Chapter Three The Chamber of Horrors #2
Anne swept into the chamber. She was not wrapped in her usual three layers of woollen shawls, nor was she leaning heavily on a cane. She stood upright, her pale eyes glittering with an uncharacteristic, ruthless amusement.
“I must say, Fitzwilliam,” she announced, stepping inside and dropping her frail persona, the one only her cousins had the questionable privilege to witness. “I was on my way to the library to die of ennui, but you have provided much better entertainment. A poetic endeavour? Really?”
Darcy stared at her, horrified. “Anne. How... How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough to hear that you are apparently suffering from indigestion caused by Miss Bennet’s eyes.” Anne’s voice was dry, sharp, and dripping with wit. “I must say, I always thought your prose was rather dry, but ‘warden of my prison’? That is quite Gothic. Mother would hate it. I love it.”
“You were eavesdropping,” Richard accused, though he seemed delighted by this new development.
“I was passing by,” Anne corrected him, moving to the chaise longue and sitting down with a grace that belied her supposedly fragile constitution. “You men were shouting. It is hardly my fault that Fitzwilliam projects his humiliation at a volume that could wake the dead.”
“You must not speak of this, Anne.” Darcy stepped forward, his hands raised in a placating gesture. “It is a matter of the utmost delicacy. If your mother were to find out—”
“If Mother were to find out, she would have an apoplexy, you would be disinherited from her good graces, and I would be forced to listen to her lament about the ‘shades of Pemberley’ for the next decade,” Anne summarised neatly.
She paused, steepling her fingers. She stared at Darcy, and then at the letter still resting on the desk, recognising a golden opportunity to permanently derail Lady Catherine’s marital schemes.
For years, her mother had been forcing the narrative of their eventual union down her throat. Here was the weapon to end it.
“However,” she continued, a slow, predatory smile spreading across her face. “I am willing to offer my services to help retrieve this disastrous letter. For a price.”
“A price?” Darcy echoed. “Anne, you are a lady. You do not negotiate ransoms.”
“I am a prisoner in my own home, Cousin, and I will negotiate with the devil if it gets me a new horse and less supervision.” She leaned forward.
“I will help you retrieve your love letter from the Bennet girl. In exchange, you will formally, publicly, and irreversibly declare to my mother that you have no intention of ever marrying me.”
Darcy blinked. “I never had any intention of marrying you.”
“Yes, but you never tell her that! You just stand uncomfortably while she plans my wedding clothes!” Anne snapped. “I want it to end, Fitzwilliam. I want the ‘compact’ burned to ash. And I think saving your dignity from being paraded around Hertfordshire is a fair trade.”
“This is extortion,” Richard observed, rubbing his chin. “I am so proud of you, Annie. I did not know you had it in you.”
“I read a lot of political history while pretending to be asleep,” Anne explained.
“I cannot involve a lady in this,” Darcy protested, his innate sense of propriety warring with his predicament. “It is scandalous. It is thievery. You are asking to participate in a raid to steal a letter from a parsonage.”
“He is right, Anne.” Richard adopted a mock-serious tone. “It is unseemly. A lady of your station cannot be seen crawling through shrubbery to retrieve a misdelivered romantic tragedy.”
With Darcy and the colonel predictably refusing to involve a lady in such a scandalous thievery, Anne did not argue. She stood up, smoothed the skirts of her gown, offered a smile, and turned to the door.
“Very well,” she threatened calmly. “If you do not require my assistance, I shall march downstairs to the breakfast room where I believe Mother is eating her eggs. I shall recite everything I just heard to her. Including the part about the ink-stained rant and the ‘ruined peace’.”
Darcy lunged forward as if he had been shot from a cannon.
“Wait!” he shouted, throwing himself between Anne and the door.
“I surrender,” he gasped, holding his hands up in defeat. “I unconditionally surrender. You may have whatever you want. I will buy you a stable of horses. I will tell your mother I am taking holy orders. Just... do not tell her.”
Anne paused, tilting her head. “Do we have a treaty, Cousin?”
“We have a treaty,” Darcy groaned, rubbing his temples.
“Excellent.” Anne turned back to the room, clapping her hands together briskly.
“Right then,” Richard said. “The ‘Darcy’s Dignity Rescue Mission’ is officially formed.”
It was a bizarre assembly, uniting an unravelled gentleman, an amused soldier, a strict valet, and a pragmatic heiress.
“What is the first step?” Dawson asked, pouring a second, much-needed glass of brandy for his master. “Do we storm the parsonage at dawn? I am quite handy with a picklock, sir. A remnant of my misspent youth.”
“We do not storm the parsonage.” Darcy ran a hand over his face. “We need intelligence. We need to know where she has hidden it, and if she has shown it to anyone.”
“Leave the intelligence gathering to me.” Anne’s eyes gleamed with the thrill of actual, unsanctioned activity. “I can call upon Charlotte Collins. I am the patroness’s daughter; they cannot refuse me entry. I will assess the situation and determine the emotional state of the quarry.”
“The quarry,” Darcy repeated weakly. “We are referring to the woman I love as ‘the quarry’.”
“She holds the weapon of your destruction, Fitzwilliam. Terminology is important,” Richard corrected him. “I shall accompany Annie. I can charm Mrs Collins while Anne interrogates Miss Elizabeth.”
“And what shall I do?” Darcy demanded, feeling useless in his own rescue.
“You,” Anne pointed a commanding finger at him, “will remain out of sight. Every time you go near that woman, you either insult her family or hand her a manifesto of your own mental instability. You are a liability, Fitzwilliam.”
Darcy opened his mouth to object, realised she was correct, and closed it again.
“We will strike tomorrow,” Anne declared, moving back to the door. She hunched her posture, transforming into the sickly, frail invalid her mother expected. “I have to go downstairs to throw dust in my mother’s eyes and placate my companion. I shall come back the moment I escape them.”
She offered a weak cough that echoed in the corridor.
Then, she winked at them.
“Do not despair, Cousin,” she whispered in her normal voice. “We shall retrieve your poetry. Just remember our deal.”
The door clicked shut, leaving the three men alone in the chamber of horrors.
Darcy stared at the closed door, then down at the rational letter still sitting on his desk. He picked it up, walked over to the fireplace, and dropped it onto the burning coals. It caught instantly, the edges curling and turning black.
“Well.” Richard patted Darcy on the back. “Look on the bright side, Fitzwilliam.”
“Is there a bright side?”
“Certainly. If she reads that letter, she will no longer think you are a cold, unfeeling statue.” He grinned. “She will think you are a raving lunatic. It is a distinct improvement.”
Darcy closed his eyes and prayed for the ground to open up and swallow Rosings Park whole.