The Mysterious Death of Mr. Darcy (56 page)

Mrs. Ridgeway responded in her customarily conceited tone. “Just a mixture, which I learned from a Scottish medicine woman. The lady swore it would put the strongest of men to sleep for hours.” Again, she paused in that sickeningly sweet way which Darcy had come to despise. “Hemlock and a bit of mandragora, along with a touch of opium.”

Darcy raised his head to glare at the woman. “My God! You meant to kill her!”

Mrs. Ridgeway tutted her disapproval. “I have no desire to kill Mrs. Darcy,” she stated baldly. “Your wife, Sir, is as much a victim as every other woman. Mrs. Darcy holds no rights. Your lady operates under your instructions.”

Darcy thought of the woman he cradled in his arms. True, in the law's eyes, Elizabeth was his possession, but, in reality, the opposite applied. However, he would not argue with Mrs. Ridgeway, especially if in not doing so, he could negotiate Elizabeth's release. “Mrs. Darcy performs her duties as my wife,” he said with a bit of false pride.

“What say you, Mr. Darcy? Does the lady affect you to the same degree as you do her?” the housekeeper asked suspiciously.

Darcy glanced to the woman in his arms. He did not doubt Elizabeth's love; yet, he hoped to keep Mrs. Ridgeway talking by offering the woman half truths. Perhaps by doing so, he could devise a means to rescue his wife from this perilous situation. “Mrs. Darcy is the second of five daughters, and her father's land is entailed upon a distant cousin. Mrs. Bennet was ecstatic for such a smart connection and all I could offer her daughter. My heart was engaged long before I was aware of what idiocy had overtaken me.”

“You avoid my question, Mr. Darcy.”

Darcy shifted Elizabeth to a more comfortable position. “Do I?” He worked hard to remove the contempt from his tone. “Mayhap, I meant only to avoid the truth,” he said with as much self-pity as he could muster. “I suppose that comes with the realization that Mrs. Darcy always held objections to our joining. In fact, when I offered Miss Elizabeth my hand, she said that from the beginning, from the first moment of our acquaintance, my arrogance and conceit had convinced my lady that I could not have made the offer of my hand in any possible way that would have attempted her to accept it.” It was odd how remembrance of those words no longer tore his heart to shreds.

“Yet, Mrs. Darcy succumbed to your charms,” Mrs. Ridgeway taunted.

“I possess an income of ten thousand per year. I can bring Mrs. Darcy's family comfort and connections. And we have gotten on well together. Mrs. Darcy is a sensible woman. My ‘
charms
' are considerable in comparison to her other choices.”

Mrs. Ridgeway's disdain had returned. “Perhaps I would be doing Mrs. Darcy a favor by releasing her into widowhood.”

Darcy wished to beg for Elizabeth's life, but showing too much preference for his wife could be detrimental in this matter. He asked in an icy temper, “What have you planned for me?”

The housekeeper reached inside her cloak to remove a gun. She pointed it at Darcy's head. At this short distance, her aim would not need to be accurate to do him severe harm. Darcy eyed the woman cautiously. “First, you will make your wife comfortable on the bed.”

Darcy swallowed his fear. He held no doubt Mrs. Ridgeway would shoot him. With arms and legs stiff from the protective position he had held for so long, Darcy staggered to his feet. Elizabeth had lain heavily against him. He closed his eyes to drive away the swirling blackness that his efforts had produced and made his feet cover the short distance to the bed. He lovingly placed Elizabeth's limp body on the bed's middle and then stood shakily beside the raised mattress. He silently waited for the housekeeper's next order. He hoped to convince the woman to take him elsewhere and to leave Elizabeth behind.

“Sit, Mr. Darcy,” she ordered. “On the floor beside the bed.” Darcy's knees ached with the effort, but he followed the woman's instructions. When he was settled uncomfortably against the bed's wooden frame, she said ominously, “From this angle, Mrs. Darcy rests within my view.”

Darcy realized the woman had outmaneuvered him. His initial response was to jump between the housekeeper and Elizabeth, but something in the woman's countenance said she had expected him to act so. Therefore, he sat very still, his lack of movement holding the woman's attention.

“Are you interested in how I came upon this place, Mr. Darcy?” she asked mysteriously.

Darcy glanced about the room, seeing it for the first time. Despite the dirt floor, the place was tidier than he would have expected. Little feminine touches—a bit of frilly lace, a vase with fresh flowers, a set of lemon-yellow drapes—all gave the room a cozy feel. Only the bed stood unadorned.

“I assume you wish to tell me, and I hold no objection to hearing,” he said blandly.

“Your cousin,” came her flippant remark. “Mr. Samuel planned to offer it to Mrs. Holbrook when he pensioned Sarah off. Can you imagine?” The woman narrowed her gaze. “Of course, you can. In your conceit, you would think this an appropriate reward for all the years Mrs. Holbrook has served this estate, and, of course, the sorrowful excuse for a woman believes she deserves nothing better. She is quite content with the notice Mr. Samuel had paid her.” She gestured with the cane. “Sarah brought me to this cottage to show me her future home. Every few months or so, she brings another bit of herself here and puts it on display.”

The woman's words explained everything except the fresh flowers. Darcy suspected Mrs. Ridgeway had treated Mrs. Holbrook's future cottage as her own. He remained unmoving. His silence encouraged the housekeeper to continue her tale.

“I wondered to what I might have to look forward,” she said honestly. “If this simple room was the reward for more than twenty years of service, what might be my reward for less than ten? Half of this luxury?” she said with true contempt.

God, he hoped all this misery had roots deeper than simple greed. “How often do you make use of Mrs. Holbrook's cottage?”

Mrs. Ridgeway's eyes narrowed. “Sometimes I come here for the solitude, to be alone with my thoughts. I do not imagine Sarah would mind awfully so.”

As he had assumed from the beginning of their acquaintance, Darcy recognized the housekeeper as the key to Woodvine's evil. “And other times?” he urged.

The woman snarled, “I suppose you think I arranged trysts...”

Darcy thought something of that nature happened within these walls, but he said, “My mind was more seriously engaged.”

He watched carefully. The lady's eyes had taken on a dazed look, and the housekeeper began to preen. “I was raised as a lady,” she announced without preamble. “I am the daughter of a Spanish
Conde
, a pompous man who thought so little of his own flesh that he would sell his child to a vagrant for some fifteen doubloons and two horses. Less than a pound of gold! A fortune for the man to whom I was sold, but a pittance to my father.”

Darcy shivered involuntarily. He could not imagine an insult so dire as to force a man to part freely with his children. “Your offense?” he whispered softly into the empty room.

“Against my father's wishes, I thought to choose my husband.” A single tear escaped the woman's eye before she blinked those that would follow away. Darcy's first thought was of Elizabeth. He had always assumed his parents would have wished him the happiness Darcy had found with the former Elizabeth Bennet; yet, in reality, Darcy held no way of knowing for certain. Unfortunately, as the only son, for many years an only child, he was spoiled by his parents, who, though good themselves, had allowed, encouraged, almost taught him to be selfish and overbearing; to care for none beyond his own family circle; to think meanly of all the rest of the world; to wish, at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared with his own. It was likely his parents would have forbidden him to pursue a joining with the one woman who completed him. If they had objected to Elizabeth, as had his aunt, Lady Catherine De Bourgh, would he have had the strength to oppose his parents? Darcy would like to think he possessed such good principles, but he feared that in such circumstances his cousin, Anne De Bourgh, would be the reigning Mistress of Pemberley.

“A woman born to the Spanish aristocracy,” Mrs. Ridgeway said bitterly, “is not equipped to become the wife of a man little more than a peddler. My father closed the door to my family home, and I never looked back.”

“How did you fare?”

She laughed sarcastically. “Not well. A woman who has known luxury finds it difficult to accept a running river as her toilette, but I refused to permit either my husband or my father dominion over me. I bore Merripen two sons, and then I left him.”

Darcy did not readily respond. The tension in the room was thick with uncertainty. “I had thought you a widow,” he said cautiously. A light flick of the hairs on the back of his neck made him wish to slap a stubborn fly away, but he would not risk a sudden movement.

Mrs. Ridgeway smiled knowingly. “I am. Several times over.”

Darcy concentrated on what the woman did not say. Had Mrs. Ridgeway assisted her husband to his grave? He opened his mouth to ask of the source of her husband's passing, but he bit back his foolish question. Instead, he asked, “And your sons?”

Before the woman could respond, the “fly” had returned, but this time the pesky insect drew a line up and down Darcy's neck. Elizabeth was awake! Darcy wished he could turn to take her in his arms, but neither of them was safe. As an alternative, he casually leaned into her touch to tell Elizabeth he was aware of her presence.

“One lives. My youngest has recently passed. But the elder is a strong leader of my former husband's family.”

Darcy tilted his head as if he meant to stretch his neck. He hoped Elizabeth was listening carefully to the housekeeper's tale. “And how did you come to travel to America?”

“My second husband meant to earn his fortune in the former colonies.” Another sarcastic laugh followed. “I have never chosen well, Mr. Darcy.”

He possessed many more questions regarding the woman's personal life, but Darcy tempered his curiosity. He licked his dry lips and swallowed hard before saying, “Then you made the acquaintance of my cousin?”

She glanced briefly to the open door. “Mr. Samuel offered me a position of authority within his household.” She sighed. “Your cousin spoke to me as a lady; we would drink our tea and converse of an evening. Mr. Samuel thought me intelligent enough to share his work.”

His brows lifted, knowing that feigned wistful tone all too well. Darcy ventured, “But something changed with my cousin's return to England in February?”

The lady scowled. “The fault lay at Mr. Hotchkiss's feet. The steward had written repeatedly to Mr. Samuel of his outrageous suspicions. I attempted to assuage Reuben's fears, but he was unreasonably set in his opinions. By the time Mr. Samuel had returned to Dorset, his mind had taken a distrustful turn. Mr. Samuel saw evil where none existed.”

Darcy considered what perfidy Samuel likely met upon his return: his most trusted servants missing or released to other employment. Rumors of a witch's coven. All this led to a desperate need to secure his most precious treasures before someone could spirit them away.

“As if Mr. Samuel had lost all hope, your cousin roamed Woodvine's passages. Who would have known the late Mr. Darcy felt such a strong sense of loyalty to a man of Mr. Hotchkiss's lineage?” The woman was a walking juxtaposition: a gunwielding tigress and a stunningly vulnerable innocent.

“Samuel held a great affinity for those who came within his protective realm,” Darcy declared baldly.

Mrs. Ridgeway snarled, “Mr. Samuel held an affection for you, Mr. Darcy. That is infinite proof of your cousin's great heart.” A strange sadness crossed the woman's countenance. She stood with determination. “It is best if we finish this.” The housekeeper took a step in Elizabeth's direction.

Darcy instinctively scrambled to his feet to shelter his wife. “I will not permit you to hurt her,” he hissed.

The housekeeper chuckled ironically. “And how shall you prevent me?”

“You will need to kill me first.” Darcy's eyes searched the room for a weapon. “Saving Elizabeth is no encumbrance.”

The housekeeper raised the gun she held. “To kill you would be of little consequence,” she said bitterly.

“It does not have to be as such,” Darcy coaxed. He edged farther to the left. Mrs. Ridgeway's mouth set at a tight downward slant, and her eyes narrowed. Any beauty the woman had once possessed had faded to hard lines. Darcy watched her closely. Surprisingly, the woman handled the gun with an impressive level of expertise. She motioned him to the right, but he shook off her silent request with a tilt of his head. His refusal appeared to frustrate her. “I will not make this easy,” he warned.