The Deception at Lyme: Or, the Peril of Persuasion (Mr. And Mrs. Darcy Mysteries) (4 page)

“I pray you will understand a mother’s anxiety and let us postpone taking Lily-Anne farther out to the point until fairer weather,” Elizabeth said. “However, do escort Miss Darcy. We will wait here.”

Sir Laurence bowed. “We shall not be long.”

As the pair walked away, Elizabeth noticed how closely Darcy observed them. “This is not Ramsgate,” she said, “and your sister is four years older than the last time she visited the sea. I believe it is safe to take your eyes off her for a moment.”

“It was not the sea that posed danger in Ramsgate.”

“No, it was one of her oldest acquaintances, someone she should have been able to trust. Would you deny her a new acquaintance now because of Mr. Wickham’s deceit? Surely the baronet is not a fortune hunter.”

“No, Sir Laurence inherited considerable wealth along with his title, and the sense to protect it. That fellow last night who ogled her on the stairs, however, is another matter.”

Elizabeth had thought the gentleman’s conduct unobjectionable. “He did not ogle. And what makes you suspect him of being a fortune hunter? He appeared perfectly respectable.”

“One cannot be too wary.”

“Sea.” Lily-Anne squirmed in Darcy’s hold. Tired of being carried, she was growing restless, but Elizabeth wanted to provide Georgiana a few more minutes’ uninterrupted conversation. Sir Laurence was pointing toward the ship still approaching port. Though it was a good-sized vessel, with cannons lining its sides, its progress appeared hampered by the strong eastern wind.

She took Lily-Anne into her own arms. Lily rested her chin on Elizabeth’s shoulder and stilled, content—at least for the moment—to gaze at the view behind her mother, but the tranquility would not last. In truth, the sea had temporarily lost its allure for Elizabeth, as well.

“Given the weather, we need to cancel our plans to go seabathing this morning and find some other diversion,” Elizabeth said. “Have we any other engagements today?”

“Only my appointment with Lieutenant St. Clair, but that is not until evening.”

“Where are you meeting?”

“He will call at our lodgings at half past seven.”

Sir Laurence and Georgiana returned, retreating from the Cobb’s point more hurriedly than they had walked out to it. Georgiana held fast to the baronet’s arm.

“The wind has shifted,” Sir Laurence said. “Storms can arise very quickly in Lyme, and those from the east are the worst. You can see how that ship struggles to make port. I advise walking back to town without delay.”

Scarcely had he uttered the words than an enormous
crack
rent the sky. A lightning bolt struck the mainmast of the struggling ship. Aflame, the mast fell toward deck but got caught in the rigging of the foremast, igniting that, as well. Suddenly, the ship was a fiery spectacle of burning sails, ropes, and wood. Smoke billowed up from the lower decks and out the gun ports. The blazing mast, having incinerated the ropes that trapped it, crashed to the quarterdeck.

But the worst was yet to come.

In seconds that seemed to stretch to eternity, the flames reached gunpowder.

The explosion was so forceful that Elizabeth felt its thunder ripple past her. Instinctively, she tightened her hold on her daughter, who cried out and clung to her. Had the ship been closer, all on the upper Cobb would have been in serious danger from flying debris.

The Cobb erupted in motion. Those who knew the sea hurriedly prepared to search for survivors—futile though their efforts might prove—or to scavenge the ship’s cargo. Everyone else rushed to get out of the rescuers’ way and find safety for themselves.

Another thunderbolt lit the sky. Elizabeth’s heart raced so hard that surely Lily-Anne could feel its palpitations. “Sea, Mama! Sea!” She practically climbed up her mother’s chest and over her shoulder toward the harbor. Even the child realized that her former source of delight now posed peril.

Elizabeth felt she could not get off the exposed seawall fast enough.

Before she even turned to Darcy, he was taking their daughter into his own arms. “Come.” His voice was calm, but she heard the underlying urgency. He motioned toward the steps Sir Laurence had ascended but a few minutes ago. “We must move to lower ground.” Georgiana and Sir Laurence were right behind them.

The steps were narrower than Elizabeth had realized, and water puddled in their crevices and depressions. Under other circumstances she would have eschewed them in favor of the broad stairs at the other end of the Cobb, but they had not that luxury—the sky threatened greater hazard than the stone.

Father and daughter descended first, followed by the ladies and Sir Laurence, and their party hurried along the lower Cobb toward shore. Though they were now alee of the upper wall, the breakwater offered only partial shelter, for the harbor opened to the east whence the wind blew from Charmouth along the cliff face. The wall’s bend at this section restricted their view of a considerable portion of the Cobb ahead. Elizabeth was anxious to reach the point where this particular curve ended; from there she would be able to see the remaining distance to safety. Drops of water landed on her: two on her arm, another on her neck. Were they sea spray, or had rain begun to fall?

She moved faster with each step to keep pace with Darcy’s ever-lengthening strides. They approached the curve, rounded it—

And stopped.

The solitary woman they had seen standing on the upper Cobb now blocked their path on the lower. Her back to them, she did not turn this time. Indeed, she took no notice of them at all. And her cape no longer billowed about her.

It covered her body, lying motionless on the cold, hard stone.

Three

The horror of that moment to all who stood around!

—Persuasion

There is never a particularly good time to stumble upon a body, but Darcy could not help thinking that this was one of the worst. The sky had darkened to the state of dusk, and the droplets that struck the pavement could no longer be dismissed as sea spray by even the most optimistic observer. Thunder sounded again.

Sir Laurence came up beside him. “Is she dead?”

“I see no blood,” Darcy said, “but she does not appear to be breathing.” He transferred Lily-Anne to Elizabeth, who tried to shield the child’s view while he approached the prostrate form.

Lily-Anne, however, seemed intent on watching him. She wrestled against Elizabeth’s embrace. “See!”

“Not now, Lily.” Elizabeth drew their daughter closer to her.

Darcy knelt beside the inanimate form tossed on the ground like one of Lily-Anne’s rag dolls. The lady’s right arm was trapped beneath her, the other hidden with her bent knees somewhere beneath her long cape.

“She must have tried to descend Granny’s Teeth to escape the storm,” Sir Laurence said.

“Granny’s Teeth?”

The baronet nodded toward the wall. Beside them rose a set of steps so narrow that they had escaped Darcy’s notice entirely when they passed them above. “Steps,” in fact, was too generous a word to describe the weathered rectangular stones protruding at uneven intervals from the sheer face of the wall. The flight was so steep and treacherous that only the most intrepid—or foolhardy—individual would hazard it in trousers and fair weather, let alone skirts in a storm.

Darcy put his hand on the woman’s back and detected a slight rise and fall. “She breathes. I feel broken ribs, however.” The lady likely suffered other broken bones as well, but Darcy could not with propriety examine her. He turned to Elizabeth, who was already consigning their daughter to Georgiana.

As his wife moved to the other side of the injured lady, Darcy looked about. Had nobody else noticed the inert figure lying on the wet pavement? The quay’s warehouses blocked this stretch of the Cobb from the view of most of the dockworkers, and the attention of those within sight was consumed by the frantic activity of launching rescue efforts and battening down hatches before the storm unleashed its full fury.

“Good heavens.”

Elizabeth’s words wrenched his attention back to her. She had lifted the woman’s cape, and now raised her gaze to his. “She is with child.”

“Is the baby—”

She reached toward the woman’s abdomen and was silent for several very long minutes. “Yet alive,” she said at last. “I feel movement. She needs a surgeon.”

“Sir Laurence,” Darcy said, “if you would escort my family to our lodgings and send a surgeon hither, I would be most obliged.”

“Nay, I should be the one who remains.”

Much as Darcy would prefer to conduct his family safely home himself, the baronet was the logical choice to go. “You are more familiar with Lyme. You know better than I the fastest way back through the town and where a surgeon might be found.”

“You will be escorting only Miss Darcy and Lily-Anne,” Elizabeth added.

Both gentlemen objected to her not seeking shelter, but she refused to yield. “This woman is unconscious, with child, and has just suffered a traumatic accident. If something occurs with that baby before the surgeon arrives, have either of you any notion what to do for her?”

Darcy and Sir Laurence exchanged glances.

“Very well,” said Sir Laurence. “I will send a surgeon with all possible haste and return myself after seeing Miss Darcy and your daughter to safety.”

Lily-Anne offered the only additional objection. “See, Mamma!” The toddler lunged so violently toward her mother that the unexpected weight shift nearly caused Georgiana to lose her hold on the child.

The baronet reached for Lily. “We can walk faster if I carry her.”

But Lily-Anne would have none of that, and clung to her aunt with tenacity. Sir Laurence attempted to disengage her, but Georgiana shook her head. “I can carry her. Let us not lose another moment.”

Darcy watched them depart. Sir Laurence walked between Georgiana and the harbor, so that Georgiana and Lily received as much shelter as possible from the wall. His left arm circled Georgiana’s back to hold her far elbow, supporting her balance on the slick stones and the arm which bore most of Lily’s weight. It was a posture Darcy would have adopted with his wife under similar conditions, and he never would have countenanced such familiarity between the baronet and Georgiana were the safety of his sister and daughter not in question. As it was, the sight of the trio—man, woman, and child—so intimately grouped gave rise to a fleeting image of Georgiana established in a family of her own. Though he had given matters such as her marriage settlement due contemplation, the marriage itself had always been a vague, distant event. He was not ready to admit a specific face into his indistinct visions of Georgiana’s future, but he wondered whether his sister was.

More lightning flashed, and he forced these thoughts aside. He had a crisis demanding his full concentration. He turned to Elizabeth, who ministered to their patient as best she could. “I wish you had gone with Georgiana and Lily-Anne,” he said.

She met his gaze. “I could not in good conscience leave.”

“I would have managed.”

“I know.” The look she gave him left no doubt of her confidence, nor her devotion. “But just because you are capable of handling difficulties by yourself does not mean you should have to. I would not abandon you to deal with this alone.”

It seemed, however, that they were no longer entirely alone. Despite the storm and rescue efforts, some of the men working on the dock had at last noticed the injured woman and paused in their activities long enough to cast occasional curious glances their way. Discovering a surgeon among them would be a stroke of fortune too propitious to come Darcy’s way this dark morning, but he approached them nevertheless. They might prove helpful in another way.

“Do any of you know that lady?”

“I don’t know her, but I’ve seen her before,” piped a gaunt, pockmarked fisherman. “Comes to Lyme every so often. Usually see her around the Cobb with a gentleman. I’ve not seen him this morning, though.”

“I did,” said a burly fellow. “Well—I think it was him. Didn’t pay ’em much mind, but she was talkin’ to someone up there on the wall before she fell.”

“Did you witness her fall?”

“No, sir. But there was another young lady fell off the wall not too long ago, and I saw that. Thought she was dead for sure, but she recovered. She stayed with the family in that house until she was mended.” He pointed toward a small group of modest cottages in Cobb Hamlet.

“Does anybody have additional information regarding
this
lady?”

No one did, and all were anxious to resume their own business. Darcy returned to their patient. The unfortunate lady had not moved in the slightest since they came upon her. “I hope the surgeon does not arrive too late.”

“I wish she would open her eyes.” Elizabeth had removed the lady’s bonnet, revealing dark blond hair—and swelling at her temple. “Ma’am? Can you hear us?” The woman’s facial muscles tensed, and it appeared that Elizabeth might be granted her wish. It was the hope of a moment, however, dashed as the stranger’s face became expressionless once again.

More drops fell from the sky. Darcy removed his coat and placed it over Elizabeth’s shoulders. The patient received some protection from her own cape, but the weather was worsening, and her likelihood of recovery diminished the longer they waited for a surgeon. He peered toward the beach, barely able to discern Sir Laurence and Georgiana in the misty darkness. They had reached the Walk but yet had a considerable distance before reaching the town. Once there, Sir Laurence still had to locate an available surgeon, who then would have to travel back through the elements to reach his patient.

“We need to move her to shelter,” Darcy said.

“I had the same thought. But where?”

The nearest buildings were the quay warehouses—full of frantic activity and rough workmen. They might provide protection from the rain, but were hardly an appropriate venue for the surgeon to treat a lady, particularly one in a family condition.