Chapter 3 The Nerve of Intrepidity
Darcy had given his wife above the fifteen minutes he had allotted, but no Miss Bennet had appeared. He chose to address her as such in his mind and conjectured her angry visage from the parsonage in Hunsford as his mental image of her.
The nerve of that strumpet! Had he known then what he knew now, he never would have offered her a position as a scullery maid, let alone the honour of becoming his wife!
The scruples he had suffered before he formed any designs on her had proved themselves to be accurate and just. In fact, he had been too kind when he declared that she and her sister were to be exempt from the scorn he had heaped upon the rest of her family.
If his sojourn to Netherfield had not taught him that, his undertakings into the seedier part of London to rescue her promiscuous sister should have warned him.
What blindness could have prevented him from seeing the truth?
It was not love. Love did not feel like this.
Love did not rip the heart from your chest or strangle you from within.
Whatever this feeling was, love had no part of it.
Twenty minutes.
“What do you suppose is delaying her? She cannot have many items to pack?”
His inconsequential toad of a cousin had the audacity to speak to him after what he had done, but Darcy would not show him he cared because he simply did not.
“Why? Are you so eager to bed her? Can you not wait five minutes?”
He did the calculation swiftly in his head and concluded there had not been any opportunities for them to have had a liaison prior to this evening. Thank God he had discovered them so soon, or he might have been duped into leaving Pemberley to a Matlock heir.
“I am not as eager to sample the goods as you may think. I only had your best interest at heart, though she is utterly ruined now, so I suppose it does not signify.”
“I thought…” Darcy began. The colonel had mentioned taking Elizabeth to Matlock and setting her up in a cottage, which made him assume they would continue what he had interrupted.
The mere thought made bile rise in his throat, but there were more pressing matters to occupy him.
“Never mind, I shall retrieve her myself and haul her by her hair if she resists.”
“Mayhap she is busy filling her satchels with items not her own,” the colonel suggested.
It was not impossible. Darcy hastened his strides and took the stairs two at a time. At her door, he hesitated for ten seconds before wrenching it open.
The room looked empty at first glance, but the box containing her jewellery caught his attention. It was the first place he would look to investigate her proclivities. He yanked open the lid. The box was full. He could not be certain no items were missing, but it seemed to be largely intact.
Her dressing room was next in his plan. He stepped over the threshold and scrutinised the contents. It looked untouched to him, but again, he could not be certain. He turned and strode out of the room and addressed the nearest footman.
“Has Mrs Darcy been to her chamber?”
Uttering her name left a foul taste in his mouth. She was no Mrs Darcy; his mother was. No one could usurp her place, and after this disaster, none ever would. He was shackled for life to the trollop, with no heirs to carry his name into the future.
“Yes, Mr Darcy. Mrs Darcy entered her chamber twenty minutes ago. She has not left, sir.”
“If that is so, why is she not there?”
“She must be, sir. There are plenty of witnesses who can attest that Mrs Darcy has not left her chamber.”
He met the pale faces of his servants, who nodded their assent.
“Linney!” Darcy bellowed.
Mrs Darcy’s lady’s maid came running as fast as her legs could carry her.
“Come,” Darcy barked. Hannah Linney followed him into the mistress’s room. He tugged open the connecting door to his own chamber and looked inside. It was empty. He shut the door again and pointed at the mistress’s bed.
“Look under the bed,” Darcy commanded. The maid obediently bent and looked.
“What am I looking for, Mr Darcy?”
“Mrs Darcy.”
She must be desperate to remain at Pemberley and had hidden to avoid eviction.
“She is not here, sir.”
“I see. Come out and follow me.”
The dressing room was next on his list of places to find his recalcitrant wife.
“She is not here either, sir,” Linney asserted after a thorough search.
The intractable woman was unfortunately clever and could be anywhere on his vast estate. It was perhaps best to establish whether she had taken anything before he roused all his servants to search the house from top to bottom.
“I know. Could you tell me whether any of her garments are missing?”
The girl rummaged through the articles of clothing.
“Yes, sir. All the old garments she brought from Longbourn are missing, while all her new and fashionable gowns are still here. Perhaps she has collected the items she meant to leave for the rag-and-bone man, sir?”
“I very much doubt it…”
Darcy stood in the middle of the room, scratching his head in indecision. The impulse to act prevailed, and he strode once more into his own chamber. He searched thoroughly for his wayward wife, but she was not there.
Of course, the servants’ stairs!
Darcy walked briskly through the narrow passages.
He had familiarised himself with them during his childhood, playing hide and seek with his abominable cousin.
He chose the shortest and easiest way out of the house and soon found himself out of doors on the bitterly cold December night.
Finding the door unlocked irked him; the bolt should have been closed this late in the evening.
It must be Mrs Darcy who had unlocked it and made her escape.
He paused on the threshold and looked in every direction, searching for movement in the distance.
There was no sign of the woman but plenty of footsteps in every direction.
He chose the most plausible one, leading towards the front of the house.
She was not so silly as to venture out into the unfamiliar woods.
Rounding the corner, he walked to the portico and proceeded up the steps to get a better view. She was nowhere to be seen, but she had run up the stairs nearly half an hour ago and could be a mile down the road.
He could send out a handful of men and the mastiffs, but that would defeat the purpose.
She was gone, exactly as he had ordered.
Finally, she had done as requested without any discussion.
In his mind, it was about time. Never again would his decisions be called into question, disputed, or reasoned against. What a relief.
Darcy re-entered by the front door, called for a footman to have the colonel’s horse saddled, and went straight to the library where his cousin was no longer waiting.
“Richard Fitzwilliam!” Darcy shouted. He would not honour him with a title.
The colonel came running down the stairs. “Where is Elizabeth?”
“Gone. And so will you be. Your horse is being saddled as we speak.”
“Gone? What do you mean by gone? She cannot have ventured out into the cold by herself.”
“She obviously could and she has.”
Darcy’s patience had run out. He grabbed his cousin by the arm and dragged him out of the door. A footman handed him his greatcoat as he passed. Darcy let go of his arm as soon as he was on the front steps.
“I shall have your possessions packed and sent to Matlock in the morning. Please convey my regrets to your father. I shall not be joining him for Christmas this year.”
The door closed and the bolt was drawn.
The colonel shouted through the door. “I shall surely find Elizabeth on my way to Lambton, where we shall spend the night at the Rose and Crown.”
Darcy struck the door with his fist before he had the wherewithal to think.
The thump echoed through the entrance hall, but the wood did not even crack.
If only it had been his cousin’s head… His knuckles were bleeding, but he paid them no mind.
Instead, he ordered a thorough search of the house, to be on the safe side.
It would not do for him to suddenly encounter the hoyden in an unused room or a cupboard.
This last thought made him chuckle mirthlessly.
He flexed his aching hand and walked with his head raised past his servants, ascended the stairs, and retired to his chamber for a sleepless night in agony.
#
Pemberley, the following morning, December 16th
Darcy had barely slept; the same dream kept repeating itself over and over as soon as he closed his eyes.
Even in his conscious state, he was still not free of the image of her annoyed expression, then her stunned countenance, before utter horror had suffused her features.
He would not think of it; he could not bear it.
He leapt up and rang for his valet; there was no reason to linger in bed when sleep eluded him.
An enraged Darcy paced the passage. The library had been utterly ruined for all eternity; never again would he feel at ease in that room.
Neither would his study bring him any relief because too many memories lingered within its walls.
It was obvious what he needed to do. He called for a footman to find Mrs Reynolds, Georgiana, and his steward.
The footman looked ill at ease before he dared mention the early hour of the day.
Darcy groaned, but the servant was right.
He could not haul his sister out of bed at six in the morning.
He amended his order to call them in for a meeting at ten.
He had plenty to occupy his time while he waited for them to rise.
He had to have something to do—something that would drive every memory of a certain impertinent country miss from his thoughts.
Darcy had not been to the attics in years. Treasures of times gone by were stacked high, but he knew exactly what he was looking for.