by Pamela Aidan
He dismounted slowly and handed his horse over to a burly fellow already leading two others back to the stable. Although he and the bay had reached a mutual respect, both man and horse parted gladly in weary hope that their respective attendants were well prepared to minister to their needs. Apparently Sayre and his other guests were of the same mind, for no sooner had bedchamber doors slammed shut than upraised voices and the sound of running feet on backstairs were heard throughout the guest wings.
Darcy laid a hand upon the doorknob of his chambers and turned it with fervent hope that Fletcher had not lost his talent for anticipating his needs. From the sounds echoing through the castle, hot water would be a very precious commodity in short order. His hope was fulfilled to more than his satisfaction.
“Fletcher.” He sighed at the sight of his dressing gown laid out. “I believe you are truly priceless.” He sniffed the air. “Food as well!”
“Yes, sir.” Fletcher bowed. “Your bath lacks but one more bucket of hot water, which is on its way; and the food will keep warm until you desire it. May I help you, sir?” He reached for the edges of Darcy’s coat and expertly pulled it off his shoulders. Brushing it lightly, he laid it down and turned to proceed to Darcy’s waistcoat when he stopped short, his brow crinkled in question. As Darcy unbuttoned his waistcoat, Fletcher returned to the coat, picked up a sleeve, and turned the cuff around several times, examining it closely.
“Mr. Darcy!” he finally said. “There is blood on your cuff, sir!”
Darcy looked up from his task. “There was so much of it, I am not unduly surprised. Can it be gotten out?”
“Y-yes, sir,” Fletcher sputtered, his agitation increasing, “but are you hurt, Mr. Darcy? Was there an accident? Why was I not informed?”
Darcy regarded him with wonder, but it soon gave way to a guilty exultation. “Can it be you do not know, Fletcher?” he demanded gravely, unable to resist the temptation to exploit this singular experience, whose novelty expiated, to a degree, the grim circumstances upon which it was predicated. Fletcher’s struggle to admit his ignorance of so great an event as the cause for blood upon his master’s clothing would have been terrible to behold had Darcy not been almost giddy with weariness, hunger, and an unconscionable delight in having, at last, astounded his valet.
“No sir, I do not, and I am sure it is none of my business if you are not hurt,” Fletcher confessed stiffly. He dropped the sleeve and stepped round Darcy to remove the waistcoat. “I trust you are not hurt, sir?” he added quietly.
That Fletcher’s concern was real Darcy did not doubt; and he felt a twinge of shame for his teasing. “No, I am not hurt,” he said over his shoulder. “It is not my blood; it is not human blood at all but animal.”
“Indeed, sir,” Fletcher would not be drawn in again. Darcy sat down at the knock on the dressing chamber door. Fletcher answered it and motioned the boot boy to enter and proceed while he supervised the last bucket of water being added to the bath. The boy’s tasks complete, Fletcher sent him off, waiting until the ringing of his boots upon the stairs was no more before he closed the door.
“The bath is ready, sir, but have a care. It is quite hot.” The valet moved to catch the shirt Darcy flung off as he walked toward the dressing room. A few moments more and Darcy was easing himself down into the bath. Steamy vapor rose from the surface and swathed his face as he leaned back and savored the relief granted his body by the liquid heat. If only there were a similar remedy for the mind, he mused as he closed his eyes. But the scenes of the afternoon played out again beneath his eyelids: Sayre’s fear, Miss Avery’s hysteria, Trenholme’s rage, and most troubling, the bundle at the foot of the stone. What did it mean? Even Trenholme, who knew the Stones as magnets for the superstitious, was shocked and sickened, claiming that nothing like it had occurred before. If he was being truthful, the sacrifice must signal an attempt to manipulate fate in a vastly more serious way than the cure of warts! The illusion of child sacrifice created by the mask indicated a grasping after power, a good deal of power. And if power, would it not likely be directed against a rival “power” in the neighborhood? Sayre, perhaps, who was already in a quake about the Stones? But to what purpose? A groan of frustration escaped him.
“Mr. Darcy?” Fletcher appeared at the door. “Did you call, sir?”
“No.” He sighed. “But you may pour the first bucket.” Soon warm water was sluicing down his face and shoulders. He pushed his hair out of his eyes and blinked against the remaining drops.
“Your soap, sir.” A bar of fine French-milled soap was thrust before his nose, accompanied by a washing cloth. Darcy fumbled for the soap, which popped from his grasp like a cork from a bottle and plunged, uncorklike, to the bottom of the bath. One of Fletcher’s brows arched, but he turned away to the tray of grooming articles without comment. Darcy retrieved the bar and vigorously applied it, the silence between them deepening uncomfortably.
“The second, sir?” Fletcher’s disinterested voice arose from close by. With a nod, Darcy steeled himself for the rinsing water. It came down gently, carrying the lather out of his hair in directed streams. When he had cleared all from his eyes, he looked up at his valet intently. He had grown rather used to the man’s uncanny prescience and bold repartee, as well as his conscientious service. This falter in an impressive record clearly discommoded Fletcher and his own insensitivity had added the proverbial insult to injury.
Excellent, Darcy! He silently congratulated himself. Estrange your most trusted ally just when he is most needed! Who else but Fletcher might be relied upon to untangle the webs being spun around them? Images of the villainy at the King’s Stone flooded through him again. He needed Fletcher at his best, not sulking over a temporary failure and his own poor attempt at humor.
Darcy rose thoughtfully from the bath as Fletcher held out the dressing gown, guiding the sleeves up his master’s arms, then left him for the dresser to bring out clean smalls and stockings. Donning the garments quickly, Darcy cast about in his mind for how he might restore the man’s confidence and direct his talents without prejudicing his perception. Should he lay the whole before him? Doubtless Fletcher would pry loose the story, or some version of it, from someone’s maid or manservant. Would it not be more useful for him to be in possession of the facts and, therefore, free to observe the inhabitants of the castle unhampered by the shock of revelation?
As Darcy pulled on his black knit breeches and buttoned them over the silk stockings, his social obligations suddenly recalled themselves to his attention. They were to play at charades tonight, he remembered joylessly, and he was supposed to be looking for a wife. In that, too, Fletcher could be invaluable. Darcy passed over the faces of the eligible young women he had met so far and discarded all save one. Lady Sylvanie. He could not say that she did not intrigue him with her otherworldly beauty and enigmatic eyes, but he also had to acknowledge that there had not yet arisen that irrepressible pull that had o’ertaken him every time Eliza ——
“Your neckcloth, sir. Are you ready?” Fletcher held out the perfectly starched article. Darcy nodded and sat down. Well, there had hardly been time, had there? The fact that his interest had been caught so quickly in their short acquaintance was certainly in Sylvanie’s favor. Perhaps there was hope that his needs and requirements would soon be met acceptably and he could go home. With that thought, Darcy felt a pang of longing for the comfort of home — of the woman he had imagined there, in every room. He knew his own desire; it was already engaged in the person of one impudent, exciting, lovely little piece of baggage by the name of Elizabeth Bennet, whose unsuitability reached to the stars. He was here at the command of duty. Duty necessitated that he remain at Norwycke with people whom he was fast coming to loathe.
“Your coat, Mr. Darcy.” Fletcher’s toneless voice broke into Darcy’s thoughts once more. He slipped his arms into the frock coat and shrugged it over his shoulders, then observed his reflection in the mirror as he pulled down his cuffs. The coat was newly
made and fit like a second skin, but he found no pleasure in it. He was almost ready and soon would have to depart his chambers for the drawing room battles below. How to span the breach and set Fletcher’s nose atwitching?
“Fletcher,” he tossed over his shoulder while the valet applied the lint brush across his back. “You have read or attended a performance of Macbeth, have you not?”
“Yes, Mr. Darcy. It is strange that you should mention it, for I was thinking of it myself. Your coat reminded me, sir — ‘Out, damned spot!’” He laughed ruefully, then stiffened up again as the correct gentleman’s gentleman he had been since Darcy’s return. “Your pardon, sir.”
“Not at all. But that was not the line of which I was thinking.” Darcy waited until Fletcher came round to flick the brush over the front of his coat. “Do you remember how the line goes, ‘By the pricking of my thumbs…’?”
“‘Something wicked this way comes,’ sir?” Fletcher asked, more than a flicker of interest sparking his face.
Darcy fixed him with a darkling eye. “Precisely, Fletcher.”
Chapter 8
The Woman’s Part
He was less than half the hall away from the drawing room when Darcy caught the first notes of music. The sound was unmistakably a harp. But as he drew closer to the doors, something about its resonance struck him as unusual. His curiosity roused by the quality of the sound as well as the plaintive melody being performed, he was almost impatient for the ubiquitous satin-clad servants to open the doors. They opened finally upon a small group posed, to Darcy’s surprise, not around the grand harp at the end of the room but in a circle near the hearth. Most of the listeners were gentlemen; the ladies having not yet descended, save for Lady Chelmsford and her sister, Lady Beatrice, who sat together on a settee whispering companionably. In contrast, Monmouth lounged against the mantel, while Chelmsford’s chair was drawn in among the shadows at the other side and Poole sat on the edge of a divan drawn up nearer to the hearth, the attention of all of them fixed upon the harpist at their center.
Lady Sylvanie acknowledged his approach with a cool, fleeting glance, but her fingers did not hesitate as she continued playing the music that had captured Darcy’s attention. The small harp cradled against her shoulder gleamed in the firelight. The light reflected along its sweeping curves seemed to quiver in response to the graceful pluck of each chord. Darcy’s gaze was drawn first to those shapely fingers as they called forth such sorrowing sweetness from the strings, but his attention was soon enticed along the performer’s lithe arms to the curve of her pale shoulders and on then to her face. The lady’s eyes were lightly closed but not, he guessed, in concentration upon her performance. Rather, he had the sense that, while they were closed to her surroundings, they opened instead to some secret place the music created. From the lift of one raven brow and the slight smile that graced her face, he suspected she was barely aware of her audience. Her smile deepened as she played, and Darcy, conscious of the sensation of having once again caught a glimpse of a fierce fairy princess, caught his breath.
He watched, fascinated, as her smile faded and her brow creased as if in pain. Her lips parted, and there poured forth from them a song whose words he could not understand but which he knew intuitively was a hymn of longing. The beauty of it swept over him before he’d time to prepare against it and forced him into a chair. Gaelic. His brain informed him of the language, but it enlightened him no further as to the song’s meaning. Instead, the lilting words and haunting tune worked on him, recalling to his mind images and emotions of times long past: the exhilaration of galloping the fields of Pemberley atop his first pony, the wonder of boyhood rambles in the wood beyond the park, the companionable feeling of the fishing expedition to Scotland with his father the summer before his first term away at school.
Then the music changed, slowing to an altogether different key, and he was at his mother’s bedside, his heart stunned with the aching fear of bidding her his last farewell and, deeper still, the feeling of utter loss at his father’s passing. Struggling to break from this turn in the tide of his emotion, Darcy closed his eyes in a determined frown against the music. As if in response to his wishes, the lady’s voice began to drop, gentling, fading into silence as her fingers passed lightly over the strings. Had she noticed his discomfort? Darcy looked up at her from under hooded lids but saw that her head was bowed over her instrument.
“Breathtaking!” Poole exclaimed, breaking the silence as he applauded Lady Sylvanie’s performance. “Absolutely marvelous!” The other gentlemen joined him in vigorous appreciation.
“What is it called, my Lady?” Monmouth addressed her still bowed head. “Is it Irish? It sounded Irish.” Darcy watched intently as Lady Sylvanie lifted her head, her face composed although her startling gray eyes were still withdrawn.
“Yes, my Lord,” came her reply in quiet clarity, “it is an Irish tune.” Her eyelashes swept suddenly up and captured Darcy’s stare before he could look away. The smile in them was of such understanding he was tempted to believe that she was, indeed, a fairy, knowing his very thoughts.
“‘Deirdre’s Lament,’” she continued, her eyes piercing Darcy’s, holding them.
“I beg your pardon?” Monmouth responded.
Lady Sylvanie lowered her lashes, releasing Darcy, before giving her attention fully to Monmouth. “It is called ‘Deirdre’s Lament,’ an old song, my Lord.” The door to the room opened, and her audience looked with her as Lady Felicia and Miss Farnsworth entered arm in arm, followed by Sayre, his lady, and at the last, Manning. With their appearance she made to put the harp from her and rise, but the protests of the three gentlemen near the fire stayed her. With an elegant nod of acquiescence, she brought the instrument to her breast and settled it against her shoulder once more as the newcomers found seats.
Darcy, too discomposed with what had passed between himself and the singer to give order to the variety of sensations flooding him, had not joined in their plea. Neither could he look away as her graceful fingers caressed the strings nor, even when her eyes closed as she gathered herself to begin. But the piece she offered them was entirely different from the previous ones. Its sprightly pace and bright notes suggested nothing more unsettling to Darcy than a country reel. The other listeners were impressed with the same notion as several pairs of feet tapped discreetly under gowns, and some of the gentlemen pounded out the lively beat on their knees. By her finish, Darcy could almost dismiss his former impressions as too fantastical, evidence that the events of the day had come near to exhausting his usual store of good sense.
Lady Sylvanie rose with becoming modesty and curtsied her acknowledgment of the enthusiastic applause, which Darcy joined. Beaming with approval, Sayre rose as well, took her hand, and presented her to the room. During this second round, Darcy noted, the enthusiasm of the ladies was somewhat restrained, their applause tepid, while they darted looks at the continued show of appreciation by the gentlemen. He grinned to himself and applauded more loudly.
“Delightful, charming, my dear!” Lord Sayre inclined to his half sister. “Now, upon whom shall I bestow your company for dinner? Who shall be the fortunate fellow?” Sayre took no notice of the lady, if she should express a preference, but looked about the room with the countenance of one who finally had found in his power the disposal of a coveted treat. His search passed briefly over his old hall mates and soon came to rest upon Darcy. “Darcy, it shall be you! Come, sir, and claim your lady, for supper is ready and you shall lead after me.”
Rising immediately, Darcy advanced to Sayre. A quick look at Lady Sylvanie revealed that she did not regret her brother’s choice, but neither could he have said she showed any sign of undue pleasure. “My lady.” He bowed formally and offered his arm. Her manner, though quite correct, served him a twinge of disappointment, and her cool acceptance of his arm niggled at him. After such a look as she had given him earlier, he had thought to see more animation.
He led her to their accorded place
behind Sayre and his lady and followed them to the dining room, using their promenade as an opportunity to assess her further. Her hand was light upon his arm, and the blue-gray fabric of her gown fluttered slightly as they walked, drawing his attention to the pleasing curves of her form and the milky whiteness of her shoulders. Her richly plaited hair shone ebony in the hall candlelight, and a refreshing scent of mingled sweet herbs and new rain tickled his nostrils. No, he decided, he was not at all averse to Sayre’s choice. It was, in fact, exactly the opportunity he required to engage Lady Sylvanie further without that singling out of her which would only cause a wretched round of speculation. With these consoling thoughts, he relaxed a bit, and his interest in the woman at his side rose.
It was not until all were seated at table that the absence of Miss Avery and Trenholme was noticed. Her brother’s explanation that “Miss Avery did not feel well enough to come down to supper” was accepted with little comment. Sayre, by contrast, could supply no information about his brother and sent one of the servants up to inquire if Mr. Trenholme would be joining them before signaling the others that they should begin serving the meal.
The first course served, Darcy set himself to the delicate task of entertaining his companion. He knew he was intrigued by her, but of the lady’s willingness to be discovered he was less certain. Her behavior toward him had been all that was contradictory. One minute he was ignored and the next held in thrall by her Delphic eyes. Well, he must make a beginning…
“My lady…”
“My lady!” Manning’s voice from the other side of Lady Sylvanie clashed with his in a bid for her attention. His eyes met Manning’s briefly as she hesitated between them, but the rivalry Darcy expected to find in his expression was not there. Rather, he saw a man struggling with an unaccustomed emotion. Lady Sylvanie looked back to Darcy, a lift of her brow requesting his forbearance. He looked again at Manning and then nodded the withdrawal of his claim.