Chapter 52
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Darcy stood on the terrace of the Latymers home, watching as Elizabeth vanished into the crowded ballroom and out of his life.
The pain assaulting him was so real that he could scarcely breathe. It filled his chest and pierced him, cleaving him in half. He knew he must go, but for some time he had not the strength required to walk, no matter how much he wished to leave the scene of the greatest pain he had ever known.
Eventually, he was able to don the cloak of his characteristic reserve, holding himself stiffly upright as he began the walk home.
He gave his leave to no one, caring not that Fitzwilliam would wonder where he was or that his hosts might be offended.
He required solitude and could not imagine making any sort of polite conversation, not even for a moment.
There was a decided chill to the night air, which was a relief, particularly after the close heat of the crowded ballroom. He walked along, lost in his thoughts, not knowing or caring where or how he went, just pointing himself towards home and assuming he would get there in due course.
It was finished. Their love was a stinking, bloated corpse that had lain in the viewing room far too long, well past the time it should have, and it was time to bury it. It mattered not whether she loved him or he loved her; she belonged to Courtenay.
For Darcy, there would be nothing. The loneliness he had felt in the summer before he met her was trifling compared to the gaping maw that now opened within his soul.
He foresaw a bleak, empty future: he would grow old and embittered in his solitude.
He thought longingly of old age. What a comfort it would be if he were sixty or so and knew it was soon over!
A sound came from behind him—footsteps? He glanced over his shoulder and seeing no one, retreated into his thoughts again.
A wife would be necessary at some point, but it would do nothing to ease the hole in his heart and the halving of his soul that had just occurred.
I must marry someone mercenary, someone whose true joy is in fortune and position, someone who will neither notice nor care whether my affections are fixed elsewhere.
Another sound, this time a sort of scuffle.
He turned again, vexed that the moon had retreated behind a cloud and removed its scant light from the pavement. Shadows and shades abounded; the street appeared empty, but he felt the prickling unease of hidden eyes upon him.
He continued walking, his attention now more attuned to his environs.
Then came the faint sound of a throat being cleared.
He turned just as a figure vanished into the shadows.
With a frown, Darcy knew he must make haste.
He was without protection and did not fancy being robbed or worse.
His home was near, and he hastened his step, eager to be in his study with a drink.
Another glance over his shoulder as he neared his house revealed a man quite close to him. When the man realised he had been noticed, he approached rapidly and pressed close to Darcy’s back. “I must speak with you, sir. Bring me into your house, but we must not be seen.”
“What the devil!” Darcy jerked away, glad he did not carry any money. “Blasted pickpockets! I should call—”
“No,” the man hissed. “It is Hanley, and I must speak to you about your wife. Inside, and quickly, man!”
Darcy had a rapid succession of thoughts run through his head: punch Hanley, shout out an alarm, and do any number of prudent things that one might do when confronted by an interloper.
For some reason, however, he did none of these, but he brought Hanley into his home with an uncharacteristic trust in a man who had done nothing but gall him from the first.
Darcy slipped Hanley past the footman at the front door, and they made it to Darcy’s study unnoticed.
He poured them both a generous brandy even as he wondered at the wisdom of allowing Hanley to be in his home at a late hour.
He could not trust this man, nor would he be easy in his company, despite his rather insipid appearance.
They settled in chairs by the fireplace. “If you wish for some refreshment, Mr Hanley, I am afraid I cannot oblige you without summoning my housekeeper.”
“I do not wish for anything but to speak to you.”
“You have an odd way of requesting a meeting,” Darcy told him severely. “You are lucky I do not carry my pistol.”
Hanley shrugged. “You would not be the first to pull a pistol on me—nor the last, I believe.”
The man’s face was as dull and placid as ever. He had little expression as he removed from the pocket of his frock coat a small paper that bore many scribbled notations. Darcy could not read any of them, but it appeared to be some kind of code.
“You must have been away from town,” Darcy began. “For if you had been privy to the gossip, you would know I do not have a wife. As it turns out, I never did.”
“In that, I must say you are incorrect,” Hanley replied. “You did, and still do, have a wife, at least by my accounting.”
His heart leapt hopefully at such a statement, but Darcy was outwardly stern. “Absurd.”
“I believe that the man your wife presently lives with is not Henry Warren, but Francis.”
Darcy scoffed at Hanley even as a profound sense of joy flooded him.
A preposterous notion, fanciful in the extreme, though he could not stop himself from asking, “Do you imagine that Mr Wickham shot the wrong brother? If so, would not Lord Courtenay have returned to his wife and his earldom immediately?”
“Not exactly,” Hanley replied. “Before I tell you what I know, however, I must caution you: this story is solely my cause. I have not the proof needed to interest others. The men who investigated the murder of Lord Courtenay do not wish to hear they made a mistake. If Francis Warren was shot by Mr Wickham and lived to tell the tale, then it was the Crown and the men who acted in its stead that executed the earl. It is not an idea they are interested in exploring, particularly your own uncle, Lord Matlock.”
“Why has it come to your interest?”
“I have known for some time that Henry was involved,” Hanley answered.
“So, I quietly sought information to implicate him, but that has been even more difficult since his return. He has proven far more cunning than he was previously, and thus, there is little to implicate him in these schemes. If we can prove he is Francis, then we have a problem solved for both of us. I believe that Francis—or rather, Henry, if I am correct—was hanged before your marriage?”
Our time at Rosings Park. I could never forget that. “Yes.”
“Then Lady Courtenay was not married when she married you—if the man hanged was Henry.”
Darcy’s heart beat with excitement at the notion, but he remained inscrutable, watching as Hanley helped himself to a bit more of Darcy’s brandy.
“My father, Mr Darcy, is the Baron Walsingham, and he served in the House of Commons as Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas as did his father before him, settling debts and so forth.
He is a man with a firm belief in king and country and honour above all, and he has always had a keen interest in exposing those who aim to harm our great sovereign state.
“As such, when I reached a certain age, I was asked by some highly placed individuals to do a small service to the Crown. It was a peculiar sort of position and carried with it the idea of danger, but as a young man, that would only entice me. I was uniquely positioned, you see, being an intimate of the Warren family, most particularly the heir, Henry Warren.”
“You were not equally intimate in your friendship with his brother?”
“I was friend to both, but Francis was always a bit wild and inclined towards mischief and associations with questionable people.” He drank deeply of his brandy.
“In any case, in 1807, after the death of Frederick Warren, the old earl, I was asked to join a small group with the two Warren brothers—a group that met for cards and drinking now and again but whose activities and conversation had become suspect to the king.”
Comprehension dawned on Darcy. “The treasonous radicals.”
Hanley nodded. “Yes, though the king and Parliament did not suspect how far gone they were even from the start. There was talk of beheadings, murders, and the burning of estates—all the usual sorts of rebellious things.”
“And you say both Henry and Francis were involved? I am astonished. I only knew Francis to be a part of the plot.”
Hanley shook his head, a faint smile on his lips.
“I was friend to Henry Warren all my life, and believe me when I say that the roles of the brothers—with Henry appearing the saint and Francis the sinner—were well rehearsed. Henry had become expert by that time at keeping himself untainted while Francis bore the consequence of whatever mischief had transpired. No, I assure you, they were both in it, but Henry covered himself and his involvement very well.”
“But why? Why would Henry involve himself in such a thing? Francis’s impetus is more readily understood, but I cannot think why a wealthy, well-positioned man would want to do away with the order that exalted him.”
“That, sir, brings us to the heart of the matter. Henry and Francis each took a different view on the group’s objectives, and it caused a division. They both wanted to change things but each in his own way.
“The faction that included Francis wanted to establish a new sort of government—a democracy, if you will, with all men being equal or at least having equal opportunities in life no matter the station to which they were born.
“The other faction, Henry and one or two others, wanted to retain the old structure but destroy certain individuals within it, which would yield greater power to him and his allies. This caused great disagreement within the group, especially between the two brothers. The arguments grew vicious, and death threats became almost commonplace. However, in late 1808, Henry began to suspect that Francis’s threats had become less talk and more of a true call to action. ”
“Dreadful,” Darcy murmured.
Hanley continued as if he had not heard him, “Henry formed his own schemes, but he was a cunning man and could not content himself with only the killing of his brother. He wanted to ensure that, were he killed, his legacy would live on. He sought immortality the only way a man can.”
Darcy inhaled sharply. “An heir.”
Hanley nodded. “We were in Bath, the two of us, when he hit upon the notion. Henry had a deceptively gentle demeanour but do not mistake it; he was a determined man when he knew what he wanted, and he would go to great lengths for the pleasure of having his way.
“He knew that his brother had contracted a killer, and thus, he did likewise. He was not afraid to die, but what he did wish for was glory for the Courtenay legacy. He wanted a son, and he wanted to outwit his brother. By this time, the feud between them had grown quite bitter.
“We were walking the streets of Bath and looking in the shops, aimlessly wandering and speaking of his plans, when a lovely young girl from Hertfordshire caught his eye. It was done before I could believe my eyes: a courtship and marriage within mere weeks. He then hied her out of the country, desperate to get her with child.”
Darcy’s mouth hung slack—this was a shock. Not once had he imagined that Henry’s motive in marrying Elizabeth was anything but true love. He grieved for her, for a loss that he hoped she would never know she suffered. “He never loved her?”
Hanley shrugged. “He had some affection for her, but no, theirs was not a romance, not on his part in any case. I believe the money he lavished on her and her family was a sort of apology for the fact that he had used her to this purpose. His design, as he said to me in Bath, was to marry someone beneath him who would be so enraptured by her change in fortune as not to question the rest of it. It had to be a woman unknown among the ton. The last thing he needed was someone with their own purpose and connexions. He preferred a country girl because he believed she would fall with child more quickly and more often than a lady of higher society. Elizabeth fit the bill on all accounts. He was happy with her though, and I do like to think he might have loved her, at least a little.”
Darcy thought for a moment. “If he knew of the plot against him, why did he respond to his brother’s summons to Warrington?”
Hanley smiled. “It was a case of the mouse entrapping the cat. Henry went to Warrington knowing what Francis had planned for him yet planning to have Francis dealt with on the way.”
“The double plot!”
“Correct. What looked like a contingency plan for Henry’s death was, in truth, one brother against the other.
Mr Wickham believed he was hired to kill Lord Courtenay, but in fact, he was hired by Lord Courtenay to kill his brother.
Being an identical twin has its benefits, and Henry likely used it to dupe Mr Wickham into thinking he had killed Henry instead of Francis.
There were differences between them—build, length of hair, even style of dress—but Mr Wickham did not know them, and he could have been easily misdirected to one brother over the other.
“I believe Henry intended to remain in hiding until Mr Wickham was dead to avoid any possibility that the truth might be uncovered. He paid Mr Wickham a pittance as a final sort of insult to Francis to show that his life was worth so little. Of course, in the end, he got what he paid for, which was an incompetent assassin.”
“How could Francis have known he would survive his brother’s attack? Did he know?”
“I think not. I believe Francis, after recovering from his illness, realised he had a unique opportunity to take on the identity of Henry. It was the only way to emerge the victor.”
Hanley took a sip of the drink Darcy had set before him. “Francis, you see, would not have wanted Henry killed on the road to Warrington. It was very much in Francis’s interest to have Henry arrive, hale and whole, at their family seat.”
“Why?”
“Money,” Hanley replied simply. “Is that not the reason for everything?”