The Trouble with Mr. Darcy (41 page)

Despite his momentary surprise, Wickham responded instantly. He lurched forward, bounded through the thicket, and dashed across the lawn in seconds. Lizzy released a sharp cry that was cruelly cut off when Wickham crushed her head between the wet rag cupped in one hand that pressed harshly over her face, and the other hand that painfully twisted into the hair pinned into a lovely arrangement on the back of her head. He hauled her upward, relishing the pain he knew he was causing, until she was facing him.

Her eyes were wild with fright as she met Wickham’s triumphant gaze. There was immediate recognition, but also, to his amazement, a blaze of indescribable fury. With a jolt of astonishment he realized that she was holding her breath! Additionally, although he had expected some feeble struggling, she nearly overwhelmed his considerable strength by her strenuous counter-assault. She violently wrenched her head to the left while lashing out with her limbs. Her legs, stout and supple from years of walking, pounded into his shins with well-aimed kicks. Her hands contorted into dangerous claws, gripping and slashing with frenetic attacks to his face and neck.

Several hopping steps were required to avoid tumbling over, but he managed to collect himself and widen the stance of his stiffened legs, planting his feet into the soft turf. In desperation he tightened his grip to her hair, waiting for the muffled squeal of pain that she refused to release, and pulled her into his chest for additional support.

“Breathe damn it!” He growled, the fingertips holding the cloth digging into the tender flesh of her cheeks.

But Lizzy did not breathe. Instead she fought, frantically. Her body writhed and strained, every muscle contorting and contracting with incredible power. She grabbed on to his wrists, twisting the leather covering his flesh abrasively. She fisted her hands, raining clouts over his shoulders and upper arms. Her feet, encased in sturdy half-boots, beat into his shins and feet. The maniacal struggle led to an odd sort of dance, Lizzy’s zealous maneuvers forcing him to sway and bend in order to maintain control.

He arched his head backward, both to avoid inhaling the ether or presenting an easy target for her fingernails, and held her in a crushing embrace. He knew she would have to breathe eventually, so he ignored the bruising blows peppering his legs and upper torso.

It seemed to last forever, although in truth less than two minutes passed before the need for air overwhelmed her. He felt her inspiration, marveling anew that even in her panic it was shallow. It was followed by fresh thrashing, but he sensed her weakening as another wheezing breath was taken and her flails lessened. He kept the pressure steady as her muscles began to relax.

Nonetheless, he was again taken by surprise at her resilience when she acted in a final, ferocious protest. She released an animal scream into the wad of sweet vitriol soaked cloth, raked the fingers of her right hand deeply across his left cheek while pulling the protective scarf away from his nose, and aggressively pushed with her legs and shoved her lower body into his. The combination again disrupted his balance, only this time he was unable to correct his equilibrium, and they toppled onto the spongy clover.

His clasp was lost, the ether-doused cloth falling forgotten to the ground, and Lizzy rolled away from his side. Wickham had enough presence of mind in his blinding rage and pain to follow after her, prepared to reestablish his domination. He sprawled bodily onto her, straddling her legs and pressing them together with his knees while his hands reached to encircle her slender throat. But it was not necessary. Her last outburst and gasping shriek had overwhelmed her, the drug finally penetrating to subdue her brain.

The only sound was his harsh respirations. He was so angry that his vision was hazy and mind clouded. It did not occur to him to consider that their struggle may have drawn attention, nor was he coherently able to halt his rage.

He lashed out, delivering a stunning slap to her slack face. “Witch!” he bellowed, following with another blow to the opposite cheek and additional foul expletives. He sat back on his heels, breathing raggedly, and then heaved to his feet. Sanity and calm were slow to be restored, but he had not planned this revenge only to allow one unsuspecting difficulty to ruin all.

His fingertips wiped the oozing blood away from the four stinging wounds rived into his left cheek. “You will pay for this, Elizabeth Darcy. Now it is not just about Darcy. Another score
will
be settled this day.”

***

“Point to Colonel Fitzwilliam.”

The declaration rang out, but Richard did not experience the elation he normally felt when scoring one on his cousin. He frowned behind his protective mask, raising his left hand to signal a suspension. Pulling the mask away from his sweating brow, he approached his opponent.

Darcy removed his own mask and raised his arms in question, sword firmly gripped and by all outward appearances ready to continue the match. He was not breathing heavily and only a light sheen moistened his forehead, but that was all the more reason Richard knew something was not quite right.

“Do you want to tell me why I am beating you so easily?” Richard inquired, his voice low and a faint smile lighting his face. Still, he peered into Darcy’s eyes with clear concern. “You are hardly trying, and have been distracted all afternoon. Are you yet disturbed over the information I gave you this morning? I did not plan to win on default.” His tease was met with a blank stare.

“Put your mask back on, Colonel. The match is far from over.” Darcy clapped the hood in place, gesturing with his sword arm, and resumed a precision fencer’s stance.

The battle recommenced and although Colonel Fitzwilliam did ultimately defeat the younger man, it was not the resounding victory he suspected based on how it began.

Darcy managed to rally his focus and skill, but remained preoccupied and was not in top form. He could not bury his vacillating emotions over what had transpired with Lizzy that morning and all afternoon the iciness of fear raced uncontrollably through his veins. The four months since he and Lizzy rekindled their relationship and her mysterious illness faded was too short a time to expunge the trauma from his memory. The terror of revisiting such a place of agony was as real as if it had happened yesterday.

He hated that their interview was so abruptly cut short. He had not been able to articulate his feelings and to discuss with her as they always did until understanding was reached. The idea that she may be confused as to his concerns, reaching the conclusion that he wanted no further children, or fearing his displeasure regarding another baby, greatly weighed on his mind.

Indeed, he had not anticipated her conceiving so rapidly, so part of his shock was due to that. He was not an imbecile and knew precisely the mechanics of where babies came from. However, probably due to the fact that it had been well over a year between Alexander’s birth and Michael’s creation, he had somehow not given the possibility any thought.

Nevertheless, it was the worry over his wife’s health that overwhelmed him and sent shivers of foreboding through his body. It had taken her so long to regain her physical stamina. Weeks after her mental and emotional status returned to normalcy—his uncle’s stated diagnosis that it was primarily the breach with her husband that prohibited her spiritual recovery proving true—she had remained tired, weak, and delicate. For only the past month or so had her constitution and physique rejuvenated to her prior vigor and lushness. In fact, Darcy recognized with daily surging happiness, she was robust beyond what she had previously been. Thus, the hint of anything disrupting her hard-fought wholeness and vitality was enough to numb his bones.

Yet, oddly, amid the rivers of cold he began to detect a warm center of happiness. It began deep in his belly, almost touchable, and gradually spread to dispel some of the frostiness. It was bizarre and unexpected, but his mind was continually invaded with the image of a tiny face. A feminine, delicate, and beautiful face.

Numerous times he shook his head, forcing the vision to evaporate, but it kept returning.

Unlike his wife, Darcy had experienced no prescient dreams or inclinations with either pregnancy. Lizzy had known, each time, that the baby she carried was male. With Michael it was merely a “feeling,” partially based, she admitted, on the fact that her body carried the infant precisely the same as Alexander. She did not have a crystalline dream as with her first pregnancy, but there was no doubt in her mind that she would be presenting her husband with his second son.

He did not believe the image that plagued his mind today was a premonition, but rather a divine message. As the afternoon progressed, he renounced the worst of his anxiety and cautiously allowed the possibility of further happiness to creep in. It was difficult to focus on business or manly pursuits while sensing a strange need to rush back to Darcy House and make amends with his wife now, not later.

He shook his head to dispel the disquiet and dipped the damp cloth into the cool water filling the porcelain bowl. He wrung the excess away, wiping over his neck, shoulders, back, and underarms. He did not have time to return to Darcy House for a complete wash prior to his appointment at White’s, but like most gentlemen who frequented Angelo’s Fencing Academy, he toted a clean shirt and cravat, as well as a bottle of his preferred cologne, to freshen up after a vigorous workout.

He splashed a palm-full of the musky concoction that Samuel provided onto his chest, forcing his thoughts away from holding Elizabeth in his arms while assuring her of his love and supreme joy in accepting the God-given gift of as many children as He chose to entrust to them. His concentration turned to the upcoming session with his business partners, rigid intellectual calculations snapping firmly into place, and he began pulling the crisply ironed linen shirt over his shoulders when the door burst open.

“Darcy,” Richard flatly pronounced. “You are needed at Darcy House immediately!”

***

It was a nightmare. It had to be. There was no other explanation. It even felt like a nightmare with the racing heartbeat and fogged mind sensations typical of a horrific dream. Only usually she was able to wake herself when the terror grew too extreme. Upon waking, the negative effects would stop with the comforting familiarity of her bed restoring her wits. And then the dream itself would fade, the images once so disturbing quickly losing clarity.

This nightmare was not following that pattern.

Georgiana exited the nursery, the heaviness of her heart weighting her body down as surely as an oxen’s yoke, and her vision dimming to the point where she was forced to lean against the wall and grasp onto a narrow table or fall to the floor.

She inhaled deeply, willing the tears away. After all, it had to be a nightmare, an especially vivid one but a nightmare nevertheless. It could not be real and any second now she would wake and the scenes would shatter into dust.

She pressed her fingertips against her burning eyes, realizing with increased dismay that closing her eyes only brought the dream into greater focus…

At slightly before three-thirty the doorbell had rung unexpectedly, Georgiana’s heart lurching with the thought that it might be Sebastian as she jumped up from the pianoforte and dashed into the foyer. Her disappointment at discovering Lady Simone being greeted by Mr. Travers rather than Mr. Butler was smothered, and she embraced her cousin with true delight.

“Forgive me for disturbing your quiet afternoon, Georgiana dear, but I wanted to bring these books to Elizabeth before I forgot. Also, my painting of the stone pines in the Villa Doria Pamphili that she loved has been framed and I wished to give it to her right away.”

“Never apologize, Simone. You are always welcome and Lizzy will be thrilled. She has an abiding love for wooded places, we have discovered. Come, she and Alexander are in the garden up to their ankles in dirt I imagine. I am sure they would both benefit from some cooled juice, if you could provide some, Mr. Travers?”

He bowed, heading toward the kitchen while Simone and Georgiana walked across the tiled entryway to the wide glass-paned doors that opened onto the garden courtyard. It was strange how, in retrospect, traversing the airy hall seemed a walk of doom lasting an eternity. Yet she and Simone barely noticed their steps as they chatted and laughed all the way to the far corner where Lizzy and Alexander were supposed to be planting sunflowers. And then the painfully long seconds as they puzzled over a scene that made no sense.

Gardening tools and unplanted seedlings sat unattended but undisturbed, the dirt holes and misplaced rocks a normal expectation when gardening. It was the utter silence that struck them first. Then the absence of the two who should have been digging and who did not appear, no matter how often they both scanned the bush encircled glade expecting them to jump out and yell, “Surprise!” Still, they would likely have assumed that Lizzy and Alexander were in the house if not for the random clumps of grass gouged from the ground, the crumpled cloth discarded beside a human-shaped depression, the gray rabbit lying in a heap next to the cloth, and the folded parchment nearby.

Georgiana shivered and opened her eyes. The hallway was empty and silent. Michael was finally asleep, rocked in his aunt’s arms after the efforts of Mrs. Hanford to placate him with warm porridge and cow’s milk proved successful. The infant’s vocalized unhappiness at not having his mother’s breast and gentle touch was an emotion they empathized with, but neither spoke openly about the calamity that had befallen Darcy House. Miss Lisa had stood by the dresser silently crying as she folded and refolded a pile of Alexander’s freshly washed clothes.