I have never been in love before. I did not know the symptoms, other than the physical ones, which I shall not elaborate here. I confessed my sins and the priest said to marry her expeditiously. I was more hesitant to enter into the eternal union of marriage if I was not sure. She was only three months along when I met her. I gave her every attention even when she asked for nothing. When we came to an understanding of our love, I went to buy her a ring.
The day that the ring arrived, I returned home.Yes, I considered it my home. There was a man there who identified himself as Mr. Neil MacKenna, her husband. In the time since I had left he had beaten her to the point where she was bruised beyond recognition. When he pressed her, she told me everything. She has no family.They died years ago. She married Mr. MacKenna, but he did not want the child, so she stole his money and ran away. She could not bear to tell me. She left a note saying she ...I cannot say it. To return to the moment, he made to strike her again for some perceived insult and I tried to get between them. He stabbed me in the arm (only a graze, I assure you, now sewn) and left me pinned to the wall, taking his wife with him. He said he would kill me if I followed.
I can have no intentions for her. She is a married woman and I, once a monk, am now just an adulterer.The fact that I did not know has some relevance, but I have no time for that now. She said he is going to sell or kill the baby when it is born. He may kill her. The part of me that remains a good Christian cannot let that happen. Perhaps we could pay him to separate from her? I have faith that you will think of something.
I will be in Dublin. She left his address behind. I taught her to write. I will be staying at ______. Please write me at Box 22 or find me there.
No, I will not come home until I have seen her to safety. I am sorry, but in response to your question, I WILL NOT LISTEN TO REASON.
This poor sinner,
Grégoire
She looked up from the letter, her eyes not particularly dry. “When are you leaving?”
“As soon as I have enough money freed up. Tonight should be long enough. If not, then tomorrow morning.”
“Should I write Georgiana? He doesn’t mention her.”
“What do you think?”
This was a woman’s realm—he could not divine what his sister would think of this, though he knew that she would be sympathetic. Grégoire had been wronged by the woman he loved, and she had been wronged by the man who controlled and owned her, for all purposes. Elizabeth said, “I think she should be told as soon as possible.”
He nodded. He was trying to focus on the task at hand—getting to Dublin quickly. He fell into methodical planning when he could not bear the emotional consequences of doing otherwise. Grégoire was right—Darcy was good at getting things done, even things that seemed impossible. “In all likelihood, the husband is sufficiently poor that he can be tempted to send his wife away to raise the child elsewhere for the right amount of money.We would have to hire a protector to make sure it happened—it could not be Grégoire. Even he must know that.”
“There is absolutely no way that the marriage could end?”
“My understanding of Catholic law is that we would have to find sufficient evidence that the marriage was falsely done or incestuous. Of course, I suspect it was neither, or Grégoire would have said so. No, they are married until one of them dies.” He paused. “I must get to my brother.”
“Darcy, you know he wouldn’t—”
“I know. But he would put himself in harm’s way for her—he’s already done so.”
“Do you wish me to go?”
He stopped pacing. He seemed to be considering it. “Dublin is not far by boat. In all likelihood, it will be a financial exchange and we will leave. If I need you, I will write for you.”
They exchanged looks.
“I will take a pistol this time,” he said. “I’ll take two.”
“So why is he going to Ireland?”
“I don’t know,” Geoffrey said, plucking up the grass in front of them as they sat on the hill. From there, he could see his father riding away on his horse, westbound. “Something about Uncle Grégoire.”
“Of course, it’s Uncle Grégoire,” Georgie said. “Who else do we know in Ireland?” She repositioned her shawl, which protected her dress from the morning dew.“Is that what it means to be master of Pemberley? You always have to be abroad, rescuing relations?”
“Apparently.”
Grégoire was staying at one of the best hotels in Dublin, apparently aware that his brother would prefer nothing less. The former monk was staying under the Darcy name, perhaps for his own safety.
To Darcy’s surprise, as he entered the hotel suite, Grégoire was neither in intense prayer or openly sobbing. He sat in the armchair, a bottle of fine whiskey beside him, untouched. Darcy had never seen him with a real beard, the kind a man grew out and trimmed properly. It made him look older, but what made him truly aged was the look around his eyes, as if he had cried until he had nothing left in him and was now just a shell of a man, grasping his rosary. His clothing was clean but unchanged. He was worn out in other ways. “Brother—”
“Grégoire,” he said as they embraced.“I came as soon as I could.”
“Thank you.” There was something strangely calm about Grégoire. Perhaps he was just out of other emotions. “My arm is healing. The stitches can come out early next week. He only grazed me.”
“Thank God.”
Grégoire crossed himself. So he had some faith left.
Darcy had only a few bags, which were soon brought up. Dinner was ordered. The stew that arrived was inedible, but Grégoire didn’t seem to mind. Neither of them spoke, Darcy not sure which topic to broach first and Grégoire lost in his own thoughts.
It was the younger brother who broke the silence. “I bought her a ring.” He put it down on the table, as though it were hot to the touch. Darcy picked it up.
“It’s beautiful,” he said, at a loss. It seemed fitting for an Irish lass. “What do you want me to say? That it will go well on someone else’s finger?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything.” He looked down. “I went to confession. The priest—a priest here—he said I should say prayers and give to the poor in penance for my sins. But I’ve always done that. And I refuse—” He choked up. It seemed he hadn’t exhausted his tears after all. “I know it was a great sin, but that doesn’t make what it was at the time any less wonderful. I cannot feel sorry for something I do not feel sorry about.”
“You didn’t know,” Darcy said. “She did not tell you.”
But Grégoire did not seem to want to be comforted. Darcy reflected: Had he wanted someone around while he fell into the bottle after Elizabeth’s rejection of his initial proposal? The only reason he had sobered up at all was to keep a good face in front of his sister and not let Pemberley go to ruin while his heart quietly lay broken. No, he had come here for a purpose, to help Grégoire do his real penance—to save this woman he loved from doom (or at least determine if the doom was real).
Darcy fell back on his habit of being brutally honest. “I can find no words to comfort you. There are none for a man with a broken heart,” he said. “But on this mission, I can help you.”
“That,” Grégoire said, “is all I need.”
CHAPTER 32
The Business at Hand
FOR TWO DAYS, DARCY had staked out the East district. It was near the docks, so most of the people were workers, and accustomed enough to a wealthy Englishman walking through on his way to a better part of town—but with his distinct accent he said little. Grégoire’s address was confirmed—there was a Mr. MacKenna living in an apartment complex on Talbot Street, a dockworker and handyman, currently a step away from the workhouse (a description that matched most of the men in the area). His wife was in residence, but had not been seen or heard from in days.
Grégoire was sensible enough to understand that he ought not go with Darcy on his trips.They would not risk a chance encounter with th
e man who had assaulted him. In addition, Darcy convinced him to shave. Pressing charges would be difficult, especially with MacKenna as the cuckolded husband and Grégoire as a wayward man of the cloth. Even with the Union Jack flying over their heads on the pole above the hotel entrance, this was not England. Grégoire went to Mass, and spent most of the day in the cathedral. He seemed to be returning to his normal self. It was a strange comfort to Darcy. This Grégoire was at least familiar to him.
As he sat in the tavern across from the docks, sipping awful beer and pretending to read the paper, he mused on all of this.
“I thought you were the great reconnaissance expert. Might as well write, I’m a wealthy, spying bastard on your forehead,” said the man sliding in next to him. “And don’t start with the ‘Lord’ business.”
“Kincaid,” he said, not frowning but not smiling as William Kincaid joined him. “Is Georgiana here?”
“Came as soon as we heard. She’s with her brother. So have you seen the woman in question?”
“Not yet. I have only her description. She is not leaving the flat, which, considering her condition, is no surprise.”
“Not everyone cares about propriety, Darcy.”
“Did I give my sister away to an earl or not?”
William smiled. “What about the landlord and landlady?”
“Lives on the first floor. Just the wife. Husband is dead, I think.”
He nodded. “Did you talk to her?”
“She said they arrived last week and Mrs. MacKenna has not been out since.”
“Not even for groceries?”
Darcy shook his head.
“I don’t like it.”
“Neither do I.”
“You go forward with your plan,” Kincaid said. “I will be your back.”
“That may prove difficult. They did rob my brother, but I doubt they spent the money on a chandelier.”
When Darcy returned to the suite, Georgiana did not rush to him, as she used to do. She was embracing her own younger sibling, who was sobbing. Darcy said nothing, slipping in silently. Whether they noticed his presence or not mattered nothing to him. That Grégoire had been able to unload his feelings on someone was a relief; that it was not himself sparked something he had not felt in a long time: sibling jealousy. But he was the responsible one, wasn’t he? The one whom others turned to when they needed help? He mulled it over with a glass of Irish whiskey, which he shared with Lord Kincaid.
“We should be done with it,” Darcy said. Two days had been painful enough, and now that they had the location confirmed, they had no reason not to make their move. Grégoire was willing to pay anything, but Darcy would do the negotiation, so that the numbers did not begin in the thousands. MacKenna had probably never seen a hundred-pound bill in his life.
“Has she ever seen you without whiskers?” Darcy asked as Grégoire emerged from prayer, dressed in a white shirt and vest. He looked more normal these days, less the penitent monk who had come home from Spain.
“When I first arrived in the area, yes.”
Darcy nodded.
Georgiana gave both her brothers and her husband a goodluck kiss good-bye. “You will be fine,” she assured Grégoire. Assuming he did not put himself in harm’s way, he would not be in danger.
The Darcy brothers set out just as it was getting dark. Kincaid would meet them later; that was part of the plan that Darcy dearly hoped would not be necessary. He also hoped they would not be robbed on the way there, as that would be exceedingly unfortunate (except for the thief, who would then presumably retire to a private isle in the north). They took a coach down Talbot Street; there was no reason to conceal themselves further as foreigners. They were not stopped at the entrance to the building, or even on the stairs. The walls were thin on every floor and in the building next door, which was no more than a foot away.The noises were all indistinguishable, one from another.
The flat that belonged to Mr. and Mrs. MacKenna had no sounds coming forth from it, but light spilled out from under the door. The stairway was lit only with moonlight through the broken window, and they stopped in front of the door. Grégoire crossed himself and nodded as Darcy removed his hat and knocked on the door with his walking stick.
“What do yeh want?”
“To speak to Mrs. MacKenna.”
The door opened so hard it slammed against the inside wall, and Darcy found a pistol pointed at his face. A small one, but a pistol nonetheless. Grégoire remained on the staircase, out of view.
Darcy betrayed nothing but calm and confidence. “If you shoot me, you will hang. If you do not, you will be a very rich man.”
The man facing him—red-haired and red-eyed, slouching in an intimidating manner in his soiled workman’s clothing—was not quite twice his size, but it was apparent who would win in a brawl. Still, Darcy didn’t move for his own pistol, plainly tucked into his belt, or anything else. He stayed still and let the logic sink in.
Neil MacKenna finally lowered his pistol, but did not put it away. “Who are yeh?”
“Mr. Darcy,” he said, “of Pemberley and Derbyshire.”
“Never ’eard av either o’ dem places.”
“Fortunately, I am not here to discuss them. I am here to discuss your wife.”
“I’m not runnin’ a brothel,” MacKenna said, backing up just enough to let Darcy a step or two into the room. There was no evidence of the wife in the immediate room, but he saw there was a side room with light beneath its door as well. MacKenna was not as slow as he looked, at least mentally. “I’ll bite. Where’s de bugger whose been feckin’ me wife?”
“Wary of being stabbed again,” Darcy said.
MacKenna put the pistol down on the parlor table, or what was supposed to be a parlor table but was dented and worn and probably a century old. “Fine. On me honor.”
“On your honor,” Darcy repeated, as he heard Grégoire emerge behind him, not standing nearly as tall or as proudly as his brother. MacKenna watched him, but did not move against him. “Now. We are here to make a deal.”
“I towl yeh, she is not for sale.”
“But you would agree to a separation from your wife, perhaps. She would live somewhere else—in the west, maybe. Wherever she likes. And you would stay here. And I would make it worth your while, and we will all be happy.”
“An’ ’er fella ’appy too, aye?”
“Sir,” Grégoire said, “I swear under God in heaven that I did not know that Mrs. MacKenna was your wife, or anyone’s wife. Marriage is a sacrament. I would not willingly violate it again.” He swallowed. “I would never see her again. She would live separately from both of us.You could even employ a guard to make sure I did not violate my oath.”
“And I would employ a guard to make sure you do not violate yours,” Darcy said to Mr. MacKenna.
“Sounds dear,” MacKenna said. The fish was considering the bait.
“Quite. And for the sake of Christian charity—what with you giving up seeing your adored wife and future child—I would not have you in poverty.” Darcy carefully reached into his coat, and removed the first packet of bills, laying them carefully on the parlor table beside them. “Five hundred pounds.”
MacKenna did the math in his head—or gave the appearance of doing so. “For ’er, maybe, a wee house. But dat wud leave me here, in dis shitehole, if I split it.”
“Of course,” Darcy said. He removed another packet. “A thousand.”
“But yeh’re forgettin’ the kid. Kids’re expensive little buggers until dey’re old enough fer de chimneys.And that’s a few years.And if I decide to have some of me own? Sacrament of marriage an’ all, we’re all men ’ere.”
Darcy nodded as if everything this man said were reasonable, and removed another, larger packet. “Two thousand for Christian piety.”
“Whattaya know about Christian piety, English? Yer kings get divorced.Yeh gotta lot of makin’ up ta do.”
He rolled his eyes and looked at Grégoire, who did not even
have to nod. “Five thousand pounds.” He held up three more packets of a thousand in hundred-pound notes. “More money than you would ever see in your life, even if you worked the best job in the city from dawn ’til dusk, Mr. MacKenna.” This time, he did not put it on the table. He held it up for MacKenna to drool at. “I want to see Mrs. MacKenna.”
“What?”
“I have to know she’s in good health before I put down money for her long life in solitude.”
MacKenna looked at both of them, and crossed his arms. “Six thousand.”
“Perhaps you do not know the definition of ‘see’—”
“Six thousand.Yeah, so, a thousand to see me wife.” He nodded in the direction of Grégoire.“I know he’ll pay it.Yer lucky I’m not chargin’ fer both eyes.”
This was no small sum—except to Grégoire, who just nodded.
“Six thousand pounds,” Darcy said, putting the money on the table and offering his hand.
MacKenna looked at the gloved hand, spit in his own, and shook it. “Done.” He immediately picked up the bills and began stuffing them into his shirt.
“Not quite,” Darcy reminded him. “Your more immediate part of the bargain.”
“Caitlin!”
The woman who emerged was much as Grégoire had described her, good and bad. Wearing a filthy blue dress that did not even attempt to disguise her condition, she emerged barefoot from what was likely the bedroom. Her hair, a reddish blonde, was long and straight and flowed down her back, probably making her look younger than she was. Grégoire had said that she had told him she was twenty. Her face was swollen on one side, and she crossed her arms as if she was shivering, trying to make it to her husband’s side. She had not looked at Darcy except in passing; Grégoire was her only concern and his with her.
The Ballad of Gregoire Darcy Page 32
