The Ballad of Gregoire Darcy (53 page)

In the background, the doctor was mixing up his concoction for pain, probably some cheap version of laudanum. She did not
seem particularly aware, just focused on Darcy. “I didna' mean fer him ta get involved. It jest
happened.
”

“I know,” he said, but probably not in the way that she thought he knew. This was not the first time that Grégoire had gotten himself in over his head.

“I love 'im,” she said. “I loved 'im. It wasn' right, but I did.”

He had less argument with how she felt about Grégoire and more with the massive deception for a period of months that had nearly cost his brother his life, but Darcy didn't say that. This was not the time to say that. “I will tell him.”

The surgeon gave her a healthy dose of whatever was in the glass, and when that wasn't enough, he made her sip whiskey. It knocked her out. William Kincaid escorted his wife out of the room; she had every right to sit by a normal labor, but this was not a normal labor and the only thing in question was how badly it would end.

They stayed in the sitting room of their suite and waited. Occasionally, she would return to consciousness and wail, until the doctor found some way to knock her out again. They sat in silence because no one could think of anything to say.

At last, the surgeon emerged and handed a bag to his assistant, who quickly left. “I've done the best I can.”

“Will she live?”

“If she is fortunate, yes. I do not think she will bear children again—that part of her is too damaged.”

Darcy nodded and paid the surgeon. He had to leave to begin collecting people to speak on Grégoire's behalf and submit his own statement, but he felt the need to at least see her first.

To his surprise, Mrs. MacKenna was awake, if barely, in the bed. The hotel would not be recovering the sheets. “It was a boy,” she said with what remained of her voice.

“I am very sorry, Mrs. MacKenna.”

“I felt 'im kick. We laughed about it—now he's gone.” But she had no energy left even to cry. She just let the tears fall. He briefly squeezed her hand, and excused himself to collect his brother.

It was nearly twelve hours later when he returned to the hotel. Darcy had not slept at all since the previous morning, and Grégoire, evidently little. Fortunately, witnesses were not hard to gather—the family who had let Kincaid jump through their window were immediately questioned, as was the landlady about Mr. MacKenna's regular behavior (none of which spoke well of his character) and his shouting threats at his wife. There was also the matter that the knife was an old soldier's blade, from the war of 1812, in which he had fought. With the evidence stacking against the other suspect, Darcy convinced them to release his brother, and the two of them numbly returned to the hotel.

His impulse was to somehow get Grégoire cleaned up before Georgiana saw him, with his clothing and hair still caked with dried blood, but Darcy was tired and that impulse occurred far too late to make any difference.

“How is she?” were Grégoire's first words to his sister, who, all things considered, was taking the sight of him incredibly well.

“Resting.You heard about—”

“Yes.”

Nothing else needed to be said. Kincaid offered his condolences, and Darcy had hot water and a tub brought up as fast as possible. In the changing room, they left Grégoire to himself, perhaps to find some peace in a tub of hot water.

With Grégoire safely released and Mrs. MacKenna out of danger, general exhaustion overtook the party, and somehow, clothed or with at least their outer layers removed, Darcy and the Kincaids fell into their separate beds.

Grégoire padded out of his room, clean and shaven, and back in his normal clothes. His fingers ran through the rosary beads as he crossed the parlor and slowly opened the door to Caitlin's room, bringing the light from the parlor in. She was pale and even from
a distance he could see her strained features, contorted in pain as she slept.

He was too distracted to pray, and he had no right to bless her. He turned to leave.

“I know yeh won't come in,” she said, “and I am sorry—so sorry.”

“I'm sorry, about the child,” he said. “I think…I think I understand why St. Patrick pointed me to you.”

“What?”

He looked away. He could not look at her, even in her distressed state, and not see beauty. “I had to save your life. It cost you the child, and it broke my heart, but it saved you from him,” he said. “I only wish I could dismiss my task and move on.”
God help me, I still love you
. “I am sorry—I have to go.” He could not stay alone with a married woman—one he loved, and had loved, in every sense of the word.

“I love yeh,” she said. “I can' not say it.”

“I know,” he replied, and left.As he padded, barefoot, back to his own room, his chest felt heavy. His limbs felt leaden. The weight of it all was just so terrible. The world had turned dark around him, and he felt the same way.

As they waited for supper, Darcy composed a letter to Elizabeth, relating the events of the past days and explaining that they would likely be in Dublin for the duration of the trial. If it would be long, he would ask her to come. He had not made that assessment yet. He did not know the speed of the local courts there.

Grégoire was still sleeping, and their guest was being attended by a nurse. Georgiana joined Darcy in the parlor, wearing a shawl of the same tartan that Lord Kincaid had worn earlier. She kissed her brother's cheek and then sat down across from him. “What will happen, do you think?”

“Mr. MacKenna will either have a long sentence in Australia if the law is exceptionally kind, or he will hang.” He did not mince
words with her. He did not have the energy, and she was not a little girl anymore, even though she had a slight build.

“Then Mrs. MacKenna might become a widow.”

“I know.” He had been considering that possibility from the first moment of rational thought after the arrest. If MacKenna went to the gallows, Mrs. MacKenna could not be expected to wear jet for long. And then she would be available. “I think Grégoire should return with us to England, after this is settled. Immediately.”

“Brother! You are cruel!”

“He needs distance to think,” Darcy said.

“You would not approve of their marriage.”

“I do not approve of the way their relationship came about,” he said, though what she said was not untrue. Although it was amazing that Grégoire was thinking of marriage at all, did it really have to be a barren Irish peasant girl? “It was all deceit.”

Their voices were hushed. “Not
all
of it,” she said. “Just one important detail.”

“
Very
important.”

Georgiana smiled. “But consider what our relatives would think if he brought her home. Caroline Maddox might have apoplexy.”

“Georgiana,” he said sternly, but not all that sternly. “He needs time to think. If this is truly a love that knows no end, he will merely sit in a stupor for a few months while she publicly mourns her husband—and then rush back to her the moment he gets a chance. A man can take only so much heartbreak.”

They were in limbo for nearly two weeks. Mrs. MacKenna was seen again by the surgeon, who was pleased with her recovery. Darcy stood in the room as he gave his pronouncement, but it clearly brought no comfort to the woman who had just lost her child and any chance of another one. She sat in despair at one end of the hotel suite and Grégoire the other, and the two did not meet. Grégoire went to Mass every day, and he prayed. He did little else.
Darcy bought him books to tease him into occupying his mind, and both the Kincaids tried to make conversation with him, but he would have none of it. His stitches came out and the bruises on his face faded and he was pronounced a healthy man, to which he said nothing.

Because Mrs. MacKenna could not be moved, her account of the events of both nights in question—and all that had preceded them—was taken down by the clerk for the judge. The twisted tale of the man who had killed his own unborn child to get back at his wife for cheating on him with a monk was the talk of the town, which made their isolation that much more unbearable. Darcy wrote his wife but did not ask her to come; by the time she had arrived, they might be ready to leave. After posting the letter, he came to regret it; what would he give for one night with Elizabeth?

At last, Grégoire was called to testify. He was calm, as if in a trance. Maybe the events had cut some emotional nerve, because he was silent all the way to the crowded courthouse. Darcy escorted him and sat beside his brother in anonymity until Grégoire was called by baillif: “Mr. Grégoire Bellamont.” The English officers of the court spoke French and could pronounce his name.The rabble, who were following the case closely, hollered and hooted as Grégoire silently took his place before the judge.

As he gave his testimony, he looked and sounded numb.Although Darcy was happy that Grégoire did not break down in tears or make emotional pleas in front of the discourteous crowd, it bothered him to see his younger brother so distant. It also bothered him to notice that some of Grégoire's hair had fallen out, on the top, but he hardly had time to think on that now. The only time Grégoire showed emotion was when Darcy told him of all those who had come to Dublin at their own expense to testify to his good character—the O'Muldoons, the priest from the Tullow church, many people in Tullow, and some people from Drogheda. Darcy turned his head at the sight of James McGowan, a man he had never expected to
see again, now out of uniform and with an older couple, who were clearly his parents. They had come to see Grégoire, having already testified to his charitable and pious character.

“Thank you, Mr. Bellamont.You may be seated.”