Duty and Desire (29 page)

“No ritual sacrifices, then?” Darcy persisted.

“I had heard that a rabbit was found a month ago.” Trenholme shook his head slowly. “And then there was a kitten from the stable back in the fall, but they’d had their necks —” Trenholme’s mouth suddenly snapped shut, and his focus reached past Darcy to the door of the breakfast room. Before Darcy could turn, Trenholme resumed in a queer, strangled voice. “Poachers! It was poachers; I’ve no doubt. Gamekeeper after them, you know, and they cast away the booty!”

“But you said a kitten…”

“Poachers, Darcy, simple as that, no doubt of it at all!” He pushed back his chair and rose hurriedly. “Must forgive me…forgot something.” In a moment he was gone, and Darcy was left staring in perplexity at his empty chair. What had Trenholme seen that had so unnerved him he’d squealed like a trapped hare before taking himself out of his way? Turning around, Darcy peered at the equally empty doorway.
Castle?
He was beginning to think it a madhouse!

Although it was now midaternoon, Darcy found himself still quite alone after making a finish of his repast and downing several cups of coffee. He looked out the window and conceded that, as welcome a diversion as it would be, a ride was out of the question. The sky was overcast in a manner that warned of more snow, and the wind had kicked up so that the panes rattled in their frames and whistled round the corners of the castle in a most forlorn key. It appeared that he must amuse himself indoors this day, at least until some other guest or his hosts came downstairs. Where to go? His usual retreat of the library was denied him unless he retrieved a book from his own travel bag first. But he was too restive, and the activity he craved would not be satisfied with a book. He strolled out of the breakfast room into the hall and paused. The old armory! He had wanted another look at the sword with which Sayre was baiting him during their nightly gaming. Mayhap he would make his host another offer and be done with it. If what Fletcher reported was as true as the evidence seemed to indicate, a generous offer for it might not be refused.

Heartened by the thought, Darcy made his way to the gun room, encountering a servant here and there along the way but otherwise meeting no one. There was, of course, no fire in the room, rendering it chill; but the warmth of his enthusiasm for the weaponry displayed there was proof against its effects. The collection was, indeed, superb. The sword in which he was interested was one of several with impressive, documented histories. Still, the Spanish saber was far and away the most exquisite of the lot, and Darcy grimaced at the pains he might have to take and the coin he would undoubtedly have to expend in order to possess it. As he reached out his hand to run his fingers over the object of his desire, the door behind him clicked open. Dropping his hand to his side, he turned to receive the newcomer.

“Lady Sylvanie!” He bowed smoothly, but when he came up, it was to perceive that she was not alone. “Ma’am.” He offered another bow to the stranger.

“Your reputation for politeness is well deserved, sir.” Lady Sylvanie curtsied, a smile for him upon her face. “But this is merely my former nurse, now maid, Mrs. Doyle.”

“Your servant, sir,” Mrs. Doyle murmured as she curtsied.

“Ma’am,” Darcy repeated with a nod to her. So this was the mysterious maid who had vexed Fletcher so! His valet’s word that she was one to be watched echoed in his mind, and he determined to observe her closely. An initial, furtive examination disclosed nothing remarkable about her save that she was quite old and suffered from a hunched back that caused her head to hang awkwardly, requiring her to look up from under her brows whenever she was addressed.

“We have interrupted your admiration of my brother’s collection, I fear.” Lady Sylvanie swept past him.

“It is a very impressive one, my lady.” He turned, following after her. “It is probably one of the finest in the country save for the Regent’s.”

“You have seen the Regent’s collection?” she queried him, her eyes alight with interest.

“No, my lady, not in person. I claim no intimacy with His Royal Highness, but Brougham, a good friend of mine, had the privilege and presented me a copy of the catalog, which,” he added with a smile at her light laugh, “I read thoroughly. I am a collector myself, ma’am, although not in the same society as your brother.”

“Which is your favorite, Mr. Darcy?” She waved her hand to indicate the entire room. “What piece would you choose if you could convince Sayre to part with it?” Darcy’s eyes were already upon it as she spoke. “Ah, this one,” the lady’s voice dropped almost to a whisper as she reached out and ran her fingers over the top of the blade and caressed the intricacies of the hilt. “It is beautiful, Mr. Darcy. Have you held it, tried it?”

“Y-yes,” he stammered, her closeness and her fingering of the sword strangely affecting his senses. “The night I arrived, he allowed me to test it in exercise. It is as well balanced as it is beautiful.”

“A true work of art, then,” the lady concluded softly. Darcy could only nod under the smoky intensity of her eyes turned upon him. “Perfect utility and perfect grace — a deadly beauty, crafted to kill exquisitely. Is it its beauty that makes such a thing admired by the world, I wonder, or simply that it is a man’s weapon?”

Confounded by her words, he could find nothing to reply but only stared back into her eyes. Both were made mindful of this impropriety by Mrs. Doyle, who vigorously cleared her throat behind them. “Ahem, my lady, were you not intending to show the gentleman the gallery?”

“Yes, thank you, Doyle.” Lady Sylvanie recollected herself. “You have not seen the portrait gallery at Norwycke, I trust, Mr. Darcy?”

“I have not had that pleasure, my lady. Will you guide me?” Darcy offered his arm, thankful for both the maid’s interruption and a reason to put his body into purposeful motion.

“It will be
my
pleasure, sir.” She curled her hand lightly around his forearm. Their passage was not rapid or direct. The warren that was the hallways of the old castle prevented such a modern transition from one locale to the other. On their way, Darcy was shown other rooms and halls that Sayre ancestors had built, modified, or refurbished, the grandest being the ballroom, over which, it was said, Queen Elizabeth had presided one evening in a surprise visit to her loyal retainer. Darcy could not help but wonder at Lady Sylvanie’s enthusiasm for each nook and cranny through which she conducted him. The lady at his side took just such a pride in all she showed him that one would have thought she had been resident all her life and not lately recalled from a twelve-year exile in Ireland. Of that, she had not yet made mention, although she must have known that he had known Sayre and Trenholme for years.

“At last, we are arrived.” Lady Sylvanie’s grasp on his arm tightened as they turned in to a hall that in every way invited a promenade. Although the sky had darkened, a remarkable amount of light still illuminated the wide hall from the row of windows that extended down one side of the gallery and fell gently upon the paintings that lined the opposite wall. The Sayre family was an old one, and portraits from almost every generation since the 1300s looked down upon them in stiff hauteur. Except for an occasional intrusion of work by a portraitist from the Dutch or Flemish school, it was not until they reached those of the last century that the portraits took on a more human aspect and their subjects became real, identifiable people.

To Darcy’s surprise, the lady knew them all, or was prompted gently by Mrs. Doyle, and happily pointed them out to him as they walked slowly down the gallery. But as they approached the far end, he could sense a disturbance in her manner. Her voice took on a higher tone, and her bearing seemed to vibrate with restrained emotion. In the waning light she brought them to a halt at a large portrait of a man, his wife, and their two children. Darcy knew it must be of the former Lord Sayre and his first wife. The children were, undoubtedly, Sayre and his brother.

“My father, Mr. Darcy.” Lady Sylvanie looked up at the face of a young man she had never known. “Or rather, Lord Sayre and his first family. You are aware, of course, that Sayre and I are half brother and sister.”

“Yes,” he replied, gazing up at the portrait with her. “Although I must confess that, as odd as it may seem, I never knew of your existence until this week, my lady. A sad affair, I understand.”

“Oh,
sad
does it no justice, Mr. Darcy.” She smiled bitterly at him. “You must remember, I am half Irish, and so being, only a great tragedy will suffice to satisfy the Irish soul.”

“Your pardon,” Darcy offered sincerely, hoping to ameliorate the bitterness into which she seemed to have fallen.

He was rewarded with an apologetic smile. “No, you must pardon me, sir, and allow me to lead you on to happier times.” She led him down the gallery to another large portrait, this one of a young woman with a child at her breast. The woman in the portrait looked to Darcy very like the one at his side.

“Your mother, my lady?”

“Yes.” She sighed. “And here is another with the three of us.” She brought him to a grandly sized painting in which an older Lord Sayre, the beautiful woman of the other portrait, and a girl of nearly ten years of age gazed out at them with inviting warmth kindled by a love that the artist had captured with perfect feeling. “This was begun two years before my father’s death.” Her voice trembled. “He died suddenly, you know. We had no warning.”

“My sincere condolences, lady,” Darcy addressed her with feeling.

“I thank you,” she returned solemnly. “Some would scoff at a twelve-year-held sorrow.”

“Then they never knew the depth of felicity in true family feeling,” Darcy quickly affirmed. “My mother passed away more than twelve years ago and my own dear father, five; so I am intimately acquainted with such sorrow. In my case, both deaths were the results of lingering illnesses.” His voice took on a slight tremor. “I was away at school during most of Mother’s illness, but I shared my father’s last years and bless Heaven that we had them together.”

“You ‘bless Heaven’?” Lady Sylvanie turned upon him a countenance suddenly full of anger. “Can you really mean what you say, or is the phrase merely a platitude you employ in Polite Society? Proper sentiment for proper persons!”

“My lady,” Mrs. Doyle whispered forcefully as Darcy drew back, his brows raised at her vehemence. The maid sought to restrain her mistress with a hand upon her arm, but the lady heatedly shrugged off, motioning her away to the end of the hall.

“I, sir, do
not
‘bless Heaven,’” she spat out contemptuously, “and I never shall, for Heaven is either cruel or powerless, as has been amply proved time upon time. You cannot tell me, Mr. Darcy, that as you watched your father slowly dying you did not have numerous occasions to think the same.”

Darcy stared at her in consternation at both the strength of her passion and the challenges laid against his own convictions. Such theorizing he had heard at University — the philosophy and theology rooms at Cambridge had been rife with this kind of speculation. Then, yesterday, that ‘thing of evil’ at the Stones had shaken those basic assumptions he’d entertained about his world. Today, a beautiful woman with every reason to think ill of the world was questioning them. The lady had struck close to home, and the doubts he’d suppressed or left unanswered, his dissatisfaction with the economy of Heaven, were brought uncomfortably to the fore.

He cast about him for how to answer her demand, and strangely, the queer interview he’d had with his sister’s companion, Mrs. Annesley, came to his mind.

“My lady,” Darcy began stiffly, intending by way of an answer to repeat Mrs. Annesley’s proverbs, but the anxiety with which Mrs. Doyle was regarding them even from her distant station gave him pause. He began again in a gentler tone. “Lady, I am ill qualified to furnish you with a defense for the actions of Providence and confess that I have questioned them and continue to struggle with their goodness and influence myself.” A look of triumph appeared in the lady’s eyes. “But a woman who knows more of this than I,” he continued, “who has suffered far more than either of us, I daresay, recently expressed to me her confidence that
all
that happens is ‘for good.’” Lady Sylvanie began to turn away, disappointment with him written clearly upon her face. “You turn away, but there is more, lady.” He reached for her instinctively and laid his hand lightly upon her arm. “I have seen the happy results of this conviction in her life and, more important, in the life of my sister.”

Lady Sylvanie stood very still, her eyes roving over his face, searching for what, Darcy could not say. Then, with a lift of a brow she countered, “I am all delight that this woman and your sister are reconciled to their ill treatment by Providence. But you, Mr. Darcy, will you grin at adversity and call tragedy ‘good’ because Heaven bids you do so?” She stepped closer to him, her eyes glittering, inviting, and whispered seductively, “I know how it is. What you believe you must say before others, before the world. But you are not such a fool!”

In that moment, everything in Darcy urged him to answer her with what she wanted.
No
was such a simple word, and what man would not quickly aver that he was, most definitely,
not
a fool? He also knew, instinctively, that
No
would bring the lady willingly into his arms, that his question that morning of her welcome of him was fully answered. Her eyes sought him as her hand came to rest upon his arm; her breath trembled with passion as he, without thought, moved closer. Cascades of sensual delight broke over him as she laid her other hand upon his chest and, with parted lips, looked up into his eyes.

“Lady,” he breathed low in both warning and pleasure.