“I suppose, although it seems rather distasteful to consider it at this juncture. The man is barely cold in his grave. Besides…” He stopped, lips pressed together and face filled with a rare bitterness.
“What? Do you judge there no chance she may return your interest?”
“Difficult to ascertain, under the circumstances. We spoke a few times at various functions in Town. Lord and Lady Fotherby were everywhere, to my dismay. She was polite and proper, our conversations always restrained and in the presence of others. It was probably just my romantic fancy overwhelming me, but I sensed a current between us. Fills me with guilt even to contemplate the subject! Lord, Darcy, I am not capable of judging! I am a soldier. How can I compare to a man of Lord Fotherby’s caliber?”
“Oh, nonsense! You are a nobleman’s son, an officer of His Majesty’s army, young and dashingly handsome, rich, charming. Need I go on? You have far more to offer than even the famous Lord Fotherby, no matter how virile he may have been in his seniority.” He sat back and picked up his glass. “I really cannot tell you precisely how to proceed. I believe in fate, but also think one needs to encourage it along.”
Silence descended yet again, plates cleared by servants, and the dessert course served before either man spoke. Darcy was shaken by the atypical expression of sadness on Colonel Fitzwilliam’s face, having come to rely on his irrepressible affability. When he broke the quiet, his voice was husky with emotion.
“I saw her a couple of weeks ago. Mother insisted on diverting northwest to pay her respects as friend to her mother. We only stayed the afternoon, had teas and cakes. Father related fond memories of Lord Fotherby in action during sessions of the House of Lords. Lady Fotherby smiled kindly, but did not seem comfortable with the topic. Even in the black of mourning she was beautiful.” He sighed deeply. “How can you judge a woman’s face, William? Especially when so controlled?”
Darcy shrugged and shook his head. “I am not the one to ask, I am afraid. I can read Elizabeth perfectly now, but assuredly misconstrued horribly early in our acquaintance. Even when love was apparent on her face, I refused to embrace it out of fear. Did you sense anything from Lady Fotherby? Any hope?”
“Perhaps. She looked at me quite a bit, but maybe that is because I kept staring at her! When we said our good-byes and I kissed her fingers, I swear she pressed against my lips and she definitely squeezed my hand. I was shocked at the boldness—too flummoxed to make sense of it and do more than stammer something stupid.” He laughed faintly and shook his head. “Go ahead and laugh, Cousin, I deserve it!”
Darcy was grinning, an amused twinkle in his eyes. “I have not seen you so flustered since Miss Susanne Carmichael kissed you under the mistletoe when you were fifteen! What a joy! The particularly amusing part of it all is that you are far more worldly than I, yet here you sit, as affected by a woman as all the rest of us mortals. Refreshing, actually.”
“You are enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“Immensely!”
“No further sympathy for the man of constant sorrows? The broken-hearted romantic fool doomed to traverse the earth in pitiful loneliness? The woeful puppy with hanging tail and ears?”
“Pah!” Darcy interrupted. “I am as pathetically inept as they come when pertaining to divining romantic clues. However, even I can determine there is hope. Give it time, Richard. I am convinced I shall be raising a glass at your wedding ere the year is out. Worse come to worst, you can enlist Aunt Madeline’s aid. She would do anything to see you married and bringing more grandchildren her way.”
Richard cringed, and Darcy laughed as he bit into his apple pie.
The conversation turned to unrelated business and political topics as they finished their brandies. Finally, Darcy said, “Well, I think I shall retire, my friend. Sooner I am asleep, the sooner tomorrow will arrive.”
“You sound like a child awaiting Christmas.”
“Ah, but this is far superior. My wife’s arms and son’s grasping hands transcend any gift delivered. Remember this, Cousin. It will keep you motivated in your pursuit.”
Chapter Five
SHRIEKS IN THE NIGHT
Honestly, Darcy, we can manage matters from here on. I was going to be tarrying hereabouts with my wife’s family for a couple of weeks anyway. Frankly, this will give me something to occupy my time besides pretending to enjoy their chatter.” Kinnison grinned. “Go home to your new wife and child. We will send regular dispatches, I promise.”
“You and Mr. Keith are far more proficient at the paperwork and financial issues,” Shultz grumbled from where he reclined and fanned his perspiring face. He was covered with soot and grime, having spent the past three hours revamping several of the damaged spinning mules. It was actually very cold outside, clouds gathering rapidly and darkening threateningly by the moment. “You better get a move on if you want to beat the storm. I think it bodes to be a bad one.”
He was right. Flurries were already falling by the time Colonel Fitzwilliam and Darcy mounted their stallions and headed out of town. Richard was questioning the wisdom in riding through what promised to become a blizzard before it was over. Darcy, however, refused to discuss waiting. His prescient prediction of Derbyshire weather was not failing him; he simply ignored it in the urgent need to be home. It would prove to be a horrible mistake, one that he was rapidly recognizing before they were three miles north of town.
It was miserable. Snow fell in thick sheets, wind hitching furiously and driving the increasingly solidified ice into their faces, cold seeping through the layers of thick woolens they wore, and visibility falling to near zero. The horses plodded along slowly, riders bent double over their backs. It was when they passed the barely seen sign for “Belper, 2 miles” that Richard grabbed Darcy’s arm.
“William, we have traveled eight miles in nearly an hour, with twenty more to go! We cannot do this. I say we stop in Belper for the night.”
Darcy nodded, heart sinking; with the storm raging, he would have no method of alerting Elizabeth. Being comfortably settled at the small but hospitable carriage inn in Belper, dry and warm in front of the blazing fire with steaming mugs of coffee and a platter of roasted lamb with sautéed vegetables did little to ease the ache in his heart. Richard prattled on in his typical humorous fashion, the room was lively with other waylaid travelers and a country fiddler in the corner, but Darcy volunteered little. Eventually he would relax, make the best of a troublesome situation, and even join in a game of darts that Richard won, naturally.
The bed was comfortable and clean, welcomed by a weary Darcy even if it was the fourth night of sleeping alone. He tossed a bit, always finding it difficult to settle now that he was so dependent on his wife’s warm and soft body molded into his, but finally drifted asleep. He dreamt happily, confident that he would see their beloved faces, kiss their beloved lips, and hold their beloved bodies close on the morrow.
He had no way of knowing that he was wrong.
***
The blizzard raged all through the dark hours of the night. Wind screeched wildly in tones reminiscent of fighting tomcats or a woman in pain. It was one of those rare storms that old men would talk about in decades to come: “Remember the blizzard of 1817? Ushered in the new year with a vengeance, that one!” Temperatures dropped to alarming levels, with negative consequences to some livestock and vegetation that would be felt in a variety of ways. Snow fell in record amounts, the landscape as white as an untouched canvas. It was the singular object that marred the otherwise pristine surrounds; vague flashes of brown tree trunks, the multihued bricks and stones of buildings, and partially frozen blues of waterways and lakes the only spots of color between the lopsided blown drifts of powdery snow.
Darcy woke hours before the dawn, shivering under the pile of blankets. It required an exceptional cold to cause his internal furnace to dampen, evidenced further by visible mist with each shuddering exhale. He rose, struggling into trousers and a thick robe to aid the apparently useless nig
htshirt in warding off the chill. With a sleep numbed mind, he jerked to the dead fireplace, shaking as he set about the familiar task of building a fire and sending a thankful prayer heavenward for the competent Pemberley staff that he knew would not allow his family and friends to suffer unduly from the extreme weather. Without the slightest doubt, he knew that fires would be raging in all the occupied bedchambers, especially those of his wife and son.
In minutes he had a steady blaze going, chafed hands practically touching the flames in order to absorb the heat. He sat on the hearth, momentarily too cold to think of rising and checking the outside. It was yet too dark anyway, but he could tell that the violent wind had died down somewhat and the furious tinkling of icy flakes hitting glass was no more. Darcy’s lifetime of dwelling in Derbyshire told him what he already needed to know without the necessity of gazing upon the countryside: the snow would be deep. Whether his faithful and vigorous mount could trudge through the banked flakes was not the question; it was whether the storm had abated enough to allow for travel. He sighed deeply, closing weary eyes for a moment and leaning his head onto the warming stones. The worst of the winds and thrashing snow may have dissipated, but he knew the storm continued.
Anger rose in his chest, aiding in warming his flesh but causing fists to clench and fresh shaking to erupt. I must get home! Darcy had never been the type of man to suffer from bouts of impatience, being generally reasonably long-suffering, but at the present, his impetuosity consumed him. With forced effort he inhaled deeply numerous times, struggling with eventual success to calm the turbulence. Oddly, he discovered that meditating on Elizabeth’s face, envisioning her sitting placidly with Alexander at her breast, aided his serenity.
The hours passed as the obscured sun slowly rose. Darcy eventually lit several lamps, passing the time in relative peace with book in hand as he sat near the fire. He must have dozed off without realizing it because the sudden earsplitting scream which rent the silence jolted him from his chair. He grasped the chair arm to steady himself, moving toward the door seconds later.
The hallway was rapidly becoming a mass of surging bodies and rising noise as doors opened all along the passageway. Servants and inn guests appeared by the dozens it seemed, confusion abounding as all eyes swiveled to the hysterically shrieking maid embraced by a middle-aged man wearing a robe where they stood blocking a widely open door near the end of the long hallway. From Darcy’s room some forty feet away, nothing in the room could be seen, but from the antics of the maid and pallor of the gentleman, it must be bad.
He stood under the jamb observing the mayhem in silent bafflement and started slightly when Richard spoke into his ear. “What is going on?”
“No idea. Fix your hair.”
Richard ran fingers through his unruly russet locks absently, glancing at Darcy who was attending to the chaos at the end of the hallway. “Tighten your robe.” Darcy did so, flushing faintly at the realization that his entire upper chest was exposed, but no one was looking their direction, and all the abruptly roused guests were in varying states of undress.
At that moment, the innkeeper, Mr. Allenton, appeared on the landing, voice raised loudly as he inquired as to the upset. The maid had calmed somewhat, no longer yelling, but now sobbing uncontrollably in the obviously dazed man’s arms.
“What is all the fuss?” Mr. Allenton asked, waving and nodding apologetically to the agitated guests. “So sorry, ladies and gentlemen. Please accept my apologies for the disturbance. So excitable these young girls are. Please excuse me. Pardon me, sir. Now, Alice, what is the meaning of this unseemly display? Quite horrid of you! Really should be more control…”
At which point he glanced into the room and halted with a gasp and hand raised to his mouth. Instantly, all the blood drained from his face. “Merciful God! Spare us!” He whispered.
This supplication was followed by a fresh screech from a woman who had eased herself through the crowd to peek over Mr. Allenton’s shoulder. “She is dead! Saint’s preserve us! A girl, dead!”
At that proclamation, pandemonium broke loose. Yells and cries, bodies backing into each other in a frantic effort to escape, frightened eyes suspiciously gazing at their neighbor, and families grasping onto loved ones to ensure their existence. Nothing remotely resembling order prevailed; even the innkeeper was paralyzed in the doorway.
A shrill whistle pierced the uproar. All voices fell, the silence abrupt and complete. Darcy swiveled to his cousin who seemed to have grown taller and added years in a matter of seconds. A uniform was not necessary for all instantly to sense that here was a man of authority.
“Listen here!” he commanded forcefully. “You all must return to your rooms and stay inside until the matter can be appropriately dealt with. Now!” Only a heartbeat’s hesitation before every last soul responded to the directive, shuffling hastily and quietly. In seconds, the corridor was empty of all but Colonel Fitzwilliam, Darcy, Mr. Allenton, a handful of servants, and the befuddled gentleman comforting the weeping maid.
Richard approached the innkeeper, Darcy trailing behind. “Mr. Allenton, I am Colonel Fitzwilliam if you recall. This is Mr. Darcy of Pemberley. Perhaps we may be of assistance.” He looked into the room, expression unchanged as he returned his attention to the innkeeper.
Mr. Allenton peered into Richard’s face blankly for a moment, the man clearly stunned. “I do not… What?”
“Get a grip on yourself, man! You, sir, whom might you be?” Richard said, the latter addressed to the older man holding the maid.
“I am Carlyle, Colonel. Room nine, here, across the hall. I heard the girl and responded first. She, well, she is obviously distraught.”
Richard nodded crisply. “You there!” He gestured to a servant, a boy of approximately fifteen. “Take Miss Alice to the common room. Give her some warm tea and a shot of brandy. No one is to leave this establishment, do you understand?” The boy nodded, eyes round and frightened. Richard turned to Mr. Allenton. “Who of your staff is the most trustworthy? We need to send for the Sheriff.”
Mr. Allenton had managed to collect himself. He remained pale but was focused and responded in a firm voice. “Milton,” he said to the boy, “take Alice as the Colonel commands. Bolton,” he signaled to another lurking servant, this one an enormous black man, as Milton and Alice moved away. “Send Mackenzie for the Sheriff. The remainder of the staff is to wait in the common room. No one is to leave! You guard the door.”
This accomplished, Richard again addressed the innkeeper. “Do you recognize the young lady, Mr. Allenton?”
He swallowed, eyes closing in silent prayer before bravely looking into the room and taking a hesitant step over the threshold. Richard followed, Darcy pausing in the doorway.
The girl was no more than sixteen. There was no doubt that, in life, she would have been a pretty thing, shapely figure with full breasts and narrow waist, all of which were tragically on display. She lay exposed on the bed, chemise ripped open and body splayed in a bizarre angle with smudges of blood on her thighs and the bed sheets by her legs. Her once lovely, innocent face now bluish tinged and frozen in an expression of horror. Darcy had witnessed death in all its ugliness on more occasions then he wished to recall, but nothing that compared with the raw brutality before him. It required every ounce of discipline at his disposal to remain standing calmly, but his stomach churned.
Mr. Allenton released a moan, fist clenched before his mouth with voice faint. “It is Mr. Hazeldon’s daughter. Oh sweet Jesus! How could this happen? In my inn!” He broke down in sobs, rushing from the room and leaning into the hallway wall where Mr. Carlyle still stood.
“Richard, how should we handle this?” Darcy asked in a quiet, sick tone.
Richard was staring at the girl with a frown on his face. “I remember her. In the dining room with her parents, I assume, and a younger sister. I only noticed because I thought the gentleman looked vaguely familiar. I could not place from where, and as I do not know a Mr. Hazeldon, it must
just be that he resembles another. Be that as it may, I was startled at one point because this young lady was staring at me with a flirtatious expression. I have been on the receiving end of enough such coquettishness to recognize it. This startled me, however, as she is so young and I am not in uniform, which is generally the stimulus.”
“I do not recall her at all.”
“Of course not. You were brooding far too much and rarely noticed a pretty face even when you were unattached. What an absolute pity! Come. We should leave her be and let the Sheriff deal with this.”
“Someone needs to find the parents. They obviously do not know she is missing.” He stopped, throat tight and eyes misty. “Can we not at least cover her?”
Richard nodded tersely, lips compressed as he stepped to the bed and drew the counterpane over her pale and lifeless body. “Go with God, little one,” he murmured.
***
The following hours were tense ones to be sure. Richard and Darcy retired to their respective rooms to shave and dress. Mr. Allenton coped with the situation as well as possible, placing a guard in front of the ill-fated girl’s door and appeasing the upset staff. He prayed that the Hazeldon family, who were situated in two rooms on the third floor, would remain asleep until the Sheriff arrived. In this, at least, he was fortunate.
Those guests and servants who knew of the tragedy trembled in their chambers behind stoutly locked doors. It would be the Sheriff who first uttered the word, but they were all thinking it: Murder.
Richard joined Darcy in his room once dressed. The two sat in silence, waiting.
Now that the sun was well over the horizon, the outer world beyond the cold glass and benumbed atmosphere within the walls could be seen. Darcy’s prediction was accurate. Snow sat in deep drifts with fresh flakes falling airily. The sky was grayish-black with thick clouds offering nominal breaks to visualize sunny blue sky. The winds had died, thankfully, but the snowfall itself volunteered no hint of abating anytime soon.