Chapter 51
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
The evening with Jane and Bingley proved to be less anxiety provoking than Elizabeth thought it would. Mr Neaves was an amiable man, agreeable in company, and if he was storing on dits about Lord and Lady Courtenay to relate to his friends, he hid it well.
Miss Bingley was unexpectedly charming as well, being neither ingratiating nor malicious. It was a side of her Elizabeth had seen but rarely, and she wondered whether the lady was in love with Mr Neaves. Surely, little else could cause her to act in such a pleasant manner.
Elizabeth’s guilt was made that much more profound because she had initiated a fight with her husband—in and of itself egregious—based on a supposition that was false. Her error was thus doubled. She shook her head, vowing once again to pull herself from her doldrums.
I am not formed for ill humour. I never have been, and I do not wish to begin. True, I cannot have what I wish for, but that is so for many people. You are no different. Accept this with gratitude, for it might be far worse.
She knew what she needed to do, much as it pained her to do it.
I must take myself, my heart, and my mind away from Darcy. The friendship, the connexion cannot be maintained.
The agony that accompanied such a thought was breathtaking.
If I am ever to be happy and at peace in my life with Henry, Darcy must be set aside. There is no other way.
She looked at Henry and saw that he was listening attentively to a story Bingley was relating while absently eating a dish of peas and pearl onions.
Elizabeth’s mouth opened with alarm, recalling the fact that he often grew ill to the point of vomiting from onions.
Even a food merely touched by an onion might cause him to become sick. She saw it happen to him in Italy.
She cleared her throat gently and caught his attention. “The onions,” she whispered. “You are eating the onions.”
He looked at her blankly. “Is something wrong with the dish?”
“The onions,” Elizabeth gestured to his plate, but he appeared uncomprehending.
“Lizzy?” Jane asked. “Is something wrong?”
Elizabeth was embarrassed, having wished to avoid notice. “Everything is wonderful. You do set a lovely table. However, Henry sometimes becomes ill from eating onions or dishes containing onions.”
Jane looked to Henry with wide eyes. “Oh no! I beg your pardon, sir, I did not know they would make you ill!” She gestured to a nearby footman. “Smith, please remove the plate.”
“No need, I assure you.” Henry waved the man off. “The onions will do me no harm.”
Neaves then launched into some tale he had heard wherein onions, like asparagus, could predispose the body to infection. The rest of the table fell silent, not wishing to distress Lord Courtenay. Elizabeth watched her husband closely.
The last time she had seen him eat an onion, it was part of the very dish he had just consumed, and he had developed sharp pains in his stomach within a few minutes.
The pains had doubled him over, rendering him almost unable to walk, and had not relented for several days.
Moreover, he had developed a rash around his mouth and on his neck.
Yet, he was perfectly well now. The onions did not affect him though he did push them aside, eventually permitting Smith to remove his plate. Nevertheless, he had consumed a good portion before she stopped him.
Elizabeth did not know what to think of it.
Was it possible for these sorts of problems to dissipate entirely with age?
She supposed it must be so, for throughout the rest of the night and even when they retired, Henry showed no sign of pain or distress.
She was glad for it as the only thing that might make the night worse was for him to take ill.
Elizabeth laid awake long into the night, thinking of her marriage.
The thoughts begun earlier and resisted had continued to worm their way into her consciousness.
She had not seen Darcy often and soon would go into Lancashire where she would see him not at all.
Yet, he was constantly in her mind, an ever-present spectre in her dreams. The memory of his face was the siren’s song that lured her to him, even knowing she could not have him. He haunted her.
No more Darcy. No more thoughts, no more love, no more memories. I must be wholly Lady Courtenay.
Turning onto her stomach, she cried into her pillow, feeling the deepness of her loss and mourning the true happiness that would never again be her own.
It was nearly four in the morning when the man entered the brothel, nodding to the proprietor as he followed his usual girl to the room he preferred at the top of the stairs. It was an out of the way room with a separate stairway out the back, ideal for a clandestine removal.
The young courtesan was a delight—winsome and eager to please—but on this night, the man had more pressing concerns than those of his body. He entered the room, closing the door behind him, and the girl smiled prettily as she prepared to leave. “Do you wish me to return later?”
He offered her a kind smile and handed her some pound notes he had earlier secreted in his pocket. “I do not think so, my dearest.”
The girl thanked him and left, and the man turned and unlocked the door to the back stairway. Moments later his compatriot entered.
“My lord.” The man’s friend bowed deeply and affectedly, and the two men both laughed with the irony of it.
“Yes, indeed.” They took two chairs that had been put in the room for this purpose and moved them close to the fire, as they had no other means by which to warm their blood.
“So, what have you learnt?”
Lord Courtenay knew he had not the information needed and so chose to prevaricate a bit. “She found the cipher with some journals, my journals.”
“Yet, she has done nothing to find the money,” the man retorted. “I can only suppose she is too dull to apprehend the meaning of it.”
Courtenay shrugged. “She has been to the castle rarely. She was in hiding, in case you had forgotten.”
“And a damned nuisance that was! We might have had this settled long ago.”
“Well, so it is.” Courtenay shrugged. “The pieces are together now.”
“Yes, but does she understand the cipher?”
“I cannot be sure.”
“Not sure!” The man exclaimed in disbelief. “Ask her, you fool.”
Courtenay scowled. “Let us not forget whose fortune this is.” He went to the fire and toed it with his boot, permitting his friend to bask in the error of his ways for a moment.
“Forgive me.” His friend was properly penitent. “You are correct; this is your fortune. I am only eager for things to happen. The years have drawn long.”
Courtenay turned back, magnanimous and amiable in his forgiveness of the breach.
“That they have. Do not grow impatient now—all things in due time. I shall take my wife to Warrington in the next fortnight, and then we shall see to the rest. Elizabeth is a witty, curious sort of girl. I do not doubt her ability to unravel the portions in code, if she has not already.”
The man nodded. “Of course. What are your plans for her then?”
“My plans?”
“Once all has been settled and the fortune retrieved.”
Courtenay shrugged. “I do not know.”
“I suppose you could keep her. It would save you a fortune in the brothels.”
“Wives are more costly than harlots, I assure you.” Courtenay laughed. “Moreover, I have never been so terribly inclined towards matrimony. A wife is one woman, always. For a harlot, you can suit your fancy on a night-by-night basis.”
The man knew he had erred earlier and wished to be complaisant. “If you require some assistance, I am pleased to help you.”
“Perhaps.” Courtenay yawned, the time of the night taking its toll on him. “She is a sweet girl. I would not wish her to suffer. I have grown excessively fond of her, after all.”
“What of the boy?”
“Oh, nothing to be done there,” Courtenay was quick to insist. “The earldom, in whatever form it remains, must have an heir. If I have not an heir, people will push me to remarry and create one. Young Henry has his purpose in the times to come, but Elizabeth, alas, does not.”
“Do you not wish for a second son?”
“Heaven forbid!” Courtenay exclaimed. “A second son is not a fate I would wish on anyone, not with so much still uncertain.”
“So you say.” Chuckling, the man rose. “I shall leave you now until we meet at Warrington.”
Fitzwilliam had pestered unceasingly for Darcy to join him at a ball given by one of Lord Matlock’s close friends. Sir Frederick Latymer was an exceedingly wealthy gentleman from Northamptonshire who had three beautiful daughters, and Fitzwilliam was keen to flirt with them.
“Come, Darcy, there are three of them: one each and a spare,” Fitzwilliam teased with a leer.
“Do not do that,” Darcy replied immediately, a warning clear in his tone.
Fitzwilliam knew immediately that his joke had gone awry. “I apologise. You are correct; such a joke is thoughtless.”
Darcy did not reply immediately. From the desk chair in his study, he looked out the window a moment. Softly, he said, “If before, I was a disinterested suitor, I now find the idea abominably repulsive.”
“Forgive me; it was not an appropriate jest.”
“It occurred in October.” Darcy spoke as if to himself. “The thing with Wickham, that is, and then we had to wait and worry until January when we found him.”
“I know.”
Darcy seemed not to have heard him. “Now it is the beginning of April, three months since the truth was known, and it is not yet easier—not one bit. When will it improve, I wonder?”
“No improvement at all?”
“I still cannot comprehend the fact that she is not my wife and she never was. My heart is married to her, and it cannot be undone.” Darcy went to the window. “I hired someone to check into things.”
“What?” Fitzwilliam was surprised. “Why would you do that?”
“For my own peace of mind, I imagine.”
Fitzwilliam sighed. “Your peace of mind?”