Chapter Eight #2
“Thank you. I would never have presumed.” He did breathe a sigh of relief; as much as the thought had not occurred to him, he was most grateful for her thoughtfulness.
Being alone with him, even as ill as he was, could destroy her reputation should the wrong people hear of it.
He would not be able to cure the harm by marrying her as she was the daughter of a traitor.
He told himself that the wrenching he felt was just the pain of his head and his unsettled stomach.
Her soft voice continued, “John tells me you have not suffered like this before, but I have given him some balm in the event of a return. Is the pain at all relieved?” He managed to nod without too much distress.
“Will you be able to sleep now, do you think? Once you awaken, I believe you will be very much improved. We’ve found a room nearby for John.
You need only call for him and he will attend you. ”
She felt the compress once more, then whispered her goodbyes and left the room with his footman and her maid. Sleep came more easily now, a comfort rather than a drowning, and he gladly gave himself over to the arms of Morpheus.
When next he opened his eyes, the pain in his head had all but vanished, with only a dull ache to remind him of his ordeal.
His shoulder now troubled him all the more, but that was a pain he could tolerate.
He rose carefully from the bed and took stock of his surroundings.
The room was almost completely dark, and the darkness that lay beyond the crack in the draperies told him that night had long since fallen.
He eased himself to the window, careful of straining aching muscles unaccustomed to riding these last several weeks, and drew the curtains open a crack more to see outside.
Perhaps he could detect what time it might be by some activity in the grounds outside.
But he saw nothing. It must, therefore, be very late.
He walked to the sliver of light that outlined where the door must be, pushed it open, and listened.
There was no noise, no sound of people moving about at all.
He ought to call John, but he could not quite recall where his footman was.
Perhaps a servant might be awake, keeping watch through the night, who might be of assistance, but the hallway, when his eyes adjusted to the light, was empty.
He could now survey his own room somewhat better, for the light from the hall was just sufficient to illuminate the most important features of the chamber.
He located his waistcoat and cravat, and then his coat and boots, and then behind a screen, a chamber pot for his personal needs, which he attended to with relief.
The necessaries done, he dressed with care and stepped outside to see if he might find anybody about.
The house seemed to be completely asleep.
There were no servants in the hallway, none in the foyer by the doors, nor any awake in the kitchens.
This would never happen at Pemberley, but Longbourn was very much smaller, Bennet a mere country squire and not the largest landholder in this part of the county.
He should not expect matters to be the same here as at home.
He did find a tall standing clock, which read half past one in the morning.
These were early hours still in the city, but in the country people rose and slept with the sun.
Creeping into the kitchens, he found a pitcher of water and availed himself of a great portion of it, feeling much improved almost at once.
He debated returning to his chamber, but he had no trace left of the exhaustion that had affected him earlier, and did not cherish the thought of spending the remainder of the night staring sleepless at the black ceiling.
Bennet had a small library, that he knew, and he determined to make his way there and find a book that he might read by the lamps burning in the hallways.
He ought, he knew, to take the time to examine the older man’s study more closely for a trace of the device he had been sent to discover.
Still, he had been in the room many times, and never had Bennet seemed at all alarmed at his perusal of desk or bookshelf, and had freely opened drawers in Darcy’s presence.
Further, his head, whilst greatly improved, still felt mauzy from the megrim.
A quick peek, perhaps, but then he would be satisfied with a book.
He made his way down the hall. This was a strange old house, in part rather modern, but in part ancient, although restored inside so completely that one hardly knew where the new building left off from the old.
The library, which Bennet had shown him was in the old part, just before the building widened into an ancient tower that housed a seldom-used drawing room.
That drawing room would also be a fine place to read, for it was removed from the family’s wing of the house and he would not disturb anybody.
If he could find a lamp thither, he could pass the remainder of the night in relative comfort.
He crept through the dim hallways, careful not to walk into any stray tables or stools, until at last he found the door he sought.
It swung open easily; Bennet must spend a great deal of time in here, for the hinges were well oiled.
The floor inside was covered in a thick carpet and his feet made no noise at all as he entered the space, allowing the door to close silently behind him.
As he began to move towards the fireplace where he thought he recalled a lamp, a muted shuffling sound caught him by surprise and he stopped in his place, then on some instinct, he darted towards the wall and hid himself in a narrow alcove between two shelves of books.
What he saw stunned him into disbelief. In the blackness of the room, a thin line of light appeared on the far wall, the one closest to the old tower. The line grew thicker until it revealed the outline of an opening door, through which three men emerged, the first carrying the illuminating lamp.
Was this what he had been seeking all this time?
These must be the Frenchmen Stanton had told him about!
Was he about to discover some dire secret?
If they found him secreted in his place, however, anything he learned would be lost, for they would surely kill him to maintain their secret and his silence.
Willing himself into the furthest corner of his alcove, he held his breath and prayed for invisibility.
The men whispered for a few moments, words in French that he could not quite hear well enough to understand, and then they did something that surprised him even more than emerging from the wall.
One of them moved to the window where he did something Darcy could not see, and a small section of the outside wall slid away with scarcely a sound, allowing the three to exit into the darkness outside, unseen by any save the man hidden behind the bookshelves.
As the last of the three crept through the secret doorway, the wall moved back into its place with a click, leaving Darcy alone in the darkness.
He remained where he was for several very long minutes, lest some fourth person be trailing the first three.
At last, satisfied that he was indeed alone, he crept from his place and made his way to where the men had emerged.
The small door they had used had swung back into its place, but it had not locked, and Darcy was able to prise it open with his fingers.
There was almost no light, and he dared not find a tinder box now, but a cursory investigation with fingers and feet revealed a staircase ascending upwards into what must be the walls of the tower.
He must find some excuse to return with a dark lantern; he must discover what lay up above his head.
He closed the door to where he had found it, and began the slow and careful walk back to the library door where he might find his way back to his chamber, when that door opened and a blaze of light blinded him.
And a voice called out, “Mr. Darcy! Whatever are you doing?”