Confused by the man’s words, Darcy’s eyes locked on Elizabeth and saw that she spoke to him of the unknown—of a message she tried to relay. “I am afraid, sir, I do not know the rules of the game you play.” Keeping his gun loosely by his side, Darcy infused his words with calmness as he edged forward—only inches, but forward just the same.
“’Tis no game,” James Withey declared. “Ask your wife if you doubt my sincerity.”
This, then, was what she wanted to tell him. Elizabeth’s eyes revealed that her mind raced through a series of facts she needed to share. “Mrs. Darcy?” he spoke softly and edged still closer.
With the gun only inches from her head, Elizabeth should have been having a fit of the vapors; instead, she gave Darcy a mischievous grin before saying, “It is true, Fitzwilliam,” she asserted. “This is Mr. Withey—James Withey. It is my understanding that you have met Mr.Withey previously.”
Mystified, Darcy eyed Elizabeth.
Why does she agree with the man?
Darcy intuited that Elizabeth wanted to prove something to him.“I am at a loss, my Dear,” he said in an intimate tone.“I do not believe I have made Mr.Withey’s acquaintance previously.”
Elizabeth arched one eyebrow, which said,
Listen to what I do not say in my words,
and Darcy allowed himself to relax into a serene alertness. “I am sure, my Husband, that you have simply forgotten your interactions with Mr. Withey because of your numerous responsibilities to Pemberley, and, in reality, it has been several years since you have seen each other.”
“As you are an excellent example of reason and common sense, I suspect you are correct.” Again, he surreptitiously moved another two inches closer to Wickham and to the gun the man held on Elizabeth.
“Might we cut through all the niceties?”Withey growled.
Elizabeth swallowed hard but controlled her countenance. Any sense of self-preservation disappeared with her need to warn
Darcy. “I shall speak forthrightly, my Husband. Unlike the affable Mr. Wickham, Mr. Withey prefers the reputation of a rakehell.”
Her captor interrupted, “Tell him how he paid my gambling debts three times. Remind your husband how he took the punishment when I broke the balcony window playing cricket.” Withey waved the gun about as he spoke, and Darcy considered the opening, but Elizabeth remained in danger, so he squelched his desire to strike.
With great effort, Darcy held his anger in check. “I apologize for my forgetfulness.”
Elizabeth noted the beginning of understanding in Darcy, so she tried a brazen experiment. “Mr. Withey, might I ask to speak to the gentleman with the Scottish brogue whom I met earlier?”
“MacIves?” James Withey asked disdainfully.
She prayed she had not made a mistake. Darcy crept closer and closer, and Elizabeth needed to keep Withey occupied until her husband could act. “I do not believe I caught the gentleman’s name,” she offered.
With no more than a clenching of his jaw muscles, Withey became Gregor MacIves. Before Darcy’s eyes, the man’s bearing, his natural gait and movements, his gestures, and his vocal quality transformed. “Ye missed me, Lass?” The man caught Elizabeth about the waist and pulled her against his body.
Darcy’s hands fisted at his side, but he maintained a strained control for Elizabeth’s safety.
His wife eased herself out of the man’s grasp. “Mr. MacIves.” She purposely smiled at the man, “Might I introduce my husband, Mr. Darcy.”
“I didnae realize ye had a mon, Lass.” He brought the gun to point at Darcy.“I ken relieve ye of the burden; I will kill him for ye. Tis a mon’s duty to protect his womon.”
Elizabeth gasped when he made Darcy his target, but her husband appreciated the change in the situation. It kept her safe, and that was what mattered to him.
“No, I could not ask that of you,” she insisted emphatically. A fresh chill of dread went through her as she watched Darcy stand tall, making himself a larger target. Before MacIves could follow through on his threat, Elizabeth asked, “Why do you not send Mr. Whittington to speak to us?” She had gambled before and made headway with Darcy’s understanding, so she kept to her plan to show him what he faced. Darcy still looked a bit confused; yet, she knew she had piqued his curiosity. The sharp twist of his mouth said he had what he wanted: His enemy’s attention had fallen on him. However, she wished Darcy to truly see the evil he fought.
MacIves pressed his lips together in a grim line. “Ye be ’nouncing His Young Lordship to ye husband, Lass?”
“It is what a lady does.” She bestowed a polite smile on him.
As before, a change ensued; MacIves squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them seconds later, he held himself in the stature of a young nobleman.The boy known as Peter Whittington looked down in surprise at Elizabeth. “Mrs. Darcy, you have need of me?”
“Yes, Mr. Whittington. I believe you are acquainted with my husband.” She gestured toward Darcy.
Even though he maintained his stance, everything else about Wickham changed. No longer the rough Scottish lord of a previous century, the man standing before them was an immature aristocrat. “Of course. It has been some time since I have seen you, Darcy. Not since our first year at Eton.”
Finally, what Elizabeth wanted him to know stood blaringly clear before him. Each of these “characters” was Wickham at a pivotal moment in the man’s life. Darcy nodded his understanding, seeing how he might now get close enough to disarm his former friend. “Mr. Whittington, is it?” Darcy said, seemingly unruffled. “I nearly forgot that year was a complicated one for you. If I recall correctly, your father became quite livid regarding your responsibilities, often preferring the cane to emphasize his point. When your grades suffered, your father took it quite personally.”
Whittington muttered, “Thank you for reminding me of my shortcomings, Darcy.”
Darcy nodded. “You had some difficulty, as I recall, identifying your place. When word reached the school of my father’s furnishing your education, many thought you his by-blow, rather than his godson.”
“You turned from me that year,”Whittington accused.
“My mother took ill…there were other forces of concern in my life.”
Whittington recoiled with Darcy’s words. “I was your friend,” he insisted. “When you said nothing, they all believed the worst.”
Darcy said with as much contrition as he could muster, “I was young and a bit jealous of your easiness, but I never meant for you to suffer.”
Whittington bragged, “I did have an easier time with women.”
Darcy made himself offer a compliment. “Women always took to you.”
“All of them except my mother,” Whittington snarled. “She thought me too much like my father.” He looked off in sad remembrance, and Darcy moved again, but this time he silently told Elizabeth to do the same.
“Your father suffered much to please her.”
“Women are the shallow sex.”
Darcy eased closer.“Then it was you who punished Mrs.Wickham by destroying her room? She was too extravagant, I suppose? And what of the maid?”
Whittington puffed up with autocratic importance. “Mrs. Wickham is very much like my mother, Lady Whitlock, always insisting that her husband spend more than he has. My friend should have left the lady long ago, as my father should leave Her Ladyship.”
“And Lucinda Dodd, the maid?” Darcy insisted.
Whittington frowned.“She would not let me leave.Those born to serve should never reprimand their betters.”
Darcy watched as Elizabeth brushed a tear away. For himself, he made no comment. Instead, he called to mind what he knew of Wickham’s childhood and of the man’s years at school and university. “May I ask, Mr. Whittington, if MacIves is one of the Scottish relatives that you found when you sought proof of your ancestral connections?”
Peter Whittington became immediately angry. “You may trace your family to the Matlocks and the Attingboroughs and the D’Arcys and to the Saxon founders of this area, and all I could claim was a minor Scottish border lord who raided England for sheep and cattle and women to maintain his Highland keep. You have bloodlines dating back to the British nobility; my ancestors were nothing more than glorified thieves.”
“No family tree grows perfectly straight,” Darcy remarked dispassionately.
“Nay, we dinnae look so verra noble now, did we?” The Scot returned without their request and in the middle of the conversation, and for a moment, even Elizabeth appeared surprised, but she recovered quickly. “Yet I will not be shunned by a bloody prima donna lord. If’n he belies me family a’gin, he will receive whate’er I choose to mete out.”
Elizabeth whispered softly,“Too many sins and too little patience.”
“The borders, Lass, they be rough—it takes those who love the law and those who hate it to survive there—the clans, they know their own justice and their own loves—a hardened lot of murderers and thieves I call family.”
Although the man continued to point the gun in Darcy’s direction, he saw only Elizabeth, and as the Scot spoke, Darcy moved quickly to a point of advantage. Bringing his own weapon level with the man’s chest, he ordered, “I will have your gun, Mr. Wickham.”
A flutter of the man’s eyes was all the warning they received; instantly, everything changed.The man, known as Gregor MacIves, swung his gun in Elizabeth’s direction—and pulled the trigger.
“No!” Darcy leapt at the man, catching MacIves’s arm and sending them both crashing to the packed dirt. Holding on with all his might, he pinned the Scot’s wrist to the ground, wrenched the gun from the man, and tossed it to the side. Arms and legs flailing and twisting, they began a struggle for control—a dance of ignoble frenzy. A crushing fist to the jaw. A punch to the kidneys. A knee to the groin. Fingers opened—grappling—a barely contained fury spilling forth. A lifetime of trust betrayed—of volition violated—a voracious vortex of evil sucking them both in—taking their restraint.
Each loathed for what the other stood—the odious paranoia of allowing hate full reign—they fought relentlessly. Sweat slicked Darcy’s face, but he battled on until MacIves pulled a dagger from his boot, and with one sweeping arc brought it down to pierce Darcy’s back. For a split second, Darcy clung to his opponent’s shoulders, and then he opened his hands and slid to his knees, a grimace of defeat flooding his face.
Triumphantly, the Scot stepped over the crouched master of Pemberley. Leaning down, he caught the knife’s handle, giving it a hurried lift to do more damage, before withdrawing it from the wound. “I told the lass I would kill ye for her,” he growled in Darcy’s ear. “I be raising yer bairn as me own,” he taunted. “We have played our game, Darcy, and I take the winning hand.” And just like that, in a twinkling of the eye, James Withey returned.
James stepped away from Fitzwilliam Darcy’s slumped-over form. Leaning against a wooden panel, he caught his breath while he watched with amusement as Elizabeth Darcy crawled on hands and knees toward her husband.
The sound of the gun exploding so close to her head sent Elizabeth diving for cover.Then the sting of the grazing wound caught her breath in her throat, and, for a moment, Elizabeth expected to open her eyes and see heaven; but the stream of blood running down her head said she lived. Behind her, a battle raged; bodies fell
against each other as she tried to right herself and go to Darcy’s aid. The blood—her blood—ran into her eye, and Elizabeth swiped at it with the sleeve of her gown—the blanket long gone. Fingers groping for a hold against the stall’s wooden slats, Elizabeth caught the second rail and, with determination, pulled herself to her knees. Then she heard the gasp, and through streaks of sweat and blood, she saw the man she loved more than life crumble to the floor, a dagger thrust deep into his back.
“Fitzwilliam!” she exclaimed, needing to be by his side. Crawling across the hay-covered earth, she fought to reach him—fought to touch him.
Yet, as she made contact, a force compelled her backward. James Withey caught her hair, snapping her head around and forcing Elizabeth to her feet. “No,” he hissed. “No one helps Darcy. We let him die.”
Elizabeth battled the tears bubbling in her eyes as the red lines blurred her vision.“What do you want?” she demanded; her bottom lip trembled in panic.“You won! Just get out! Leave Pemberley!”
“Not without you,” he declared, grabbing Elizabeth’s arm and pulling her toward the door.
She contested his efforts with all her might, but when she turned her head to wipe the blood from her face against her sleeve, James used the momentary slack of her momentum to pull Elizabeth forward—catching her to his side and lifting her where he might carry her, skimming across the frozen ground. Frantically, she caught at everything to stop their progress, but nothing held, and then Elizabeth grabbed the broken handle of an ax and clasped it to her.
James pressed his shoulder to the stable door, sending it swinging open with a bang. Dragging Elizabeth toward the horses, he did not see her take a firm hold of the broken handle; but as he slowed, preparing to mount, he loosened his grip, and she spun away from him, arcing the stick upward, striking Withey firmly under the chin and dazing him long enough for her to turn toward the stable and Darcy.
Yet, the sound of a gun cocking behind her brought Elizabeth up short of the door. Anger’s color ebbed with the realization. Somehow, James Withey had prevailed. She froze as her bloodied face took in his rictal grin.
When the stable door slammed open, Stafford and Worth expected Darcy to exit with his wife. Instead, the real-life Pemberley phantom carried a bloody Elizabeth Darcy toward the waiting horses.
“Hold for the clean shot,” Stafford ordered as they both took aim at the abductor, but with his back to the horses, he offered no easy shot; and both men hesitated.
In amazement, they watched as Elizabeth executed an escape attempt that would knock a normal man unconscious, but left her captor only momentarily stunned before he took aim with a carefully concealed pocket pistol; and before they could react, James Withey took dominion of Darcy’s wife again.