12. Chapter 12
Chapter twelve
Porto, Portugal
M aria Amália Vasconcelos had long been in the habit of waking early. Every morning since she had left the nursery behind, she had risen promptly from her bed, pulled a silken robe about her body, and spent long spells leaning out over the balcony of her home, mesmerised by the diamond flecks on the massive Douro river. It was not the sea, as she wished, but if she closed her eyes, she could imagine that it was.
There was a thrilling power and a calming peace there—both life-giving sustenance and the awesome capacity to destroy, simmering together under the hand of the wise Almighty. She clasped her garment tightly round herself, relishing the feel of the rising sun on her shoulders and the cool breeze drifting through her unfettered hair.
She had always preferred the out-of-doors to the confines of her station. In her days of maidenhood, she had been fond of long walks in her father’s modest pleasure garden, or down to the walks along the river. Many a gloved hand in social circles had concealed whispered disapproval of her independent habits, but even her father’s mild censure had not checked her. Perhaps she had been spoiled, but her delights had been her own, sacred from any interference, until—
“Darling! There you are, my precious.”
She could not repress a sigh, but she did so before turning away from her view. “Miguel,” she smiled. “Good morning, my husband.”
He drew near, holding out a hand for her to accept. “You grow lovelier each morning, my flower.”
She took his hand, her breath coiled tightly within her breast. When had she ever granted Miguel the privilege of using that endearment? The glittering spark cast by the adorned hand he clasped drew her eye, even as she groused inwardly over his presumption. Apparently, Miguel considered that marriage had accorded him privilege enough to call her what he liked.
He bowed low over her hand now, kissing her fingers as a bold lover who still wooed his lady. “I have been concerned for you, my dear,” he crooned. “You have been too often unwell of late.”
She lifted her shoulders airily. “It is nothing of any concern. I am only fatigued by the evenings, and my head pains me.”
He tilted a half-smiling gaze down to her. “Is that all it is, my dear? I had feared that you were discontented. As a matter of fact, I have set aside the whole of the day to spend with you, for your happiness is near to my heart.”
Her mechanical smile fell. “Oh! Forgive me, Miguel, but I had promised to pay a few calls this morning with your step-mother.”
“Surely that may be postponed. Can you not make other arrangements so that I may enjoy my wife this day?”
She slipped her hand from his. “I am afraid not, my husband. As your father has reminded me, I bear a most important role now as his daughter-in-law. It would be bad form, indeed, should I beg off my scheduled appointments. Think how poorly it might reflect on your madrasta !”
He lifted his hands, tipping his head in acquiescence. “You are quite right, my dear. Pay your calls to the society ladies, and then I shall claim you for the whole of the afternoon.” He leaned close to nuzzle a kiss to her cheek, then down to her neck.
Amália stiffened reflexively, even as she attempted to receive his advances without shuddering. What is it about Miguel…? “Did Ruy not intend to take tea with us this afternoon?” she added quickly. “I thought you had all manner of questions for him about matters at the royal court in Brasil.”
He drew back, his lips tight and his smile forced. “You tempt me so, my dear, that I had nearly forgotten. Yes, of course. Pray, do not tire yourself overmuch today. I have seen far too little of you, and I do intend to keep you to myself this evening.”
Her stomach clenched. You cannot put him off forever, she scolded herself. After all, the man was her husband, and she was bound to him for life. Perhaps a little friendliness was not out of line. She lifted a cheerful smile to him. “And what shall you do with yourself this morning while I am out?”
“I believe my father had some business here at the house. Perhaps I shall attend him.”
“Then I shall see you at tea with Ruy. And now, if you will pardon me, I think I must begin my toilette if I am to dress properly for my outing.”
He stepped back a pace, relenting. “You are breathtaking as you are, my flower, but by all means, conceal your beauty beneath more modest attire, for I am jealous that none but myself might admire your full loveliness.”
“You pay your compliments a little too artfully, my husband,” she blushed uncomfortably.
“Do you not deserve them?” He raised her hand to kiss once more, lingering cloyingly over her fingers. “Please do not delay too long in returning to me, for I fear I cannot breathe when you are not near.”
She arched a brow, helpless to resist at least one dry comment. “My visiting mornings are always of the same duration. I trust you will take care not to expire while I am out.”
“Naturally.” He smiled thinly, leaned near to place one more intimate kiss under the edge of her jaw, then retreated from the balcony. Amália turned to face the river once more, her white fingers gripping the railing of the portico. She rebuffed him more often than not, but he had clearly been growing less and less patient with her excuses. He desired a son—or rather his father desired an heir—and it was her duty to provide one.
M ust not think of her. Must not!
Darcy was no longer permitted the freedom of movement about his chamber. He bore a shackle now about his leg, allowing only a step or two in either direction from his cot. What this restraint caused him to suffer physically—a limitation on his activity and some necessary concessions regarding his sanitary preferences—was nothing to the agitation it caused his mind.
For so many years he had been master of his own person, his affairs, and nearly every other with whom he had contact, that it had become a habit of course to assume his liberty could never be snatched away. Oh, there had been times when he had railed internally against the restrictions of Society; the demands of his station, and the duties he owed his family. So many days he had felt trapped, when his own desires had been at odds with the honour of his situation in life.
What he would give now to laugh at that artificial prison, defying its invisible walls by acting on his heart! Given another opportunity to visit Hertfordshire for the first time, he would have danced every dance at the Assembly with Elizabeth Bennet or one of her silly sisters, just to please her. He would have smiled and talked nonsense with everyone about, exerting all his charm for her family—without fear of the gossips, because the prize he sought merited every personal exposure and petty indulgence. He would have called at Longbourn the very next morning, and every morning after that, until at last he had either won her or driven her to send him away as a nuisance. If he had only known how the cool reserve he had once thought perfectly sensible would set into motion such a chain of misery for him!
Scowling, he kicked his shackled foot in frustration, but not so hard that he could bruise his leg further. Such a presumptuous ass he had been! Yet with each biting regret came the sweet knowledge that love had taught him grace, and grace had made him—at least for a time—a better man. Oh, yes, even without Elizabeth’s hand, he might have lived out his bitterly opulent existence, knowing that somewhere in the world there was one whose pleasure was dearer to him than his own—even more precious than Georgiana’s happiness….
No! He pounded his brow with a fist. It was permissible to think on Elizabeth, whose family and circumstances were safe from his own danger, but he must not allow his mind to wander to Georgie. Her very security in the wake of his presumed death placed her squarely within the wolf’s teeth, and he was but a man, as vulnerable as any to the torments of his captors. Thus far he had remained mute to their questions, but one day his body or his courage would break, and he would tell them how to find her vulnerable. His only hope was to willfully banish Georgie from his mind, to forget Pemberley and all that he was. If he could only flood his mind so thoroughly with other thoughts, perhaps what he cried out in his moments of desperation might not jeopardise his family!
The door to his chamber rattled. C ell—call it what it is! Darcy’s brow and chest burned in a cold sweat, conditioned now by terror. He lifted his head, unconsciously flashing a look of helpless appeal that, in former days, he would have found permissible only in the most deeply afflicted of persons.
The same man—Pereira—entered the room, flanked by four others. Two were his assistants, little more than cruel muscle. A third was a young dandy whose face was new to him, and the fourth was Vasconcelos himself.
“Senhor Darcy,” Vasconcelos bowed, a mocking half-smile twisting his face. “I hope your sleep has improved your memory.”
A number of salty retorts came to Darcy’s mind, but he merely shifted silently back on his cot, his eyes on the coarse bag dangling from one man’s hand. His heart began to pound.
Vasconcelos seemed perversely satisfied at Darcy’s symptoms of fear, despite the civil speech that followed. “Senhor, this need not continue so. I am a reasonable man, as are you. You force me to order such vile measures by your refusal to cooperate.”
He shook his head like a simpleton, his breath already coming in short little gasps. “No reasonable man would stoop as you have done!”
“I ask only for information, Senhor. Come, tell me what I must know, and once I have what I need, you will be free to go. Think how happy Senhorita Darcy will be to see you returned from the grave!”
Darcy’s jaw tightened, even as his gaze drifted to some neutral point on the ground. Georgie…. No! His frame snapped taut with resolve. “I know nothing!” he cried heatedly. “Anything you extract from me would be sheer falsehood on my part, availing you nothing! Why do you persist in asking the same each day?”
Vasconcelos shook his head, clicking his tongue. “Wealthy men do have so many secrets, and are often loath to give them up. I did remind you that I would release you after I have my deed, though I do appreciate your delicacy in warning me of potential falsehoods. Such might cost us both a deal more time and trouble. Come, Senhor, surely a man as well acquainted with his family history and estate as you ought to know each sheaf of paper and every private cache in the whole of his domain. Certainly, you would prefer to remember it on your own than for Senhorita Darcy to be compelled to find it.”
A rush of courage boiled to the surface, and Darcy stood at last, bracing his fists. “You have no power over her! She is too well defended. You may have found me in a moment of isolation, but her guardian will refuse to leave her side!”
“Ah, yes, the good Colonel. My son Miguel knows him by reputation; do you not?” He turned a derisive chuckle toward the younger man, then looked back to Darcy. “Is it so impossible, Senhor, that one you trusted might betray you?”
Darcy narrowed his eyes in disgust. “Say what you will, I shall not doubt my cousin’s fidelity.”
“No? So few of us can claim loyal companions when such ready wealth and power are at hand. The last word I had from my contact avers that the faithful colonel is expected soon to marry his ward, granting him independence at last. What hardships are the lot of second sons! Happy indeed is the man upon whom Fortune smiles.”
Darcy’s breath came ragged now in horror. “How dare you accuse any of my relations of treachery! You, who masquerade in your fine clothing then descend here to torture and abuse at your pleasure, you have no right to cast such abominations at the feet of true gentility!”
Vasconcelos shook his head wryly. “Gentility is a lie, Senhor—a cloak invented as a barrier to suspicion. Surely you know this by now, but if you choose not to make yourself agreeable today, I have little other alternative.” He gestured to Pereira.
Pereira and the other two closed around him as Darcy wheeled against the wall in dread. His manacled foot kicked helplessly at the hard mattress and an involuntary cry of terror escaped him as they grabbed him and forced the brown sack over his head. Whether Vasconcelos and the younger man remained in the room or not he could not have told, for all his senses now focused on the rough hands seizing his arms, the sound of the water bucket sloshing toward him.
He thrashed violently, shaking his head and flailing his hands until they were lashed together behind his back. The worst was his blindness, for even helpless as they now held him, to not know what lay before him stripped even his mind of the last vestiges of control. There could be no way to prepare, no bracing or drawing of breath, to protect himself from what was to come.
Fierce hands now pushed him down—some roughly collaring his neck and head, the others propelling him forward. Desperately as he fought backward, they overpowered him. He attempted one last gasp of air, but before he had quite drawn it, his head was submerged.
He tried to kick, to shake off the hands, to scream, but his strength failed. They pinned him until long after he thought his lungs would explode, and then held him longer. He tried to hold his breath, but his body demanded air and he could not prevent his lungs from inhaling great gulps of water. Even then, when his frame seized with his attempts to cough, the men held him for merciless seconds longer, until just before he would have gone limp in surrender.
They released him then, not pulling him back or assisting his flight in any way, so it was with a lethargic sort of panic that he pushed himself back. He collapsed, coughing interminably. Every burning gasp was accompanied by more torturous liquid in his airways, and he could not draw breath but that he nearly drowned in the water he could not cough out. Slowly, excruciatingly, he gagged up the inhaled water, and after several minutes lay weak, sputtering, and dazed.
Before he could even exert himself to discern whether he had been left alone or the real discomfort was about to begin, he found himself forcibly lifted into a chair. Still coughing, he instinctively wished to double over with each spasm from his lungs, but his torso was rapidly bound to the chair and his tied hands wrenched painfully behind his back.
“Now, Senhor Darcy,” Vasconcelos was speaking from some distance away. “I wish to know about your estate. It all falls to Senhorita Darcy, this I know, but as my former ally has betrayed my own interests, I must seek another. A name, sir. I must have the name of one other than the colonel, whom neither of us should trust. It must be someone who knows intimately all the workings of your estate, and whose face may be known by Senhorita Darcy.”
Darcy sagged against his restraints, breathless and still coughing. He shook his head weakly, though he could not see his inquisitor. There was some pause, but he did not take it for a respite. He continued tossing his head as he could, longing to detect what happened around him. If he could only see! No matter what traumas inflicted during these sessions, the horror was always multiplied by his blindness.
A moment later a rough hand jerked aside the rude garment he wore over his shoulders, and Darcy stiffened. Next would come the hot irons—burning his chest hairs and singing his nostrils, but never pressing quite enough into his skin to deeply scorch his flesh. Still, they were always taunting, always painful, and always bore the threat of the damage they could inflict.
Later, in his dark hours of solitude, he would scold himself for the terror they brought upon him. Clearly Pereira had been instructed to spare his life and to leave no crippling marks of torment. His knowledge was needed, after all, and what good was a man who died of infection? When the moment came upon him, however, and his fortitude had already been diminished by the water torture and his arm sockets savaged by the men holding him to the hot brands, he invariably proved as weak as his fears.
He screamed. He writhed. He pleaded to Heaven for mercy, and groaned Elizabeth’s sweet name as a mantra… but he never compromised Georgiana.
“P lease drive around to the stable yard, Pedro,” Amália signaled her driver.
It was not an unusual request that she made of him, so rather than letting her down at the front of the house, he clucked to the horse and did as she had instructed. Safe now in the privacy of her own drive, she removed her shawl and stretched luxuriantly in the seat of her carriage. A long, tedious undertaking all these visits to the society matrons of Porto had been, but what luck that Senhora Rodrigues, her last intended stop, had been too ill today to receive callers! Her husband’s step-mother had returned directly to the governor’s house, freeing Amália to enjoy the rest of the ride home in solitude.
She strained to see through the window of her carriage as it rolled around the house—such a hideous old building it was! Its face was large, ornate, and imposing, but its older wings were so dark and decayed that parts of it felt more like an abandoned ruin than a fine estate. The Vasconcelos family had fallen considerably in consequence over the last few generations, as she knew, and the older sections of sprawling property had rather gone to seed. It did boast unparalleled views of the river, however, and this quality alone redeemed the house in her eyes. Frequently when she could escape her formal duties as the mistress, she would disappear down one of the private walks down to the shore. Today she was not expected by her husband for at least another hour, and she intended to make good use of it.
Pedro put down the step for her, and by unspoken custom a boy from the stables took up his post ten paces behind her as she set out. Breathing deeply, she wandered her little way along the sandy, rock-strewn path. It was not long, this path, but always restorative. She did not dare loiter, for Ruy was calling this afternoon, and she ached to steal a few private moments with her brother before Miguel joined them.
She sighed, her shoulders drooping. Miguel! Did all wives find their husbands’ attentions as tiresome as she? To be certain, he was never anything but gentle with her, but he seemed to expect her to find as much pleasure in his advances as he apparently did. If only he did not insist on touching her quite so much! An involuntary shiver tensed through her shoulders. Reasoning that she had caught a brief chill and ought rightly to return to the house, she turned back.
It was a nomadic, reluctant path she trod back to the house. When she had emerged once more into the courtyard, she slowed, glancing up. There was her favourite balcony overlooking the waters, and there, jutting below it, the ancient rambling wing she had never troubled herself to explore. Miguel had told her it was sealed up to all save the rats, but a few slitted windows winked down to her and sparked, for the first time, a longing to know more of them. Perhaps it was the work of her own natural curiosity, or perhaps she was more averse to returning indoors than she would confess, but surely there could be no harm in taking a detour about the exterior of the house before assuming her mantle of duty once more.
Amália dismissed the stable boy and commenced a leisurely stroll about the lower level, to the rear of the house. The stone facing in parts was crumbling, and in other parts overgrown. There was an archaic loveliness about it; a touch of flavour from the bygone days of the house’s glory, and she could not understand why she had never before wandered this part of the premises. Well… there is that bit about Miguel searching me out whenever I am at leisure. Somehow, he never thought to look for her by the river, but he would have quickly discovered her here on the back lawn.
She rounded a part of the stone edifice and spied an inset of the wall—unseen during much of the year due to the thick, creeping tendrils of buttercup that grew there in the warmer months. In summer they would flourish wildly, far beyond the modest powers of the gardener to contain. They had died back now, and only a patchwork of dark green rosettes marked their foothold.
She bent low to collect a handful of the clinging vegetation, impulsively lifting it to her nose. In the spring it would have been alive with fragrance, but no longer. What was that silly thing Richard had once said about it? “The buttercup starts out so fresh and full of hope, ready to bless the world by sharing its hardy sweetness, but then it finds the world has no place for it. It is attacked, reviled, and uprooted from the very place it once loved. It does not die, but becomes a mere shell of what it once was in its full splendour.”
She pinched the withered green stem, staring without blinking or even truly seeing. Ah, Richard. You were speaking of quite another blossom, were you not?
From somewhere, perhaps the moaning of distant sea against land, she almost thought to hear an answer. It was little more than a sob, really, but it sounded so distinctly human, and so remarkably male that it might have been conjured by her own vivid memory. She glared again at the little stem with a low, caustic laugh. You can summon the voice—why not the man? she mocked herself. She flicked the stem from her fingers with a rough sort of finality and turned to go, but the sound carried to her again. This time it was more of a piercing shriek, like a desperate prayer.
Alert now to the deception of her own fancies, Amália whirled to face the water. There was no wind today that could have tricked her ears, no lads from the stable yard at their sport nearby. Another piteous cry followed, and this time, she could but confess it for honest reality. It seemed to be coming from behind her, but there was nothing….
She bent low once more, tilting her head as she stared hard at the little inset of the wall. Indeed, there was some sort of an opening there. It was partially obscured by the weeds, but there, near the ground, was a little hollow where the earth pulled somewhat away from the wall. Set into the gap of stones was a rusted lattice grate.
She straightened in relief. Silly little fool! she chided herself. How dramatic of her to presume to hear a voice, when it was only the musty exhales of the old underground chambers. As if there could be someone trapped down there, like in some absurd Gothic tale! Breathing a little more easily, she turned for one last admiring look toward the river before she must go indoors to dress for Ruy’s arrival.
She lifted her hand to the sun, shading her eyes where her hat proved insufficient. Yes, certainly it was time to put her wilder stirrings to rest for one day. So resolving, she set out once more, but another deep groan from within the wall caused her knees to tremble. She turned wide, startled eyes back to it, her mouth slightly agape. Was it… was it a name she had heard? It sounded for all the world like….
“Elizabeth!”
Gasping for terrified breath, Amália did the only thing she could think of. She spun and fled for the door of the house.