Chapter Five
Fitzwilliam Darcy stopped in the doorway to his chambers and looked back at his sleeping wife.
She had reached out to claim the warm patch he had left behind and was now sprawled across the large bed on her front, taking up more space than a woman of her small stature should rightfully have been able to occupy.
Her dark auburn hair had escaped its braid and now lay spread across the pillow and over her bare back.
His heart squeezed. The years together had not made his love for her any less.
He still looked upon her every morning and thought himself the luckiest man in the world.
She was the most wonderful, the most brave, the most outspoken woman he had ever known and he could imagine no one else standing by his side.
She had also given him the greatest possible gift in three bright and beautiful daughters, filling Pemberley with the noise and light it had sorely lacked in the years before.
He wished to go back to bed, to gently brush her wild mass of hair aside and press kisses to her neck, to stroke her soft skin and show her just how much he loved her, but alas, he had a meeting with a tenant farmer that could not wait.
He closed the door softly and headed downstairs and through a side door towards the stables.
A bleary-eyed Little John, the son of Darcy's stablemaster, was already shovelling hay, and Darcy asked him to prepare his stallion, Hector.
The farm was some way from the estate proper, and he fancied a good gallop.
Little John did as he was bid, although with much less urgency than Darcy knew the boy's father would have liked.
The lad was a little dreamy, to be sure, but he knew his business and had time enough to grow into the role.
Darcy noticed that Bella's mare, Tempest, was gone from her stall and his brow creased.
It was early for Bella to ride, although not unheard of.
He hoped that she was not still feeling unsettled and upset.
Their conversation the day prior had felt like a truce of sorts, and she had attended her lessons yesterday attentively, if very quietly.
He told himself it did no good to imagine problems where there were none and strode out of the stables to await Hector.
Darcy mounted and took a route across the fields to the west of the estate, relishing the freshness of the early summer morning and the sight of crops beginning to grow in earnest. His own father had always said that this was the time of year when he felt Pemberley truly come to life, and the words echoed in Darcy's mind every time the season softened, despite the many years that had passed since George Darcy had last ridden these lands.
His chest constricted, as it often did when he thought of his father and all that he had missed.
How he would have doted on his granddaughters and Elizabeth.
"Well, I am certainly in a maudlin sort of mood," Darcy said to Hector, giving his stallion an affectionate pat on the neck. "Now, how about a little run?"
???
Darcy's business finished quickly enough, and he was able to join his family at the breakfast table. He bent to kiss his wife's cheek, and Elizabeth immediately crinkled her nose.
"William, you smell of horse."
"That I do, my dear. Hector and I have had a good long run."
"Are you not very old for galloping, Papa?" said Mina earnestly.
He fought back a chuckle, bending to kiss first her cheek and then Kate's. "I am not ready for a bath chair just yet, my dear."
He sat and gratefully accepted a cup of coffee from a footman. Then he noticed Bella's empty chair, and his brow furrowed.
"Where is your sister?"
"She must still be abed," said Kate, not looking up from the book she had beside her plate.
"She is such a slug-a-bed," said Mina, spearing a mushroom with her fork. "Honestly, it is half past ten."
Darcy's stomach dropped. He looked towards Elizabeth, who immediately recognised the worry in his eyes.
"May I speak to you, my dear?" he said, trying to keep his voice light and pleasant, although it sounded strained even to his own ears.
"Come, William," she said, standing quickly and taking his arm as they strode from the room. After so many years of marriage, they were each intimately aware of the other's moods and feelings. Elizabeth gripped his forearm and asked in a low tone, "What has happened? Did you fight with Bella?"
"No, we did not fight. But Tempest was gone from the stables when I collected Hector at close to seven. If she has ridden out, she should have returned by now."
Elizabeth did not answer. She turned and made for the main staircase, lifting her skirts and moving so quickly that it took Darcy some effort to catch her.
"Elizabeth, I am sure it is nothing. She is probably reading somewhere and has lost track of the time."
Elizabeth said nothing. She simply kept moving until she reached Bella's room and pushed open the door without knocking. Marie was standing beside the wardrobe, laying out one of Bella's dresses. She startled at their sudden entrance and immediately dipped into a curtsey.
"Madame. Monsieur. Ah, but the young mademoiselles do need their beauty sleep, non? I was just preparing Mademoiselle Bella's clothes for when she wakes."
Elizabeth said nothing. She crossed the room and pulled back the bed curtains. The bed was empty. Darcy stared at it. The sheets were smooth and undisturbed, the pillows still neatly arranged. No one had slept there.
Marie gave a small gasp behind them. "Mademoiselle?"
Elizabeth turned and said in a sharp tone that she used very sparingly, "Marie, leave us, please."
"But, madame, I did not know… Mon Dieu, I thought she was sleeping. I would never... "
"Now, Marie," Darcy bellowed.
The maid curtseyed again, her face pale, and hurried from the room, closing the door behind her.
Darcy pulled back the sheets as if he might find his daughter concealed there, playing a game of hide-and-seek as she had when she was a young girl, giggling softly enough to give away her hiding place.
A scrap of paper fluttered to the floor.
He picked it up and opened it hurriedly, staring at the sparse message, I am safe. Darcy sat down heavily on the edge of the bed. "Oh, good God, Bella," he said, holding the note out in trembling fingers to his wife, who snatched it from him.
"I pushed her too hard," he said. "I knew she was unhappy and still I would not leave it alone."
"William..."
"What if she has gone with someone?" He looked up at her, and she saw at once where his thoughts had gone. "I nearly lost Georgiana to a fortune-hunting villain. What if I have been too lenient or let her have too much freedom?"
Elizabeth's face lost its colour. She sank down beside him, her hand searching for his. Her fingers were shaking. "No," she said quickly. "Bella would have told us. She would never be so impetuous..." Her voice broke, and she began to weep.
Darcy knew his wife. She was afraid of nothing and nobody, but in that moment she looked terrified.
"We will find her," he said, folding her into his arms and speaking gently into her hair.
"We will find her, and she will be safe.
She will be safe." He only wished he possessed a fraction of the confidence he tried to put into the words.