Chapter Nine
Darcy stood amongst the gentlemen and shared the particulars of the challenge.
He explained that they were to find three objects, combine them to form a common phrase and present their final answer to Mr Pritchard in the hall.
He suggested that they divide into groups: one to search the drawing room and music room, one to take the east gallery and morning room and one to begin in the small library before moving wherever they were most needed.
The group responded to the details very differently.
The Blackwood brothers punched each other on the arms and each declared that he would be the first to solve a clue.
Mr Anstruther began speculating aloud about possible hiding places, while Captain Fanshawe listened with a thoughtful frown.
Mr Ashcombe examined his nails and said, "I am sure we shall succeed. Women’s minds are not built for logic. "
Mr Hadley clapped his hands together. "Well, I think it sounds a great deal of fun."
Colonel Fitzwilliam, however, appeared not to be attending at all. He stood at the edge of the group with all his attention fixed upon the huddle of women across the room. He looked, Darcy thought irritably, like a lovestruck boy at his very first assembly.
"Richard," he said in clipped tones. "You are not attending."
"Hmm?" said his cousin distractedly.
Darcy excused himself from the group and pulled his cousin a little aside. "You are not attending. Will you please cease your mooning and support my efforts?"
"Your efforts?" Richard said, still gazing pointedly in the other direction.
"Yes, my efforts," said Darcy, exasperated.
He took his cousin by the arm and marched him a little farther from the gentlemen.
"Richard, what is this? You are a colonel in His Majesty’s army, and you have lost your head over a woman you have only just met.
Do you know anything of her family? Her fortune?
You know you cannot afford to marry without connections and a sizeable dowry. "
This seemed to shake Richard back to himself.
His expression darkened. "Damn it, Darcy," he said, keeping his voice low.
"I do not care about the blasted competition.
I have met the best, kindest and most beautiful woman of my acquaintance.
Win or lose, I will court her, and all being well, marry her.
You know that my mother has a small estate through her father, and she has promised it to me when I wed.
It will not be Pemberley, but when have I ever wanted that?
It will be enough to live on quite comfortably, if Miss Bennet will have me. "
"Of course she will have you. You are the son of an earl, and as far as I can ascertain, she is a country miss."
Richard’s face darkened. "She is not mercenary. She is the sweetest creature I have ever had the good fortune to meet. And do not think I have not seen you staring at her sister."
"I can admire a handsome woman without going about like a besotted schoolboy," Darcy said peevishly, although he knew as he uttered the words that there was more to his feelings for Elizabeth Bennet than admiration.
"Gentlemen," came the voice of Sir Geoffrey Morton from behind them, "we have a contest to win, and we have yet to agree the teams."
"Blast," said the colonel. "Come on then. May as well get this over with."
???
By the time Elizabeth reached the east gallery with Jane and Mrs Cartwright, the contest had been underway for nearly a quarter of an hour, and one object had already been found.
That unexpected triumph belonged to Miss Harrington.
The first clue had read, A neat hand hides me, a careless hand displays me; I am made in silence and most often noticed only when I fail.
Lady Frances had come to stitch after only a couple of minutes of thinking.
And Elizabeth had sent Miss Harrington, Miss Lacey and Miss Grey towards the drawing room, where the workbasket and embroidered cushions had seemed the likeliest places to begin.
They had scarcely been gone five minutes before Miss Harrington returned. "Found," she announced, holding up a small sampler between finger and thumb, her smile small and more than a little smug. She turned it over to display the small card marked ‘HS’.
Elizabeth had been too relieved to question the speed of it.
Miss Lacey had written stitch beneath the first clue, though she did so with a slight frown, and Miss Grey had looked once over her shoulder towards the corridor, where a footman was carrying an empty tray away from the drawing room.
They heard a cry of victory from the gentlemen and Elizabeth had taken Jane and Mrs Cartwright to the east gallery to pursue the second clue.
I am spent, kept, lost and watched, though no purse can hold me.
"It must be time," said Jane, as they considered the paper.
"Yes, of course! Very good, Jane," said Elizabeth. "Now we must discover what Lady Hortensia has used to represent it."
She had chosen the gallery because Clara had remembered seeing several timepieces there the previous evening: a tall clock near the far window, a smaller ormolu clock beneath a hunting portrait and a cabinet full of curious little objects.
They set to work. Jane inspected the little clock and the table beneath it, while Elizabeth examined the cabinet near the window.
Mrs Cartwright moved more slowly than either of them, but she was incredibly thorough.
She looked inside vases and under shelves, even lifting candlesticks to check they did not hide any secrets.
At the far end of the gallery, the gentlemen were making more noise as they worked on their second clue.
"I tell you, Ashcombe, it is a thimble," said Sir Geoffrey with a huff, as his companion insisted strenuously that it must be a hunting horn. Mr Hadley wandered ahead of them, humming to himself and looking as though he were enjoying a morning stroll rather than conducting a treasure hunt.
Mrs Cartwright was attempting to lift a flowerpot, and he rushed over immediately to assist. "My dear lady, please let me help you."
"Hadley," Mr Ashcombe called, "you are assisting the competition."
Mr Hadley gave an abashed smile, ensuring she had inspected the area beneath the object to her satisfaction before returning to his party. "It seemed like the gentlemanly thing to do," Elizabeth heard him mumble.
"Miss Bennet," said the colonel, appearing beside a painting of a gentleman in a green coat. "How do you fare?"
Jane smiled at him. "Very well, sir. We have already located our first object."
"I am unsurprised that you are more than equal to the task."
"You are most kind, Colonel, but I assure you I have been very little help so far."
Elizabeth glanced at her sister. "Jane, unless the gentleman has an hourglass concealed in his coat, I beg you not to be drawn into consultation."
The colonel looked wounded. "Miss Elizabeth, you misjudge me. I am simply being cordial."
"Pray, sir, please go and be cordial elsewhere. We are in the midst of a challenge and you are on the opposing team"
From the other end of the room Mr Darcy’s voice carried, low and controlled. "Richard."
The colonel straightened, though not before giving Jane one last look of amusement. "Duty calls."
Jane coloured, and the colonel returned reluctantly to the gentlemen, while Jane bent over the nearest table with an air of studied concentration that did not fool Elizabeth for a minute. She shook her head and returned to her own search.
Mrs Cartwright, who had ignored most of the commotion in favour of the little table beneath a hunting scene, made a small sound. "Miss Elizabeth."
Elizabeth crossed to her at once. The ormolu clock stood in the centre of the table, flanked by two candlesticks and a porcelain bowl of dried rose leaves. Mrs Cartwright had lifted the bowl and was peering into the narrow space between the clock and the wall.
"There is something tucked behind it," she said. "Not the clock itself. Behind the plinth."
Elizabeth leaned in carefully and saw the edge of a small card. She moved the clock just enough to reach behind it, then drew out a tiny brass hourglass no taller than her thumb. A card marked H.S. hung from its neck by a thin piece of thread.
"Brava, Mrs Cartwright!" said Elizabeth.
"Stitch and time," said Jane, walking beside her. "Then the phrase begins with a stitch and time."
"Saves nine," said Elizabeth.
They stopped together and looked at each other grinning. "Nine," Jane said. "The final object must be nine."
They found Miss Drummond, Clara and Harriet in the morning room, where Miss Drummond was already standing over the third clue with a look of triumph.
"I am three times three," she read aloud.
"My fellows delight in knocking me down.
" She looked at Elizabeth. "The answer is nine.
Not a number written down, I think. Lady Hortensia wants objects, so we want something that stands for nine. "
"Ninepins," said Jane, her voice rising in her enthusiasm.
"That was my thought," said Miss Drummond. "There is a little set in the cabinet by the card table."
Before Elizabeth could answer, a shout came from the hall.
"Darcy! We have the third!"
The gentlemen answered with a roar of triumph. Chairs scraped, footsteps hurried across the polished floor, and Mr Darcy's voice cut through the noise, deep and steady. "Bring it here. Ashcombe, the paper. We must write the answer at once."
Miss Drummond's expression sharpened. "They have all three."
Lady Frances, who had been standing by the window with the answer sheet in her hand, looked up at once. "Miss Lacey, the pencil." Harriet's eyes brightened.
"Harriet," said Elizabeth, with warning in her voice.
But Harriet was already moving. "Fill in the paper!" she shouted over her shoulder. "I shall fetch the nine!"
"Harriet!" Elizabeth called, but it was no use. Harriet shot out of the room and across the hall as if she had been fired from a pistol, leaving Elizabeth to seize the answer sheet from Miss Lacey while Clara leaned over her shoulder.
"Stitch," said Clara. "Time."
"Nine," said Jane, breathless with excitement.
"A stitch in time saves nine," said Miss Drummond.
Elizabeth bent over the nearest table and wrote the phrase as clearly as her racing hand allowed. She had just signed her name when a great shout came from the gentlemen.
"Every cloud has a silver lining!" The words rang through the hall, followed by a cheer from the Blackwood brothers and Mr Hadley's delighted laugh.
"Their phrase," said Clara.
Elizabeth looked up. Across the hall, Mr Darcy had the gentlemen's completed sheet in his hand and was already turning towards the small library.
Elizabeth did not wait. She snatched up the sheet and ran.
It was not dignified or captainly. It was certainly not ladylike, and her mother would have been horrified to see her sprinting in a house full of eligible gentlemen.
But Mr Darcy was ahead of her, his stride long and determined, and the small library door stood open.
Elizabeth gathered her skirts in one hand, the paper in the other and moved with such speed as she had not used since she was a girl racing down Oakham Mount.
Darcy reached the doorway half a pace before her. Unfortunately for him, he hesitated. Elizabeth did not. She slipped through the narrow space between him and the doorframe, knocking his arm with force and thrusting the paper towards Mr Pritchard.
"Mr Pritchard," she said through laboured breaths.
Darcy arrived at her shoulder in the same moment, his own answer sheet in his hand and his expression one of astonished offence. "Miss Elizabeth," he said. "That was most unsporting."
Elizabeth, still breathless, looked up at him. "All's fair in love and war."
The words had left her mouth before she considered them. Mr Darcy coloured. A wash of red rose along his cheekbones, and Elizabeth felt her own face warm in answer. She turned quickly back to Mr Pritchard.
Lady Hortensia had been sitting in the library the whole time in a high-backed chair beside the hearth, a cup of tea in one hand and a look of serene delight upon her face. The library door stood wide open. She had not missed a moment.
Mr Pritchard accepted Elizabeth's sheet, then Darcy's, with the solemnity of a man receiving terms of surrender. A moment later Harriet came skidding to a halt behind them, flushed and clutching the little ivory ninepin in her hand.
"I found it," she gasped. "Please tell me we won."
Mr Pritchard looked at the answer sheets with great care. "I shall need to check that each team has the requisite items in its possession."
"Of course," said Lady Hortensia, sipping her tea.
Mr Pritchard inspected first the ladies’ items and then the gentlemens’. He then examined both answer sheets once again, his face giving away nothing.
"Well?" said Lady Hortensia.
"Both teams have named the three objects correctly," said Mr Pritchard. "Both have given the correct phrase. The gentlemen's answer is: Every cloud has a silver lining. The ladies' answer is: A stitch in time saves nine."
"And the final point?"
"The ladies presented their answer first."
Harriet gave a squeak of delight.
Mr Darcy's jaw tightened. "By a fraction."
"Still first," said Elizabeth, realising she sounded like a spoilt child but unable to resist nettling Mr Darcy.
"After forcing your way past me in the doorway."
"I did not force my way past you. I took advantage of a tactical opening."
"You created the opening by barging into me!" His eyes narrowed, but the colour had not entirely left his face. "I was attempting to play fairly."
"How considerate. Unfortunately, I was attempting to win."
"At any cost, it would seem."
"Not at any cost," said Elizabeth, though she was still breathless enough for the words to come out more harshly than she intended. "Only at the cost of your dignity."
Harriet laughed before she could stop herself. Jane was frowning at her rudeness, and from somewhere at the back of the group Colonel Fitzwilliam called, "She has you there, Darcy."
Mr Ashcombe gave a low grumble. "Most unsporting."
"Most effective," said Lady Frances.
Elizabeth, still warm from running, gave Mr Darcy the sweetest curtsy she could manage. He bowed in return, stiff, exact and visibly aggrieved. The Challenge had begun, and the ladies had drawn first blood.