The Mysterious Death of Mr. Darcy

by Regina Jeffers

  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.

  Dutifully and honestly, he explained what had happened during his encounter with the gypsy band. “Evidently, Mr. Gry held some responsibility for our attack. I told the man to call at Woodvine, and I would return his purse to him, but the gypsy leader never made an appearance.”

  “Oh, but he did,” Elizabeth hastened to assure him. “I observed him speaking to one of the kitchen maids in the back garden while you met with Mr. Franklyn, but Mr. Gry did not call upon the household.”

  Darcy wondered aloud. “There is no way a maid would know of the shooting. I swore the colonel, Holbrook, and Cowan to secrecy, as well as Mr. Stalling.”

  “Did you not say Cowan suspected that Gry would call on Mrs. Ridgeway?” Darcy nodded his agreement. Elizabeth continued, “Befor
e the gypsy spoke to the maid, I had set Cousin Samuel’s staff a line of duties that would not permit the housekeeper time to meet with Mr. Gry. Mayhap Mrs. Ridgeway sent the maid to the gypsy with news of her indisposition.”

  “Perhaps,” Darcy said thoughtfully. Then with a wry smile, he asked, “How did you learn of my perfidy?”

  Elizabeth confessed, “Hannah observed Mr. Sheffield working diligently to remove the mud from your favorite jacket. She overheard his grumblings and reported them to me.” Elizabeth wiggled her behind against Darcy’s leg to distract him. It was exquisite torture, which Darcy gladly encouraged. He would never complain of Elizabeth’s manipulations. “In truth, Mr. Sheffield said very little that made sense until I ventured into the stables to discover the lack of horses.”

  Darcy could not feel more at a disadvantage. Had his wife practiced her own half truths? “Then your accusations were based purely on conjecture?” he asked with a bit more irritation than he intended. “You rip out my heart with your tears!” He could not quite read her expression.

  “The tears were real, Mr. Darcy,” she asserted. “The terror I felt when I placed the clues together was real.” She swallowed hard. “True. I only knew a few of the details, but I knew enough.”

  Immediately, his ire disappeared. Darcy’s chest ached. He had never seen her so vulnerable. “Lizzy, you are my world.” Darcy briefly closed his eyes in hopes of finding the right words. “The day you agreed to become my wife, my dreams came true. The one woman designed especially for me had, quite literally, tottered into my life’s path. I recognized the awe that you would experience as Pemberley’s Mistress and in assuming your place in my social circle. Yet, I never doubted your success.”

  “I can do none of it without you.” She laid her head upon his chest and sunk heavily against him. Darcy encircled her with his arms. “Do not think of leaving me, Fitzwilliam Darcy.” She hiccupped her order. “It would not be fair for me to know such happiness and then have it snatched away by some crazy plot to buy a horse that is not for sale.” She tightened her hold on him. “I mean to grow old with you. To raise our children. I will tolerate nothing less than thirty years of bliss from you, Mr. Darcy. Set your mind to it.”

  Darcy smiled. Farce was his wife’s middle name. Her innocent charm and caustic wit had enchanted him from their first introduction. “I had thought forty,” he whispered into her hair. The lavender oil gave her auburn tresses a soft glow in the candlelight. “We will argue no more of the horse or the gypsy band. Perhaps you might explain your moonlight stroll instead.”

  Elizabeth kissed his neck before sitting upright again. She dabbed her eyes with the blousy part of her wrapper’s sleeve. “I read part of your cousin’s journals. Samuel Darcy mentioned the possibility that one or more members of his staff was involved with witchcraft.”

  “Does he say who?” Darcy’s interest piqued.

  Elizabeth shook her head, and a stray curl escaped her loose braid. “Not from what I have read to date. Mr. Darcy simply mentioned that there were signs of witchery about his house. He did not enumerate the signs. Just stated that he held suspicions.”

  Darcy gave her a speaking look. “And these suspicions sent you out into the blackness of the night?”

  Elizabeth answered tartly. “Of course not. As you well know, Mr. Darcy, I am not so easily persuaded.” She took his hand in her two. “I had waited patiently for your return so I might share what I had discovered, but you were later than I had expected, and I had fallen asleep. However, you know my imagination. It would not permit me to forget the diary’s words, and soon I lay staring at the crown’s drapery. Even though I wanted your opinion on the matter, I foolishly refused to wake you.”

  She shifted to lie in Darcy’s embrace. Darcy lifted her long braid and draped it over her shoulder. With a soul-cleansing sigh, Elizabeth continued her tale. “I slipped from the bed to order my thoughts, and as I peered from the window into the deserted garden below, I saw a figure moving along the side pathway.”

  “Mrs. Ridgeway?” Darcy asked.

  Elizabeth stroked his arm absentmindedly. “I thought so also. At least, at first. That is until I roused Hannah from her room across the hall and insisted that she accompany me to the housekeeper’s rooms. Surprisingly, Mrs. Ridgeway was there, snoring quite pronouncedly. I assume Mr. Glover had given her a hefty dose of laudanum to cover the pain of her injured hand. Mrs. Ridgeway did not stir as Hannah and I moved about her room.”

  “Is that when Hannah told you of Mr. Sheffield’s complaints?”

  “Yes. She thought perhaps your valet had knowledge of what had occurred and had kept it from me.” She took a deep breath. “I sent Hannah to bed, and I sneaked from the house to confirm my own suspicions. You discovered me upon my return.”

  Darcy ran his fingers through his hair. “Then you did not chase after the shadowy figure you observed in the garden?”

  Elizabeth allowed her fingers to slide slowly down his arm. She interlaced their fingers. “At first, I thought to do so. Especially when I thought it to be Mrs. Ridgeway. But when I discovered the lady still tightly wrapped in her bedclothes, my interest turned from Woodvine’s mystery to my husband’s welfare. All of which I could think was you, Fitzwilliam.”

  Darcy brought her hand to rest above his heart. “Tomorrow we will think more on the why and the wherefore of this fatuity. Tonight, I wish to hold my beautiful wife in my arms. I find I have quite forgotten how to sleep without her warmth lining my body and her scent filling my lungs.”

  Chapter 10

  “On her midnight trek to the stables, did Mrs. Darcy see any evidence of the person she had observed in the kitchen garden?” the colonel asked with an amused smile upon his lips.

  Darcy had disclosed the incident to his cousin and Mr. Cowan over their morning repast. Darcy had insisted that his wife remain in bed for a few extra hours of restorative sleep. After their late-night adventure, they had known marital intimacies in that slow deliberate way Darcy preferred. The one in which Elizabeth clung to him and called out his name on a husky rasp. It was as near to Heaven as Darcy could find on Earth. “Mrs. Darcy realized that by the time she and Hannah had checked on Mrs. Ridgeway, the opportunity had passed.”

  Edward smirked, “Knowing Mrs. Darcy’s propensity for challenging you, Cousin, your wife likely relished the idea of catching you in a half truth more than she did divining Woodvine’s secrets.”

  Darcy recalled the tears glazing his wife’s eyes and the earnestness of her words, but he would not betray Elizabeth’s desolation to his cousin. Nor to the world. “I suspect you are correct,” he said sagely. Darcy directed his attention to Cowan. “Do you suppose you could search for evidence of a coven without stirring up too much interest?”

  “I will see to it,” Cowan said as he placed his serviette beside his empty plate and prepared to make his exit.

  Edward added blueberry jam to a second wedge of toast. “Likely some maid on a midnight assignation.”

  Cowan scowled. “I’ll be asking questions in the kitchen.” The Runner stood and disappeared through the room’s service entrance.

  “A valuable man,” Darcy noted as the door closed behind Cowan. “Where did you form his acquaintance?”

  “Served under me in Spain,” Edward said stiffly. “Was wounded at that disaster in Corunna in ’09. That nincompoop Sir John Moore possessed no idea what to do with Marshal Soult.” Edward’s shoulders tensed in a painful slant, and the colonel’s countenance betrayed the serious darkness of his thoughts. The implacable look in his cousin’s eyes spoke of the horrors, which Edward had witnessed as part of his service to the King.

  “Soult had pursued us across Castile and Galacia, but we rendezvoused with the evacuation fleet at Corunna. Moore thought it best if we would provide a diversion while our forces were loaded on the fleet.” Darcy saw his cousin’s eyes glaze over, as if Edward relived each volley. He had observed his cousin as such previously. Whenever Edward spoke of the ba
ttles, and those incidents were few, Darcy listened carefully. He thought it best if the colonel freed his conscience of the witnessed devastation.

  “Moore set up his position on a hill called Monte Mero, a point north of Piedralonga. Hope’s and Baird’s brigades held the east-west line, but we possessed a weak, open right flank close to the village of Elvina. Moore placed Paget’s and Fraser’s units in a position to cover his weak one, while Moore secured a position lower than the Heights of Penasquedo, which was an easy cannon shot on the south.” Edward pointedly set his cup on the table.

  “Out of sight of the French, Cowan and I were among those stationed with Fraser. We were backed up nearly to Corunna’s outer fortifications. Delaborde and Merle managed to hold our troops in place, while Mermet turned Baird’s flanks. The French cavalry under La Houssaye and Franceschi eliminated both Baird and Moore. Thank goodness Paget’s forces turned back Mermet and La Houssaye. My men, under Fraser, prevented Franceschi from flanking our position.

  “During the siege, Cowan was badly injured. In our escape, I carried him to the ship and then tended his injuries. Cowan has an ugly scar across his abdomen. I do not profess to handle a needle as well as Mrs. Darcy, but it was enough to save Cowan’s life. His injuries earned him a trip across the Channel. I met him again some two years prior. He had joined Bow Street, but I do not think it suited him.”

  Darcy’s interest piqued. “How so?”

  Edward shrugged his shoulders. “Cowan was always a thinking man. Even in Spain, he would question the officers’ decisions. You should have heard him when Moore chose to engage Soult. I thought the officers might order him directly in the line of fire, but he stood beside me throughout the battle. Never left my side until the Frenchy cut him down with a volley meant for me. I was the one with the epaulets on my shoulders. I was the target.”

  Darcy swallowed hard. He had liked Cowan from the beginning of their acquaintance. Now, he realized he would forever be in the former Runner’s debt. Edward Fitzwilliam lived because of Thomas Cowan’s unselfish bravery. Instead of speaking words of gratitude that would embarrass them both and which choked his throat, Darcy turned the conversation with a teasing quip. “Were you not Cowan’s commanding officer? Should he not have despised you?”