Chapter Four The Cellar of Penance
The hallway outside the cellar was dimly lit and cold. Captain Richard Fitzwilliam sat on an overturned crate, an apple in one hand and a copy of The Times in the other. He took a loud, wet bite of the fruit.
Crunch.
"Is that a musket?" A muffled squeak drifted through the heavy oak door.
Richard grinned. He swallowed the apple chunk.
"Quiet!" he roared at the door. "They are at the windows! Get down!"
He stood up and stomped his boots against the floorboards—a heavy, rhythmic thudding designed to simulate a platoon of French grenadiers marching through the scullery. He grabbed a nearby broom handle and banged it against the wall.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
"Clear the perimeter!" Richard shouted to the empty kitchen. "Check the coal chutes! If you find the traitor, show no mercy!"
"Mercy!" the voice inside the cellar wailed.
Darcy stood at the top of the scullery stairs, watching this performance with a mixture of awe and appalling guilt. He smoothed his gloves.
"Is this necessary, Richard?" he whispered, descending the steps. "He is already weeping. I can hear him through three inches of timber."
"It is vital." Richard resumed his seat on the crate. "Fear requires maintenance, cousin. If I let him sit in silence, he will start thinking. He will realise that French spies do not usually knock so politely. But if I keep him scared, he stays irrational."
"He sounds broken."
"He sounds like a man who pawned your family heritage." Richard took another bite of apple. "How is the mastermind?"
"He is at Matlock House. He is selecting our wardrobe for the evening. He says we cannot rob a gaming hell as respectable gentlemen. We must have the look 'dissolute peers seeking ruin'."
"I can do dissolute." Richard gestured to his unbuttoned coat for emphasis. "You, however, have the posture of a church spire. You will stick out."
"I shall slouch," Darcy promised, though his spine remained perfectly straight.
From behind the cellar door, a frantic scratching sound emerged.
"Richard?" Wickham's voice was thin, trembling. "Are they gone? I hear breathing. Is it the Butcher?"
Richard winked at Darcy. He leaned close to the keyhole.
"They are regrouping, George," he whispered, pitching his voice low and urgent. "I held them off. But they know you are close. I can smell their garlic."
"Oh God," came the sob. "The garlic."
Darcy winced. "The garlic? Really?"
"Details sell the lie, Fitzwilliam." He checked his pocket watch. "Robert wants us. We need to brief you on the rules of Piquet before we enter the lion's den. You know the basics?"
"I know the rules," Darcy said stiffly. "I merely lack the flair."
"You lack the ability to lie without turning the colour of a beet," Richard corrected. "We shall work on it. Come. We leave the prisoner to his reflection."
Richard banged the broom handle against the door once more for good measure.
"I am moving to the roof!" he shouted. "Stay down, George! Do not move until I give the signal!"
"I am a statue!" George cried back. "I am stone!"
Richard tossed the apple core into a bucket. "Let us go rob a bank."
Darkness was absolute.
George Wickham sat on a pile of coal sacks in the dark, having extinguished the light of the lantern to save the oil.
He was hugging his knees to his chest. The woollen frock scratched his neck.
The corset, clearly designed for a woman with a fundamentally different skeletal structure, dug into his ribs with every breath.
He was cold. He was hungry. And he was fairly certain a rat had just run over his boot.
"Go away," George whispered into the black void. "I am not food. I am a washerwoman named Agnes."
Above him, the house groaned. He heard footsteps—heavy, ominous thuds that vibrated through the ceiling beams. The Butcher. It had to be. Or the Spies.
Richard was sure they smelled of garlic. George sniffed the air. He smelled only coal dust and his own terror, but his imagination supplied the rest. He pictured men in dark cloaks, sharpening guillotines in the scullery.
He touched the mob cap on his head.
"This is it," he murmured to the darkness. "I shall die in a cellar. No one will know. My obituary will be blank. They will say I vanished."
He thought of the Emerald Snuffbox. It seemed so small now. So trivial. A shiny green trinket. On the card table, it had gleamed with promise and authority, buying his entry into the world of men. Now, in the dark, it was a heavy, jewelled anchor dragging him down.
If I survive, George bargained with the universe, I shall never touch a card again. I shall read books. I shall listen to Darcy when he talks about crop rotation. I shall even polish his boots.
A loud bang echoed from the other side of the door.
He yelped, scrambling backward until his spine hit the rough brick wall.
"Stay down!" Richard's voice muffled through the wood.
George threw himself flat onto the coal sacks. He buried his face in the rough burlap. Dust coated his tongue.
"I am down!" he whimpered. "I am subterranean!"
Silence followed. A long, stretching silence that was somehow worse than the noise.
Was Richard dead? Had the French overtaken the kitchen?
George lay there, shivering in his grey wool. He realised, with a clarity that stung, that he was entirely alone. His charm could not help him here. His smile was invisible. His wit was useless against a locked door.
He was just a man in a dress, hiding in the dark.
A tear leaked out, cutting a clean track through the soot on his cheek.
"Please," George whispered. "Fitz. Come back."
In Viscount Keathley's chambers at Matlock House, the dressing room was a flurry of silk and strategy.
Robert stood before a full-length mirror. He had discarded his earlier pristine coat for a garment of shocking burgundy velvet. He had untied his cravat, leaving it loose and slightly askew, suggesting a man who had already enjoyed three bottles of claret.
"The key," he lectured, adjusting his collar to perfectly imperfect, "is to appear wealthy enough to lose, and not dangerous enough to rob."
He turned to his brother and cousin.
Richard had unbuttoned his coat further and rolled up his sleeves, revealing scars on his forearms. He had the appearance of an officer who had been cashiered for duelling. Robert nodded approvingly.
"You," Robert pointed his cane at Darcy.
Darcy stood by the wardrobe. He wore a dark blue coat, impeccably cut. His cravat was a starch severe sculpture. His boots gleamed. He was the undeniable portrait of a rich, nervous student.
"No, no, no," Robert sighed. He marched over. "You are dressed for a sermon."
"I am neat," Darcy defended. "Father insists on neatness."
"The Butcher does not fear neatness. He fears money he cannot catch." Robert reached out and ruthlessly yanked Darcy's cravat loose. He mussed the starch. He unbuttoned the top of Darcy's waistcoat.
"Robert!" Darcy batted his hands away. "I am unravelling!"
"You are relaxing," Robert corrected. He grabbed a flask of brandy from the table and splashed a small amount onto Darcy's lapel.
"You ruined the wool!" Darcy gasped, sniffing the fumes.
"Now you reek of a mark," Robert declared. "Rich, slightly foxed, and careless. That is the character, Darcy. You are not Mr Darcy of Pemberley, responsible scholar. You are Mr Darcy, heir to a fortune, bored by your own wealth."
"I am not bored," Darcy grumbled. "I am nauseous."
"Use it," Richard advised, checking his pistols one last time. "Be disdainful. As if the smell of the room offends you."
"That will not be difficult since we are going to a gaming hell."
Robert checked his pocket watch. "The carriage is waiting in the mews. We enter through the rear. Richard, you flank us. If trouble starts, someone flips the table."
"I love flipping tables," Richard grinned.
"Darcy," Robert placed a hand on his cousin's shoulder. The mockery vanished for a second, replaced by steel. "This man has your family name in his pocket. He thinks he can bully George. He thinks the Darcys are weak."
Darcy straightened. The nausea settled into a cold, hard knot in his stomach. He thought of his father. He thought of the terror in George's eyes.
"He is mistaken."
"Good." Robert picked up his cane. He flourished it like a sabre. "Then let us go and educate him."
They marched out of the room, leaving the safety of the Earl's house behind. A few streets away, in the dark, the prisoner waited. Ahead of them, the Butcher had no idea he was about to lose in his own game.
And Darcy, with brandy on his coat and ice in his veins, was ready to play.