Mr. Darcy’s Enchantment

Chapter 17 #2

The colonel frowned. “No jellied eels. She is not bespelled.”

Elizabeth let out the breath she was holding. “Good.”

“What happened back there?” the colonel demanded. “Why did you stop us? Did Eversleigh free Darcy?”

She waved them out of the ring. The others might be needing it. “I do not know. Eversleigh told me to run. Something was very wrong.” The despair and fear behind the preplanned signal still resonated in her. Of course it did; Eversleigh was still feeling it, so she did as well. “Did FitzClarence hear my whistle?”

“No idea,” said Jasper. “He had gone behind some trees with his bow.”

Elizabeth felt the thrum of power from the ring and turned to see Eversleigh arrive. Anne was not with him. She ran towards him, her hands held out. Frederica was right behind her.

Eversleigh held up a hand to stop her. “Do not touch me, or I will break into a thousand pieces.” He sounded remote, like a stranger.

“What happened?” asked Frederica.

Eversleigh closed his eyes tightly as if he could not bear to look at them. “It was a trap. We got in with no problem, but as soon as Anne touched the ward, she became unable to move. Debenham caught us there. I tried to turn both of us invisible, but it did not work on Anne any longer, no matter what I did.” His throat bobbed as he swallowed.

“What did Debenham do?” Elizabeth did not think she wanted to know the answer .

“Debenham is really Sir Lewis. He is still alive, and somehow he took over Debenham’s body. Anne knew.”

“Dear God,” Richard whispered.

“Where is Anne?” asked Frederica.

Eversleigh wiped the back of his hand over his mouth. “She... Oh, dammit.” He took Richard Fitzwilliam’s arm and led him a short distance away.

A few minutes later the colonel trudged back to them, his face ashen. “He asked me to tell you. He managed to stay in the room when Debenham thought he had escaped. Anne was at Debenham’s, that is to say Sir Lewis’s, mercy, and she was the one who had blinded him. He...well, never mind what he said he would do to her. She begged Darcy to kill her, and when he would not, she took her own life.”

Frederica collapsed to her knees, burying her face in her hands. Georgiana’s face was ashen.

Numbness spread through Elizabeth. It could not be real. She would not let it be real, but the tight pressure within her chest would not go away.

The colonel continued, “That is not all. As Eversleigh was making his escape, he saw them carrying FitzClarence into the house. Bad enough any of us were captured, but he is a direct connection to the royal family. They can use him to get to his father, the Duke of Clarence, and he is Prinny’s brother and the king’s son. God above, why could they not have taken me instead?” His despairing voice seemed to cut the air.

Darcy must be beyond horror. Elizabeth could not imagine what it would do to him to watch his cousin kill herself. She reached out to him with that special sense. It was hard to hear him over Eversleigh’s despair, but finally she found Darcy. He was unconscious. That was probably a blessing.

But what were they to do now?

A SHORT TIME LATER , the somber group huddled in their private corner of Titania’s bower. The failed rescue attempt had exhausted them all. Frederica had told Georgiana what little they knew, and now Georgiana sat next to Colonel Fitzwilliam while Frederica had Eversleigh’s arm around her shoulder. Neither of her brothers even raised an objection. None of them had the heart for conversation, but no one wanted to go to sleep.

Finally Jasper Fitzwilliam spoke. “What next?”

Eversleigh sighed deeply. “Debenham does not know of your involvement in this, so you can go back to London whenever you wish, although eventually he will round up anyone with magic to bolster his own. While I was in London, I told my solicitor to look for a house in an isolated part of Scotland. I will purchase it under a false name and convert some of my funds into gold. We cannot stay in Faerie forever, and we will need a safe bolthole.”

Frederica raised her head from his shoulder. “Surely you are not giving up?”

“I will never give up, but I have accepted there will be no quick victory. This is going to be a long struggle. We need time to find allies and to watch for weak points. To do that, we will need money and a safe place to retreat.”

Elizabeth could not look at him. “What about Darcy?”

“If Anne de Bourgh could not break his wards, none of us has a chance. Debenham will not kill him, not while he has the death curse. Sooner or later he will set up some sort of prison for him. Our chances of rescuing him may be better when he is no longer surrounded by sorcerers.”

“But my parents –” Frederica began.

Richard said heavily, “He is being realistic, Freddie. We need to retreat and lick our wounds until a better time.”

“But in the meantime, the sorcerers will be consolidating their power!”

“We cannot win now,” said Richard. “There is no point in throwing our lives away.”

“What would our father say?” Frederica asked.

Eversleigh made a sound that might have been a distant relative of a laugh. “He would say Scotland is not far enough, but it is as far as I am willing to go. All of you are welcome to join me there if you wish. Libbet, I hope you will consent to come with me as my sister.”

Elizabeth did not think her voice would work, so she merely nodded. It made more sense than any other option when Debenham knew she was betrothed to Darcy.

In a choked voice, Frederica said, “I suppose the Church of Scotland can perform a wedding as easily as the Church of England.”

Eversleigh squeezed her shoulders silently.

Jasper sprang to his feet and began to pace. His brother and sister paid no attention. Elizabeth supposed it was a surprise he had sat still this long.

After a few minutes of frantic pacing, Jasper brought his hands together in front of his face. “I have an idea.”

His brother said wearily, “The last thing we need is one of your crazy ideas.”

Frederica turned her face away from Jasper.

With an irritated huff, Jasper squatted down next to Eversleigh. “Sir Lewis is controlling Debenham's body from his own, right? Magic is weaker with distance, so Sir Lewis’s body must be very close. If we can find his body, we can kill him. Debenham would lose his sorcerous powers, and then...then we can decide what to do next. What do you think?”

Eversleigh said slowly, “It is an interesting thought. Even if we cannot kill him, we might learn more about how Sir Lewis operates.”

“An interesting thought?” the colonel retorted. “It’s a bloody brilliant thought. Jasper, for all your mad ideas over the years, this one makes up for quite a lot.”

“It does?” Jasper sounded surprised.

Newly invigorated, Richard said, “We need to make a list of places he could be. Sir Lewis would want to keep his body secret from the others, so it is unlikely to be in the main house or the dower house. But the outbuildings... The stables are likely too busy, but are still a possibility. The threshing barn, the dovecote, the oast houses, the gatekeeper’s lodge. We can rule out the gamekeeper's cottage since we were just there.”

“Not the dovecote,” said Georgiana in a small but steady voice. “I hid there after dark, and it was empty."

“Wait,” said Eversleigh. “How will we check all these places? I cannot keep up this pace of invisibility, even with your replenishment.”

“We can go after dark,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam.

“Too dangerous,” said Eversleigh. “They will be watching for us.”

“This one is mine,” said Jasper with a grin hardly in keeping with the circumstances. “No one there knows me. I can wear the laborer’s clothes I used for the groundskeeper, and I have the local accent down. No one will suspect me.”

“Until you get distracted,” grumbled Richard.

Jasper’s eyes flashed. “You can say anything you like about me, but the one thing I can do well is to copy an accent and play a role. I did it with the gamekeeper, and how many times have I fooled guests at Matlock House into thinking I was a stable boy?”

“It’s true,” said Frederica. “Jasper is a natural mimic.”

“How will you get inside the buildings?” Richard was still far from convinced.

“I do not need to. I only have to discover which of those buildings is being guarded. That will be the one.”

“Promise me you will not try to do anything more by yourself,” Frederica pleaded.

“I promise,” Jasper snapped. “Just because I can’t use magic doesn’t mean I can’t do anything at all.”

Confused, Elizabeth asked, “Why do you say you cannot use magic? You were doing it beautifully earlier.”

Jasper grimaced. “I have magic, but it is for spell-making, like my father. If I could remember the words for a spell for ten minutes it might even be useful, but my memory is like a sieve.”

“How do you suppose you were making all those magic fireballs, then?”

He shook his head. “You were making the fireballs. I just threw them for you because I could get them further.”

“What do you mean? That was how it started, but I was not making them fast enough for you, so you started making them yourself.” What was wrong with him? Did he have problems with his memory, too?

“I don’t even know how to make fireballs! I tell you, my magic is useless!”

So that was it. Elizabeth even managed a ghost of a smile. “You wanted more fireballs, so they appeared. That was wild magic, the same kind I have, and yours is very strong.”

Jasper looked taken aback. “Wild magic? What is that?”

Eversleigh said, “It is instinctive use of magic, without recourse to spells.”

“You mean I can do magic without spells?” Jasper’s voice rose on the last words. “Why did no one ever tell me?”

“I doubt anyone realized,” said Elizabeth soothingly. “Your father knew almost nothing about wild magic before he met me. He would give anything to be able to use it himself, but he has spent too many years casting spells.” She almost added that Anne had wild magic, too, before she remembered Anne would never be using magic again.

“Will you show me more? Right now?”

Nothing could be done about finding Sir Lewis’s body before morning, and Elizabeth would run mad if she spent those hours brooding about Anne’s death and Darcy’s captivity. Perhaps she could even do a little good while she distracted herself. “Certainly. Let us go outside the bower, though.”

Frederica did not even ask to watch.

DARCY YAWNED, BUT IT was pointless to even think about sleep. Even with his eyes open, he kept seeing the image of Anne’s face falling into the basin of water and hearing the thump of her limp body falling to the floor. Closing his eyes only made it more vivid.

Had he done the right thing? Should he have helped her? Could he have somehow talked her out of it? Damnation, how many times was he going to keep asking himself these same unanswerable questions! It did no good to think about what he would have wanted if he faced imminent blinding and being placed in a sorcerous binding spell. Imagining her dilemma just made his stomach churn. Instead, he said yet another prayer for her soul, asking God to forgive her for taking her own life. No point in asking for forgiveness for himself; he could not yet make himself repent of his actions. He could still do one thing for her, though, and that was to keep her name clear of the stigma of suicide. Without any other witnesses to her death, he could say it was a misplaced spell.

He had considered her liaison with Aelfric to be foolhardy and reckless, but now he was glad of it. At least she had that brief happiness.

The door opened and Debenham walked in. “Out,” he said to the guard, jerking his thumb back over his shoulder.

The guard scurried away. Debenham closed the door behind him .

It was easier to think of him as Debenham. If he thought too hard about Sir Lewis living in Debenham’s body, his stomach might rebel and bring up the remainder of his dinner. Taking over a man’s life was an unimaginable crime.

Debenham pulled up a chair and sat facing Darcy. “Your friends seemed to have a very accurate idea of where you and Prince Aelfric were.”

“Apparently so.”

Debenham narrowed his eyes. “How did they know?”

“You would have to ask them that. I did not waste their time with questions.” It would have been a good response to make to a Sidhe – true but misleading.

“Come, come, Darcy. I imagine you have some idea.”

Darcy shrugged. “You want ideas? Perhaps they bribed a servant for the information. Or it could have been Eversleigh. You saw him turn invisible. Maybe he has been peering in the windows. He might be standing right next to you now for all I know. Perhaps Prince Aelfric has some fay method of silent communication and was able to tell the fay where he was. Choose whatever theory you like best.”

“Eversleigh is an interesting possibility. I am impressed he can conceal himself so well. I can do so, too, but it requires sorcerous power. But who is to say Eversleigh has not availed himself of the same power?”

Darcy gave a scornful laugh. “I think not.”

“One never knows. You have been taken by surprise by sorcery already, I would guess.”

He inclined his head. “Indeed, it was only a few months ago that we learned you were a sorcerer. Sir Lewis, that is. You hid that well.”

Debenham looked pleased. “I know. Matlock sent me a groveling letter to apologize for having missed the signs. It was most amusing.”

“No doubt. I have been curious how you managed your disappearance, though. How did a blind man find a way to make himself disappear with his notebook and enough money to live on? The servants must have seen you, if nothing else. Lady Catherine never reported discovering a theft.” Perhaps he might discover some useful nugget of information.

Debenham chuckled. “You are missing the obvious, my friend. Lady Catherine arranged my disappearance. She took one look at my ruined face and decided she would rather have a dead husband than a blind and disfigured one. She was willing to give me anything I asked, as long as I vanished.”

Lady Catherine had a great deal to answer for. “Why did you agree to leave? It was your house and your money.”

“It was an opportunity to devote myself to my research. Not be interrupted by long dinners, callers, estate business, bah! And I did not want to be pitied for my affliction. I knew I would have eyes again soon enough, so Sir Lewis had to appear to die in any case. That was as good a time as any.”

“So you left?”

“After a few weeks of recovery in the attic.” Debenham smirked.

But still, blinded mages could not perform magic. “How could you do spells without your eyes?”

“Good luck, or perhaps good planning on my part. I had a servant whose mind was already under my control, and I learned quickly how to see through his eyes. It is astonishing how much progress one can make when truly motivated.”

“I suppose you practiced on the servants until you found Debenham. Or were there others in between?” The words left a foul taste in Darcy’s mouth.

“A few. I needed to become proficient before I tried it on a skilled mage, one with powerful enough magic to accomplish my goals.”

Now the question Darcy really wanted the answer to. “How long have you been Debenham? ”

The sorcerer took a moment to think. “About eight years. Since poor Debenham had that odd apoplexy. He was never the same afterwards, you know. Even his speech sounded a little different. Everyone was very sympathetic and congratulated me on my miraculous recovery. I moved to Ireland before anyone started asking questions about the odd gaps in my memory, and I have stayed there ever since, apart from brief visits for Collegium business. Those meetings were very useful for recruiting other sorcerers. And that fool Matlock never saw what was going on under his own nose! I am half-tempted to tell him the truth, but there is no point in taking the risk.”

Darcy leaned back in his chair. “Yes, I imagine you are eager to keep Biggins and Wickham in the dark. Otherwise they might not be so cooperative if you try to take their bodies.”

“Precisely. And you will not tell them, Darcy.” Debenham’s smile was a threat. “You know now what I am capable of.”

“If you think I care about what horrible fate awaits either Wickham or Biggins, you could not be more mistaken.”

“I knew you were not a fool, Darcy.”

Why was Debenham revealing so much to him? Surely he could not think Darcy would ally with him, after Anne’s death and knowing that he was a stealer of bodies. And while he might be telling his secrets, he did not act like someone wishing to gain Darcy’s trust.

The answer came to him abruptly. Sir Lewis had not been able to tell anyone his story since he left Rosings all those years ago. He wanted to boast of his achievements and show how clever he was. Well, if he wanted to talk, Darcy would give him that chance. Sooner or later, the information might be useful, and it was not as if he had anything else to do. “I have a question, purely to satisfy my own curiosity. What do you hope to do when you take over the government?”

“I do not plan to take it over, just to ensure that certain decisions are made. I have no desire for the work of ruling the country and fighting wars.”

“What do you want, then?”

Debenham smiled, his eyes dilated. “Apart from riches? Repeal of the laws against sorcery. I refuse to spend the rest of my life hiding my talents. I have great plans for England.”

Darcy shuddered inwardly. The man was out of his mind. England would pay an enormous price for his insanity, and there was not a damned thing he could do to stop it. “You will have to accomplish them without my help.”

The sorcerer shrugged, his eyes narrowing. “As you wish, although you may yet see the foolishness of your ways. But that is enough for tonight. Sleep well, Darcy.”

As if he would ever sleep again.

IT WAS WELL PAST MIDNIGHT when Wickham strolled into the library that had become Darcy’s prison. “Well, well. The omnipotent Darcy, brought low at last.”

Darcy had known Wickham would not be able to resist coming to gloat, but after watching Anne die, it seemed like pointless pettiness. “So it would seem,” he said indifferently.

“I had not expected the pleasure of a true conversation with you since you were supposed to be under a binding spell. I knew you would hate that, even more than I hated being expelled from the Collegium. I should not be surprised, since my spells never worked on you, either.”

“It would have been so much simpler for you if they had worked. You would not have had to go to all the trouble of setting up the dry wells and bespelling the Board of Inquiry.” Let Wickham see he had not been fooled.

Wickham laughed. “So, you guessed that much. ”

Darcy shrugged. “I had an enlightening conversation with Prince Aelfric about you.”

Wickham clasped his hand to his chest in a pretense of surprise. “You have had dealings with Faerie? I am shocked.”

“I am certain you enjoyed tricking him into helping you. Tell me, as his liege man, do you feel even the slightest guilt over his current predicament?” Darcy had tried reaching his senses out to Aelfric once, thinking that since they were now shurinn , it might work. He had connected, but Aelfric had been too blindly angry to notice.

“Not at all. He was useful to me as a conduit to Oberon, nothing more.”

Oberon? How had Oberon come into the picture? “No doubt you found ways to use him as well.”

“Of course. He never questioned all my hints that mortals were deliberately trying to destroy the groves. His little war did not go as far as we had hoped, but one cannot have everything. Perhaps I should visit him again and see if he is more receptive.”

Wickham had been the force behind Oberon’s distrust of mortals? And he was unaware Oberon had gone into retirement. “What did you hope to gain from that?”

Wickham smiled. “Debenham thought it would distract the government and the Collegium from looking for sorcerers. No one seemed to care, though. Did he mention to you that he has promised me Pemberley?”

Bile burned Darcy’s throat. “I cannot say I am surprised, except that you are settling for so little.”

Wickham employed his familiar, charming smile. “I have never been particularly ambitious, you know. As long as I have revenge on you and all the money and women I want, I do not care who runs the country. Perhaps I will look up dear Georgiana again. She does not share your invulnerability to sorcery, you know. ”

It would only encourage Wickham if Darcy showed him any emotion. “I know. As you say, we cannot have everything.” Darcy yawned ostentatiously. “Debenham’s generosity to me does not go as far as a bed, but I sleep well enough in this chair. I could wish for a better selection of books, but I can only blame Lady Catherine for that.”

“You do not fool me, Darcy. You detest being powerless to stop me, but you should have thought of that before you took advantage when I had no power. Now the tables are turned.” He made a mocking bow. “Do sleep well, Darcy. I certainly shall.” He left with a jaunty wave.

Darcy finally let himself feel the fury choking him. Damn Wickham, and damn him again for knowing his every weak spot. But at least he had said nothing about Darcy’s ability with fire. Either he was too lazy to bother thinking out the implications, or he assumed Debenham had taken care of it already.

Not that it mattered now. Burning down Rosings would not kill Sir Lewis, so there was no point. Now Darcy had no options at all.

THE NEXT MORNING, JASPER Fitzwilliam set off cheerfully for Rosings before dawn dressed as a common workman with a talisman to work the faerie rings in his pocket, but he took all the good spirits in the group with him. By the time the sun was well up in the sky, Elizabeth had begun to worry. The outbuildings at Rosings were not far apart, and it should take less than half an hour to visit them all.

Frederica picked at the fabric of her skirt. “I wish we had not let him go.” Her voice trembled.

“Jasper? He will be fine,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam a little too heartily.

“You cannot know that. He is so easily distracted.” A tear rolled down her cheek .

Elizabeth said, “He knows how important this is, and he will not let us down. He has some new skills, too. Last night, when neither of us could sleep, I taught him how to cast illusions with wild magic.”

“Could he actually do it?” asked the colonel sharply.

“As if he had been doing it all his life. I would have said wild magic ran in his blood rather than spell-making, and quite powerfully. He will be a force to reckon with when he has more experience.”

“It starts as the same thing,” said Eversleigh.

Frederica burst into tears. Her brother had his arm around her even before Eversleigh reached her.

“He’ll be back soon. You will see,” said the colonel.

She buried her face in her handkerchief. Between sobs, she managed to choke out, “He is my little brother. That man has already taken our parents, Darcy, and Anne. I cannot bear it if he takes Jasper, too.”

The tears that were now never far from Elizabeth's eyes threatened to escape. She stood up jerkily and walked out into the main area of the bower, where Titania was listening to a dryad playing the harp. How could the dryads and sprites seem so carefree in face of this looming disaster? But sorcerers in the mortal world would have little effect on their lives. Unless they cared about Aelfric, no one they loved was at risk.

Eversleigh spoke from beside her. “When I visited my solicitor, I added a codicil to my will. If I do not survive this, you will receive a lifetime allowance, enough that you need not worry about having a roof over your head or food to eat.”

Elizabeth turned to him in surprise. “That is generous of you, but quite unnecessary. I do have family who will support me.” At least for the time being, and if they could do so safely. Just two days ago she thought to be the mistress of Pemberley, and now she might have no home at all.

“I did it for my own peace of mind. I can face the prospect of death with a little less cowardice if I know the people I care about will be taken care of.”

“I would very much prefer that you do not die.” Her breath caught on the words.

“Ah, but only a fool would deny that it is a real possibility, not least because I might, like Anne de Bourgh, find myself in the situation where the cost of saving my life is too high.”

There was no answer to that. “What of finding Sir Lewis’s body? Do you think that can work?”

“Finding his body? Yes. Killing him? No. Sir Lewis is not a fool. He will have his body well-guarded. We could not reach Darcy through his wards. Would he defend his own life less?”

Elizabeth bit her lip. “What about a gun? Can the wards stop a bullet? Or protect from a fire?”

“His wards are beyond my understanding. And we may never find out where he is. Jasper Fitzwilliam should have been back by now.”

Across the bower, Titania gasped. “I will return shortly.” She swept out of the bower.

“What was that?” Eversleigh asked.

Elizabeth shrugged. “I do not know.”

But Titania was already returning. “Prince Evlan, Libbet, come with me.”

Elizabeth exchanged a puzzled glance with Eversleigh as they followed Titania out of the bower. The Faerie Queen led them off the usual path into a stand of trees.

Oberon stood in the middle of it.

Eversleigh stiffened. “Honored father.”

“Where is Aelfric?” Oberon bit out the words.

“He has been taken prisoner in the mortal world by dark magicians, three of them. He is trapped in an iron structure at a place called Rosings Park.”

“What has been done to recover him? ”

Eversleigh said, “My mortal friends and I attempted a rescue last night, but we failed. I still hope to defeat the dark magicians, who also hold two mortals of your acquaintance, Lord Matlock and Diarcey. Fighting so many dark magicians at once may be beyond our powers, but we will not stop trying while they hold Aelfric prisoner.”

“Show me,” commanded Oberon.

Eversleigh stepped forward and bowed his head. Oberon laid his palm on Eversleigh’s forehead. The two stood like statues for a long moment. Removing his hand, Oberon vanished without a word, leaving them in silence.

“What is he going to do?” asked Elizabeth hesitantly.

“Who can say?” Titania turned away as she spoke and returned to her bower. The conversation was clearly over.

“If I had to guess,” said Eversleigh slowly, “I suspect he plans to offer himself in exchange for Aelfric. He would do anything to free him.”

“But then he will be a prisoner.”

“He might be able to trick his way out of it. Debenham is no match for Oberon’s cunning, even in his decline. But Oberon no longer cares what happens to him. His life is already over.” Eversleigh looked grim. “This was a major violation of Sidhe rules. After they retire in their decline, they never see or speak to another Sidhe.”

“He must love Aelfric very much,” said Elizabeth. Poor Eversleigh, having to trade his father for his brother!

“If you and I can sense Aelfric’s pain, Oberon must feel it ten times more. Nothing less could have brought him out of retirement.” Eversleigh rubbed his forehead. “I hope he can free him. But we might as well return to our own planning. I doubt we will hear from Oberon again.” There was a dreadful finality in his voice.