Duty and Desire: A Novel of Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman
: Chapter 12

Alarmed by Sayre’s angry rumblings, the other gentlemen, who gathered now about him, demanded to know their cause. “Barricades!” Lord Chelmsford roughly caught his younger cousin by the arm. “What is this, Sayre?” Manning quickly joined him and in the strongest of terms required that he also be informed.

“It is nothing!” Sayre glared at them both, then hissed, “The ladies, gentlemen! You are frightening the ladies!” That, at least, observed Darcy, was true. Drawbridge, barricade, and magistrate had been words clearly discernible across the room, causing the ladies to gather in a knot around Monmouth and Poole, their fear-widened eyes set in faces now paled beneath their artful paint.

“What is it, Sayre?” Her Ladyship spoke barely above a whisper, advancing uncertainly upon her husband.

“It is nothing!” Sayre repeated, shaking off Chelmsford and Manning to gather his lady’s hands in his own. “Some ruffians,” he admitted when confronted with her searching gaze, “but the servants will deal with them, and the magistrate has been sent for. There is nothing to fear.”

Lady Sayre’s anguished eyes traveled from her husband to rest upon Lady Sylvanie. “Why?” she asked plaintively, her voice catching in a sob. “Why tonight? You promised it would be tonight.”

“Hush, Letty.” Sayre began drawing her toward the door. “All will be well. You should retire…. I shall instruct your maid to bring you something soothing, but you really should retire for the evening.” They were almost to the door when Her Ladyship seized hold of her lord’s arm.

“You will come to me tonight, Sayre? Later—even if I should fall asleep. You will come! Promise me!” Sayre’s reply was lost in the sound of the door opening. Murmured instructions being given to a footman were all Darcy could hear, but it did not signify, for his attention was engaged elsewhere. After Lady Sayre’s outburst, the eyes of the room had briefly turned to Lady Sylvanie, but interest in the drama being enacted between the Sayres had drawn them away again. With everyone’s attention focused on the couple, Lady Sylvanie had retreated into the shadows of the library, carefully making her way along its perimeter to the door.

She is going to bolt! His conviction was certain, and putting action to thought, Darcy strode purposefully across the room. “My lady,” he addressed her with feigned solicitude, “you cannot be so concerned with Sayre’s ‘ruffians’ that you would desert us?”

“N-no, of course not,” she replied, clearly angered by his interruption of her design. “Lady Sayre will desire my presence as she prepares to retire. I should go to her.”

“It did not appear to me that it was your presence which she desired tonight.” He cocked a brow at her.

“I assure you she does, sir!” The lady’s ire rose. “I…I promised her as much.”

“Ah, yes. She did mention a promise; a promise you had made her.” Lady Sylvanie’s lips curved into a small, triumphant smile. “But, my lady, there is also a promise that you gave to me, that you should be ‘my lady’ this evening. My object is now at hand; therefore, I cannot allow you to leave.”

“But, you do not p-perfectly understand.” Lady Sylvanie struggled to control the tremor in her voice, whether from anger or fear, he could not discern.

“Does any man?” he countered wryly, then softened his voice to coax, “Come, Lady Sayre is well taken care of by her maid and serving women. Sit with me, and when I win the sword, you may go where you will. Or do you no longer maintain faith in your talisman…or the strength of your will?” His challenge stirred up the fire in her countenance, but that flame warred with an uneasiness she could not disguise.

“Darcy!” Sayre’s call prevented him from pressing his advantage. He turned back to the room and Sayre, who was already seated at the table. “We are ready to begin, if you would be so kind.” Unable to resist the lure of the game or the nature of the stakes, the other gentlemen had quieted their consciences on the fears of their ladies and were once more ranged around the table for firsthand observation of the contest.

“My lady?” Darcy offered his arm in a manner that communicated he would not brook denial. “It appears that our presence is unquestionably required.” He rigidly schooled his countenance against any revelation of the cold uncertainty that gripped his chest at her hesitation. Fletcher had not yet returned, and if Sylvanie refused him, she would certainly disappear into whatever hidden corner of the castle contained her missing companion. A small, fleeting smile was all that betrayed his profound relief when the lady placed her hand on his arm.

“Mr. Darcy,” she acquiesced, pronouncing his name with terse, reluctant grace, her delicate jaw set hard. He led her back to her seat behind his right shoulder. Bowing over her hand, he then turned to the assemblage, nodded to Sayre, and took his own chair. Glittering in the light of the candles, the Spanish saber lay on the table between them, entwined in the silk scarf that had protected it in its passage through the castle. Beside it lay Darcy’s purse, nearly overflowing with his night’s winnings.

“Shall we begin?” Darcy looked straight into Sayre’s eyes and was not ungratified to see him flinch. The man was unnerved, and why should he not be? An angry mob advanced on his estate; the loyalty of his staff was uncertain; his estate was in financial ruin; his relations held him in animus; vile, unchristian acts had been performed on his lands; his lady lay undone in her chambers above them; and now his prized possession was on the table. Pity for the man threatened to soften Darcy until Sayre reached for the cards. The avaricious gleam that suffused his face once the instruments of his destruction were in his hand drove the impulse from Darcy’s heart. If Sayre would sacrifice all to his passion, then so be it. He would reserve his sympathy for those of the household toward whom it was due. Darcy wondered briefly how many of the servants and housemaids he might be called upon to absorb into Pemberley.

A click at the door brought Darcy’s chin up, and out the corner of his eye he observed the welcome form of Fletcher. “Your pardon, sir,” he offered as he took up his accustomed place at Darcy’s left. Then, “Excuse me, sir, this seems to have been mislaid.” He bent down and appeared to retrieve something from the floor. “A golden boy, Mr. Darcy. Gone missing.” Fletcher straightened and laid a bright golden guinea on the table. “And Shylock without the door. I should be more careful, sir.” Darcy nodded and tossed the coin into the purse. Fletcher’s message was clear. The mob had gathered because of the missing child and was desirous of no less than blood for blood. Darcy looked down at Lady Sylvanie’s favor, still pinned to his breast. He would have none of it. Whatever the outcome of the game, the lady must have no claim upon him. With deliberation, he pulled at the decorative pin, and as the talisman fell into his hand, a frustrated, angry gasp came from beside him.

“Madam.” He turned and, with a cool smile, deflected the fire in her enraged eyes before dropping the linen scrap into her insistent hand. Turning back to the table, he nodded to Monmouth, who stood ready with the coin for the toss. “Heads,” he called as his hand, of its own volition, drifted to the embroidery threads inside his waistcoat pocket. Goodness and good sense.

Darcy won the toss of the coin. He shuffled the deck and offered Sayre the cut. That formality performed, he began dealing out the cards in tierce until each of them had received his dozen. Laying the last aside, Darcy retrieved his hand, and quickly touting up his ruff, sequences, and kinds, he chose his discards, closed his fan, and regarded Sayre with a raised brow.

Across the table, with the purse and sword dividing them, Sayre arranged his hand in a heavy silence that was dutifully observed by all the gentlemen dispersed about them. He licked his lips; bit the lower and then the upper before breaking the quiet that had descended upon them.

“Blank.” He coughed and then repeated himself. “B-blank.” Trenholme groaned softly in the background, eliciting a sharp command from his brother to “shut his jobbernowl.” Darcy nodded his understanding and marked down Sayre’s 10 points in compensation for his unusual lack of court cards. His opponent studied his cards with an assiduous eye and, with jaw set as stone, discarded cards and reached for replacements in the stock. One, two…Darcy betrayed no surprise in Sayre’s decision to replace half of his hand, but with a steady, disinterested regard, he waited for him to arrange his new cards. When they were finally ranked to his satisfaction, Sayre reached for the next two cards in the stock and, as was his privilege, noted them and set them back down. Relaxing somewhat, he leaned back into his chair.

“Darcy,” he invited with a fine show of noblesse oblige, indicating the depleted stock. Darcy pushed his discards over to join Sayre’s and snapped up three from the stock. Briefly noting their value, he set them atop the others in his hand, and lifting the last card, he committed it to memory and placed it back on the table.

“Your bid?” Darcy’s modulated voice still carried across the room and seemed to echo off the bare shelves.

“Forty-eight.” Sayre looked keenly up at him after laying out his ruff of spades. The attention of the room shifted from the cards on the table back to Darcy.

“Fifty-one,” he returned, displaying the diamond-pipped cards.

“Fifty-one it is,” breathed Monmouth. “Gentlemen, you are both down for five points.” Darcy gathered up his cards and waited for Sayre’s next play.

“Six cards, ace high,” Sayre announced and splayed them out in front of him.

“One quart,” Monmouth announced. “Four points to Sayre for a total nine.”

“The same.” Darcy pulled out his sequence for Sayre’s perusal. His Lordship’s gaze flashed expertly over the cards. A brow twitched.

“No winner,” Monmouth reported, “but a quint for Darcy for fifteen points, making a total of twenty. Gentlemen?”

“A quatorze of queens.” Sayre threw down each royal lady as if she were at fault for his previous deficiency.

“Of jacks.” Darcy displayed his cards.

“To Sayre.” Monmouth looked at Darcy with concern and put Sayre down for 14 more points. “Twenty-and-three.” His Lordship’s smile was more of relief than of triumph, and he hurriedly pulled out an additional ternary for 3 more points. “Twenty-

and-six then.” Monmouth touted up Sayre’s points. “To Darcy’s tw——”

A disturbance at the door drowned out Monmouth’s announcement, and the sight of Norwycke’s ancient butler entering into the room brought Sayre to his feet. “What is it now?” he growled before he’d had a clear view of the man. Then, “Good God, man! What the devil has happened!”

At Sayre’s first protest, Darcy had risen and swung around his chair, alert for any eventuality. He now stood by Fletcher, and the two of them exchanged warning glances as the old retainer stumbled farther into the room. The man was a fright. His neckcloth, half undone, dangled down over his thin chest, and his powdered wig was aslant. His rheumy eyes were stricken with fear and, oddly enough, thought Darcy, sadness.

“My lord…my lord,” the man gasped.

“Yes! Speak, man!” Sayre thundered.

“I could not, my lord! Served you, your father, grandfather…all my life. Could not betray—”

“Betray! Who betrays me?” Sayre’s voice raged and echoed against the library’s walls, wavering between anger and fear, and caused the ladies to demand what was the matter.

The old man swayed in the face of his master’s fury. “The servants, my lord. They will not take up your defense at the castle gate. Some”—he gulped—“some have said that they’ll not defend the evil within from the righteous anger without. Give up the child, my lord, I beg you!”

“Oh, my God!” cried Trenholme.

“Child? What child?” roared Sayre. The question was taken up by the rest of the room as they rushed to Sayre, but Darcy swiveled around, intent on a quite different object.

“Fletcher! Where is Lady Sylvanie?”

While the whole of the room formed a clamorous circle about Sayre, Darcy and Fletcher scanned its shadowy recesses in search of the lady. Several of the candles, he noted, seemed to have been extinguished, casting the edges of the great old room into darkness.

“There, sir, at the door!” Fletcher’s clear voice galvanized him into action, and soon both men were circling the other distraught, fearful guests in a bid for the door. That achieved, they stepped together into an empty hallway, lit in only one direction by a few feeble candles. Which way had she taken? “Mr. Darcy, I fear—” his valet began.

“Yes, into the darkness. Come!” Darcy plunged forward, Fletcher beside him, racing into the deepening shadows. They quickly reached a juncture with another corridor sunken almost completely in night. Another decision! “Listen!” Darcy commanded and endeavored to quiet his breathing and the beat of blood through his veins. Faintly, the tapping sound of a woman’s slippers disturbed the unearthly somnolence that seemed to hang in the air. “There!”

“She is making for the older portion of the castle.” Fletcher’s whisper echoed eerily as they turned in pursuit of the sound. “She’ll be the very Devil to replace if—”

“Then we must enlist the aid of Providence,” Darcy said over his shoulder as he took the hall at a rapid stalk, his ear cocked against the tapping of his quarry.

“I have, sir, and regularly since we arrived at this…place.”

As most men born to privilege, Darcy had long become accustomed to the presence of servants about their duties in even his most private apartments; therefore, the utter lack of any of that class in their traversal of the castle impressed him as singularly ominous. The old butler had spoken the truth. Little—if any—aid in defense of Norwycke could be expected from Sayre’s people, and once emboldened by the numbers outside, they were more than likely also to take up the hunt for Lady Sylvanie and her companion. He and Fletcher must reach them first or who knew what outrage might be committed to haunt the halls of Norwycke and the consciences of its inhabitants and guests?

Ahead of them and around another corner, a door was heard to shut with a soft click. Rounding the corner first, Darcy was confounded by a Stygian darkness that, try as he would, he could not pierce. Evidently they had passed belowground. “A candle! Fletcher, did you see any candles?”

“A moment, sir!” Darcy heard his valet fumble about his clothing, and in short order, a candle was shoved into his hand. “Hold it before you, sir.” Darcy stretched out his arm. Never before had the sound of a flint being struck been so welcome.

“You brought a candle?” Darcy caught Fletcher’s eye in wonderment as the flickering candle created a hesitant pool of light. His valet merely returned him a crooked grin before both of them turned to survey the passage. From the look of it, they were in a long-unused portion of the castle’s storehouse, for a series of doors set in stone walls marched along as far as their meager light could illumine. Holding the candle high, Darcy took a few exploratory steps, his ear cocked to the side to catch any sound, but all was silent.

“Mr. Darcy,” Fletcher called in a low voice, “the candle! Please, sir!” Darcy returned swiftly and handed him the candle.

“Have you discovered something?”

“When you walked before me, sir, I noticed—There! Do you see, sir?” Darcy peered down in the direction of Fletcher’s finger. Footprints! Vaguely outlined in the dust of the abandoned hall were his own footprints where he had preceded Fletcher down the passage. If his could be detected, then could not Sylvanie’s be also? Taking the candle, Darcy held it low, searching for a disturbance in the dusty passage that was not of his own making. Precious minutes ticked by while he ranged to and fro across the corridor, but his careful search was finally rewarded.

“Here! Fletcher!” he shouted in triumph. Then, hoping that the door would not be locked from within, he pulled on the handle. The massive door, swinging back obediently on noiseless hinges, opened upon a room that seemed unusually bright after their dark passage through the castle. Both Darcy and Fletcher blinked and squinted as they stepped inside, their one small candle ridiculously faint against the light that now surrounded them.

“Darcy!” Lady Sylvanie appeared suddenly out of the penumbra cast by the many flaming candles. She advanced upon him, an imperious look upon her face. “You should not have followed me!”

Stung by her continuing hauteur in the face of her impossible situation, Darcy drew up and matched her will with his own. “My lady, should or no is immaterial,” he declared icily. “I am here, and here to warn you that you can proceed no further. You endanger your brother’s life, the well-being of his guests, and the future of the servants of this house with this detestable course! Give over! A mob is at the very doors of the castle. Release the child to me, and I will see to it that you and your companion leave Norwycke unharmed and bound for wherever you will.”

“You will see…!” she sputtered.

“You have my word on it, but you must understand this.” He leaned over her, his eyes commanding. “I do not negotiate. Your game is played out, and you have lost!”

“You are mistaken, sir, if you think to frighten me or engage my sympathy for my ‘brother.’” Lady Sylvanie’s lips curved in derision. “What sympathy did he have for me when he packed my mother and me off to a cold pile of stone and moss in Ireland? Did he care that we almost starved?” Her voice rose higher. “Does he quake before his god at the remembrance of what he has done to his own father’s wife, his own sister, who shared his blood?”

“Sayre has, indeed, much to answer for—”

“And answer he shall! Tonight he was to have been called to account, if you—”

“If I had ruined him, as you hoped?” Darcy bridled. “What else? Was I to offer you marriage after I had brought him low?”

“If I wished it,” she replied. Her eyes flashed insolently, then narrowed upon him. “And I may still.” She turned from him then, hugging herself as she stepped away. “I will have vengeance, Darcy! I will see Sayre brought down!” She turned back to him, the fairy fierceness he had admired when they first met glowing now with unnatural fervor. “It is promised me, and no one will deny me now!”

Darcy looked at her in wonder. So deep, so unforgiving was the lady’s resentment of her past and her family that she had set herself at war with all the world. If she had ever been whole, her looks and words warned him that now she was not. She had become instead a broken creature for whom the world was not atonement enough for her pain.

“You would destroy Sayre and all around him then, lady? Those innocent of your mistreatment as well as the guilty?”

“Have you never desired revenge, Darcy?” Lady Sylvanie’s voice dropped almost to a whisper. Against his will, he stepped closer to catch her words. “Has no one ever hurt you, almost destroyed you?” Darcy froze, a chill frisson traveling as lightning up his back. “Taken what was most dear to you…” One name, excluding all other thought, burned in his mind. “…twisted it, defamed it beyond recognition or redemption?” Bitter anger rose from his heart so suddenly it almost choked him.

“Yes,” she drawled softly, “you have. You desire it still. What is its name?” Wickham’s smirking face—the triumphant mien, the satirical eye—arose before him as it had been when he had discovered it at Ramsgate, then again, in Hertfordshire. “Remember it, Darcy! Think on what was done to you, to those you love. The betrayal, the pain.” Georgiana! He saw once more the sorrow-laden shadow that had been his sweet, innocent sister before…Wickham. He had come so close, so very, very close to destroying them all.

He has been so unlucky as to lose your friendship. The accusation in Elizabeth Bennet’s voice and in the eyes she had laid upon him arose in his mind’s eye and flayed him anew. He saw himself that night, mute before her charge, his last opportunity to recover himself in her esteem—ruined! Wickham! A deep groan formed in his chest.

“You have suffered its bitterness long enough, borne the pain of it beyond endurance!” Lady Sylvanie’s words drew him. “Reason will not soothe, logic does not answer; they have no power. Embrace passion, Darcy. Embrace ‘th’unconquerable will, and study of revenge.’ I can guide you, help you—comfort you—in the way!”

Revenge! The temptation she offered grew in his mind, and for a moment, Darcy allowed himself a glimpse into the desire that had lurked deep within his heart from the first time Wickham had deceitfully shamed him in front of his father to Georgiana’s months of pain.

“But the child, Your Ladyship.” Fletcher’s soft plea broke through Darcy’s heightened senses and arrested Lady Sylvanie’s flow of words. “Have mercy, dear lady!”

Lady Sylvanie hesitated, then turned from Darcy to face the valet. “The child will come to no real harm, save for a few plucked hairs and several nights away from its mother. Its usefulness is nearly at an end. Lady Sayre will be convinced she has conceived before the week is out, and then the child will be returned.” She laughed. “Can you imagine! That cow! She believed my tale that if she suckled a peasant’s child and swallowed some herbs, she could cure the barrenness of her womb. As if I would help her against my own interests!”

“Lady, you have no week.” Darcy recovered himself from the mesmerism of her words. “You have only minutes before the mob that confronts your brother at this very moment descends into this hall in search of that child.” He advanced upon her, determined to force the issue. “I say again, my lady, give over. It is all ended. Bring him to me now, or your safety can in nowise be certain.”

“Give over! When all is within our grasp?” The voice rang out strongly and echoed against the chamber’s stone walls. A door set low in the wall and down a few steps behind Lady Sylvanie opened, and the bowed shape of her companion ascended the stairs, a child limp in her arms. “The time is at hand, and we stand in no need of your feeble help!”

“Doyle!” Lady Sylvanie gasped sharply as the old woman pushed her aside and faced Darcy.

“Mr. Darcy has worked it all out, have you not, Mr. Darcy? Or is it your manservant who has pieced it all together? Clever man”—she sneered—“but not clever enough. Men never are.” Darcy’s astonishment at her boldness was nothing to his doubt of his senses when the crippled serving woman seemed to grow before his eyes. Her preter-natural increase in stature was matched by a decrease in age as, with a mocking smile that was now level with his face, she untied her widow’s cap and threw it from her. Hair black as night, touched lightly with streaks of gray, tumbled down about her shoulders.

“Lady Sayre!” exclaimed Fletcher, in awe at the now straightened figure that stood defiantly before them.

“Yes, Lady Sayre,” she answered him but did not take her eyes from Darcy. “Not that plaything upon which my stepson has lavished the title. Twelve long years it has been, and all would have been set to right already tonight, Mr. Darcy, if you had acted as you were bid.” Her eyes slid to her daughter. “He is right in one thing, Sylvanie. We must leave now, but we do not leave empty-handed, defeated. We will have our full measure of—”

With her attention diverted from him, Darcy moved to seize the child; but as he made his move, the woman brought a small, intricately carved silver dagger to the child’s throat. “Mamá!” Lady Sylvanie cried as Darcy froze, his eyes flying to meet hers in alarm. “What are you doing?”

“‘Une femme a toujours une vengeance prête,’ ma petite!” Lady Sayre replied with a laugh. “Stand away from the door, sirs!”

From the corner of his eye, Darcy could see Fletcher slowly moving around them. “What will you do with the child once you are free from Norwycke, ma’am?” Darcy demanded, centering the lady’s attention upon himself.

“I think you know, Mr. Darcy.”

“Another visit to the King’s Stone? It has been you; has it not? Rabbits, kittens, pigs…” Lady Sayre’s lips twitched as he cataloged her activities. “It was you I saw that first night, returning from the Stone and your latest—” His face darkened with disgust. “In point of fact, the entire plan has been yours from the beginning. Tell me, is Sayre’s agent still alive, or is he buried in some forgotten place in Ireland?”

“Tell him it is not so, Mamá.” Lady Sylvanie looked desperately at her mother, but she did not reply. “The child is in no danger,” she declared again hotly as she turned to Darcy, “and the man was paid off. I saw the purse! He is somewhere in America!”

“Truly, my lady?” Darcy addressed Lady Sayre in a voice heavy with sarcasm. “Sayre’s man is living happily in America, and the child will remain unharmed?”

“Tell him, Mamá!” Sylvanie’s eyes glistened with anger. At that moment a shout echoed faintly from somewhere above them.

“The rabble from the village has breached Sayre’s defenses,” Darcy observed calmly. “Most likely they are ranging through the castle as we speak. Madam, I believe you have run out of time.”

“Sylvanie, leave us!” Lady Sayre ordered, her eyes flaming.

“Mamá, I cannot leave you—”

“Go, now! You know where!” cried Lady Sayre. With a low wail, Sylvanie shook her head, tears streaming down her face. “Sylvanie, obey me!”

“Mamá,” she sobbed, and turning away, she stumbled out into the black corridor. They listened to her running footsteps until they faded into the darkness.

“You have destroyed her; you must know that,” Darcy whispered.

“You know nothing,” Lady Sayre spat at him. She shifted the child in her arms. Throughout their interview he had not stirred. Darcy decided that he must have been drugged and that it was a mercy. If the child had struggled, he would probably now be dead. “You do not know what it is to love someone to distraction, to bear him a child,” she continued. “To raise his ungrateful sons, gladly suffering the snubs of his relatives and friends, only to lose him to a stupid accident and an incompetent surgeon.” Fletcher had by this time made his way to a table covered with candles and made a motion of tipping it. Darcy nodded.

“And then Sayre sent you and your daughter to Ireland, where, for twelve years, you plotted this elaborate scheme of revenge.”

“Yes, just as I thought: a clever man and almost my son-in-law. Think of that! But I can stay in your delightful company no longer, sir.” She moved to the door.

“Now!” Darcy shouted. With a great clatter, Fletcher sent the table over as Darcy leapt the distance to Lady Sayre and laid hold of the hand clutching the silver dagger. Fletcher was soon at his side and, with several strong, quick tugs, wrested the child from Lady Sayre’s startled grasp. A scream of rage erupted from the lady, and for a brief time, it was all Darcy could do to maintain his hold on her without doing her an injury. Finally, he was forced to exert such pressure on her arm and wrist that, with a cry of pain, she dropped the dagger to the floor.

“Your pardon, my lady.” Darcy released the pressure but retained the lady’s arms in an unforgiving hold. More shouts and the sound of boots outside the chamber caused the three of them to look toward the door. Trenholme’s face was the first to appear, followed by Sayre’s and Poole’s.

“Oh, my God!” Trenholme almost fell as he tried to back out of the chamber. “Lady Sayre!”

“Here!” demanded Sayre, pushing his brother aside. “Darcy! What are you—Ah!” Sayre’s eyes nearly started out of his head as his stepmother’s visage came into view. “But you’re dead! The letter…it said you were dead!” he squeaked.

“And I am, Sayre. Dead and returned to haunt you.” Lady Sayre laughed cruelly, then under her breath launched into a string of arcanum that caused Sayre and his brother to go white with fear. More footsteps were heard, and Monmouth poked in his head.

“Lady Sylvanie?” He looked at Lady Sayre in confusion.

“Her mother,” Poole supplied.

“Mother? That cannot be, Poole; her mother’s dead! Does look dashed like her, though! Cousin, maybe.”

“Tris,” Darcy interrupted Monmouth’s speculations. “Lady Sylvanie has escaped down the corridor. Perhaps you could replace her and escort her back?” Monmouth grinned and saluted him before ducking out and taking up the new chase. Darcy peered over Lady Sayre’s shoulder to her older stepson. “The mob, what happened?”

Sayre looked at Darcy vaguely, as if in a dream, but Poole stood ready. “We stopped them at the drawbridge, Darcy. Showed ’em our pistols and some of Sayre’s musketry. That held them until the magistrate came with his bullyboys.” He motioned to Fletcher, who still held the insensible child in his arms. “That the brat they wanted?”

“That is the child, yes. Fletcher, it might be wise to see to returning the child to his parents,” Darcy instructed. “But take care still. Perhaps a note to the magistrate first?”

“Yes sir, Mr. Darcy.” Fletcher inclined his head and, with a tired sigh, wound his way out of the crowded room.

“Sayre!” Darcy next addressed His Lordship sharply. “What do you want done with Her Ladyship? Sayre! Do you hear?”

“Done?” Sayre continued to cringe from the figure of his stepmother, who had not ceased her mutterings as she stared at him with a fixed hatred. “Done?” he repeated weakly.

“And then what did that pompous lobcock say? I always said he had more squeak than wool!” Colonel Fitzwilliam downed the last of his brandy and set the glass on the mantel in his cousin’s study. Darcy had been home from Oxfordshire for a week, but military duties had kept his cousin from Erewile House until today. It had been just as well. He’d not been ready to tell the tale. He had even succeeded in resisting Dy’s subtle questioning, causing his friend to shake his head and roundly declare that he was “the most un-amiable person of my acquaintance” to deny him what must be “the most delicious scandal of the season.” Even now he had been judicious in his recounting of the affair. Nor had Georgiana teased him with pleas for a recital of his visit. One look at his face when he had returned home and she had ordered a great quantity of tea and cakes to be brought to his study. She had then proceeded to make him comfortable in every way, plying him with the sweets and stroking his arm as they sat together on the divan, softly telling him of her activities while he was away. He’d very nearly fallen asleep on her shoulder.

“Sayre? Neither Sayre nor Trenholme was of any help, so shocked—or guilty, I know not which—that they were witless. So, we bundled Lady Sayre up to the living quarters, where Chelmsford and Manning met us, pistols still in hand. A decision had to be made, but you never saw such a collection of craven idiots! Finally, Manning could take no more and declared that he didn’t care whether she was Lady Sayre or not but he was sending down to the village for the magistrate to take her into custody; and he wished her in Hell or Newgate for what she’d done, whichever came first.”

Richard let out a low whistle. “Manning was ever a nasty piece of work even if he did hint you on.” Darcy tipped his own brandy glass in agreement and took another swallow. It furnished him an excellent excuse to pause in his story. What came next would be difficult. His cousin allowed him his silence, busying himself at the hearth with the poker. Had Georgiana warned him before he came up? Probably. Darcy opened his mouth to begin, but the words were not there. Richard noticed his frown and, sighing at the sight, asked quietly, “What happened, Fitz?”

“When Lady Sayre saw that Manning had swayed the others into a decision, she erupted into a horrific rage. It was the most hellish thing I have ever seen, Richard. She twisted and turned so, then finally, she brought her heel down onto my foot with such force that I lost my grip on her.”

“That was all she needed,” Richard supplied.

Darcy’s lips formed a thin, straight line as he nodded. “All and enough. She lunged for Manning. I thought she intended to knock him over, but instead, she went for the pistol he had tucked into his breeches. In an instant, she had it cocked and swept the room. Manning yelled out that it had a hair trigger, and I will confess, I dove for cover just like the rest.”

“The only sensible thing to do,” Richard approved.

“Yes…well.” Darcy swallowed and looked pensively into the amber liquid that remained in his glass. Then, with a snap, he downed it. “She laughed at us then, laughed and cursed us all. As soon as we heard her footsteps running down one of the corridors, we recovered ourselves and went after her. We hadn’t gotten far, Richard, when a shot rang out. It echoed over and over—it seemed to last forever.”

“Oh, Fitz!” Richard’s face creased with concern.

“We found her in the gallery, in front of the great portrait of her, Sayre, and Sylvanie.”

“Oh, my God, Fitz! It must have been horrible!” Richard laid a hand briefly on his cousin’s shoulder. “What of Lady Sylvanie?” he asked, obviously attempting to turn his cousin’s thoughts away from the image his words had recalled.

“None of us saw Monmouth return from his chase after her. But he must have, for the next day it was discovered that he had left, kit and carriage, sometime during the night.”

“Foul play?” Richard asked.

“In a manner of speaking.” Darcy motioned toward the Post lying on his desk. Richard sauntered over and picked it up.

“What am I looking for?”

“The notices. Third column, the seventh one down.”

His cousin read: “Lord Tristram Penniston, Viscount of Monmouth, gladly accepts the congratulations of his friends on his marriage to the Lady Sylvanie Trenholme, sister to Lord Carroll Trenholme, Marquis of Sayre, and late of Norwycke Castle, Oxfordshire.” He looked at Darcy in astonishment. “He married her?”

“She can be very persuasive,” he explained. “Very persuasive.”

“Hmmm.” Richard’s response was skeptical. The clock on the mantel struck ten, and with its last strike, he looked out the window into the night and then back to his cousin. “Snowing again. I must be off if I am to appear at services tomorrow morning. Her Ladyship,” he offered sheepishly at Darcy’s incredulous look, “ordered me to accompany her and Pater to St.———’s tomorrow or she’d have my guts for garters. See you there, I suppose?”

Darcy shook his head slowly. “No, there are things…” His voice trailed off. Then, “No, I shall not. Will you escort Georgiana for me?” His cousin looked at him in surprise, but forbore to comment.

“Certainly! My pleasure, Fitz.” He made for the door, picking up his coat and hat on the way. Then, turning back, he offered, “It will fade in time, you know. I daresay that by the time we go down to Lady Catherine’s, it will be little more than a bad dream. Try not to dwell on it, old man,” he ended sincerely and let himself out the door.

Darcy grimaced to himself as he turned away from the door and walked back to the hearth, where he poured himself another brandy. Richard’s advice would be reasonable if, in fact, he were suffering guilt or shock over Lady Sayre’s suicide. But although it had been horrible, he was feeling neither. He had done all that was humanly possible to discover and prevent what had happened at Norwycke. No, what preyed upon his mind was not the consuming desire for revenge that had been played out in the halls of Norwycke Castle but the desire he had seen in himself for those brief moments under Lady Sylvanie’s tutelage. He hoped to God that it wasn’t so, that he did not truly desire what he’d glimpsed in his soul, but comfort continued to elude him.

He sat down on the divan and, stretching out his legs before him, stared into the fire. A tapping sound brought his head up. That sound was followed by a shuffling at the doorknob that warned him of his visitor. Soon Trafalgar was staking proprietary rights to the rest of the divan. Darcy reached out to fondle the dog’s ears. “To what do I owe this visit, Monster? In trouble again?” Trafalgar merely yawned widely and winked before settling down, his head claiming a place in Darcy’s lap. “A clear conscience, have you?” He stroked the dog’s head, then checked. Shifting a bit, he reached inside his waistcoat pocket and brought out the coil of embroidery threads. Holding them by the knot, he shook them out until the strands separated; and then, slowly, he held them up, watching in silence as they danced brightly in the firelight.