CHAPTER 22 – Return to Rosings
It was dusk when they arrived in Ceredigion. The team of chestnuts Darcy reserved for long journeys was spent, but they had reached their destination with a few rests rather than needing to change to post horses—a fact that did little to please Walker, his coachman.
Darcy headed directly to the inn and ordered a light supper to be served in his chamber.
He asked Ferguson to join him, a request to which the quiet servant agreed with evident trepidation.
Ferguson had spent his life serving in a household where rank was strictly observed, even among servants, and Darcy’s liberties unsettled the former footman.
It had taken his trusted man time to adjust to bustling London, and now, the familiarity Darcy sometimes offered left him somewhat uneasy.
“Sit down, Ferguson. There are matters we must discuss.”
Before obeying, Ferguson pulled out the pistol he carried on his belt. And the one behind his back. Darcy raised an amused brow as the quiet servant placed them on the side table.
“Do you always travel so armed?”
Ferguson gave a slight shrug. “Never know what one might find on the road. Your coachman cares more for his horses than his master.”
Darcy smirked. That was Walker, indeed.
“You know why we have come.”
“Aye, sir.”
Of course, Ferguson would never say more than he was asked.
Darcy tapped a finger against the table. “Then you must know that my conversation with the colonel might turn sour. I am not certain he will willingly give me the answers I seek.”
Ferguson appeared to weigh his next words carefully. “Begging your pardon, sir, but your cousin—he’s got a way of saying things without meaning ’em.”
“Until this Easter, Fitzwilliam had never given me reason to doubt him. And yet now, I know not whether I can trust him at all.”
His manservant gave a slow nod, as if he had expected this. “Some men don’t need to lie outright to get what they want.”
Supper arrived, and they dined in silence. Once they finished, Ferguson rose and holstered his weapons.
“’Night, sir. Must see after your coachman. He’ll still be cryin’ over his fours.” He reached the threshold, then hesitated. “Mrs. Smith don’t speak just for the sake of it, sir. If I were you, I would not trust your cousin too far.”
The manservant closed the door behind him.
Darcy sat motionless, the words hanging in the air. In the flickering candlelight, he poured himself a drink, turning the glass absently between his fingers. One phrase came back to him, as chilling now as it had been that fateful night.
Truth ain't always a kindness, and when it comes knockin’, you best be ready to face it.
***
The western wind blew intently as it always had this time of year, sweeping over the island with the scent of salt and seaweed.
From the top of the cliff, Fitzwilliam pulled his horse to a halt, sparing a moment from his morning ride around the island—his island—to take in the untamed vastness of Rosings.
He had always found the sea air invigorating. Filling his lungs, he removed his hat, letting the wind rake through his hair, closing his eyes against the cold rush. For a moment, he let himself forget.
This was what he had always loved most about Rosings. Its wildness. Its unyielding defiance of the elements. A place of wind and rock, ocean and mist, where only the strongest endured.
As a young man, he had dreamed of becoming master of this land.
He had envisioned himself riding these cliffs, not as a guest, not as a visitor, but as its rightful lord.
However, Fitzwilliam was, above all, a soldier who had lived the crude reality of war and learned not to cling to youthful fantasies.
His aunt’s plans were clear enough: Darcy was the chosen one, and he had accepted it with the pragmatism of those who must make their own way.
Had this path not opened, had Lady Catherine lived, he would be in London now, dancing attendance on some banker’s ill-favoured daughter with a fifty-thousand-pound dowry.
Fitzwilliam’s future had never been his to command.
That was the curse of the second son. The colonel had known it since childhood.
His elder brother, the rightful heir, was the one who mattered, and he was just an afterthought.
Yet he, too, had been born to wealth. It had wrapped around his early life like a warm, invisible mantle, expected, unearned, but never questioned.
And once tasted, it was not something he had ever wished to relinquish.
It was the same with Darcy. Darcy, who had been born into fortune, was raised with a sense of purpose Fitzwilliam had never been allowed. Darcy, who never had to fight for his position, never had to wonder what his worth was beyond a name and a uniform.
But now, with Rosings finally in his grasp, he could not shake the feeling that it had claimed him instead.
The once dashing colonel had lost his freedom. His will. He woke every morning to an insane wife, dutifully attending to her whims, playing along in her fantasy of domestic bliss.
To the growing weariness Anne inspired in him—and the daily effort of pleasing her in bed—was now added a far more pressing concern: he needed to produce an heir.
It was only a matter of time before Anne lost her mind completely, and someone would eventually take notice. If the marriage were to be contested, and no child secured the maternal line—along with it, his continued hold over Rosings—he would lose everything. All would have been for nothing.
Sighing, Fitzwilliam followed the flight of a passing chough, the red-legged crow—Bran-Goesgoch, as the islanders called them—drifting over the rocky coast. It drew his eyes towards the ruins of Rosings.
There, atop the tallest cliff, dark and sombre against the sky, the shattered remains of the manor stood, a monument to his aunt’s tyranny and his own sins.
The sight of Rosings pulled him backward into the past—dragging him back to Easter Sunday, to the day it all began.
***
Anne had been in one of her moods. A full-blown hysterical fit, screaming over her mother’s latest interference in her affairs. He should have known something was wrong that day. She had been more desperate than usual.
The blind man’s buff had been her idea; a convenient ruse to escape into the maze with him.
He had indulged her, as he always did. Anne had first stolen into his bed at the age of eighteen, and with each passing year, each visit to Rosings, her hunger only grew.
By careful means, he contrived to keep the affair secret and spare them any untimely consequences.
He found a wicked delight in gratifying her while certain that Lady Catherine would have raged had she guessed the truth. Until Anne had whispered her foolishness about marriage.
“Your mother would never allow it,” he had said, dismissing the idea with a simple wave of his hand.
His first mistake. Anne did not want to wait until she was five-and-twenty and no longer under her mother’s rule. She never wanted to wait. And that precise night, she had taken matters into her own hands.
Fitzwilliam had been too deep into his third glass of port to fully register the sound of his door opening. He barely took notice when Anne climbed into his bed.
She had been wild that night, fiercer than before. When they were done, he laughed in breathless pleasure.
“Oh, my, Anne,” he said lazily. “What has got into you?”
Then he lit the candle and the blood rushed from his face. Her nightgown. The fabric was soaked in blood.
His heart pounded. The port blurred his reasoning, but not enough to ignore what this meant.
“Anne,” he whispered. “What did you do?”
“We are free, Richard.” Her voice was dreamy, her smile manic. “We are finally free.”
His mind was slow to process. But when it did, it landed on one undeniable truth.
This could work in his favour—if he acted fast enough.
***
As the saying goes, a single spark can start a fire, and Fitzwilliam had lit too many to stop everything from going up in flames.
From that moment on, every decision he made was the wrong one, each mistake pulling him deeper into the web of lies and deceit he had spun. The more he struggled, the tighter it trapped him.
His second big mistake came the following night. He had been in Anne’s room, discussing how they would handle Lady Catherine’s death when Mrs. Jenkinson walked in carrying a tray of tea, and caught them together.
Anne reacted violently, seizing the poker. Fitzwilliam had barely caught her hand before she could bring it down on her companion. The poor woman fled. Anne urged him to stop her. Thus, he ran after her, already scheming how to convince her of their innocence.
The rest happened so quickly he could not recall the exact moment of decision. He chased her into the tower. Grabbed her arm. She fought, struggled. But what chance did she have, a frail old woman against a man twice her size?
Eyes wide with terror, she screamed—desperate cries that no one would hear.
He held her firmly while she tugged with all her strength to free herself from his grip.
Then, he let go.
It had not been a moment of rage. Not even a conscious plan. Just a choice made in the space of a heartbeat.
Mrs. Jenkinson tumbled backward, disappearing into the dark stairwell.
That was the night Colonel Fitzwilliam killed an old, defenceless woman.
Thinking quickly, he had fetched the tray she had carried and cast it down the stairwell after her.
A poor imitation of an accident—but it had worked, for a time.
Darcy, of course, had noticed the missing pieces.
His cousin’s insight had bought the fool just enough time to mend the scene before the constable arrived.
From that night on, Anne’s behaviour began to unravel.
Her moods turned erratic, her actions increasingly volatile—particularly when he announced his intention to leave the island.
She had grown so agitated that he tried to calm her as he always had—as she liked—but even a night of indulgence failed to soothe her. So he resorted to laudanum.
To his misfortune, that had only made things worse. Whatever its effect, it unmoored her so completely that the night ended with Collins dead—and Rosings engulfed in flames.
A bell rang in the distance, carried by the wind. Fitzwilliam sighed, annoyed. Damn that woman and her habit of announcing to the entire village that she required his presence.
With a weary roll of his shoulders, he began the slow ride back to the house.
While he guided his horse along the narrow path towards the bay, his gaze drifted over the road’s winding turns, the sheer drop below. His thoughts, as they often did, returned to that night.
Had he made the right choice when he turned the ship around? Things would have been different. That much was certain.
Darcy would likely be dead. He would have become Georgiana’s sole guardian. And if he had played his cards well, perhaps even the master of Pemberley.
He had allowed himself to imagine it—standing there, watching his cousin cling to life on that crumbling balcony. But at the final moment, his scruples had returned. Lady Catherine’s death had secured his future at Rosings; there had seemed no need to stain his hands with his cousin’s blood.
That night, at least, he had chosen restraint.
As he reached the house, he dismounted, tossing the reins to a waiting groom. The butler met him at the entrance with a slight bow.
“Mr. Darcy is waiting for you in the sitting room, sir.”
Fitzwilliam exhaled slowly. He wiped a gloved hand over his sleeve—a thoughtless gesture, as if brushing away a stain that was not there.
Then he stepped inside.