The Phantom of Pemberley (8 page)

“Not of which I am aware, sir.” The butler lit the wall sconces in the main hallway. “Should I inquire, sir?”

Darcy glanced toward the main staircase.“I thought I saw someone in the window when we returned from Lambton. I may be wrong, but I would like to know for sure.”

“I will check with Murray, sir.”

“Be discreet, Mr. Baldwin. If one of our men is shirking his duties and hiding out in the unoccupied rooms, I wish to catch him in the act.”The more he considered those brief seconds of eye contact the more convinced Darcy was of actually seeing someone in the darkened room. A footman being where he did not belong was the most logical explanation.

“I will see to it personally, Mr. Darcy.”

 

Elizabeth tapped lightly on Lydia’s chamber door. “Lydia,” she said as she opened it just a crack, “may I help you dress?” Elizabeth wanted a few minutes alone with her sister. She had not seen Lydia since the day her youngest sister and George Wickham had left Longbourn for Newcastle. That had been before Darcy’s second proposal—before her double wedding with their oldest sister, Jane, to Charles Bingley. Of course, the Wickhams claimed that his military duties and the great distance prevented their attending the wedding, but Elizabeth knew the real reason to be the unspoken feud between Darcy and Mr.Wickham.

“Come in!” Lydia called from behind the screen where she dressed.

“I thought we might have some time together.” Elizabeth came closer to the screen. “It has been more than a year since we had a five-chit chat.” It was what they had once called that time at the end of the day at Longbourn when the five Bennet girls gathered to share gossip and hopes and dreams. Beside the long talks with her father and her uncommon need for Jane as her confidante, it was what Elizabeth missed most about her Hertfordshire home.

“Sure, Lizzy.” Lydia grunted, obviously struggling into her clothes.

Elizabeth indulgently came around the screen.“Let me lace that for you.” She took up the strings of her sister’s corsets. “I will ask Mrs. Reynolds to find someone to serve as your maid while you are at Pemberley.Would you like that, Lyddie?”

“Just listen to you.” Lydia turned to really see her sister. “Are you not the be-all, now that you have married Mr. Darcy. Back at Longbourn none of us had our own maid. We all shared the Hills and Harriet.”

Elizabeth spun Lydia to where she could tie off the last of the strings. “Well, I did marry Mr. Darcy, and if that makes me uppity, then so be it.” Elizabeth walked back toward the room’s seating area. “So do you wish the help of a maid or not?”

Lydia followed her as they took a place before the hearth.“Why should I not live in luxury while I may,” she replied.

Elizabeth pulled her feet up under her to sit comfortably.“Jane’s last letter said that you and Mr.Wickham had moved recently. I will need your new directions.”

“It is not much.” Lydia straightened her dress’s seams, trying not to make eye contact with her sister. “Obviously, nothing like what you or Jane has.” She glanced about her.“Just four rooms.You know—military quarters are not much by Pemberley’s standards.”

Elizabeth knew that her sister had changed quarters three times since her marriage. Elizabeth and Jane had agreed to aid their younger sister, knowing Lydia’s tendency to spend foolishly. Elizabeth
sent such relief as it was in her power to afford by the practice of what might be called economy in her own private expenses. She refused to ask Darcy to provide the Wickhams with any more financial support. It had always been evident to everyone that the couple would know no economy, and that such an income as theirs, under the direction of two persons in their wants and heedless of the future, must be very insufficient to their support. “But you and Mr.Wickham—I mean—you are happy, are you not, Lydia?”

“It is easy to be happy when you live like this.” Lydia gestured to the room’s finery. “It is a bit harder when…well…it just is, Lizzy.”

Elizabeth sat forward. “I want you to be happy, Lydia; you must know that.” She, too, gestured to the room’s decorations. “
This
is not from where my happiness comes. For me, it comes from Fitzwilliam. I would be happy to be one of Pemberley’s cottagers if he was there.”

“Then you are lucky.” Lydia stood. “I affect Mr. Wickham—I really do, Lizzy. He is so handsome in his blue coat and all.” She walked to the fireplace and stood there with her back to the roaring fire.

Elizabeth had realized from the beginning that Wickham’s affection for Lydia was not equal to Lydia’s for him.Their elopement had been brought on by the strength of her love rather than by his. She often wondered why, without violently caring for Lydia, he had chosen to elope with her at all. Now she understood that his flight had been rendered necessary by distress of circumstances, and Wickham was not the young man to resist an opportunity of having a companion. Lydia had been exceedingly fond of him from the beginning. He had been her
dear Wickham
on every occasion; no one was to be put in competition with him. He did everything best in the world. It was an idealized love.

“I know that you have always found the best in Mr.Wickham.” Elizabeth felt very sorry for her sister’s situation—for her own beloved Lydia’s foolishness.

Lydia turned to stare into the fire. “I wish my husband did me the same honor. He finds me quite silly, and I suppose I am at times.”

“You are still very young, Lyddie.”

“Am I?” The girl’s shoulders began to jerk with silent sobs. “I am old enough to know what my husband does on these trips when he sends me off to visit with Jane and now you.” Her tone turned sarcastic. “Can you imagine
my dear Wickham
not keeping company with some other woman when he is at Bath or London?”

“You do not know that for certain, Lydia.” Elizabeth said the words to comfort her sister, not because she truly believed them.

Lydia wiped at her face with her sleeve. “No…I do not know for certain what my husband does on his travels.” She wore bitterness on her face when she turned to her sister. “The colonel’s wife says that it is a man’s way—that a woman must accept her lot. But I will not spend my life with a man who does not love me. I fancy myself still capable of attracting a man of consequence—the same as you and Jane.”

“Lydia, you cannot be thinking of leaving Mr.Wickham!” Elizabeth’s heart sank as she inwardly acknowledged the possible scandal. A divorce would be ten times more controversial than Lydia’s elopement, and it would not be something that even Darcy could cover up, even if it were possible for Wickham to execute. Divorce was usually granted only to those of a particular social class and those with deep pockets, neither of which described the Wickhams.

“Why not?” Lydia went to the mirror to style her hair. “He has no qualms about leaving me—whether it be to Bath or London or even simply to his own bed. Well, I will have no more of it, Lizzy—I will not be tossed aside at seventeen.When Mr.Wickham left, I told him that I expected a renewal of his affections when he returned, or I would speak to the colonel about what happens behind our closed doors.”

Elizabeth did not want to ask, but she did so anyway. “What happens, Lydia?”

Her sister did not turn to speak directly to Elizabeth, but she spoke to her sister’s reflection in the beveled mirror.“Mr.Wickham drinks, Lizzy, and he is not a man who holds his liquor well.”

“He hits you!” Elizabeth said, aghast. She had observed George Wickham being rude to Lydia, but it was always when Lydia had made a spectacle of herself, but Elizabeth had never thought it might be more than embarrassment mixed with irritation.

“Not hit exactly—more like shove or fling or pinch or bend. But I will no longer tolerate my husband’s ire, and I told him so before I left Nottingham. I told Mr. Wickham to get whatever it was out of his system before he returned to Newcastle.”

“Good for you.” Elizabeth moved to stand behind her sister. “I am proud of you, Lyddie.” She took up the brush to style Lydia’s hair.

“Are you truly, Lizzy?”

“Indeed, I am.”

“SO,WORTH,WOULD YOU LIKE to explain to me how you ended up in a carriage with the wife of a man you previously prosecuted for gambling debts?”

Worth leaned back in his chair. “Would you believe it was purely coincidence?”

“Not in the least.” Darcy sat forward to press his point.“I prefer the truth. Mrs.Wickham is Mrs. Darcy’s youngest sister. If the lady’s husband has brought additional shame on this family, I have a right to know.”

Worth played with his pocket watch, opening and closing the case.After several moments, he responded,“Mr.Wickham has made some unsavory connections.”

Darcy paused and then asked, “What should I know?”

“Nearly a month ago, Mr. Niall O’Malley
,
a former associate from Cheshire—sent me a letter. He is practicing in Newcastle and had received several complaints by merchants and officers regarding George Wickham. It took him some time before he made the connection to the case we had brought in my home shire against your wife’s brother.” Remembering Darcy’s contempt for Wickham, Worth was careful not to refer to the man as also being Darcy’s brother. “My friend asked me to come to Newcastle to identify the man.When I arrived, I also learned that Mr.Wickham’s commanding officer entertained the idea that the gentleman in question had ill-used Mrs. Wickham on more than one occasion.”

Darcy made no comment. He comforted Elizabeth when she had returned in tears to their shared chambers with news of Lydia’s accusation against her husband. Nigel Worth’s words only underscored Darcy’s opinion of George Wickham. “That still does not explain how you ended up as Mrs.Wickham’s
newest friend.
”

“In reality, it was a coincidence. According to your wife’s sister, Wickham left her in Nottingham to wait for the public coach to Pemberley. I had no idea of Mrs. Wickham’s identity until she shared it during one of our conversations.”

“And what is your connection to this new case against George Wickham?” Darcy needed all the facts—needed to know how to ensure his family’s well-being.

“I would testify to the repetition of Mr. Wickham’s offense—to his proclivity for gambling debts—assuming they decided to bring charges.”

Darcy had to ask. “Do you have any idea of the extent of these debts?”

“Somewhere in the neighborhood of nine thousand pounds, I believe, sir.”

A sickening feeling flooded his stomach. Barely eighteen months earlier, Darcy had settled a large sum on Wickham to marry Lydia Bennet, plus he paid the man’s gambling debts in Hertfordshire and Brighton. He could not afford to bail his enemy out again, no matter what the emotional cost to his family. Enraged, he wondered,
How could Wickham go through so much money in such a short time?
If it would not affect the Bennets, and, ultimately, the Darcys, by association, he would lead the party to lock Wickham away.

“You are not thinking of paying Wickham’s accounts again, are you, Mr. Darcy? It would be throwing good money after bad.” Worth spoke the truth, although Darcy did not wish to hear it.

“I will not take money from my sister’s future to save Mr.Wickham. Plus, I will not rescue the man if what you say is true regarding his actions towards his wife.”

“I assure you that it is true, Mr. Darcy.”

Darcy stood to end the conversation. “I thank you, Mr. Worth, for being so candid.You have given me much on which to think.”

“Let me know, Mr. Darcy, if I may be of service.” Worth made his obligatory bow to leave. “You and your family need to openly dissociate yourself from any dealings with Mr.Wickham.”

“Unfortunately, you may be correct, Mr. Worth.” Darcy led the way to the door.“However, how do I convince my wife to set aside her feelings for her sister and to allow the lady to flounder in the situation she has created?”

 

Despite Lady Catherine’s objections, Darcy insisted that Elizabeth sit opposite him at his evening table. He placed Lady Catherine on his right and Viscount Stafford on Elizabeth’s right. He kept Cathleen Donnel away from Georgiana, placing her between Lydia and Nigel Worth.

“It does appear that the storm is not going away anytime soon,” Worth observed. “We may be in your debt, Mr. Darcy, longer than we originally had intended.”

“I am sure that my nephew knows his duty,” Lady Catherine declared to the whole table. “As is our family’s nature, we take our responsibilities to the neighborhood seriously. My brother, the Earl of Matlock, is the most magnanimous of men.”

“I was unaware, Mr. Darcy, of your relationship to the earl,” Mrs. Williams raised her head to join the conversation. She seemed a bit disturbed by the news of Darcy’s connection, but she said,“My late husband and I had the honor of making the acquaintance of the Earl of Matlock at a celebration dinner hosted by the Naval Board at Whitehall.”

Lady Catherine puffed up with pride.“My brother is known for his strong support of our military efforts. In Parliament, he often urges more funding for our troops. His own son is a colonel in the army. Colonel Fitzwilliam shares guardianship of my niece with Darcy.”