The True Darcy Spirit (34 page)

Setting out with no particular direction in mind, he found his steps leading him to Camilla’s house. It would be only courteous to call and enquire after his cousin Belle. In fact, he should have done so this morning.

He knocked, was admitted, and found Camilla in her sitting room, playing cards with that gaunt woman from Soho Square, Cassandra’s landlady, what was her name? Miss Griffin. A writer of popular novels. He didn’t like the sardonic gleam in her eye as she returned his greeting, she reminded him all too much of his own governess, who had had the power to quell him with a mere glance when he was a small boy.

“It is kind of you to call,” said Camilla. “Belle has kept to her room, she is feeling low.”

“Hysterical,” said Miss Griffin. She addressed Mr. Darcy. “Do you know anything about her friendship with Mr. Lisser?”

“He has never mentioned Belle to me. He is a man who keeps his own counsel. And we are only slightly acquainted.”

“Would that Belle had learned that trick,” said Camilla, with a tiny sigh. “It is a case of crying wolf, perhaps. She has exclaimed and wept and exulted over so many young men that we have all concluded that she feels nothing for any of them. Should she now have formed a real attachment to Mr. Lisser, which heaven forbid, she finds that none of us take it seriously.”

Miss Griffin decided that it was time for her to go home. “At least this evening I may be able to write a chapter,” she said.

Camilla was ready to call a hackney cab, Miss Griffin preferred to walk, and Mr. Darcy offered to accompany her. “It is not out of my way.”

“Where are you going?”

“To see a friend,” he lied.

He found her more conversable than he expected, and enjoyed her caustic comments about leading politicians.

“You take an unusual interest in politics for a woman.”

“For a woman in my position, you mean. No one thinks it odd for the great political hostesses to have such an interest. I find politicians lively material for my pen; they display their all-too-human faults in such an obliging manner.”

Horatio’s eyes went involuntarily to the windows on the top floor, but it was too early for any lamp to be lit, and they gleamed instead with the reflected light of the setting sun.

Miss Griffin had come out without her latch key, so she knocked on the door. There was no reply, so she knocked again, with more vigour this time, until the door opened a crack, and one very blue eye looked out at her.

“Tom, what are you about?” she said. “Open the door and let me in this instant!”

The redheaded boy flung the door open. “I’m glad it’s you, ma’am, for I’m here on my own, and there’s a dreadful old rumpus going on upstairs!”

When Cassandra came back to the house in Soho Square, carrying with great care samples of the new paints which Mr. Fingal had given her, she found no one at home except Tom.

“Cook’s gone round to Mrs. Thruxton’s for a game of cribbage, and Miss Griffin’s been out all day,” he informed her. “And a gent called this morning, asking for you, the tall gent with the deep voice.”

“Mr. Darcy?”

“Think so.”

“Thank you, Tom.”

So he was back in town. Perhaps he had called to take her out driving again, he had mentioned that he thought she would be entranced by the gardens at Kew. However, he had chosen a wrong day, since nothing would have made her miss the opportunity to see Mr. Angerstein’s paintings. Mr. Angerstein had opened his doors to Mr. Lisser, whose work he admired, but in general, members of the public were not admitted to the collection.

Tom retreated to the kitchen, to tease the cat and make sure the stove was burning as it should, ready for when his aunt came home. He helped himself to a slice of apple tart he found in the larder and sat down at the table to throw dice, left hand against right.

Cassandra went up to her rooms. She was wearing one of her best morning gowns, so she changed into a shabbier one, and put on her
smock. She wanted to go through her sketchbook and work on the quick drawings she had made of some of the paintings from the morning. And she could try Mr. Fingal’s new colours.

Absorbed in her work, she only half heard the knocker going. Then Tom’s voice reached her, piping up that he’d see if Mrs. Burgh was receiving visitors, and she heard some indistinct answering words from a male voice. She put down her palette and brush, unaccountably pleased; Mr. Darcy had called again. It must be him, who else would follow Tom up the stairs, without waiting for her to say that she was at home?

Tom’s voice raised in protest, a curse flung at him—no, it couldn’t be Mr. Darcy—the door was thrust open, and there stood Lord Usborne.

Tom hovered behind his lordship, looking alarmed, and then the door was slammed in his face.

“We meet again, Mrs. Kent,” Lord Usborne said, his voice silky and full of menace. “Or, no, Mrs. Burgh is your present alias? Perhaps we will stay with the truth, and call you Miss Darcy.”

Miss Darcy! How had he found out her name? Wild ideas flitted through her head, the clearest of which was that Mr. Darcy had confided her story to Lady Usborne; pillow talk, she thought indignantly.

“I cannot say I am glad to see you. I am working, as you see, and—”

“Working,” he said, in a jeering voice. “What ridiculous nonsense, to set yourself up as a painter. A woman can have no worth as a painter, she can be nothing but a curiosity, a freak of nature.”

He went over to the canvas that was propped on the easel. It was a portrait of Eliza Stich, the pretty daughter of a prosperous merchant, who was having her picture taken to give as a wedding present to her fiancé.

Lord Usborne looked at it with contempt, and then he took up her palette and brush, stood in an exaggerated pose before the canvas, and digging the brush into the pile of Indian black, slashed the brush against the canvas.

Cassandra, realising what he was about, leapt forward, but was
too late to prevent him from obliterating Eliza’s pretty features in smears of black paint.

“How dare you!” she cried. “Out of here, go this instant, you have taken leave of your senses, you are mad.”

He put down the palette. “I have improved it, I think. Being a man, my merest daubs would be better than anything you can attempt. Now, Miss Darcy”—and with these words, he took her arm, wrenching it most cruelly, and forced her backwards into a chair. He stepped back and looked down at her. “Now, Miss Darcy, we have a few things to discuss.”

“We do not.” Cassandra was alarmed, indeed, frightened, but she knew that she must not let him goad her. She must not get so angry that she couldn’t use her wits; strength would not allow her to get away from him, but cunning might. If once she could get to the door, she might flee down the stairs and out on to the street, where she could call for help.

So she smoothed her skirts, willing her hands not to tremble, and looked him straight in the eye. “We have nothing to say to one another,” she said levelly.

“By God, I’d forgotten just what a beauty you are,” Lord Usborne exclaimed, his eyes narrowing. “What a little fool you were, to run off from Mrs. Nettleton’s house, when you could have had London at your feet.”

“Only a part of London, I believe. Women who have accepted a carte blanche hardly move in more than a small section of a particular stratum of society.”

“Women who have lost their virtue in such a conspicuous way as you did are excluded from any other stratum of society, as you put it. You sound like a preacher, and you have all the hypocrisy of that breed. Picked it up from your stepfather, no doubt. Yes, I know all about your family. I’ve even been a visitor at Rosings, the guest of your late grandmother, what would she have had to say about your sluttish behaviour? I wonder.”

Cassandra would not respond to these taunts. She must not cry out,
I am no slut;
she must remain calm and composed.

“I asked you to leave, my lord.”

“My lord,” he mimicked. “I shall leave when I’m ready to, and that isn’t yet, I assure you. You have something of mine that I want, and when you have handed it over to me, then I believe I shall take something else I want, which you have hitherto refused me. You will rue the day when you turned away from my offer of protection, Miss Darcy. Our liaison might have lasted a fair while; as it is, it will be brief, and while enjoyable for me, less so for you. You need to be taught a lesson.”

Cassandra felt a shiver of cold fear run through her. It was perfectly clear what Lord Usborne meant. To rape her would be a crime, a hanging offence, but for him to be convicted of a rape was not only unlikely, it was almost impossible. His word against hers? No magistrate would listen to a word she said. No witnesses, and her reputation, or lack of it, dragged through the mud.

“I do not think I have anything of yours.”

“Oh, I think you do. A certain small box, sent to you by Harriet Foxley. A box containing letters. Ah, I see you know exactly what I am talking about. I thought that would be the case.”

If only she had looked at those letters. Were they his personal letters, written to or by him? If not, why would he be so anxious to have them restored to him? And why had Harriet stolen them, and been so keen for Cassandra to have them and keep them safe? What was it she had said? “For they are all I have of value.” The truth was, that Cassandra had left it to Petifer to put the box of letters in a safe place, and thought no more about them.

“I do not know where any box of letters is,” she said, with perfect truth.

“Then let us see what we may do to jog your memory. Perhaps we shall start with those pretty hands of yours. I don’t think trying to paint with crippled fingers will make your painting any worse than it already is, but you may not see it like that.”

He was mad, he was clearly deranged. She was shut in an attic room with a man who would, apparently, go to any lengths to get what he wanted. This was a scene out of one of Miss Griffin’s books, this could not be possible in the modern world.

“You think I would not do it?” he said. “No, you are quite right. I am no savage, but I had you frightened there, did I not? No, your hands are safe; there are subtler and more rewarding ways of inflicting pain. Anguish of the mind is harder to bear, as it never passes in the way that physical pain does. I fancy, Miss Darcy, that you have all your family’s pride and spirit, and that to humiliate you is to hit you where it hurts the most. But, before we discuss this matter any further, let us get on closer terms. I should like a kiss, for old times’ sake.”

Cassandra panicked, screamed with all the power of her lungs, and launched herself forward, hurtling into Lord Usborne with her head lowered, and, more by good luck than good judgement, sent him staggering backwards, wrong-footed and winded. She lifted the chair, holding its legs up in front of her, and advanced on the furious, panting nobleman.

The door opened. “Can I be of any assistance?” said Mr. Darcy, whose voice showed no signs of his having leapt up the stairs in a few swift bounds. “Or is this a private fracas?”

Cassandra had never been so pleased to see anyone in her life; it would not have mattered who had come through that door, be it Tom, or the aged person who sold flowers on the corner. As it was, the sense of relief was mingled with joy at the commanding physical presence of Mr. Darcy. And neither the boy nor the flower seller could have ejected Lord Usborne so efficiently, although Miss Griffin’s calm statement that Tom had gone for the watch, and that boy’s shrill, panting assertion that the Charley was just coming up the street, did much to persuade his lordship to beat a hasty retreat.

“You are not welcome at my house, Lord Usborne” were Miss Griffin’s parting words. “And if you ever try to set foot in here again, you will be sorry for it.”

Upstairs, Cassandra found herself unable to look at Mr. Darcy. She sank back into the chair, swiftly set on its legs again by Horatio, and for a moment she felt overcome. But she was no Belle, to cause more fuss by passing out.

And then Petifer was standing over her, a glass of water in her hand, scolding, “Take my eyes off you for one minute, Miss Cassandra, and you’re in trouble again. Miss Griffin is fetching up some brandy.”

Cassandra was glad of the glass of water, mostly because it gave her time to recollect herself.

Horatio glanced at Petifer, and she moved away, leaving him looking down at Cassandra, with an odd smile on his face. She looked up at him, saw the warmth in his eyes, and found that her mouth was dry, despite the water, and that her heart was thumping in a very ungoverned way.

“I have to thank you for coming to my rescue,” she said finally.

“I? You were dealing with Usborne most effectively on your own.”

“He would have recovered his breath, and then it would have been the worse for me,” she said honestly.

“I do not wish to distress you, but why was Usborne here? It seemed more than a social call.”

“Revenge, I think,” said Cassandra, feeling her bruised wrist. “Oh, and the letters! Petifer, pray tell me where you hid Harriet’s letters, for I feel we need to find a safer place for them than this house.”

“Letters?” said Horatio, suddenly alert. “Harriet? What letters are these?”

“Letters that were, I suspect, taken from Lord Usborne. They were passed on to me by…by a friend, who was going abroad.”

“If you mean Harriet Morris, I know all about that,” said Horatio impatiently. “But why did she give them to you?”

“I had done her a small favour. She said they were of value. I do not know exactly what she meant, it was no more than a scrawled note that came with them.”

“Did you read them?”

“No. I was not much interested, and they seemed private.”

“Petifer, fetch them,” he said. “At once.”

Petifer appeared startled by this request, and looked at her mistress for confirmation.

Cassandra nodded. “I think we will find that Mr. Darcy knows more about the letters than we do,” she said.

Miss Griffin came into the room, a glass of brandy in her hand, and stopped short at the sight of Petifer on her hands and knees, grubbing up a floorboard. She put the glass down with something of a bang.

“Well! Are you looking for rats? Is there rot under my boards?”

“It is a hiding place,” Cassandra explained. “I had no idea that Petifer had been prising up floorboards.”

“It was loose,” Petifer said, sitting back on her heels and giving the floorboard a shove so that it fell back into place. Her face was red from her exertions, and she got to her feet, brushing the dust from her skirt, and holding out the casket to Cassandra.

Cassandra took it, opened it, and drew out the beribboned bundle of letters. She looked at them doubtfully. “Is it right for us to read them?”

“Bad habit,” observed Miss Griffin. “Reading private correspondence.”

“I am fairly sure I know what they are, and who they are from,” said Horatio. “If you will trust me, Cassandra, I will just cast my eye over one to see if I am correct. If so, it is better that you do not read them.”

“Very mysterious,” said Miss Griffin.

“Mr. Darcy is a lawyer,” Cassandra said, with a laugh in her voice. “It is in his nature to be cautious.”

He smiled at her. “I shall not forgive you for that remark. May I have them?”

“Please do.”

There was silence for a few moments while he read a letter, which was penned, Cassandra could see, in a foreign-looking hand.

“Is it written in English?”

“It is, although the writer’s native tongue is not our language.”

“Are you going to enlighten us?”

He hesitated. “Yes, but what I have to say must on no account go further than this room. You will understand why when I tell you that these letters were written by Princess Caroline.”

Miss Griffin raised her eyebrows. “And they are not, I assume, addressed to the Prince Regent?”

“They are not.”

“However did Harriet come by them? Did Lord Usborne give them to her?” asked Cassandra.

“No, I imagine she took them, perhaps he said something, when in his cups, or she overheard him speaking about them. They were won at cards by Lord Usborne from George Warren—ah, I see you know the man, Miss Griffin. His lordship obtained them on the Prince Regent’s behalf.”

“The Prince Regent?” said Cassandra, not understanding.

“Now that the Princess Charlotte is dead, God rest her soul, the next heirs to the throne, after the prince, are his rascally brothers. So Prinny would like to be free to marry again, and get himself another heir.”

“Good heavens, you mean he would use the letters to obtain a divorce from his wife?”

“Exactly so.”

“Would these letters be sufficient?” asked Miss Griffin.

“I believe they might.”

“What are we to do?” said Cassandra. Her mind had been working furiously. “Lord Usborne didn’t need the money, surely. Would he have tried to sell them to the prince?”

“I think not. I think he would like to have Prinny, who will probably soon be king, in his debt.”

Miss Griffin snorted. “Any man who thinks a king will repay favours done him when he was a prince has no more sense than the cat in the kitchen. Less!”

“Does Usborne need greater influence at court?” Cassandra asked.

“It is always useful, if you are an ambitious man. There are positions and appointments, which may not carry any great remuneration, but which bestow a good deal of power upon their holder. I imagine Usborne is a man who craves power.”

“What shall I do with them?” said Cassandra, looking at the letters as though they might bite her. “I should not have them, and I assuredly do not want to give them back to Lord Usborne, even though he thinks he has a right to them.”

“He does,” Horatio Darcy said. “He employed me to find them for him.”

“Employed you!” Cassandra was aghast. Had she fended off Lord Usborne simply to hand the letters to him via his agent? Was that why Mr. Darcy was looking so pleased?

“Employed me. However, I have been unable to help him on this matter, so he will refuse to pay me for my efforts on his behalf. I wonder how he discovered that you had the letters, I do not see how he could have found that out.”

“I hear that Lady Usborne is an extremely shrewd woman,” said Miss Griffin. “Of course, you would know better than I whether that is the truth.”

Horatio gave her a rueful look. “You strike below the belt, ma’am. Perhaps she did trace the letters to Harriet, I…have reason to believe that she kept tabs on her husband’s mistresses. But, no, they must not go back into Usborne’s possession.”

“Never, ever, get involved with the private affairs of royal persons,” said Miss Griffin. “A former employer of mine, my first employer, in fact, who was a courtier, used to say that, and I think he was perfectly correct.”

“He was,” said Horatio.

Cassandra had no doubt about where the letters should go. “We have but two choices. One is to toss them into the fireplace, and beat the ash to dust with the poker. The other is to restore the letters to the person who wrote them.”

“If you will permit me to take them, I think I may arrange for them to be returned to the princess, in complete anonymity.”

Cassandra didn’t hesitate. “Take them, indeed.” There was no smile on her face as she added, in a voice that was suddenly stiff, “Perhaps you can also inform her ladyship as to where the letters have gone.”

“I have not seen Lady Usborne for some weeks,” he said deliberately. “Nor do I expect to see her in the near future, or, indeed, at all.”

“I am very glad to hear that,” said Miss Griffin. “Petifer, come with me, we must see to some refreshment for Miss Cassandra.”

Petifer had almost to be dragged from the room by Miss Griffin, with many a dark look at Mr. Darcy.

“She doesn’t trust you,” Cassandra said, laughing at him.

“Never mind,” he said, moving towards her, and holding out his hands. “Provided you do, I shall be content with that.”

And Cassandra walked into his arms, and sank into his embrace, her lips seeking his as he ran his hands through her hair and held her tilted up to his face, kissing her with a passion that made her dizzy, and then looking into her eyes as though he would devour her.

“Cassandra, my dear heart, I have to tell you that I am deep in love with you.”

Cassandra’s own heart was overflowing with the ecstasy of finding herself loved, and it was from the heart that she told him his feelings were returned. “I do not believe you can love me as much as I do you,” she said, blushing and laughing for the sheer joy she felt.

“Never, in all my life, have I been so happy,” he told her, drawing her still closer to him.

Their embraces were not allowed to last long. Miss Griffin rapped at the door after a few minutes only of mutual rapture. “You must be off, Mr. Darcy,” she said. “You have business to attend to, and Cassandra has had an exhausting day. You may call tomorrow at noon.”

Cassandra woke the next morning to a sensation of great peace and happiness. It took her only a second to remember the events of the previous evening, and to realise why she felt like this. Horatio Darcy in love with her! And to think they owed their present understanding to Lord Usborne, for it was when she saw Horatio fly to her defence that she realised what she had been hiding from herself, that she had fallen head over heels in love with him.

She lay back on her pillows, luxuriating in the thought that a few hours would bring Mr. Darcy to the doorstep and refusing to let herself think for a moment of the problems that their attachment must bring to a man so necessarily concerned with his reputation and position in the world. Her sense of elation was interrupted by Petifer bustling into the room, a gown over her arm, saying that she must get
up, this very minute, for there was a note come round from Mrs. Wytton: She was wanted directly at Mrs. Wytton’s house.

“I can’t go anywhere,” said Cassandra. “Mr. Darcy is calling here at noon, Miss Griffin told him to come.”

“Mr. Darcy will have to see you at Mrs. Wytton’s. Miss Belle is not well, the doctor is called, and from what Miss Griffin says, Mrs. Wytton is in despair, and has some idea that you can help to make Miss Belle more comfortable.”

“If there is anything I can do, I suppose…” Cassandra’s sentence was lost in a yawn. “How tiresome that girl is, and in love with Henry Lisser, how can anyone do anything about that?”

“You say that very blithely, ‘in love with Mr. Lisser,’ as though it were the most normal thing in the world! A nice state of affairs for one in Miss Belle’s position. I know she flirted with him something dreadful when he was at Rosings, but she cannot be in love with a painter of low birth and no family! Mr. Darcy will not permit it.”

“You are right, but the heart doesn’t always do what it’s told. And Mr. Lisser is an attractive man.”

“Don’t you go saying that in front of Mr. Darcy, mind,” warned Petifer, taking away the remains of the chocolate which Cassandra had drunk almost without noticing. “He’s none too easy in his mind with regard to you and Mr. Lisser.”

“Jealous, you mean.”

“I do, and it’ll do neither of you any good for him to remain so. Show him he has nothing to worry about in that direction, that’s my advice.”

“He’s a fool if he thinks any such thing. He has seen us together, do we look like a couple in love?”

“No, I dare say not, but when a man is as deeply in love as Mr. Darcy is with you, it blinds him to reason and sense. Now, shift yourself, for Miss Griffin is waiting to call up a hackney cab.”

While Cassandra was on her way to the Wyttons’ house, Horatio Darcy, shunning his chambers, was walking in Green Park, striding
along at a formidable pace, as though to work the fidgets out of his limbs. Dear God, it made him so happy, to be in love and to have his affections returned; the feelings he had had for Lady Usborne, or for any other previous objects of his attentions, were nothing to this, there was no comparison.

And yet, beneath the exhilaration was concern. The cold voice of reason could be argued with; it could not be ignored.

His aunt would not approve of his marrying Cassandra. Broadminded she might be, but that would be going too far. Cassandra, in Mrs. Shawardine’s eyes, was a ruined woman. Young men with aspirations for success and high office could not, in a censorious world, marry such an one as Cassandra and hope to keep their place on the ladder; not unless they had huge wealth and the status conferred by being a scion of a great house. Cassandra herself might have been protected from the evil consequences of her elopement if she had been possessed of a large fortune and a great name—but that was not the case.

So, were he to have the inestimable joy of becoming Cassandra’s husband, which indeed he wished to be, then it was farewell to a seat in the House, good-bye advancement, adieu to all the ambitious plans which his aunt’s generosity had made possible.

There was no squaring the circle. The choice was stark: the woman he loved, or his career. And if he gave up his career, was there the possibility that he would resent the woman for whom he had sacrificed it? Or, if he made the worldly choice, would he ever sleep peacefully again, knowing that he had lost Cassandra, who seemed indeed to already be part of him?