The Phantom of Pemberley (21 page)

Darcy sat perfectly still, Elizabeth’s assumptions weighing heavy on him. “You saw the scene with clearer eyes than I,” he muttered.

Elizabeth hid her triumph.“Men and women see life and death differently.Women always see the emotion associated with each act. It is, perhaps, our fate rather than our merit. We cannot help ourselves. We live at home, quiet, confined, and our feelings prey upon us.Those emotions give us a different perspective.”

“What else?” he asked impulsively.

“Mrs. Jenkinson’s death,” she said.

He caught Elizabeth’s hands in his; he rubbed his over hers, trying to warm her slender fingers. “What of the lady’s demise?” Darcy asked quietly, steeling himself for embarrassment.

She lifted his hand to her mouth and kissed the palm. “I love you, Fitzwilliam.” She held his hand to her cheek in quiet devotion. “Maybe we should simply find some sleep.You are exhausted, my Husband.”

“I would hear your opinions first, if you please, Mrs. Darcy.”

Elizabeth let out a sigh of exasperation. “If you insist, Mr. Darcy.” She regretted the implanted tone as the words escaped her lips; she recognized the tenuous grounds upon which she stood. She would be a fool to prove her husband inept-a fool to destroy her marital happiness just to prove a point.“Although I believe,” she began slowly,“that the stranger you seek was in Mrs. Jennings’s kitchen the afternoon of the poisoning, I cannot imagine the phantom footman placed arsenic in one cup of cider and let Fate guide it to Mrs. Jenkinson’s lips.”

“But the man threatened the lady.” Darcy played the devil’s advocate.

“Exactly.” Elizabeth waited for him to draw the same conclusions as she, but when her husband did not follow her thoughts, she offered up a few hints. “It is not logical, Fitzwilliam.” She waited again. “This is the same man who stole a complete set of bedding under your servants’ noses.” Still silence. “Whoever this man may be, he would leave nothing to chance. If he wanted to specifically kill Miss de Bourgh’s companion, he would devise a practically foolproof plan to do so. He evidently has access to this house’s many chambers. Poisoning would not be his mode for murder. He is too ingenious to let Fate guide his hand.”

A deeper silence filled the room.“Then you think there is more to the lady’s death than a reported threat from our mysterious staff member?”

“I cannot say what all the fuss might be. I have made no assumptions. But the facts do not equal such a neatly packaged death. If you recall, Mrs. Jenkinson offered me the poisoned cup before she drank it herself. If Fate had taken a twist, it would be I in that cold attic right now.”

A shiver ran down Darcy’s back. “Do not even speak such words,” he cautioned. “I could not live without you, Elizabeth.”

“Of course, you could.You would remain the master of Pemberley.”

Darcy brought her to him, needing to feel her closeness. “Breathing is not necessarily living, Elizabeth. I never truly lived until you defiantly breezed into my world.”

“Nor I you,” she whispered close to his ear.“I should never have fought you.”

“On that point, I would agree.We wasted valuable time that we should have spent loving each other.”

Elizabeth teased him. “I am ashamed that women are so simple to offer war where they should kneel for peace, or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway, when they are bound to serve, love, and obey.”

“Ah,
The Taming of the Shrew
.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Shakespeare is correct. Neither a man nor a woman should claim dominion over the other. I should listen not only to my heart but also my head.” He stood suddenly, lifting Elizabeth in his arms. “Will you permit me to carry you to our bed,Vixen?”

“I thought you would never ask, Mr. Darcy.” She laced her arms around his neck. Resting her cheek against his chest, Elizabeth sighed contentedly.

Nearly at the top of the stairs’ first flight, Darcy paused long enough to nuzzle behind her ear. “I need to limit all those cups of chocolate you have devoured of late,” he murmured teasingly as his tongue circled Elizabeth’s ear.

“What is wrong, my Husband? Married life making you soft?” Elizabeth taunted.

He renewed his efforts and turned toward their private quarters. “I might offer you the same criticism, my Love.Your sweet tooth has grown demanding of late.” His words struck a chord, and Elizabeth squirmed to release his hold, but Darcy tightened his embrace. He leaned against the inside wall’s painted brocade to steady himself. “Elizabeth, it was a poor attempt at humor.” He whispered so as not to wake his guests.

“Put me down, Fitzwilliam,” she insisted in hushed tones.

“Do not…do not pull away from me,” he pleaded.

“Put me down, Fitzwilliam.” Elizabeth repeated.

Slowly, he lowered her to the floor. “Elizabeth?”

But his wife turned and walked purposely away from him, closing and locking her chamber door behind her.

The moment of passion had died—killed by an unwise remark. He rushed to his own door, sending his valet away with just a nod of his head. Darcy did not pause; instead, he traversed the distance between his and Elizabeth’s shared dressing rooms and entered her quarters without knocking. “Eliza—”The sight of her froze Darcy in mid stride. She was stretched out across her four-poster, wearing nothing but a smile and her waist-length auburn hair draped about her shoulders.“I-I thought you angry with me,” he stammered. His eyes drank their fill.

“Men are so obtuse!” she declared.“I came to my room because what I have to say to you could not be said in a hallway with Pemberley footmen every twenty feet.”

Darcy edged closer. “And what would that be, Mrs. Darcy?”

“
I
do not have a sweet tooth, my Husband.” She rose to her knees, and Elizabeth lightly rested her fingers on her stomach.“But your
child
certainly does.”

Darcy’s smile disappeared, and a serious frown wrinkled his brow. Elizabeth watched-pure discontent testing her resolve. Darcy’s eyes rested on her fingers; he saw nothing but the way her hand cupped a very slight bulge below her waist. “Fitzwilliam?” she rasped, “did you hear me?”

A nod of his head was all Darcy managed. His eyes remained on Elizabeth’s body—the rise of her stomach and the swell of her breasts. He slept beside her each night and had not noticed! “How is it possible?” he murmured.

Elizabeth chuckled. “Surely you do not need for me to explain the mechanics of the act, my Husband.”

Darcy snorted. “I meant…I should have realized.”

Elizabeth giggled. “This is surreal, Fitzwilliam. I assumed that you would be more demonstrative.”

Her words broke the spell. Darcy stepped to the bed and smothered her with kisses. “Elizabeth, how long?” He held her gaze with his.

“Six months.”

His hand palmed the swell of her stomach. “Our child.” He planted a tender kiss where his hand caressed her. “When may I tell the others?”

“Under the circumstances, with death in the house, it seems incongruous to mention life,” she cautioned.

“Yet even with death all around, life goes on.That is the beauty of it—of God’s greatest gift to man. Our child, Elizabeth. I am nine and twenty and am a wealthy man at last. Pemberley could fall down around my head, and I would still know happiness, for I will have you and our child.”

“Am I to be the only one to undress tonight?” she taunted.

Darcy’s smile grew by the second.“I believe I might acquiesce.” He loosened his cravat and tossed it on the floor. “Have I ever told you how beautiful you are?”

Elizabeth corrected, “Mrs. Bingley is the beautiful one in my family.”

“I beg to differ, Mrs. Darcy. From the moment I saw you, I could not withdraw my eyes from the classic beauty of your face. You possessed me.” He kissed Elizabeth’s temples, her lips, her cheeks, and the corners of her mouth. “You are the breath—the wind—the sun—my everything.” He claimed her mouth and let love consume him. Darcy thought of nothing but his wife and the life she brought to his home. “Holding you in my arms is more exquisite than holding the sky and the stars,” he whispered as he loosened the cords holding back the bed’s drapery.

 

James watched from the raised dais behind the fireplace. The sight of Fitzwilliam Darcy making love to his wife—the delectable former Elizabeth Bennet—sickened him. He had once thought it possible that he, too, might know such happiness—a living—a chance to make his name mean something—a wife who would look at him the way Elizabeth Darcy did her husband. As much as James had tried, none of those hopes had come to fruition.With his every
loss,
Fitzwilliam Darcy
gained.
Now, the man was to have his heir—
an heir for the great estate of Pemberley. The Darcy legacy would continue, written in the annals of British history, while his legacy floundered like a fish on dry land. What did he have to show for all his efforts: a rented room, a trade he despised, and a simpering woman clinging to his every move. And all of it was Fitzwilliam Darcy’s fault. Every failure came from Darcy. He had not come to Derbyshire to exact a revenge on Darcy, but James would take pleasure in extinguishing Darcy’s dreams. When he left Pemberley, he would take Elizabeth Darcy and the man’s heir with him. He would leave Darcy nothing—the man had just said that only his wife and unborn babe brought him happiness. Did he not deserve happiness also? Why should Darcy be the golden child?

Secretly, he watched as Darcy undressed and finally released the drape of his wife’s four-poster, cocooning them in their love nest. “Enjoy it while you can, Darcy,” he whispered to the darkness. “Soon it will be I.” He slid the slit closed, locking away the image of contentment he had observed for the past thirty minutes. Picking up the candelabra, he made his way to his makeshift bed. He would need to accelerate the pace of his plan. The worst of the storm had come and gone.Within the next several days, the players would disperse, and he would lose his opportunity to blame Darcy for a series of murders—his chance to destroy Darcy’s reputation and his life, an added benefit of his original plan. While he saw to her—saw that she knew misery of the bitterest kind—he would enjoy the Darcy diversion. The reason for his trip into Derbyshire would know the depth of his ire and know how she had brought shame to all who had once revered her name.

“MR. WORTH,YOU RESEMBLE the cat licking the cream,” Anne de Bourgh teased from across the breakfast table.

The gentlemen slathered blackberry preserves on sliced dark bread. “I had a restful night,” he noted.

“Pleasant dreams, then?”Anne’s eyes sparkled with girlish mischief.

“Indeed, Miss de Bourgh.”Worth assessed the woman’s countenance. “I dreamed of infinite possibilities.”

Anne’s smile grew. “As did I, Mr.Worth.”

“I was hoping, Miss de Bourgh, that I might interest you in seeing your cousin’s conservatory. Mrs. Darcy assures me that she has cultivated several new species of roses. I am most eager to see them.”

Anne shot a quick glance at the other end of the table, where Darcy spoke to his sister. “I would be delighted to accompany you, Mr.Worth.” She lowered her voice as if speaking in secret.

Worth noticed her reticence.“Have I placed you in an awkward position, Miss de Bourgh? I would not for the world have you spoken poorly of,” he whispered for her ears only.

“No, sir, I have only…only of late taken my life in my own hands, and I, at times, am still unsure of what I should and should not accept.” Anne dropped her gaze, staring at the coddled eggs on her plate.

“I assure you, Miss de Bourgh, I have only the highest regard for you.”

Anne moved the bits of egg around with a fork. “I will meet you in the hallway leading to the conservatory in three-quarters of an hour.”

Worth wanted to say something reassuring, but the lady’s mother entered the morning room. He still did not know how best to respond to Lady Catherine—what he would prefer to say to the woman reeked of disrespect, and he refused to allow his dislike for the way the woman treated her daughter to interfere with his interactions with Anne de Bourgh. His courtship of her. Suddenly,Worth realized that it was a courtship.
Out of death comes life,
he thought.

“You are up early, Anne,” Lady Catherine remarked.

“I am, Mother.” Anne filled her mouth to avoid conversation.

“You must guard your health, Child. You have never been strong; a full night’s sleep can only benefit your constitution,” Her Ladyship cautioned.

Anne muttered, “I am no longer a child, Mother.”

Lady Catherine stared disapprovingly at her daughter. “You are
my
child, no matter your age,” the woman declared to the entire table. “And as your mother, I have a responsibility to guide you.”

Anne wanted to offer a retort, but a slight shake of Darcy’s head warned her to think again. She touched her napkin to her mouth. “If you will excuse me,” she announced to the room. “I have some tasks in my chamber to which to attend.”