Chapter 13 #2
“Lady Metcalfe knocked over the vase, startled your horse, and last night tried to poison her,” cried Darcy. “It is all from the deluded hope that I would move my affections from Miss Bennet to Miss Metcalfe. She will kill her if we do not find her.”
“That is madness,” whispered Henry, whilst his mother gaped in open-mouthed confusion.
“Your servants are all with me to help find her!” He waved his arm over the crowd. “They have been missing for hours. Lady Metcalfe has dressed as a boy and brought Miss Bennet here in your cart. We know they struggled and Miss Bennet might be hurt! We must find her before it is too late.”
“But, but…Louisa would never do such a thing,” stammered Mrs Tessier.
Darcy tried to hold on to his unravelling patience. “Do you think I am lying?”
Henry blinked in confusion, but stood up in the carriage and climbed onto the seat, catching his balance and gazing all round. “Get up, Mamma, and help me look. We would recognise the cart and pony.”
Mrs Tessier fretted for a moment and then stood, searching the crowd behind her whilst Henry gazed across the turf to the other side.
Meanwhile, Sir John had made his way through the crowd and joined them in time to hear the disturbing tale.
He mounted his horse, calling out, “I will search the other side of the course!”
Mr Travers had not reacted at all, and his indifferent air infuriated Darcy.
“Are you in her confidence?” Darcy demanded. “Do you know what Lady Metcalfe plans to do to Miss Bennet?”
“Certainly not.” His tone was all surprise.
“Is she capable of killing her?” Darcy pressed.
Mr Travers shrugged. “I scarcely know the lady.”
“Did you not come to Woodcote to see her? You meet her at every race meeting.”
“I come here to wager, Mr Darcy.”
His fists clenched on the reins in anger.
“And to enjoy the affections of a woman who still holds out hope that you will marry her. You did not want to marry and jointure a wife or pay for children if you were disinherited. Your father would have cut you off if you married her, and you wager hoping to have more to spend and—” A thought came to him.
“Is that why your father limits you? You do not gamble to increase your allowance; your allowance is restricted because you wager too much.”
Mr Travers clenched his jaw. “You have said quite enough.”
Darcy supposed he had. Mr Travers’s poor choices were not his concern. “What would Lady Metcalfe do to Miss Bennet if she was convinced her death would make me turn to Miss Metcalfe? You know her best.”
“I scarcely know her,” Mr Travers repeated.
Darcy cursed viciously. “You do know her! You did not marry her when you ought to have done, and now your daughter is in the same situation. It has driven Lady Metcalfe to this wild scheme.” A dreadful thought came to him.
“She told you about Miss Metcalfe. Did you tell her you would not marry her unless Miss Metcalfe found a husband?”
“I do not know what you mean. She is nothing to me. A friend I see at race meetings.”
“And do you ask her for money to gamble with when you see her at these meetings, just like you asked me to fund your spending this week? Good God, do you take her money and take her body? Lady Metcalfe thought she could finally have you, and you pushed her away again. But you were never going to marry the mother of your child, were you?”
Mr Travers blanched. “You have said quite enough. That woman and her daughter are nothing to me.” He turned his horse and rode away.
Of course Mr Travers denied her. He would engage in the act with her, but he had been taking advantage of Lady Metcalfe’s affection for him for over twenty years. And now Lady Metcalfe had fallen into some sort of insanity from desperation.
The compulsion to find Elizabeth and find her now crashed over him as Darcy turned in his saddle and looked all round.
Men and boys with carts were everywhere, but what if Lady Metcalfe never even came to the turf?
What if Lady Metcalfe drove toward Epsom and then took the road to London and dumped Elizabeth somewhere along the way?
A wave of terror washed over him, and he blew out a ragged breath, his chest heaving. He could not give up hope.
Lady Metcalfe wanted Elizabeth out of the way so Julia could trap him into marriage.
She wanted her dead, but she lacked the resolve to do the act herself.
The vase, the carriage fall, the poison.
They all could have been deadly, but they were acts committed from a distance, a physical and emotional distance.
Would Lady Metcalfe strangle, stab, or shoot Elizabeth?
Likely not. If they were here, there was time to find her before any further harm came to her.
The alternative would destroy him.
“Mr Darcy!” Henry cried. “I think that is our pony.”
He pointed across the turf to just past the sharp bend in the course. It took Darcy a moment to settle his eyes in the right place. There was a cart next to a publican’s booth, the back adjacent to the turf, with a man in the bed with his back to them. The pony looked like any other yellow dun.
“But how can you be certain at such a distance?”
Henry squinted and sighed. “I am not sure. Mamma?”
“Oh,” fretted Mrs Tessier, who fidgeted with her bracelet as she peered across the course. “I do not know.”
The man in the cart stood upright and roughly nudged whatever was at his feet. Could that be them? Or was he a drowning man grasping at straws? “Is that Lady Metcalfe?” Darcy asked.
“No, that is just a young man,” insisted Mrs Tessier, who had her hands against her bonnet’s brim to further shield her eyes from the glare.
There was something in the cart, but who could tell if it was Elizabeth? He could not even tell if that was Lady Metcalfe.
There was a shift in the crowd’s energy as the horses in the final race approached the starting place.
“Those are my clothes,” muttered Henry.
“What? How can you tell?”
Henry pointed again. “See when he bends down to pick up those horse rugs again? My mother asked for two suits of clothes for the girls to wear to the races. Miss Bennet wore one, and I swear that is the other. Green coat, cut away at the front, velvet collar, turned-back cuffs, striped nankeen trousers.”
Henry was practically a clotheshorse for all his love of looking fashionable.
If that was Lady Metcalfe, the bundle at her feet must be Elizabeth.
A cheer went through the crowd as all the horses were now at the starting place.
Darcy watched the person bend down and haul the bundle toward the edge of the cart, and then he saw two feet furiously kicking.
Horror filled his heart, and he swayed in the saddle.
She had Elizabeth wrapped in something so she could not move, and Lady Metcalfe was going to toss her onto the turf to be trampled to death by the racing horses.
“I have to get over there.” How was he to get around in time, and in this crowd of thousands?
“There is Sir John,” cried Henry, pointing to his right. He waved his arms and yelled for his attention.
Sir John was across the course, struggling to make his way through the cheering throng. Even if Henry got his attention, he would never make it to the cart in time. Darcy would have to ride across the turf to get to Lady Metcalfe before the horses started.
He pressed his horse forward to cross the turf, but two men rushed in front of him. There were no barriers to keep the course in good order, but bystanders or race officials stopped anyone who did not have the sense not to put themselves into the way.
“Stay off the turf!”
“This is urgent!” he cried, trying to guide his horse around them.
Another man grabbed his horse’s bridle. “You will be prosecuted with the full vigour of the law if you cross.”
“Let go!”
“You must keep the course clear!”
Cursing again, Darcy dismounted and pushed past him.
He would run across and stop Lady Metcalfe before the horses made the turn.
It would not take long for them to go around, make the Tattenham Corner turn into the straight, and gallop toward the winning post. That would be when Lady Metcalfe would push Elizabeth from the cart in front of the dashing horses.
Another man shouted something to him and caught his arm, but Darcy could not hear as a roar went up as the last race began. Darcy threw him off, but another man grabbed him when Henry ran up and pushed the man off of him.
“Go!” he cried.
Darcy took off at a run across the course as a cry of horror went up as he put himself in harm’s way.
Elizabeth’s brain rattled about. The crowd grew louder, and then there was a sharp collective gasp.
“He ran onto the turf,” a man near to the cart cried.
Elizabeth wondered if another race had started. If Lady Metcalfe grew distracted, maybe she could get away. But Lady Metcalfe grabbed the ropes, jerking her roughly and turning her to the side so she could no longer see.
Why was she taking her from the cart? Her mind was in a daze and pain thudded behind her eyes. How had she even got here? It was hard to remember. How could she feel more insensible now than when she first awoke? Something was wrong with her mind.
The thundering of hooves drowned out the cries of alarm. The cart jostled, like someone had climbed into it. Lady Metcalfe gave a wild shriek that pierced her ears and made her wince, and she was dropped back onto the cart. Pain and nausea struck her. Maybe she should go back to sleep.
“What are you doing?” an unfamiliar man said. “Leave him alone.”
“She has kidnapped a woman!” She recognised that voice. “Help me stop her.”
The cart shifted again as though more people climbed in. Lady Metcalfe’s screams pierced through the sounds of scuffling feet and shouting. She was too exhausted to cry for help, although more voices surrounded her.
“That’s a woman?”
“She was going to throw that bundle onto the turf.”
“I think it is a person!” called yet another appalled voice.