Some Particular Evil

Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

T o say Darcy was shocked to see Elizabeth Bennet arrive in his chambers was an understatement. Even his usually unflappable valet gasped at her appearance. The sight of her, her hair dishevelled and her cheeks bright from exertion, enchanted him momentarily, and he forgot why he was there in the first place. All of the alarm, the anxiety, the heightened emotion he was experiencing begged for the comfort of her arms. He instinctively strode towards her, his hands lifting as if to embrace her, but was stopped short by the look of horror on her face.

“Mr Darcy,” she whisper-shouted breathlessly. “You must not accompany those men!”

Immediately, the man in him came to the fore. She must be worried for his safety, incensed by the falseness of the accusations against him.

“Elizabeth, all will be well. It is just a misunderstanding; I shall come out of it no worse for the wear, I daresay.” Before he could assure her that, though he himself did not relish the thought of spending a night amongst the rabble at Newgate Prison, he had no doubt of his surviving the ordeal relatively unscathed, she spoke again.

“No! You shall not!” she cried, reaching out to grasp his outstretched hands and squeezing them fiercely. “Those two men are not who they say they are. I heard them—they plan to kill you on their way to London.”

“Surely, you misunderstood,” he responded, his eyes boring into hers, searching for he knew not what.

“No, they said clearly that they were getting paid to ‘do you in’, and that they would have the money and be in Scotland before anyone knew you were dead. You must leave now!” His mind was reeling as she pleaded with him to escape. Someone hired men to pose as lawmen and murder me? Who could hate me so much? Should I tell Fitzwilliam and confront them?

“Mr Darcy!” Elizabeth cried, bringing him back to the moment. “You must leave now. Gather every shilling you have along with anything that might fetch a price and go hide in the stables. I have a plan.”

For more than a moment, he stared at her blinking, his mouth opening and closing in an attempt to argue with her, but the expression of fear for him and her fierce determination decided him. He would trust her. He had always trusted her; she had never told him less than the truth, and he could sense her veracity now.

He let go of her hands and did as he was told, grabbing the coin pouch from his top dresser drawer, as well as the gold pocket watch his father had given him and the jewel-encrusted snuff box in which he always secreted several bank notes. As he darted around the room, frantically trying to think of anything he might need as he fled, Elizabeth kept talking, saying something about Jem and parts of London where people can disappear if they want to. Barnes was enthusiastically nodding at her logic while gathering items into a canvas sack Darcy assumed belonged to the valet himself. There was no time for a portmanteau. Within minutes, he had changed into his riding boots and was heading for his chamber door.

“Use the servants’ corridor,” Elizabeth urged.

Barnes placed himself between Darcy and the door that led into the main house. “I have put your cufflinks, cravat pins, some small clothes, and my own stash of coin in the sack for you, sir. If those ruffians are being paid to take your life, they will not stop until they have done it. Go through the dressing room and all the way down the corridor. The stair there will lead to the stables. You might also need this.” The valet held up a straight razor, slipped it into his coat pocket, and shoved the parcel into Darcy’s hand. Barnes pushed him bodily towards Elizabeth, who waited anxiously at the dressing room door, curiously wrapped in one of his cousin’s intricate shawls.

Darcy resisted. “Fitzwilliam?—”

“There is no time, Mr Darcy,” Elizabeth interrupted. “They expect you to meet them any minute and will surely come looking for you when you do not appear. Besides, we do not know who it was that hired them; how do we know whom we can trust? Come, we must hurry.” At that, she put one hand in his, grasped the shawl about her with the other, and pulled him towards the passageway.

Darcy took one last look about the room, then at Barnes, who gave him a decisive nod and promised, “I shall leave for town as soon as I can and await you at Darcy House when the danger has passed.”

Darcy nodded back, then let Elizabeth lead him towards the stables.

‘How do we know whom we can trust?’ It was true. Did she truly question even Fitzwilliam’s integrity? His mind was in a dither. He did not wish to suspect his own flesh and blood of such treachery, but who but a close confidante would know enough about his dealings to inform the men where he was last autumn and where to find him this night? He had no idea who had orchestrated this plot, and until he did, he must not tell anyone what he was about or where he was headed.

Where was it Elizabeth intended him to go?

When they reached the door which led to his aunt’s grand stables, Elizabeth insisted on entering first to make sure nobody was about. He wondered at her bravery in the face of such a strange and dangerous situation, and then he remembered her claim, ‘My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.’ How true that was; how well she knew herself! The evidence was before him, thinking clearly, acting decisively, even risking her own safety. She signalled for him to follow and ran ahead of him, finally ducking into an empty horse stall.

He found her digging into the thick straw that littered the floor. Surely, she did not expect him to bury himself in manure-filled horse bedding? An insistent jerk of her head told him that she absolutely did.

“What are we doing here? I should be saddling a horse not wallowing in a filthy stall!”

“No, if you leave while they are here, they will just ride after you.”

“Exactly. Will they not check the stables first to ascertain whether any horses are missing? Am I not rather an easy target waiting here?”

“Not if you are hidden under the straw. You stay here until Jem comes, then you shall join me at his cottage, and we will figure out what to do from there.”

“Jem? The stable hand?”

“The stable hand who is just the same height and size as you are, yes. You are too conspicuous in your fine coat and doeskin breeches; if you are to disappear, you will need a change of attire. I shall send Jem to you as soon as I might, and then you shall walk back to the cottage as him. Nobody will question seeing the stable hand walking from the stables to his own cottage.”

“And then what?”

“That is as far as I have got,” she said, still pulling straw back until the hole she had created resembled a thatched coffin.

Darcy listened and looked around him and concluded that her plan was sound. And certainly better than anything he could come up with in that moment. Hesitantly, and with a look that conveyed his disgust in no uncertain terms, Darcy burrowed his long form down to the dirt floor of the stall. Elizabeth began piling straw up over him, flattening it out as well as she could as she went. He thought of how Barnes would curse him for mussing his clothes so, then sobered when he realised that he might never see his faithful valet again. Just as she was about to cover his face, she gave him a worried smile he knew was supposed to assure him, and he nodded curtly.

He listened to the squeal of the hinge as Elizabeth pulled the heavy stall door closed, and the clicking of its latch sent a shiver through his body.

He was alone. Cold. Filthy.

And somebody was trying to kill him.