Chapter 18 #2
“If he feared you were unwilling, he would throw me through that window.” He gestured with his chin and smiled.
She tugged her hands to make him lean into her harder as she pressed her hips against him. “Oh, it would be plain that I am willing.”
“Then Fitzwilliam would probably wait in the corridor to congratulate me after, and use it to embarrass me for the rest of my life.”
She had been about to kiss him, but she laughed, and he did too. Elizabeth rested her head against his shoulder as he wrapped her in an embrace, pressing a kiss to her temple before stepping away from the bookcase.
“He told me, in fact,” Darcy said as he led her to a sofa, “to come in here to offer myself to you.”
“Hester suspected that you had come for that purpose. We shall have to tell everyone their hints are no longer needed.”
She settled next to him, and he raised an arm to put around her shoulder to tuck her into his side as though they had sat this way together a hundred times before. “I wrote to your father, and if you have your own letter ready to post, then it ought not to be put off.”
Elizabeth leant into him with a sigh. “I shall leave Pemberley soon.”
She felt him nod. “Only for a month. It is right for you to want to see your parents first. And in a fortnight, I will follow you into Hertfordshire. I can send you ahead with—”
“Hester has hinted that rather than go on to Scarborough, she would escort me home and then return to town.”
Darcy was silent for a moment. “Fitzwilliam must return to his regiment. She hopes to see more of him, in the hopes it could lead to matrimony?” She nodded. “I would be glad of it, for his sake. He will need her encouragement.”
“I would think the disappointed look on her face when she learnt Colonel Fitzwilliam was to be gone all day would help him on.”
“I am leaving soon myself. I only came in to see you—”
“To kiss me, you mean?”
He gave a quiet laugh before giving her a gentle kiss. “I hoped for both, but I did find you to tell you I am leaving and to ask for your letter to include with mine to your father. I will put it in the post when I am there.”
Something in his voice made her shift in his arms to look at him. “Where are you going?”
“To Bakewell,” he said in a low voice. “I want to know if Utterson or Balfour went to the pawnshop to sell Carew’s ring. Fitzwilliam is going to Buxton and Matlock to check for the same.”
“I have nothing at all to do today; you must let me come with you.”
The worry lines around his eyes and mouth deepened. “The last time we rode alone in an open carriage together, we were in a large party and your sister was with us.”
“Who would dare to say anything against me in Bakewell? Besides,” she said playfully, “I appear so innocent, as if I had never had a wicked thought in my life.”
Darcy’s lips turned into a wry little smile. “And what would those who remember the events of last evening say, or of five minutes ago against that bookcase?”
Elizabeth gave a mock pout, but Darcy only laughed.
“Well, if you will not allow my virtue to be compromised in your library, then I shall have to settle for raising a few eyebrows by riding with you to Bakewell. And it will give everyone a hint that I mean more to you than only being the sister-in-law of your friend.”
He still did not look convinced, so she added, “I saw Carew’s ring, and would recognise it if I saw it again.”
“It is not as though I could take it from the broker even if you did. It would be up to the constable and the magistrate. I described it for Fitzwilliam, based on what you said, and I would know it if I saw one near enough like it to justify sending for Mr Birch. I am only gathering information to convince the magistrate to call for a coroner’s inquest.”
“Please, please let me help,” she said, putting her hands on either side of his face. “It is a very small thing, but I must feel like I am doing something for Carew.”
A pained look flashed across his face. He took one of her hands from his cheek, turned his head, and pressed a kiss into her palm. He held her hand for a long moment before squeezing it. “Meet me in the stable yard in half an hour.”
He had not wanted to be seen escorting a single woman into a market town—into a pawnshop, no less—but he had seen in Elizabeth’s eyes the same feeling that had settled into his own heart last week.
He would do whatever he must to see justice rendered for Carew, and the need to see her killer punished, even if it was one of his friends, built stronger in him with each passing day.
Elizabeth, however much she wanted the same justice, also seemed determined to tease him into good humour before they arrived in Bakewell.
“No, that is not what happened,” he said, trying to suppress a smile as he drove into the inn yard. “You continue to wilfully misunderstand me.”
“You are the one who refused me. Was it a punishment of sorts, for what happened in April?”
“I was only unwilling to let matters progress to their natural conclusion in the library.”
“I can concede that Miss Bennet ought not to be caught being pressed against a bookcase beneath Mr Darcy, but I wonder if Mrs Darcy would be allowed a little more margin.”
She flashed him a bright smile that threatened to send all the blood in his body straight down. He exhaled through his nose and closed his eyes before climbing down from the curricle.
“My dearest,” he said quietly as he came around to hand her down, “if you swear not to say such tempting things in public, I promise that Mrs Darcy can have her way in any room she pleases.”
A satisfied feeling filled his chest when he watched her eyes darken. “I shall be perfectly dull and proper, I swear it.”
They left the curricle and turned onto Bath Street, and she added, “I hope you will not find me dull after we have been married twenty years.” She grew thoughtful, and he wondered if she was thinking about someone’s unhappy marriage. “I hope you shall never grow tired of me.”
“Never.” Darcy took her hand and tucked it under his arm. “Besides, I am certain your play of mind will be the same as it ever was even after you are settled down in conjugal and maternal affections.”
“I have much more to say—and do—regarding those conjugal affections, but I just promised to be dull and proper in public.”
He gave her a heated look before they entered the post office. When they left, he felt Elizabeth shiver as the wind picked up, and he asked if she was cold.
“A little. I have not had another pelisse made”—her voice caught—“and this spencer is not warm enough for a windy day.”
They shared a sad look, and he was no longer in the mood for playful hints about their happy future. He felt Elizabeth give his arm a squeeze, and knew she felt the same.
“Who do you think it was?” The question seemed to burst out from her lips.
“I could guess. Utterson does not know me as well as Balfour does, and it might be easier for him to steal from me than it would be for Balfour.”
“But who is capable of killing Carew?” she whispered.
“Utterson is more short-tempered . . .”
“Yes. I remember Carew saying that she had heard from his man that he did not always have patience, and we have all seen how abrupt he can be.”
“But always being impatient will not be enough for a magistrate. As far as who is capable of using a pawnbroker, it could be either of them. Utterson bought cufflinks at a pawnshop in Buxton simply because he saw them in the window.”
“And Mr Balfour bought a new watch here in Bakewell because he wanted to spend.” After a little farther, she added, “Did you notice at Lord Poole’s that Mr Utterson was not ready to join us when it was time to go?
” He nodded. “His lordship said he had forgotten something, but when he came out, Mr Utterson carried nothing with him.”
“Or he had hidden in his pockets something small, something he took from the house to pawn? That is quite a conjecture, but if he stole from me, he would not scruple to steal from anyone else.” Utterson was appearing to be the likely culprit, but suspicions would not be enough for Mr Birch.
“It might be him, but what you observed means nothing unless we find proof that connects Utterson to Carew.”
Elizabeth nodded sadly, and they crossed the street. “How many people borrow money on the security of pledges? What kind of rate is charged?”
“I could not say to the former, but an act was passed that set it at one and two-thirds percent a month.”
“That is still twenty percent a year,” she cried. “Who would accept such a rate?”
Darcy shrugged. “If one has no credit and is so far from a bank, where else are they to get cash, and quickly?”
Elizabeth’s lips turned down. “But are the brokers predators or providing an essential service?”
“Pawnshops are a place shunned by the pious and the wealthy, but I know they support those of limited means, those out of work, and widows.”
“Why would people not appeal to you or another landowner if they need help?”
“Because the labouring poor want dignity, and whilst I give food or clothes or medicine or a deduction from rent due, that is not the same as needing cash after an illness has prevented you from working or your husband has gambled away his earnings again. I think them necessary in some cases.”
“Then why do many cast judgment on those who use them?”
Darcy felt her confusion and looked at her.
“Think of it this way: the Duke of Devonshire would mortgage every property he owns and spend to excess, and no one would think ill of him, but I am sure he and his friends would assume one who used a pawnshop to pay their rent when money was tight was as shameful as a gin drinker.”
Elizabeth nodded. “And who is the one truly guilty of vice?”