“Come. It’s time to retrieve your family!”
The next span of minutes, again seemingly agonizing in their slowness, was rather exhilarating. If the stakes were not so high and Darcy’s insides were not in a twisted knot of tension, he may have welcomed the thrill of the hunt. He was eager to confront Wickham and Orman, more than hoping there would be some resistance merely for the delight in dispensing some well-deserved physical pain! The awareness of his zealous barbarism elicited a sad smile, knowing that Elizabeth would scold him for the train of his thoughts while secretly swelling with pride.
Be strong, my love, his thoughts pleaded, I am coming for you and our son, and all will be well.
It was late in the evening, and although the setting sun still cast rays through the surrounding trees, inside the two-story lodge it was dim. No lamps were lit in the lower level chambers except for a glow from far down the hall in what they discovered was the empty kitchen. The only obvious illumination in the upper story came from the chamber at the top of the stairs and another further down the corridor. It was eerie, but certainly made stealthy reconnoitering easy.
Entering the house, investigating the empty rooms, and gathering before the dark stairway leading to the upper floor was accomplished expeditiously. The four soldiers assuredly secured the exterior and then, per the colonel’s instructions, remained posted outside the house. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that they would provide safeguarding in a far superior manner than Orman’s dismal protectors, all three of whom had been efficiently incapacitated.
The murmur of voices and movement could be detected from above as they cautiously ascended the long staircase leading to the upper floor, hugging the shadows against the wall. Richard was in the front of the line with Darcy on the next lower step and six soldiers bringing up the rear. Halfway up the steps the voices grew clearer, with words distinguishable and distinct.
“How badly do you want her now? Hmmm? Ready to take her this instant?”
At Orman’s repellent words, uttered with a sickly humorous tone, Darcy stiffened and took an involuntary step forward. It was only Richard’s steely grip on his right upper arm, fingertips digging in so harshly that he would note bruises on the morrow, along with a chary but determined push into the wall, which kept the enraged man from leaping forward into the room.
“Wait,” Richard hissed. “We must be certain where they are. Trust me.”
Darcy nodded, grimly setting his jaw and regaining mastery over his emotions. Fresh rage consumed him, but Richard’s stern warning enabled him to seek the placid restraint he needed for his family’s benefit.
The lurid exchange that followed was horrible for both Richard and Darcy to hear, but it furnished the required information. Locations could be determined and a vague grasp of layout ascertained. The surge of unfathomable joy Darcy experienced upon hearing Elizabeth’s voice was immeasurable. The relief when he realized that, although ill, both she and Alexander were alive and not violated drove out the fear. All that remained was pure, cold, rational anger and the hunger to exact justice.
Tiptoeing with incredible caution, they ascended until on the landing. With the briefest of nods and hand motions, three of the soldiers passed by and headed left to the door down the hall behind which they now knew Alexander was hidden. The remaining three soldiers spread out behind Richard and Darcy as they approached the parlor, careful to stay out of the light bathing the carpeted hall from the half-opened door.
The eight men carried a virtual arsenal of weapons. The military veterans held razor-sharp shortswords or daggers in their left hands, with two pistols holstered on their hips. The occasional gleam reflecting off steel and sundry materials fashioned into hard hafts proved the existence of additional weapons stashed upon their bodies. In fact, the man closest to Darcy, a wiry, short gentleman who nonetheless struck an imposing stance of coiled energy and cunning, had a dagger grip of what appeared to be bone carved with images of skulls, protruding from the top of his scuffed Hessian boots.
Darcy only had two weapons, not counting his hands. He held the comforting cold metal of a flintlock pistol in his right hand and a powder flask and balls in an accessible pocket if time allowed a swift reload. At his left hip he had strapped his sword, a colichemarde once belonging to his father. It was a favorite choice when he fenced, Darcy preferring something heavier that was efficient for thrusting, parrying, and cutting, and thus he was proficient with the blade.
The men stationed in the shadowy spaces near the bedroom door were tense, weapons at the ready, and eyes on the colonel, waiting for the final signal to spring into action. It was difficult for Darcy to entrust Alexander’s rescue and safety to strangers, but he was confident of their expertise. And, frankly, he did not have much choice. Seconds before Richard delivered the “Now!” sign, Colonel Artois met Darcy’s eyes. He solemnly saluted and inclined his head toward the closed door. It was subtle, but Darcy understood the silent communication. He nodded in return, feeling tremendous relief by the man’s acknowledgement.
Richard made a sharp, slashing motion with the shortsword he held in his right hand. Instantly, the leader of the rescue team for Alexander, that being Roland Artois, opened the door with a massive shove, barreling through the gap and slamming the heavy wooden door into the wall with a resounding crack. The other two men were on his heels, rushing through with a ferocious shout.
The violent entry and ruckus was intentional, of course, and it worked as the colonel planned. A shrill scream erupted from the panicked young woman, who Darcy would later learn was the only person attending to his son, adding to the clamor invading the quiet.
After a split-second of startled silence from within the parlor, precipitous movement and cursing issued forth. The response was as Richard anticipated and their slight delay in action was purposeful. No signal was necessary as the waiting deliverers noiselessly sprinted into the room.
Darcy’s eyes swung immediately to where he assumed his wife and Wickham were, the rapid scan of the room revealing it to be much as he had imagined.
A blazing fireplace was precisely in the middle of the outer wall with two large, partially draped windows flanking. A large, plush wingback of deep brown leather sat to the left of the hearth. Upon it rested the scarred and maimed Marquis of Orman. His sturdy, broad-pointed walking cane, an elaborate instrument of glossy cherry wood with a silver and brass handle shaped like a hissing snake, leaned against the chair’s arm by his knee. Orman, as hoped, was leaning forward and turned to his right toward the chamber beyond, his face a study in confusion.
There were two sofas in the room, as well as two additional chairs. The one with Lizzy and Wickham was nearest to the door, the end where Wickham sat pointing toward Darcy.
Richard headed directly toward Orman, crossing the short distance before the stunned man had any clue that people had entered his supposed impenetrable sanctuary. Wickham instinctively bolted upward, his impetuous ascent not considering that Elizabeth was partly lying on his lap. As Darcy assessed the scene, his fury escalated as he helplessly watched his precious wife go tumbling to the floor in a heap.
He yelled a snarling challenge as he lunged forward.
Wickham swung about. The shocked expression on his face instantaneously disappeared when he saw Darcy. It was replaced with a look of such vicious hatred that, if Darcy had not been filled with his own overwhelming loathing and wrath, it might have given him pause. Yet, despite his steely resolve and preparedness, he was astonished by how speedily Wickham retaliated.
“No!” Wickham screamed, charging aggressively to collide into Darcy with a resounding clash. The impact was intense, Wickham barreling into the bigger man with incredible force. Darcy was knocked backward a step, but otherwise countered the attack with tightening legs and a shove with his torso. Wickham was unfazed, one hand latching fiercely onto Darcy’s throat with squeezing fingers, while the other grasped and twisted the wrist that was aiming the firearm toward his chest.
br /> Darcy wrenched his arm out of Wickham’s clutches, whipping the pistol about and delivering a strong clout to Wickham’s collarbone. He felt a surge of delight at the audible crack of contact on bone.
Wickham howled in pain and fury, but his assault did not lessen. The two men grappled together, squeezing, wrenching, and pummeling blows with increasing gusto. Energy and stamina were fed by their mutual hatred and ire, years of pent hostility seeking an outlet of a physical nature. Wickham did not have a weapon to use, but it was unlikely he would have used it any more than Darcy, both men perversely enjoying each landed punch.
They swayed and staggered across the floor, Wickham finally succeeding in slamming Darcy into the thick oak door.
The air was knocked from Darcy’s lungs, the back of his head also striking the surface hard enough for him to momentarily see stars and loosen his hold. Wickham shouted a victory, administering a hard wallop into Darcy’s midsection, and raising his leg in preparation for a crippling knee into the groin. Darcy, in spite of his pain and blurred wits, sensed what was coming and pivoted his hips away. Wickham’s knee came into crunching contact with the oak, his body sagging in Darcy’s arms.
Burying his hurt into a deep recess of his mind, Darcy rounded with a second clout of the flintlock, this one connecting with Wickham’s left temple. The injured man yelped and reeled backward, Darcy following with a balled fist landing under Wickham’s chin.
His head snapped back, hands desperately reaching for anything to correct his imbalance. He grabbed on to Darcy’s jacket lapels, the men again wrestling together as they tottered crazily into the hallway. The strange dance lasted for only a few seconds, Wickham then securing one arm around Darcy’s neck and clawing at the nape. Darcy knifed his left forearm downward with tremendous force, Wickham’s long arm bone cracking, while simultaneously bringing the pistol to bear and discharging the round into the wailing man’s abdomen.
Wickham released an inhuman squeal of agony, outrage, frustration, and disbelief. The bullet’s impact buckled his body, blood soaking through his clothing in a flood. His rapidly weakening legs bowed and his body rocked unsteadily on the top step of the staircase.
He glanced upward, the fraction of a second stretching as he met Darcy’s eyes with blazing defiance and mania apparent in his wounded gaze.
He opened his mouth to speak, but whatever he meant to say would never be uttered. With the final iota of strength remaining, he threw his uninjured arm over his lifelong enemy’s shoulder, pulling with all his residual might, both of them falling over the edge of the staircase.
Wickham landed flat on his spine with a reverberating thud, Darcy’s muscular body smashing onto him forcefully. The pistol went flying into the air, Darcy releasing it in desperation and flailing his arms wildly for some sort of purchase. It came dually in the form of a handy baluster and the clutching grip of Colonel Fitzwilliam. Richard firmly hauled on Darcy’s left shoulder and side, staying his inevitable descent down the stairs.
Wickham was not so fortunate. The combined momentum of his fall and Darcy’s impact sent his body tumbling and sliding crazily all the way to the bottom. His cries echoed through the air until fatally cut off when his neck snapped on the last step.
Richard and the wiry soldier pulled Darcy to a semi-sitting position on the floor.
“About time! Where have you been?” Darcy gasped.
“You appeared to have it under control. Besides, I thought you would appreciate your wife lying comfortably on the sofa. Come. I will help you up. You look horrible, by the way, and later I shall chastise you for not shooting him in the first place, but right now I think your wife needs you.”
Darcy nodded, wincing with the pain felt from numerous parts of his body. With necessary assistance from each man, he was gingerly lifted to his feet. Richard held on to Darcy’s arm to ensure stability and handed him his handkerchief.
“Your head is bleeding. Are you sure you are all right?”
“I will be fine.” He blotted the back of his head but was already unsteadily moving toward the parlor. “Alexander?” he asked, glancing at the trailing Richard.
“He is with Artois in the bedchamber. He is still drugged but apparently undamaged.”
Darcy felt torn, but the need to touch Elizabeth was calling him. He crossed the threshold, his eyes only for his wife. But, his peripheral vision did note that the Marquis sported a number of fresh cuts and bruises, and was trammeled and gagged in a far corner with two burly guards watching him. He was thrashing maniacally, his muffled voice raving and face bleeding and red as a beet with eyes bulging scarily. He appeared near to an apoplectic seizure, foam and spittle soaking through the muzzling rag. The unfazed warriors stood nonchalantly a foot away, passing a cigar back and forth for several puffs before roughly dragging the insane man out of the room.
Darcy spared scant thought to Orman’s condition. He assigned immediate and total attention to his wife. Richard had positioned her body comfortably on the sofa, head resting on the pillow, and a blanket obtained from somewhere covering her lower body modestly. He had removed the rope bonds from around her wrists and ankles. She looked peaceful and beautiful, except for the snarls in her disheveled hair and the angry red marks on her cheeks that filled Darcy with fresh anger. Upon closer inspection he noted four circular pressure bruises the size of a man’s fingertip on one cheek, and raw burns on her dainty nostrils. He dropped to his knees, clasping her hands and brushing kisses over her face, not aware that tears were falling from his eyes.
“Elizabeth, sweet, precious Elizabeth. Wake up! Look at me, dearest. You are safe. Alexander is safe. I am here and no further harm will come to you. Please! Elizabeth, open your eyes!” His alarm grew when she showed no sign of responding. Not a moan or sigh. He touched his fingertips to her forehead, recognizing what his frantic lips had not sensed. “Richard! She is feverish! Why?” He turned questioning, anxious eyes to his hovering cousin. “Does vitriol do this?”
Richard shook his head slowly. His face was naked with concern as he too touched gentle fingertips to Lizzy’s forehead. “I do not know, Darcy. I have no experience with the drug.”
Darcy withdrew, blinking the moisture from his eyes to commence a detailed examination of his wife. First off he noted the rope burns to her wrists, fingering them lovingly, and sending a silent thankful prayer heavenward that her delicate skin was only mildly abraded and not bleeding. He kissed each wrist before moving his tender touch to the ivory, unmarked flesh of her neck. If he had seen evidence of Wickham applying filthy hands to his wife’s throat, he may have returned to the body lying twisted at the bottom of the stairs for a few well-deserved kicks!
He rested his palm over her heart, relieved to feel the steady beat. But, it was then that he became aware of the areas of patchy wetness and dried milk staining over the front of her apron covered gown. Additionally, and far more alarming, was the hard lumpiness of her breasts. He gasped, reaching to discreetly peel the fabric away from her chest. Richard, he noted in his periphery, turned away, leaving Darcy in relative privacy to examine his wife. He did not completely expose her, would not have in any case, but it was not necessary. The erythema spread in a fist-sized blemish over the top of her left breast. Carefully palpating, with tears stinging his eyes and fury freshly rising, Darcy felt the warmth and swelling of the starkly demarcated patch, the engorged milk pockets like little rocks.
“Richard, Elizabeth needs a physician.”
“Very well. I shall send Helt to Oxshott…”
“No. Search for a carriage. Surely there must be one since Orman could not possibly sit a horse. We must return to London immediately.”
“But…”
“No argument. No one will touch my wife but my uncle.” He looked up at the anxious face of his cousin. “Hurry, please. The nicest carriage, if we have a choice, with the fastest horses. Cushions and blankets. She cannot be jostled more than necessary. Quickly!”
Richard moved to administer
orders that were carried out hastily. Darcy turned back to Elizabeth, covering her completely before leaning to kiss her feverish lips.
“Do not fear, my love. All will be well. I love you and will not leave you.”
“Mr. Darcy?”
“Papa!”
Darcy jerked at the overlapping voices, his eyes alighting on Alexander, who practically catapulted out of Artois’s arms into the open embrace of his father. Alexander buried his tiny face into his father’s neck, tears falling in waves, and arms and hands gripping adamantly as his little body shook. Darcy savored the sensations, his own body shaking with contained sobs as he clutched the vibrant life to his chest.
Cascades of murmured endearments and promises of safety fell from his lips as he planted dozens of kisses. He stroked over the soft back of his son. His firm hands and sturdy body were ready reminders to Alexander of his father’s strength and devotion. Gradually the weeping and tremors lessened, Alexander finally withdrawing to gaze into his father’s beloved face.
“I knew you come! I miss you and Mama, but I brave boy. I bite bad man, Papa! He got mad, but I not care. Kick him too. Bad, bad man! Bad man Mama not like. I told him you come and get me and he be sorry. Made me smell sweet water that made me sleepy and sick. Sorry, Papa, I try to be brave but I got sick. Nice girl washed my face. I sleepy a lot and my stomach hurt and nose hurt and…”
He spoke in a rush, gasping residual sobs interrupting the rambling dialogue. Darcy smiled through the commentary and brushed his hands and fingers over his son’s body. But the toddler seemed fair enough, all things considered. He kept babbling, the innocence of youth to an extent already beginning to see the whole incident as a great adventure, especially now that his father was holding him safe and secure. He finally glanced away from Darcy’s face and noticed Lizzy lying on the couch.
“Mama! Mama come with you, Papa? She asleep?”
“Yes, Son. She is asleep. We must be quiet and let her sleep for now, understand?”