The Ballad of Gregoire Darcy (50 page)

“Mr. Gregory!”

Even though the walk had not been far, Grégoire collapsed at the O'Muldoons' door, one hand clutching the bleeding arm. Fortunately, Mr. O'Muldoon caught him in time, and helped him to a seat at their table.

“I—I need a surgeon,” he said, his voice a hoarse whisper. A glass of whiskey was set before him and he took a good gulp. “It's small but the bleeding won't stop.”

“Yeh know who attacked yeh?”

He didn't want to look at either of their expressions when he said it, so he just looked at the table. “Caitlin's husband.” He sighed. Now that he was sitting, and panic was not giving him strength, he was starting to fade—not from blood loss, which by his standards was relatively minor, but from emotional exhaustion. “I didn't know.”

“'S not right,” Mrs. O'Muldoon said. “We woulda told yeh, if we'd known.”

“I know.”

They didn't ask him any further questions. Mr. O'Muldoon instead announced he was leaving for another farm, where he knew he could borrow a horse that could get him to Tullow.

“I was—I was robbed,” Grégoire said. “I cannot pay right now, but I…have money. In Dublin.”

“'S all right, Gregory. Ya jest rest.”

She put a blanket over him because he was shivering, and he finished the whiskey and had another glass. He was nodding off into a sad, comfortable haze when the surgeon arrived. Being sewn up was enough to properly wake him, but it was quick and clean. As the O'Muldoons paid the surgeon, Grégoire began to remove his paper and writing implements from his satchel.

“Oh no, Mr. Gregory, yeh should rest—”

“I have to write … my brother,” he said, “to meet me in Dublin. I'm going after her.”

“Gregory,” Mr. O'Muldoon said, laying a strong hand on his shoulder, “I can't even imagine what yer goin' t'hrough, but she's a married woman.”

“I know,” he replied calmly as he opened the ink jar. “I know I can't…He felt the oncoming torrent of tears, but swallowed them back. “Even so, Mr. MacKenna is going to kill or sell the baby and maybe kill her in the process. I will find some way to protect her.” He crossed himself. “God help me.”

It took him more than an hour to write the letter. It was brief, but his mind wandered, and once the tears began, it was hard to continue. He hoped what he wrote would be comprehensible. After many blots from tears, he folded the letter and requested a candle to melt the wax. He barely had the energy to stamp the Darcy symbol into the soft seal. “For tomorrow's post; I may oversleep.”

Mr. O'Muldoon took it with some evident reservations, but not enough to stop him from holding his tongue as his wife escorted their tired, wounded, and tipsy guest into one of the children's rooms, where he was given their bed for the night. “Compline,”
he said to no one in particular. “Oh, goodness, Compline.” But the words didn't come. “
In te Domine speravi...
”—“In thee, O Lord, have I put my trust…”

Beyond that, he had nothing left in him.

Elizabeth Darcy knew something was wrong before anyone else in Pemberley, outside the two people in the study. She knew even before elderly Mrs. Reynolds, still sharp as a tack, managed to swing by with a concerned look to indicate,
Maybe you should go check on your husband
. Even though Elizabeth was upstairs, trying to convince Cassandra to settle down for a nap, she knew she had to get to her husband before he was forced to come to her. It was better that way.

She opened the door to the study to find him discussing pounds with his steward, who was still seated as Darcy paced anxiously by the window. Seeing her, he said, “Five thousand, it is. I need it by the end of the day. I do not care how you acquire it.” That was a nod for the steward to leave. He forced a smile for his wife. “No one in this family is ever permitted to leave Britain again. Travel is nothing but trouble.”

“Is he—”

“His letter,” he said, holding up a tear-stained letter with the Darcy seal still attached to one edge. “He is as well as can be expected.” Clearly, nothing would offer explanation but the letter itself, so he handed it to her and returned to the window, pacing and staring out at the rolling hills of Pemberley as Elizabeth sat down to read.

She looked up from the letter, her eyes not particularly dry. “When are you leaving?”

“As soon as I have enough money freed up. Tonight should be long enough. If not, then tomorrow morning.”

“Should I write Georgiana? He doesn't mention her.”

“What do you think?”

This was a woman's realm—he could not divine what his sister would think of this, though he knew that she would be sympathetic. Grégoire had been wronged by the woman he loved, and she had been wronged by the man who controlled and owned her, for all purposes. Elizabeth said, “I think she should be told as soon as possible.”

He nodded. He was trying to focus on the task at hand—getting to Dublin quickly. He fell into methodical planning when he could not bear the emotional consequences of doing otherwise. Grégoire was right—Darcy was good at getting things done, even things that seemed impossible. “In all likelihood, the husband is sufficiently poor that he can be tempted to send his wife away to raise the child elsewhere for the right amount of money.We would have to hire a protector to make sure it happened—it could not be Grégoire. Even he must know that.”

“There is absolutely no way that the marriage could end?”

“My understanding of Catholic law is that we would have to find sufficient evidence that the marriage was falsely done or incestuous. Of course, I suspect it was neither, or Grégoire would have said so. No, they are married until one of them dies.” He paused. “I must get to my brother.”

“Darcy, you know he wouldn't—”

“I know. But he would put himself in harm's way for her—he's already done so.”

“Do you wish me to go?”

He stopped pacing. He seemed to be considering it. “Dublin is not far by boat. In all likelihood, it will be a financial exchange and we will leave. If I need you, I will write for you.”

They exchanged looks.

“I will take a pistol this time,” he said. “I'll take two.”

“So why is he going to Ireland?”

“I don't know,” Geoffrey said, plucking up the grass in front of them as they sat on the hill. From there, he could see his father riding away on his horse, westbound. “Something about Uncle Grégoire.”

“
Of course,
it's Uncle Grégoire,” Georgie said. “Who else do we know in Ireland?” She repositioned her shawl, which protected her dress from the morning dew.“Is that what it means to be master of Pemberley? You always have to be abroad, rescuing relations?”

“Apparently.”

Grégoire was staying at one of the best hotels in Dublin, apparently aware that his brother would prefer nothing less. The former monk was staying under the Darcy name, perhaps for his own safety.

To Darcy's surprise, as he entered the hotel suite, Grégoire was neither in intense prayer or openly sobbing. He sat in the armchair, a bottle of fine whiskey beside him, untouched. Darcy had never seen him with a real beard, the kind a man grew out and trimmed properly. It made him look older, but what made him truly aged was the look around his eyes, as if he had cried until he had nothing left in him and was now just a shell of a man, grasping his rosary. His clothing was clean but unchanged. He was worn out in other ways. “Brother—”

“Grégoire,” he said as they embraced.“I came as soon as I could.”

“Thank you.” There was something strangely calm about Grégoire. Perhaps he was just out of other emotions. “My arm is healing. The stitches can come out early next week. He only grazed me.”

“Thank God.”

Grégoire crossed himself. So he had some faith left.

Darcy had only a few bags, which were soon brought up. Dinner was ordered. The stew that arrived was inedible, but Grégoire didn't seem to mind. Neither of them spoke, Darcy not sure which topic to broach first and Grégoire lost in his own thoughts.