The Darcy Cousins (35 page)

Any of our acquaintances could run into us here."

"Leave?" said Clarissa. "How could you think of such a thing?

Will you abandon him to total strangers?"

"He would not be alone. The coachman--Oskins, he said his name was--will remain with him. He seems very loyal to Mr Gatley. And the physician will attend to him later."

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"And how did you intend to return without the coachman?"

"We could leave the groom behind..." But even as she said it she knew they would not do such a thing.

She exhaled loudly. "If we must stay, then, you must promise me that you will not under any circumstances undertake to nurse him."

Clarissa made an impatient gesture of protest, but Georgiana persisted.

"It will be bad enough if someone were to discover us alone in this hostel with a gentleman who is not related to us. It would be infinitely worse, however, for us to be discovered alone in this gentleman's bed chamber."

"But he is injured. He is in no condition to make advances to us of any sort. What could be more absurd?"

"Society does not care a fig for that. All they would care about is the delicious flavour of scandal." She gave a humourless smile.

"If you broke this rule, not even your exotic status as an American would save you."

"What foolish, foolish rules these are! Who then is to take care of him? Are we to entrust his care to a stranger?"

Georgiana sat silently looking at her hands. "I am sorry to say this, Clarissa, but I think we had better send for our brothers," said Georgiana. "We may be obliged to spend the night."

She expected Clarissa to argue, but her cousin gave a resigned shrug.

"How do you mean to explain our being here?"

"We will have time to think of something," said Georgiana.

"However much it goes against the grain for me," said Clarissa, slowly, "I admit that we have no choice. Even I know that our situation here is impossible."

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A message was sent out. But try as they would, they could come up with no foolproof explanation of why they were there.

When Darcy and Robert arrived, there was going to be trouble.

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Chapter 25

Gatley awoke with a terrible headache. He stared around him in astonishment, trying to regain his bearings. The room was small, equipped simply with a large chest, a cupboard, an armchair, and the large canopied bed he was lying in.

For a moment he remembered...nothing. His only certainty was that he had never been in this chamber before.

He sat up slowly. The blood in his head beat a quick rhythm, like a drum. Or were there drums outside? He put a hand to his head. His fingers found the rough linen of a bandage.

He must have been wounded in the fighting. But if so, why was he then in a room and not in a tent? What on earth was going on?

Was he so badly wounded that they had taken him to England?

That was not very likely.

He sat up very carefully. Head wounds could be tricky, as he knew from some of the men who had been injured before him. They were unpredictable. One could seem perfectly well, then be suddenly struck with dizziness and fall to the ground. He had no intention of compounding his injury by falling. He swung his legs down from the edge of the bed and looked out of the narrow window. The scene that met his eyes did not look like Portugal or Spain. It was like England.

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He stood up carefully. His window overlooked a courtyard that was most definitely English, to judge by the timbering and gables.

A carriage thundered into the courtyard. Two gentlemen--not soldiers--descended and headed swiftly towards the inn. Mr Darcy and Mr Robert Darcy.

The names brought back everything. He remembered the carriage teetering as they struck a pothole. There had been an accident. His memory did not supply him with more information. What had happened? Why were the Darcy gentlemen looking so grim? Had something happened to Miss Darcy? Was Miss Clarissa injured?

He swung round quickly. Stars flashed in front of him. He clung to the bed post until the stars stopped twirling.

"Steady now," he said to himself.

He had to know. Sharp talons of anxiety gripped him and dug into him.

He made his way down the stairs slowly. Every now and then the stars reappeared and he had to stop and lean against the wall.

Finally, he found himself in front of a closed door and recognised Darcy's voice.

He strained every muscle in his body to listen. Miss Darcy's voice reached him. He closed his eyes and leaned against the door as relief washed over him.

She was safe.

Then he felt tremendously guilty for thinking only of her.

There were others who could have been harmed--Miss Clarissa or the coachman or the groom. But the talons that had torn at him lifted.

"It is not what you think," said Miss Clarissa's voice.

Miss Clarissa was safe too. Again, the relief weakened him, and he sagged further against the door.

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He had not been listening to what they were saying until now.

He had only listened for their voices. But now the voices resolved themselves into words, then into meaning.

"And you--you would do better not to say anything," said Darcy. "How can your sense of propriety be so twisted that you can sneak off to an assignation in a public inn! Have you no sense of behaviour at all? Robert--is it possible that your sister can be so completely without propriety?" Robert seemed to have nothing to say about the matter. "One can make allowance for your ignorance of our customs, Madam, but this is beyond enough. To set up a secret meeting with Mr Channing, and to arrange for Mr Gatley to bring you here--"

He saw stars again. But these stars were different. They came along with the roaring in his ears as the blood rushed up to his head.

He had heard quite enough. He stood upright, his strength returning to him with his anger. How dare they involve him in this sordid affair! How dare Georgiana use him in this way? And Channing too! The drumming in his head turned into heavy hammering.

He most definitely had something to say.

The door flew open. Gatley stood in the doorway, looking ghastly under the white bandage but otherwise unharmed.

Georgiana's delight at seeing him safe overcame all else, and she jumped up with a cry of delight.

"You are recovered, Mr Gatley! Oh, I am so very glad."

"Good evening to you all. Miss Darcy, Miss Clarissa, Mr Darcy, Mr Robert Darcy." His face was tight and pinched, his eyes drawn.

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Georgiana reflected that he still looked very ill, though there was something in his eyes that made her uneasy.

"I hope you did not sustain a serious injury," replied Darcy coldly.

"I am quite recovered, as you can see," said Gatley in clipped tones.

"Then perhaps I should ask you to give an accounting of your behaviour? Is this something you agreed upon with the young ladies' knowledge, or did you and your cousin set up this assignation without their knowledge?"

"I could ask you out for such a question," said Gatley, cold as ice.

"I accept. Name your seconds," replied Darcy in clipped tone.

"Stop!" said Georgiana.

"Do not interfere in matters that do not concern ladies," said Darcy.

"I will, and I shall interfere," said Georgiana. "Before you decide to pull down those swords from over the fireplace there, may I have a word with you in private, Brother?"

"You may not. I have nothing to say to you."

"Then may I speak with Mr Gatley?"

"Certainly not alone," replied Mr Darcy. "Have you not broken enough rules already?"

"Fitz," said Robert, "perhaps there is another explanation..."

"Kindly stay out of this, Robert."

"I will speak with Mr Gatley," said Georgiana, desperation lending her strength. "Really, Brother, I never thought you could be so foolish. Would I have sent for you if I had planned a secret assignation in an inn?" Satisfied that she had scored a point and that it had thrown him off for at least a few minutes, she left the room and reappeared a few minutes later with a chambermaid.

"Amy here will be present when I talk to Mr Gatley." She nodded at him. "May I speak to you?"

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It was very clear that Mr Gatley had no desire to talk to her at all.

She waited, her hands twisting together behind her back.

"Well?"

He gave a curt nod and followed her to a small side room, a storage room in some disarray, full of barrels and boxes and all kinds of discarded objects. She waited for Amy to enter, then shut the door.

"I do not believe we have anything to say to one another," said Gatley, not giving her the chance to say a word. "You have deceived me, Miss Darcy, and manipulated me. There can be nothing you can say to me that will change that. What explanation could you possibly have for misleading me--nay, deliberately deceiving me?

When I specifically asked you if you had your family's approval?

And to think that you have taken advantage of me in this matter--to do what? To set up an assignation with my cousin and his friends?

In spite of what you have seen of them? What is it about my cousin that is so alluring?" He stopped and leaned on the wall, burying his head under his arms, too overcome to continue. Georgiana, still unable to believe the stream of accusations he was throwing at her, observed him coldly. If that was what he believed, then she hoped he would suffer miserably.

By and by he stood up straight again. "And to think that you made me a part of it! What did he do? Did he ask you to bring me along? Did you intend to laugh with him about how gullible I am?"

Georgiana, who had brought Gatley here to try and reason with him, stared at him impassively.

"To put me in such a situation that I appear to have conspired with Channing to bring you here!"

He turned away towards the doorway, then swung round to throw one last accusation at her.

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"By God! And I thought I could trust you! But I should have known that you were too much under your cousin's sway, too weak and too lacking in spirit to oppose her."

Earlier, when she had demanded this interview, her only concern had been a desperate attempt to put a halt to his quarrel with her brother before it went too far, for once a duel had been set up, there could be no backing out of it. She had not planned anything.

She had no idea what she would say to him, nor did she have any excuse to give him. The only possible way out of the mess was to tell him about Anne, and she could not. She was honour bound not to tell him, and she could not betray her cousin, even for the sake of his pride. Anne's whole life was in her hands.

But she could not stand by and allow him to spew out all these accusations without responding at all. At least she would disprove his last sentence.

She went and stood against the door. She would not let him leave until she had had her say.

"I cannot tell you my reason for being here," she said icily. "It is perfectly innocent, even if you will not believe that. But it is a secret nevertheless, and it must remain a secret. I can only ask you to trust me when I tell you that nothing improper was intended. Beyond that, I will leave it to you to search deep enough inside yourself to recognise whether I could possibly be guilty of the things you accuse me of."

Gatley was not so enraged as to be incapable of considering her words.

"I can believe, possibly, that you are not guilty of anything improper yourself," he said, "but can you say the same of your cousin? I have seen the way she flirts with my cousin. It does not take much skill to realise there is something between them. And I 326

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am convinced that your affection for your cousin blinds you to her faults. You allow yourself to be guided entirely by her. We have previous proof of this. I have allowed for your inexperience in the past, and excused your behaviour by accepting that your motivation--your affection for her--is at least pure. But I am afraid that this time you have gone too far. There can be no excuse now."

Georgiana felt as though an iron hand had fallen upon her and was squeezing her ribs, stifling the very breath from her lungs.

"You have accused me, tried me, judged me, and found me guilty, all in the space of a few minutes. Is this then your opinion of me? Is this your reaction when the finger of blame is pointed at me?

Is this, then, the value of your friendship? If others cast stones at me, you join them in casting stones?" The iron hand tightened. She could hardly breathe. "You and your cousin both passed judgement on me when we first met, and nothing I have said or done since then has made the least bit of difference. Fortunately, I care nothing for the opinion of Mr Channing. Nor do I care for yours. Go, then,"

she said, moving away from the door to let him past. "You are absolutely right. We have nothing we can say to each other."

She clasped her hands together tightly behind her back, willing him to leave at once, before she said something she would come to regret. She had hoped somehow to appeal to his sense of fairness at least. But she should have known better. For what was it that Channing had said of him when they had first met? He had said his cousin was too apt to judge others and find them lacking. Well, here was the proof.

Gatley gave the tiniest bow, and sweeping past her, opened the door, and was gone.

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As if her confrontation with Gatley was not enough, she returned to the private parlour to find Darcy waiting for her.

"So, Georgiana. What do you have to say for yourself?"

The icy calm that had sustained her through her encounter with Mr Gatley now abandoned her. She crossed the room and threw herself into the armchair that stood by the fire, exhausted beyond caring. Too much had happened that day.

"Well?" said Darcy.

"Ease off, for heaven's sake, Darcy," said Robert. "They have been through an accident. We can deal with this issue later, when tempers have calmed down a little."