“We have it,” Stafford took control. “Darcy, you and the colonel go after Mrs. Darcy and Mrs. Wickham.” He motioned to one of the Pemberley staffers to go after a rope.“We can handle your man below.”
Edward grasped Stafford’s shoulder. “Thanks, Lawrence.” He took up the lantern. “Come along, Darcy.”
Darcy squeezed past the men. “Send one of the men to Lambton for the surgeon,” he spoke softly to Stafford.“We may need him for more than Redman.”
“I will see to it.”
Elizabeth dropped the last of her swatches when they entered the tunnel, leaving the house itself. The tunnel reminded her of a coal mine outside Scarborough she had seen as a child. The walls were shored up with large timbers, as was the ceiling, which was barely five feet high.They all walked hunched over as they made their way toward the outside. Elizabeth’s feet were as cold as she could ever remember their being—the dampness soaked her day slippers through. The melting snow trickled down the walls, heading toward an underground stream they crossed at the juncture of the house and the outside tunnel. As she blindly followed her sister, Elizabeth silently prayed Darcy would recognize the trail she had left behind. But the fact was that he had not caught up to them yet—and she was losing hope. Possibly, he had not even found Georgiana as yet. He might not know she was missing or where to find her and Wickham.
She had no idea how she might escape Mr.Wickham’s clutches on her own. Elizabeth supposed she might just run and pray the
man would not shoot her from behind, but she could not assign good odds to the likelihood of the “others” not attacking. When she had left with her sister, Elizabeth assumed she could talk sense to George Wickham, and if nothing else, she could bribe her sister’s husband to go away and to leave Lydia behind. The scandal would not die easily, but somehow she would keep Lydia from her persecutory husband. However, Mr. Wickham’s counterfeit made that more difficult. She expected the man would claim some sort of lunacy as his defense if caught, so Elizabeth now needed a solid plan to protect those she loved.
“Which way?” Darcy and Edward found the antechamber and searched for the most likely way out.
Edward quietly examined the marks along the wall. “Wickham has come in and out of here quite often. Look at the muddy boot tracks.” He pointed to the dusty smears on the wooden flooring.“I suspect we will need to split up.You take the passage on the left. I will take the one on the right.” Darcy nodded his agreement. “Be careful, Darcy. We must be getting close.”
“You too, Cousin.” Darcy rolled his shoulders to release the tension. Taking the gun from his waist placket, he allowed the weapon to lead the way. They both recognized Wickham’s likely treachery, and they needed to be prepared.
Although the tunnel continued onward into the blackness, James shoved open a wooden door leading to the outside. The backside of it was covered with ivy and vines and made it easier to conceal. “Hurry!” he barked as he shoved Lydia into the open and reached for Elizabeth. “You, too, Mrs. Darcy,” he growled, throwing her forward. Elizabeth landed unceremoniously in a snow bank, which quickly soaked her gown and the blanket she clutched about her. She blinked several times—the late afternoon sun reflecting off the snow blinding her after being in the tunnels for so long.
“Get up!” he ordered as he tramped toward her. He jerked Elizabeth to her feet. “There!” he pointed to the nearby stables, thrusting
her forward. He caught Lydia to him, dragging her beside him as he marched toward the structure. When she stumbled, he hissed at his wife, “Walk, bitch, or I will leave you here to freeze to death.” He pushed Elizabeth again when she stepped out of her slipper and paused to retrieve it.“Keep moving!” he propelled her forward with a powerful heave.
“Damn!” Darcy grumbled when the passage he had followed suddenly come to a dead end. He knocked the spider webs from his hair and shoulders before he began to retrace his steps to the open chamber where Wickham had spent his days and nights. He had come across the remains of a dog or a cat, the skeleton too decomposed to tell which, and of several birds. He imagined the darkened corridors held rats and mice. When he finished this death hunt, he would seal everything in—seal the latches and the spy holes. No one would use this space ever again.
If Darcy had had time, he would have reprimanded Mr. Steventon for not apprising him of the passageways. The man knew of the openings but had said nothing while they searched for their phantom. He wondered, as he worked his way through the closed passages, why his father had never made him aware of these sealed corridors. He knew his ancestors had built Pemberley upon the site of a ruined castle, something built in the time of William Peveril, but it had never occurred to him that secret channels paralleled the rooms of his everyday life. Likely, Mr. Wickham had become aware of the shrouded rooms through his father, who had once served as the steward for Darcy’s father.
Working his way cautiously forward, as he stepped into the opening anteroom, Darcy heard it—the reverberation of a gun, followed closely by another and another.
Somehow, they made it to the stables and, as cold as it was inside the barns, being out of the still foot-high snowdrifts was heaven. Elizabeth’s teeth chattered uncontrollably, and she could not stop the shivers coursing down her spine.The frozen landscape had relentlessly
soaked her gown and hose and shoes, as well as her under things. The combination of the sweat from their hurried exit, the dampness of the tunnel, and the trek through the snow thoroughly drenched Elizabeth’s clothes.
“What now?” she asked through a shudder.
James threw Lydia into an empty stall and then looked around nearly in a panic.The absence of Pemberley workers bothered him. Darcy evidently wanted none of his people hurt, and he had pulled them all away. “Hopefully, you can ride astride, Mrs. Darcy,” he grumbled as he slung a saddle over the back of Demon, Darcy’s own horse.
“You cannot expect to escape with both of us.” Elizabeth determinedly challenged the man. “Let Lydia stay here.”
“I need her to keep you in line.” James put the bit in Demon’s mouth and looped the harness over the horse’s head. “Which one is your horse?” When she did not answer, he stormed toward her, pinning Elizabeth against the wall. “I asked you a question, Mrs. Darcy,” he threatened. “I am not a man accustomed to having my will denied.”
Anger filled Elizabeth, but she needed to stall until Darcy came—or, at least, until all hope of that had ended. “Are you the one who hurt Lydia?”
He lowered his head so that they were nose to nose. Elizabeth could smell the traces of stale cheese and bread on his breath. “So, she told you,” he growled. “But it is not my domain to manhandle Wickham’s wife. My domain is to make her feel the passion of the marriage bed. Any wrongdoing the lady suffers comes at the hands of our young lordship.” He brought one hand to her breast and cupped it. “Very nice, Mrs. Darcy.”
“If you think to frighten me, Mr. Withey, you must do better than that.”
“Oh, I will, Mrs. Darcy. I most certainly will.” He pressed against Elizabeth and made her aware of his masculinity. “Now, Mrs. Darcy, you must tell me which horse is yours.”
She gritted her teeth and nodded her head to a nearby stall. “Pandora is mine.”
“Very good, my lady.” James broke away and went about putting a regular saddle on Pandora.Within minutes, the horses were ready to leave. “Come!” He grabbed a nearly comatose Lydia from where he had left her. “You, my Dear, will ride with me.”
“Why cannot Lydia ride behind me?” Elizabeth charged.
“As I said before, Mrs. Wickham stays with me until we get away from Pemberley.”
Elizabeth shot a quick glance at her sister. “Then what? When we escape Pemberley? What of Lydia then?”
“Then I will have no more need of Wickham’s wife.”
Edward Fitzwilliam emerged into the daylight. He had purposely sent Darcy the wrong way: He had seen the trail Elizabeth had left and sent his cousin on a false fox hunt. He would save his cousin from harm by apprehending Wickham himself. Darcy had a wife and family on the way; Edward would not allow his cousin to lose it all. It took him but seconds to acclimate to the cold and the light and the snow and to follow the three crosscuts leading to the stables. He set off at a near run, pulling the gun from the holster under his jacket.
Wickham rewarded his efforts. Just as he reached the fence leading to the main barns, the door swung wide, and Wickham exited with two horses. He dragged Lydia Wickham beside him, and Elizabeth hurried along in their wake.
Edward hunched down, trying not to signal his presence, moving as close as he dared without endangering the ladies. When Wickham reached to lift his wife to Demon’s back, Edward knew he could wait no longer. “Wickham!” He stepped from behind the gate and into the open. “Step away from the horses.”
Elizabeth wanted to warn him—tell Edward that Mr. Withey was no gentleman—he was the despicable, corrupt part of George Wickham. No field of honor existed here. But it was too late. James
grabbed Lydia around the neck, using her as a human shield, and fired on the colonel. As if in slow motion, Elizabeth saw it all—saw the bullet leave the gun—saw it travel the short distance to where her husband’s cousin stood ready to fire his own weapon—saw it hit his hand—saw the colonel’s gun explode with a puff of smoke—saw Lydia slid from James Withey’s arms—saw Withey lift the second gun from his waist and aim—saw Edward’s chest explode with the impact and Darcy’s cousin sink to his knees in the snow. A muffled cry cut the frozen air.
In no more than ten seconds, two people lay in the snow.“No!” she screamed as she tried to reach them, but Withey caught her about the waist, dragged her into the stable, and slammed the door behind him.
Adam Lawrence heard the shots and froze in anxiety. “We have him, Your Lordship,” Lucas grunted as he strained to pull Redman’s weight to the top of the well.“Mr. Darcy needs you, sir.” Another heartbeat passed before Lawrence was on the move, skidding through the shadowy passages, looking for the obvious.
It took Nigel Worth longer to find the secret passage associated with the cold cellar than he had expected. Originally, he and Darcy’s staff had moved items in the storage to look for the lock behind or under the food items. Finally, it had dawned on them to search behind and along the shelving itself. Once in the tunnels, they had followed the one, which led them to the area where they recently found Lucinda Dodd’s body.They exited the tunnel behind a frozen waterfall, fed by the river close to the house, and came out along the same row of hedges and the copse of trees.
Instead of trying to find their return through the tunnels,Worth and Darcy’s men agreed to walk the half mile to the main house via the entrance drive.As they approached the front steps of Pemberley, a shot rang out clearly from behind the house, followed by another and another.The noise set them momentarily on alert, but then the
three men were on the run, Darcy’s men leading the way along the road, which circled behind the stables.
Darcy took the low-ceilinged tunnel that his cousin had used only minutes earlier, running bent over and preparing for the worst as the daylight became apparent at last. Dropping the lantern he carried into the snow, Darcy shaded his eyes from the sting of the sunlight on the frozen landscape. He did not wait to confirm the tracks ahead of him belonged to his wife and cousin—it only made sense for Wickham to seek an escape on horseback.
Taking the road leading to the forested area that surrounded his estate, Darcy circled the back of the stables—the fenced area where they trained his cattle and sheared his sheep. Following the fence line, he crept carefully along the blocked slats, seeking cover in case of an attack, but nothing before the barns and stables moved. All he observed was Demon and Pandora, standing side by side, as if waiting for Elizabeth and him to mount.
Then he saw them—his cousin and Lydia Wickham lying some fifteen feet apart, both covered in blood. Darcy’s breath caught in his chest as he hunched at the end of the fence line and surveyed the area, looking for Wickham and Elizabeth. Seeing neither, he ran to the colonel’s side, keeping the horses between him and the stable door.
“Edward.” He gently touched his cousin’s shoulder. “Edward, please.” A moan answered Darcy’s prayer. He rolled the colonel to his back and began to check for wounds. “Where?” he asked as he took a second handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it to the chest wound after opening his cousin’s jacket.
Edward Fitzwilliam opened his eyes tentatively and stared deep into Darcy’s. “Wickham fired…before…before I could get…get a clean shot.”
“It is well. I will take care of it. Did you see Elizabeth?” Darcy pulled a handkerchief from Edward’s own pocket and wrapped it tightly around his cousin’s wrist.
“Mrs. Darcy…behind him…in the stable.” Darcy’s eyes lifted to the building, searching for some sign of Elizabeth. “I shot…I shot Mrs.Wickham…gun went off…did not mean to.”
The sound of running feet, crunching on the icy snow, brought Darcy’s attention to the connecting roads from the main house. Darcy raised his gun, but quickly lowered it again when he saw Worth and the Pemberley livery. He motioned to them to come closer, but to keep low.
The solicitor crawled to reach him. “My God, Darcy!”
“I need your help, Worth. Elizabeth is in the stable with Wickham, and I need to see my cousin to the house.”
“I will tend the colonel. Go after your wife.” He took over the pressure that Darcy had held on the wound. “What about Mrs. Wickham?” He gestured with his head toward where the lady lay beside the horses.
Darcy’s eyes followed the man’s gaze. “I do not know. I am not sure how many or what kind of weapons Wickham has, and his wife rests close to the door. I will try, but at the moment, my first concern is with my own wife and child.”