The Mysterious Death of Mr. Darcy (18 page)

Yet, before he could search her out, Mr. Franklyn appeared on Woodvine's steps. “Thank goodness you have returned. I must speak to you, Mr. Darcy. It is a matter of great urgency.”

Silently, Darcy groaned. He turned to his cousin. “If you would please inform Mrs. Darcy of our return, I would appreciate it. And tell my wife she is welcome to join me in Samuel's study.”

Edward's mouth widened into a sly grin. A familiar tease followed. “Your wife likely holds no taste for this loathsome business. Perhaps I will convince Mrs. Darcy to join me for a walk in the gardens.”

Darcy could not stifle his chuckle. He and Edward had competed in every facet of their lives: physical strength, education, marksmanship, and women. Darcy had excelled in the first three, Edward in the last. “I am certain Mrs. Darcy would prefer experiencing the gardens on my arm,” he said confidently.

“At Rosings Park, over your illustrious company, the lady sought mine,” Edward teased good-naturedly. “Miss Elizabeth liked me first.”

Darcy bowed to his cousin. If it had not been for Edward's good counsel, Darcy would never have approached Elizabeth Bennet a second time. “'Tis true, Cousin. First impressions are often mistaken ones. The lady may have preferred your acquaintance first, but she loves me last.”

Edward returned a flamboyant obesiance. “I concede to your mastery, Darcy.” With a hearty laugh, Edward attacked the steps two at a time.

Darcy motioned to the archaeologist to follow him. Entering his cousin's study, he asked, “What service may I offer, Franklyn?”

The man rushed to close the door behind him. He nervously cleared his throat before saying, “I have taken the liberty of sending for others to assist me in this task.”

Darcy nodded his agreement. “I have previously given my permission to do so. You have a phenomenal duty before you, and I fear that neither the colonel nor I hold any expertise in the field.”

Franklyn appeared relieved. “I have some concerns on how the many artifacts displayed upon Woodvine's tables and shelves have been handled, and I am, obviously, anxious to witness the items in the secret room you have described previously.”

Darcy sighed heavily. The archaeologist was singular in his passion. “I had thought that we might
accidentally discover
the vault some time after supper.”

Franklyn's anticipation was not what Darcy had thought it would be; the man hesitated. “I will be glad to look upon such wonders, but with second thought, I must admit I hold misgivings regarding the Woodvine staff knowing of the room's existence. Just today I have seen evidence that someone has rifled through the displayed treasures of the late Mr. Darcy—someone likely looking for items to pawn. Once the staff knows of the room, it must be guarded at all hours of the day and night.”

Although he thought the man exaggerated the greed found among Samuel's employees, Darcy agreed in principle. He said, “Permit me to speak to the colonel and Mr. Cowan on how best to handle your concern. Perhaps Cowan knows of men in the area that we can trust. Or I could seek the aid of Captain Tregonwell.”

Franklyn's expression had lightened. “I would find that most satisfying, Mr. Darcy. Such treasures must be secured as part of the world's ancient history.”

Having finally excused Franklyn to his own devices, Darcy made his way quickly through Woodvine's passages. He had hoped Elizabeth would have joined him in Samuel's study, but his wife had yet to make an appearance. After the earlier drama, he possessed a distracted need to hold her in his embrace. Cowan's warning clung to Darcy's shoulders. He could not shake the foreboding that the man's words had left behind. All he had wanted since he, Cowan, and his cousin had set their sights on Woodvine was to catch Elizabeth up in his arms and bury his face in his wife's scent. He only felt alive in her presence, and with death closing in on everything Darcy held dear, he desperately required his wife's closeness.

He had just turned into the passageway to their quarters when the blood-leaching scream filled the ground floor and ricocheted off the high ceilings. Darcy froze in midstride. Immediately, he was on the move, skipping steps and vaulting over the landing. “Elizabeth!” he bellowed. “Elizabeth! Where are you?” He did not think it his wife's voice that he had heard, but Darcy could not shed the dread building in him.

He heard a heavy tread behind him and realized it was his cousin. Both men skidded to a halt in the front foyer as Cowan burst through a side entrance. “What is amiss?” the Runner asked in an anxious exhale.

“Not certain.” Darcy's eyes scanned the hall. “Where are the servants?”

He motioned his cousin to search a side hallway, but before either man could take a step, Elizabeth called, “In here, Fitzwilliam!”

Darcy followed her voice to come upon a most unusual scene. “What has happened?” he asked as he knelt beside his wife. Elizabeth cradled Mrs. Ridgeway's head in her lap. Meanwhile, one of the younger maids wrapped the housekeeper's bloody hand with a strip of cloth that he suspected had come from Elizabeth's petticoat. Shared secrets and trust passed between them, and Darcy breathed easier knowing she was well.

“Mrs. Ridgeway has suffered some sort of injury,” Elizabeth explained. “I have sent for Mr. Glover.”

Edward slowly circled the room's periphery. From his eye's corner, Darcy noted that his cousin palmed a small pistol. “Why such drama?” the colonel asked suspiciously.

“I am uncertain,” Elizabeth confessed. She directed the maid cleaning the housekeeper's wound to fetch some water.

An older woman eyeing the proceedings from her place in the corner said, “The lady be burned when she tuched the witch's bottle.”

Darcy stood slowly. He surveyed the room. From where his wife nursed the housekeeper, soft sobs and whispers continued. “Explain,” he demanded as his eyes rested on the woman's wrinkled countenance. Although a servant in his late cousin's house, the woman did not act the part; she showed no signs of alarm. In fact, she appeared almost gleeful in her attitude.

“Thar be a witch's bottle under the lose hearth stone. None of us be tuching it, but Mrs. Ridgeway said we be fools. Yet, when she grasped it, it burned her skin. Brought the blood.”

“A witch's bottle,” Edward said with some amusement. “Why would there be a witch's bottle in this house?”

“Protect those within,” the woman insisted. “We not be overlooked by a witch from without. No familiar either.”

Cowan retrieved pieces of the offending item from the floor where Mrs. Ridgeway had dropped it. “Not many use such conjurings these days.” Shifting through a knotted twist of metal, he closely inspected the bottle's contents. “Appears to be some bent iron nails. As well as thorns. Some pins.” He touched the spilled liquid with his fingertip before sniffing the fluid. “Blood. Maybe some holy water. Very likely a person's urine.”

Darcy gave himself a mental shake. “You jest,” he said incredulously.

“No. Seen them many times in Cornwall.” The Runner stood slowly.

Darcy was uncertain whether the reference to Cornwall was part of the story he and Cowan had concocted for the villagers or whether Cowan truly knew something of England's historic shire. “I still do not understand what could have burned Mrs. Ridgeway's hand.”

Cowan explained, “Generally, several pins are set within the stoneware. When Mrs. Ridgeway dropped the Bellarmine Jar, she was cut by the jar and the items within. Then the liquid poured over the wounds.” The Runner's dark gaze spoke of the man's inquisitive mind.

The old woman scowled. “Perhaps it be as you say or perhaps not. Thar be many among those who live about that believe those which the bottle burns know the worst of the arts.”

The woman's remark annoyed Darcy with all that it implied. “We will have no such talk in this house. Do you understand?”

A tangible thread of doom filled the space. The maid obediently dropped her eyes, but he did not think it was from a subservient deference to his position in this household. “Yes, Mr. Darcy.”

Elizabeth assisted Mrs. Ridgeway to a seated position. She examined the woman's hand again. Darcy noted her frown of disapproval. “There are several lacerations.” She sighed heavily. “We have done all we can until Mr. Glover arrives. Els, would you see Mrs. Ridgeway to her quarters?”

“Yes, Mrs. Darcy.”

The housekeeper struggled to her feet. With what appeared to resemble fear, Mrs. Ridgeway glanced toward the hearth. “When Dunstan returns, I want him to check each of the fireplaces. I want no more accidents.”

After the maid had assisted Mrs. Ridgeway from the room, Darcy caught his wife's hand, and his long fingers closed around it. Immediately, Elizabeth's presence brought him comfort. To the remaining Woodvine staff he ordered, “I want this situation resolved before the bottle's contents stain the floor.”

Darcy led Elizabeth from the room, but in the main foyer, he turned to speak privately with Cowan and the colonel. “Edward, if you would join Elizabeth and me in her sitting room, I would appreciate it.”

“Of course, Darcy.”

To the Runner, he said, “Please locate Mr. Franklyn and then join us also. It is odd that the gentleman did not respond to the chaos.” Cowan nodded before disappearing into the servants' passageway. Darcy supposed the Runner had already surveyed the house's many entrances and exits.

Darcy placed his wife on his arm. Before the audience of Woodvine servants, they would carry on as if nothing unusual had happened. “I have asked Mr. Holbrook to speak to Captain Tregonwell about a proper horse for you to ride. If the groom is successful, perhaps we might share a short outing tomorrow and a longer journey the next day. The horses should have some rest after the journey from Bournemouth. I have made the assumption that you have missed our rides across Pemberley.”

As if she understood the need to underplay the drawing room incident, Elizabeth smiled brightly at him. “That world be wonderful, Mr. Darcy.” She caught Edward's arm also so she might walk between them. It was Elizabeth's way: to include those she affected. “Will you join us, Colonel? I would enjoy that very much.”

Edward's easy smile followed hers. “If your husband holds no objections, a ride would do me well.”

Elizabeth shot a mischievous grimace in Darcy's direction. In a playful stage whisper, she said, “We shall ignore Mr. Darcy's normal dudgeon. I refuse to allow it to defer my pleasures.”

Darcy laughed good-naturedly. He could do so now that Elizabeth was his wife, but when he was so violently in love with her, and she had shunned his advances, it was a different story. At Rosings Park, anything was a welcome relief to the tedium of his aunt's manipulations, and Elizabeth had caught his cousin's fancy very much. Edward had seated himself by her, and had talked so agreeably of Kent and Hertfordshire, of traveling and staying at home, of new books and music, that Darcy could not withdraw his eyes from them, and, in that time, he would have gladly devised devious means of disposing of his cousin. “I would never deprive you, my dear, of such delightful pleasures.”

As he held the door for her, his wife pursed her lips as if to leave a kiss floating in the air before his countenance. He inhaled the pleasure of her honey breath and squeezed her hand. With the door firmly closed behind them, Darcy seated Elizabeth beside him while Edward pulled over a straight-backed chair to form a tight semicircle.

His cousin leaned forward and kept his voice low to maintain their secrecy. “What do you make of what has occurred below?”

Elizabeth said in exasperation, “Every time I think we have uncovered the depth of deception in this house, another layer is exposed. Why would anyone permit such a foul superstition under his roof? I understand a horseshoe over the door or even a trail of salt spread around a bed, but I cannot comprehend the use of human secretions as part of a witch's potion. Neither a horseshoe nor sprinkled salt will cause harm to others, but the witch's bottle was meant to do injury.”

Edward noted, “Obviously, Mrs. Ridgeway possessed no prior knowledge of the bottle or else she would have handled the situation differently.”

“I actually held sympathy for the woman,” Elizabeth confided. “What say you, Fitzwilliam?”

A frown tugged at Darcy's brow. “Since our arrival in Dorset, I have learned to question all my instincts.”

A light knock at the door signaled Cowan's appearance. As he settled among them, the Runner explained, “Located Franklyn with his head buried in Samuel Darcy's travel chest. The man claims he heard none of the uproar. I left him to his own distractions.”