The watch’s back side held the same pentagram symbol as the front. Even in daylight, the image of a spread-eagled man seemed to appear and disappear at its center. Who was the figure? Some dark pagan god Randolph had tried to invoke?
A noise at the door startled her. She slipped the watch into her pocket and turned to face the door.
Darcy entered. He closed the door behind him and paused, regarding her uncertainly. Once, there had been many such awkward moments between them, when prejudice and lies and pride and misunderstandings had clouded their vision of each other and themselves. But then they’d found their way to each other, and not since then had such tension hung between them as it did now.
“Eliz—”
“Dar—”
They spoke in unison, then stopped. She offered a half smile and saw relief enter his eyes. They were in accord once more.
After they embraced, she told him of the scene she’d witnessed between the Parrishes. “I felt sorry for her when Mr. Parrish got so angry,” she said, “and then I felt sorry for them both. The strain of recent weeks . . .”
“Yes, one can readily excuse a brief show of temper on Mr. Parrish’s part.”
“Still, to insist on his wife continuing to wear her wedding ring.” She fingered her own shiny band. “I can understand its significance to Mr. Parrish, but Caroline seemed to very much desire its absence for a while.”
Sliding Caroline’s ring from her finger had caused obvious pain, yet she had encouraged—indeed, silently begged—Elizabeth to remove it. The metal, further weighted by the oversize gem, must irritate the damaged skin beneath. Elizabeth recalled how, the night Caroline had suffered the injury, she had also encouraged its removal despite the agony caused by each attempt.
How had she suffered the burn, anyway? Now that Professor Randolph was implicated in other recent terrifying events, Elizabeth reconsidered her suspicions from that night. Had Caroline set the fire, or merely been injured by it? She posed the question to Darcy.
He shrugged. “With Kendall dead and Randolph gone, we may never know exactly what happened that night. It still might have been an accident—though one wonders how that dress came to be where it was—just as Mrs. Parrish’s injury may well have been accidental. Perhaps her nightdress caught fire and she hurt herself trying to put out the flames. That could explain how she came to be wearing servants’ clothes instead of her own.”
Darcy’s theory made sense on the surface, but something nagged at the fringes of her consciousness. She tried to imagine Caroline batting at a flaming nightgown. “Were that the case, would she not have suffered burns elsewhere on her person?”
“I suppose so.”
Elizabeth continued to envision other scenarios. “And if she tried to smother flames elsewhere, or started the blaze herself . . .” The mental pictures still didn’t look right. Something wasn’t fitting together. Something she couldn’t quite—She recalled Caroline scrawling her retort in the professor’s notebook during their interview.
“Darcy, is Mrs. Parrish right-handed?”
He mused a moment. “Yes, she is.” He caught her line of reasoning. “Yet she injured her left hand—and only her left.”
“Is that not curious?”
He concurred. “One would think she’d use her dominant hand out of instinct in such a situation.”
“Instead, she uses her off-hand. Why?” Another image flashed through her mind. “Professor Randolph was holding his watch to Caroline’s left hand when I walked in on his ritual.”
“I have given up trying to explain Randolph’s behavior.”
Her thoughts tumbled forward. “She fairly exploded at Randolph the day I sat with them. At the time, I believed her complaint was of the bandage, but now that I look back on it, I think she was trying to remove her ring.”
Darcy made a reply, something about Mrs. Parrish attempting to ease her discomfort, but Elizabeth’s mind raced too fast to hear him. She recalled her mother’s visit upon their arrival at Netherfield, and Caroline half-removing her ring then. That had been before the fire, before her burns.
She remembered Caroline holding up her left hand when she appeared, ghostlike, on the balcony; Caroline showing off the ring at her wedding breakfast . . . the last time Mrs. Parrish had truly seemed herself. She recollected the way the ring had radiated intense cold when she herself had removed it this morning—the same way Professor Randolph’s watch was unnaturally warm to her touch.
Her heartbeat accelerated. “Darcy, there is something baleful about that ring.”
A sigh was his only reply. But his expression revealed his thoughts. Once again, he did not believe her.
“Caroline has not been the same since she started wearing it.”
“Elizabeth,” he said gently. “If gaudy, overpriced jewelry caused madness, all the ton would be afflicted. Mrs. Parrish’s problems derive from more than a simple object.”
She bristled at his facile dismissal. “A simple object she’s been trying to remove almost from the day she started wearing it.”
“She has an injured hand. It chafes.”
“Maybe she injured her hand because of the ring. It caused her to be careless. Or—” her thoughts leapt—“she injured herself on purpose, for an excuse to remove it.”
Darcy closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. “Elizabeth . . .”
“Perhaps she scratched Mr. Parrish with it for the same reason. So he would take it from her.”
“Now you have strayed into absurdity. If Mrs. Parrish is that desperate to remove her wedding ring, why does she not simply take it off herself?”
“Because she doesn’t want to wound her husband’s feelings. Or—” The image of Professor Randolph intruded her thoughts once more. Somehow, she knew with certainty, the supernaturalist was involved. “Perhaps she physically cannot.”
“If you could slide it from her finger, what prevents her?”
“Randolph. He charmed or cursed it somehow, as part of whatever plot he’s working against the Parrishes.” At his scornful look, she pressed. “Consider, Darcy—he stood up with Mr. Parrish at the wedding. The ring was probably in his possession before the ceremony. He had ample opportunity to work his dreadful sorcery upon it.”
He looked heavenward, like a man praying for patience. “Elizabeth, I will not give credence to these preposterous notions. A man has died, and his suspected killer’s whereabouts are unknown. There is too much at stake to waste further time in fanciful conjecture.”
His words stung. He’d spoken to her as if reprimanding a child. That she loved him made his disbelief all the more painful. She knew she was right, knew there was more to Caroline’s condition and Kendall’s murder than cold facts. Why could he not set aside his deuced pride and trust her instincts?
She shook with frustration, anger, hurt. “Darcy, I need you to believe me in this.”
“I cannot.”
She swallowed hard and willed her voice to steady. “Then I guess there’s nothing left to say.”
She walked past him, silently begging him to stop her. But he let her pass unchecked, and did not even turn around to see her close the door. He must have heard it, though, for she applied enough force to rattle the frame. Then she headed down the hall, back to the Parrishes’ chamber.
If Darcy would not save Caroline from that ring, she would.
Twenty-nine
“Handsome men must have something to live on, as well as the plain.”
Elizabeth, writing to Mrs. Gardiner,
Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 26
Darcy stayed in the room but a minute following Elizabeth’s decisive exit. He did not want to argue with her. Truly he did not. Clashing with his wife left his stomach knotted. But these ideas! How could he, or any reasonable man, be expected to take them seriously? How could she?
If the truth were ever to be discovered, it would be through deduction, not intuition. A review of the facts, not I sense things sometimes. How could he take “
I sense things sometimes” to the magistrate as evidence of guilt? Arrest this man—he attacked his victims with a ring and a pocketwatch. He’d be laughed out of the county.
No, reason and logic would prevail. And it stood to reason that a man with his hands in as many pockets as Lawrence Kendall would keep some record of his affairs. He’d produced papers enough where Bingley was concerned—perhaps he possessed other documents that would reveal a clearer link between him and Randolph.
To Darcy’s knowledge, no one had yet gone through Kendall’s personal effects. Now that his daughter had arrived, those items would soon be transported out of his reach. He had better examine them now, before Juliet Kendall ordered them packed up and loaded onto her coach. If she had not already.
He passed no one in the hall on his way to Kendall’s chamber, to his satisfaction. He could not bear another spat with Elizabeth just now, and in his present mood had no patience for anyone else. He arrived, however, to find Kendall’s quarters occupied.
Juliet Kendall sat at the desk. In her hand she held a closely written page, one of a sheaf of papers spread before her. Damn! She had beaten him to Kendall’s documents; he would never see them now. He braced himself for her vitriol.
She glanced up to see who had interrupted her reading. “Mr. Darcy,” she acknowledged. Her voice was uneven, her expression stricken.
The strain of her father’s death must be wearing on her. Though it seemed ungentlemanly to press that advantage, he tried to rapidly devise a strategy that would persuade her to let him see Kendall’s records. Ultimately, he assured his conscience, he was only trying to help her by identifying her father’s killer.
“Miss Kendall.” He bowed. “Forgive my intrusion. Are you finding everything all right?”
“I am finding more than I expected,” she replied. “Including this.” She handed him a letter.
New Orleans
1 September 18——
Dear Sir,
After a perilous Atlantic crossing, I reached Louisiana and have spent the past three weeks performing the enquiries you entrusted to me. Your suspicions are confirmed: Mr. Frederick Parrish is not the man he claims to be.
The local authorities were unfamiliar with him by the name Parrish, which I presume he adopted when he arrived in London. But when I showed them the likeness you had the foresight to commission without his knowledge, they recognized him immediately as Jack Diamond (also assumed to be an alias). Diamond is a drifter; no one quite knows where he came from before arriving in New Orleans. In the twelvemonth or so he spent here, he earned his living as a pickpocket and a swindler, with a talent for confidence games. His disarming persona fooled everyone; it was not until he killed the son of a wealthy plantation owner in a knife fight that his true nature became known.
Diamond disappeared from the area about a year ago and has not been heard of since. Many thought him dead. He had made lots of enemies, including several prospective grandfathers—if you understand my meaning.
Mont Joyau (“Mount Jewel”), Parrish’s alleged estate, does not exist. The painting in his drawing room is a copy of one commonly for sale in the French Quarter; the artist tells me it is inspired by several nearby plantations but depicts none in particular.
As for Mr. Parrish’s associate, Julian Randolph, I have learned little. He did hold a legitimate university post at one time but was dismissed for unspecified reasons. He is known to frequent pawnbrokers’ shops. I will endeavor to learn more of him before returning to England. I have booked passage on the Seahawk, which sets sail one fortnight hence.
I am, sir, your most obedient servant—
By the time he finished reading, Darcy gripped the letter so tightly it crumpled on one side. Parrish—or Diamond, or whatever the scoundrel’s name was—had deceived them all. All except Kendall, who had been smart enough to have his daughter’s suitor investigated. Would that he and Bingley had been so wise! Distracted by their own marital preparations, they had accepted the “gentleman” at his word and allowed Caroline to marry a dangerous fortune hunter.
Kendall, meanwhile, had reveled in their ignorance. In fact, he’d been so full of his own superiority at knowing what they did not, that he was unable to completely contain himself. He’d dropped smug hints about Parrish’s character—at dinner, during the billiards game—which they’d all interpreted as mere sour grapes over the broken courtship.
He glanced to Miss Kendall. “Did you know any of this?”
She shook her head. “When my father forced Mr. Parrish to end our courtship, he implied that he had disparaging information about Frederick. I tried to hint as much to Caroline. That’s why I asked her to go riding that day—I started thinking about the times we’d played together as girls and felt I owed her that much. But I never imagined this. Merciful heavens! Thievery, seduction, murder—what crime has he not committed?”
They could probably add involvement in Kendall’s death to the list. Given Kendall’s goading comments to Parrish and the hints he dropped to everyone else, Parrish must have known Juliet’s father possessed this information. Kendall’s continued presence at Netherfield therefore posed a threat to whatever plans Parrish had for Caroline, and the risk of exposure would be too great for Parrish to tolerate long. Kendall could even have been blackmailing Parrish. Given the businessman’s dealings with Hurst, it would come as little surprise, and would explain why he had brought the letter along with him to Netherfield.
Was Parrish responsible for other events as well? The carriage accident? The fire? Darcy would have to reconsider all of his previous theories. But now he hadn’t the time. He had to warn the others of Parrish’s duplicity. He shoved the letter back into Miss Kendall’s hands. “Show this to Mr. Bingley.”
“Where are you going?”
He hurried out the door, his heart hammering. Frederick Parrish was capable of anything, and he held the trust of the entire household.
Including Elizabeth.
Thirty
“There is but such a quantity of merit between them; just enough to make one good sort of man; and of late it has been shifting about pretty much.”
Elizabeth to Jane, Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 40
For the second time that morning, Elizabeth knocked at the Parrishes’ chamber. This time it was Mr. Parrish who answered. He had removed his coat and cravat; the top buttons of his shirt were open. He appeared dour, as if his earlier displeasure yet lingered.
“I am glad to find you still here,” she said. He held the door open but a little, so that she could not see inside. “Is Mrs. Parrish within?”
“She is resting.”
Elizabeth hesitated to disturb her, but thought the errand should not wait. “I believe I may have important intelligence to share with you both.”
His brows rose. “Indeed?” He studied her face for a moment before opening the door wider and stepping back a pace. “Come in.”
She noticed as she passed him that he wore some sort of medallion around his neck beneath his shirt. It appeared to be fashioned of braided hair, in several hues, knotted together. She recalled the amulet he had proposed making for Caroline and wondered if he wore a similar article.
Caroline was abed, sitting up with pillows propped behind her. Though she opened her eyes upon Elizabeth’s entrance, they stared vacantly, as if not recognizing the visitor. Her hands lay motionless in her lap.
Elizabeth shivered. It was cold in here; the fire sputtered in the grate. Outside, heavy flakes of snow had begun to fall rapidly, casting the room in dimness. She wondered that Mr. Parrish hadn’t asked a servant to bank up the fire.
She walked toward the bed and greeted Caroline, but received no response. The wedding ring remained on Mrs. Parrish’s left hand. It looked innocuous enough. But as Elizabeth neared the ring, the skin on the back of her neck prickled, and a sense of foreboding settled upon her.
Parrish closed the door. “What is this news?”
“I think I know what ails Mrs. Parris
h.”
He started in surprise, then recovered himself. “Truly? I am all attention.”
She took a deep breath, anticipating the incredulous reaction she’d received from Darcy. If her own husband didn’t believe her, what chance did she have of convincing Parrish that the very ring he’d given his wife as a symbol of his affection was the source of all her problems? But the longer she stood in proximity to the ring, the more certain she became that her intuition was correct.
“Please do not accuse me of reading too many novels,” she said, “but I believe the ring you gave Mrs. Parrish bears some sort of curse.”
He laughed. But it was not a merry sound, nor one of casual dismissal. It was a sinister cackle. His countenance changed, the characteristic openness suddenly replaced by a hardened mask. “Why, Mrs. Darcy, you are more intelligent than even I gave you credit for.”
Dread swept her. He knew. The ring was cursed, and he already knew.
“Too smart for your own preservation.”
In an eyeblink, he had a knife in hand, pulled from his boot before she realized he’d reached for it. The blade glittered in the weak firelight.
She instinctively retreated a step, evoking more laughter from him.
“That’s right—back up. Closer to my helpless wife.”
She glanced at Caroline, who lethargically observed them as if watching a theatrical. “What have you done to her?”
“Improved her disposition. Don’t you agree?”
“I concur with Mr. Kendall. Marriage does not seem to agree with her.”
“Take care, Mrs. Darcy. Or you’ll meet the same fate he did.” He spun the knife in his hand. “Only Kendall never saw it coming.”
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