Chapter 41
Matlock House
The curtains were drawn against the street, and firelight deepened the panelled walls, throwing long shadows beneath the portraits of Matlock ancestors.
The Earl of Matlock sat in his high-backed chair, cane resting against his knee, lines of weariness cut deep across his brow. Lady Matlock was beside him, a steadying presence, hands folded over her lap.
Hurst kept to the hearth, gaze lowered, listening. He need not thrust himself forward; silence lent more weight than words.
Darcy and Fitzwilliam faced one another across the carpet. Elizabeth sat close by Kitty, both women pale from the horror of the day, though Elizabeth’s eyes still shone with steel.
It was Lady Matlock who spoke first. “Lydia is safe for the moment. Signora Ballanti and the others will not leave her side. Maida as well. But such safety cannot be her prison. We must decide what is to be done.”
The earl’s hand tapped the knob of his cane. “A woman who dares draw steel upon a child of my house does not breathe long. The question is not whether she shall be dealt with, but how.”
Elizabeth’s voice came sharp and clear. “With justice, my lord, not butchery. We do not lower ourselves to murder.”
Hurst noted the fire in her tone. The family’s conscience always seemed to find its tongue in her.
Fitzwilliam’s eyes flashed. “Elizabeth—she has already murdered. Walton, Hatcher, King, innocents besides. She came within a hand’s breadth of Lydia’s throat. Do you think she will relent if we ask her kindly?”
Kitty shivered, clutching her shawl. She will never stop. I saw Lydia after…she looked at me as if nothing had happened. No tears, no fright. Only calm. I cannot bear it, Richard. I cannot.
Darcy leant forward, elbows to his knees. His voice was cold. “My wife is right. If we kill her outright, we descend to her level. We cannot be both judge and executioner.”
The Earl turned his heavy gaze upon him. “Then what do you propose, nephew? A trial? Shall we parade a string of butchered names before a court that will scarcely believe them? She would slip free and vanish before the ink was dry.”
Enough dithering. Hurst lifted his head at last, voice level as a measured gavel. “She cannot be apprehended by common means. Roark’s protection runs deep.”
“Even he cannot condone the murder of a child!” Elizabeth cried out.
Fitzwilliam gave a bitter laugh. “Then it seems only one option remains. We end her.”
“No!” Elizabeth sprang to her feet. “You speak of killing a woman as though she were no more than a rabid hound.”
“She is exactly that,” Fitzwilliam retorted.
The Earl lifted his hand. The room stilled. “Enough. We will have reason, not quarrels.”
Lady Matlock’s voice, calm and low, carried across the silence. “Richard, I know your anger. I feel it too. But Elizabeth is not wrong. If we send men to kill her in the dark, we stain our honour forever.”
Kitty signed, Honour will not spare my child.
Elizabeth laid a hand on hers. “But killing this woman will not save her either. It will only bring more blood.”
Hurst narrowed his eyes. They argued as if they were choices to weigh. In truth, there were none. “Why Lydia? Why Fitzwilliam?” He turned to the colonel. “What in your past demands this extreme form of revenge?”
Fitzwilliam shrugged. Blunt soldier. Willing to name his enemies as if listed in a tally book.
Elizabeth rose quickly. “Yes, that is the key. We must identify why Matlock is her target.” She turned to Fitzwilliam. “What in your past would warrant such a response?”
Hurst saw the air shift; all eyes swung to Fitzwilliam as if the weight of the room had suddenly landed on his shoulders.
“It must be a physical event, as you were rarely in society.”
He held up a thumb. “The Prussian. Our first meeting.”
“Captain Markov has too much honour to attack a child.”
“He was not named the Butcher of Bunzlau without good reason,” the earl offered.
“What followed?” asked Elizabeth.
“Sergeant Legget.”
Hurst caught the viscountess rolling her eyes. Her gesture dismissed the name with more eloquence than words.
Fitzwilliam smiled at her. “Wickham and his ruffians in Lambton—.”
“They are all dead.” Hurst cut him short. “Even Wickham.”
“The fight at Figg’s. Tom Cribb? The Walton brothers died in a house fire.”
“I was not aware,” said Darcy.
“I remember this,” said the earl. “Mr Matthew Walton was facing ruin. He collected insurance from the disaster and remarried a wealthy widow.”
“His wife also died in the fire?” asked Elizabeth.
“His daughter as well.”
That drew Hurst up short. A daughter. Too neat a thread. His gaze sharpened on Darcy, whose brow had furrowed.
“What?” asked Fitzwilliam.
“She was once introduced to me. Plain girl, put forward too early by her parents. I seem to recall she disappeared from the social scene after the melee at Figg’s.”
“The fire was weeks after that event. I remember the inconvenience of several dwellings requiring repair,” Hurst said. He tapped hid forefinger against his lips a few times, then stopped.
“You have an idea?” Fitzwilliam asked.
“I do. But it is not a matter to be aired before ladies.”
Lady Matlock rose. “Ladies.” She gestured to the doors. The viscountess and Mrs Darcy followed her out of the room.
The doors closed. Hurst turned to Darcy. “There is only one conclusion. Grim, but inescapable: her father sold her to settle his debts.”
The earl and Fitzwilliam grimaced. Darcy shot to his feet. “Surely not!”
“Unfortunately, it happens far too often. More from the lower circles than ours. But it happens.”
The earl turned to Darcy. “Name her, man. Who was this poor girl?”
Hurst watched the younger man press thumb and forefinger to his brow, as though the effort of memory itself pained him.
“I believe… her name was… Miss Winnifred Walton.”
The name did not unsettle the room as Hurst had expected. It seemed to close the circle. A name explained the beginning. It did not explain the pattern now unfolding.
Fitzwilliam broke the silence, his voice firm, clipped by habit rather than heat. “The fight ended without murder. Whatever followed was not battle. It was choice. A man who sells his child to settle his debts authors his own ruin.”
“Nevertheless, we have a problem. One we cannot solve by ordinary means,” Hurst said.
The earl and Darcy looked at him.
The colonel spoke. “We cannot act upon her.”
“No, we cannot. If we strike directly, our connections to the aristocracy and the Crown will make it appear a settling of scores.”
Darcy rose and paced. The earl followed his orbit, wrinkled hand upon his cane.
“You mentioned Roark and his influence,” Fitzwilliam said.
“Go on,” Hurst urged.
“Men like that are never called by their names. They are given a sobriquet.”
“Yes.” Hurst felt the truth click into place. “Roark is known as the Anvil.”
The recognition jolted him upright before he had thought to rise. “How has this eluded me!”
Fitzwilliam gestured for him to continue. “Roark—the Anvil—remains a powerful man through intimidation and fear. It is an enforcer who strikes fear.”
“Who is this enforcer?” asked Darcy.
“The Hammer.”
The earl grimaced. “Hammer and Anvil. A pairing most certainly forged in blood. Do we know the identity of the Hammer.”
“Intimately.”
Darcy looked at Fitzwilliam; both shrugged their shoulders. “I do not traffic in the slums. Explain.”
Hurst looked at both of them.
“The Hammer is…Sergeant Reeves.”