Chapter 3
Darcy stirred and gently freed herself from her sisters’ limbs.
She had slept a little, yet dread still rested on her shoulders and would not let her lie long.
She looked about the bedchamber and understood she had never seen such opulence.
Earlier, she had been too overwhelmed to notice.
A small coal fire ticked and settled in the grate; the scent of beeswax and clean linen lingered in the air.
Chintz curtains in rose and cream framed a window beaded with rain.
Beyond the glass, the square lay drowned in lamplight and shadow, water coursing along the cobbles like quicksilver.
Two candles burned in brass sconces, their light soft upon a carved walnut bedstead and a counterpane white as new snow.
Darcy sat upon the edge of the bed and gripped the stitched border until her knuckles whitened.
Thankfully, her sisters still slept. She could not let them see her worry, else they would fret themselves into a state.
A shudder moved through her. For a moment, the steady hiss of the downpour seemed to wash through her chest and carry off the worst of her fear.
She had lived through the packing of their few possessions, the selling of what little remained, the long road from Hertfordshire in a hired conveyance that smelled of damp wool and tired leather.
Twice she had told the driver to turn back.
Twice she had remembered the solicitor’s cold voice and colder proposal, and she had set her teeth and faced forward.
Not even the house that had seemed theirs in childhood could shelter them.
It had never been theirs at all. The solicitor had unfolded the entail with dry fingers and a bored expression, delivered the notice of eviction, then observed that an arrangement might be made if she were willing to be agreeable.
His glance had stripped her more cruelly than poverty.
Darcy had refused him. She would refuse a hundred such men before she allowed her sisters to see her fall.
The notion of appealing to the Earl of Raine had been reckless and desperate, yet hope had risen when Darcy remembered a father who, in his visits, had been kind, gentle, and generous when he could be.
Perhaps character might pass from parent to child.
Perhaps the son would show a measure of the same heart.
Darcy had not prepared herself for the man who met her at the door.
Beauty could be a kind of shock. His eyes were a dark, level blue that stripped away her pretense at calm.
Handsome or not, his coldness struck harder.
The way his attention settled, then dismissed with a single glance, had felt like the shutting of a door.
A soft rustle behind her told Darcy that someone was awake. Emelia shifted and sat beside her.
“You cannot sleep either, Darcy,” she murmured, stifling a yawn.
“I am thinking about how forthwith I ought to be with Lord Raine tomorrow. I believe he would be able to see through any falsehood right away. I shall be honest in all regard.”
Emelia sighed. “I know we did not keep to the plan. I am sorry.”
“I shall explain to the earl in the morning,” Darcy said softly. “I am not his sister. Only you girls are.”
“No, please,” Emelia said, her eyes dark with worry. “If you tell him that, he will send you away. You are our sister.”
“But I am not his,” Darcy answered, gentler still. “It would not be right to allow him to believe it, and the consequences when he discovers the falsehood would be more than we could bear. He already does not trust us; this will make it worse.”
Emelia shook her head. “Do not tell him. He will make you leave. I can tell. He is not like Papa.”
A tight ache arose in Darcy’s throat. “We are not even certain he will help you, Jane, and Sarah. We might all have to leave and endure the mercy of the world.”
“That is why we must not reveal anything,” Emelia begged. “Please, Darcy. We cannot lose you, either.”
Darcy’s chest ached. “You will not lose me.”
Once his lordship learns there is no familial connection between you and him, he will have you leave.”
Perhaps Emelia was right. There had been a hard indifference in the earl that his father had never shown her, at least not in those remembered afternoons when he had laughed and listened and placed a book in her hands as if it were a treasure.
Yet resentment had been gathering in Darcy for months, souring even the tender recollections.
The man she had called father all her life had been a wealthy nobleman and had left no provision she could find for the women who depended upon him.
Their mother had sunk into the slow suffocation of sorrow until illness took hold and carried her away.
The memory angered her. She could not understand the fervent belief that one might love so deeply that life without the beloved became unbearable.
The physician had told them grief and melancholy had undone their mother.
To Darcy’s mind, it meant that love for her daughters had not been strong enough to fight for breath.
“Let us try to sleep,” she said softly.
Emelia nodded, drowsy, and scrambled back onto the bed.
Darcy curled upon the soft pillow with its clean scent and closed her eyes.
The fire gave a gentle crackle; one candle guttered and then steadied.
She listened to her sisters’ breathing until her own fell into the same rhythm.
The mattress was firm beneath her; the counterpane cool under her palms.
“The earl was angry,” Emelia whispered.
“I know he was.”
“His voice hurt.”
“He was shocked,” Darcy said, recalling the stricken look in those blue eyes, fury bleeding through it. “Shock makes even kind men unkind.”
“Is he kind?” Emelia asked, very low.
“I do not know,” Darcy said honestly. “I thought his father was kind. I hoped the same of him. Perhaps I hope too much. We can only wait and see. Do not act rashly anymore. Always think before you answer.”
“I trust your arrangements, Darcy.”
A lump rose in her throat. Trust. Her sisters trusted her to keep them safe.
She felt woefully unprepared for such a charge, yet she would fight, claw, and do all in her power to see that they had a good life.
She shifted and looked toward the window.
Rain ran in bright threads down the glass, the streetlight beyond turning each bead to a jewel before it slid away.
Darcy would tell him the truth. She would not let fear make her a liar or a supplicant.
If Lord Raine turned them out, she would find another way.
Darcy had done it before. She would do it again.
The rain kept speaking upon the glass. At last, her body unknotted, and her eyes slid closed in the first ordinary peace she had allowed herself in many months.
Several hours later, Darcy drew a steady breath and lifted her knuckles to the study door.
Her hand felt cold despite the pleasant warmth of the townhouse.
Everything depended upon the meeting with the earl.
She had put on her best muslin gown, the one with the lace edges and the hem she had re-stitched twice.
It was still two inches too short. She had smoothed her hair into a chignon and allowed several tendrils to curl upon her cheeks. The rest was courage and prayer.
Darcy knocked. A deep voice commanded her to enter.
Lord Raine’s study was large and ordered.
Tall windows admitted a pale wash of morning light that gilded the rows of books and drew a soft glow from the brass.
A fire worked steadily upon the hearth; the scent of beeswax, leather, and coffee mingled in the air.
He sat behind a great oak desk, the surface cleared save for the stack of letters she had given him.
He looked precisely as he had the night before, only more handsome and, perhaps, less cruel.
Daylight defined the clean planes of his cheekbones and the firm line of his mouth.
His cravat was tied with effortless precision.
The air about him was one of cool control, yet something in the indolent set of his long body suggested a scoundrel who knew his power.
Heat touched Darcy’s cheeks for noticing it. She sank into a curtsy. “My lord.”
He inclined his head. “Have you eaten?”
Startled, she blinked. “I… my sisters are breaking their fast. I… I was too unsettled to eat, my lord.”
His expression shifted, settling into a cool indifference, as though the inquiry had been one of mere courtesy, and her answer held no real consequence for him. A sharp mortification stole over Darcy at once.
“Miss Whitley. Be seated.”
She crossed to the wingback chair in front of the desk and sat. She folded her hands and met his gaze without flinching. He regarded her with a civility so cold it felt like frost upon the skin.
“What is your mother’s full name?” he asked at once.
“Mary Whitley, my lord.”
His gaze did not flicker. “And your siblings. Do they share the Whitley name?”
“No.” She moistened her lips. “They go by Darlington.”
He studied her face for an uncomfortably long moment. “You are Darcy Whitley. You do not share the same father.”
She drew breath. This was the nettle that must be grasped. “The late earl entered my life when I was three years of age. My mother was a widow when he met her. He never treated me as anything other than a daughter, my lord.”
The earl’s eyes gave nothing away. “When did your mother die?”
“Two years ago.”
“Why wait until now to approach me?”
Darcy reached into her pocket and drew out an envelope, the paper softened, the edges furred where her fingers had worried them.