a patroness, which was more than most ladies could lay claim to. Further, the patronesses had been unanimous in their wish to admit her, even Countess Lieven, who was generally against admitting anybody at all.

  Elizabeth found herself cheered by Lady Castlereagh’s speech. After all, she had not come knocking on Almacks’ door. They had invited her. She need only conduct herself properly and it would be an enjoyable evening. She thought she might pretend to be Jane for the night, and thereby know that she could not step wrong.

  The moment they had passed through the doors and into a large hall, Elizabeth had seen lorgnettes and quizzing glasses go up. It felt as if everybody stared at her.

  Lady Castlereagh leaned close to her ear and said, “Remember, I did mention that all of London wishes to be introduced to Miss Bennet, rescuer of coachmen, retriever of jewels and savior of young girls.”

  The sea of people put glasses down and moved toward them.