At last, the magistrate reached a decision. “Mrs. Darcy, your statement has sufficiently convinced me that your husband is the principal perpetrator of this plot. You may stay here under guard tonight. Mr. Darcy, the constable will escort you to gaol.”
At the word “gaol,” Elizabeth released a soft cry.
The eager Mr. Chase stepped forward. Darcy would go willingly, as promised. But first he needed to remove the stricken look from Elizabeth’s face. “Might I have a few words alone with my wife?” he asked Mr. Melbourne.
“I suppose so. A few
Darcy went to Elizabeth and took both her hands in his. Despite the stuffiness of the crowded room, her hands were cold and betrayed a slight tremble. He held them tightly as he looked into dark brown eyes that had never before reflected such turmoil.
“Darcy, I—”
“Hush. I would not have had you say anything else. I will be fine, and this is one instance in which I do not desire your company.”
“But gaol!”
“My first concern is for you and our child. Knowing you are safe, I can endure a night of the gaoler’s hospitality until this matter is sorted out.” He longed to touch her face, to smooth away the anxiety that furrowed her brow. But consciousness of their audience forced him to settle for pressing her hands in reassurance.
“Shall I contact Mr. Harper?” she asked.
“Mr. Harper cannot be reached in France, let alone assist us, between now and tomorrow morning — when our return to Northanger will resolve this affair.”
If it did not, he would summon Mr. Harper posthaste.
Darcy prayed events would not come to that. He wanted no one else to learn of this embarrassment. Though he trusted his solicitor implicitly, the
How Darcy now regretted sending his solicitor abroad! If only, as his aunt had requested, he had personally undertaken the errand of ensuring his cousin Roger did not sully the family reputation.
Instead, he had stayed behind to ruin it himself.
The following day dawned brighter than any day so begun had a right. Darcy watched the sun rise through the small window of his cramped room in Mr. Slattery’s house. Once at the county gaol, Darcy’s status as a gentleman had spared him from confinement with the common criminals, but he’d had to pay generously for the privilege of being accommodated with the gaoler himself. Given the vulgar, dirty conditions in which Mr. Slattery lived, Darcy had been only slightly better off.
He had slept little, his mind too active to permit rest. He had entered the gaol bewildered, the circumstances in which he found himself too far removed from his realm of experience to be immediately comprehended in their entirety. But now having had an opportunity to fully contemplate recent events, he emerged from his imprisonment even more outraged than he had entered it.
Outraged, and wary. This was no mere misunderstanding. Someone had gone to considerable trouble to make him appear guilty of theft, to damage his reputation in society. The charges themselves he did not fear; he had enough influential connections who would believe in his innocence that an acquittal was almost assured. But the cost would be dear. While the faith of his most intimate acquaintances might remain steadfast, all others who heard of the affair would forever suspect his integrity.
Yes, someone worked against him, for reasons mysterious and inconceivable. And Darcy had concluded that his attacker could be none other than Captain Frederick Tilney.
He kept this deduction to himself as the gaoler escorted him to Mr. Melbourne’s waiting carriage. The magistrate had with him the condemning walking stick, and Darcy wondered how and when such a close replica had been crafted. How could Captain Tilney have known Darcy’s own cane so particularly?
They reached the inn without incident or delay. Elizabeth opened the chamber door herself, and the sight of her did more to counter the indignity and discomfort of his ordeal than any concession his money had been able to procure from the gaoler.
Her gaze anxiously assessed him. “You appear unaltered,” she said.
“Indeed, I am entirely unchanged.” Right down to his clothing.
She took his hands and pulled him inside, where Mr. Melbourne had granted him permission to don fresh attire while the constable and Elizabeth’s guards waited in the corridor. As soon as the door closed, she was in his arms.
“I wish you had allowed me to visit you.”
“Gaol is no place for a lady, particularly one in your condition.” He indulged in her embrace but a moment before setting her away from him. “You must permit me to wash away its taint.” He stepped to the basin and stripped to the waist. In truth, even if the environment had not been so wretched, his pride could not bear the idea of his wife entering a gaol to see him.
“Was it very bad?”
“It could have been worse.” He could have been housed in the common gaol, in conditions so squalid they bred gaol fever. At least he had not spent the night amid prostitutes, vagrants, and murderers.
She helped him into a fresh shirt. “You are confident that Captain Tilney’s intercession will resolve the matter?”
“
“You suspect him of dealing falsely with us.”
It was a statement, not a question, leading him to infer that her thoughts paralleled his.
“I have done nothing since leaving here but ruminate on the whole affair, and I cannot otherwise explain our present circumstances,” he said. “Even if a servant or other member of the household acted without the captain’s knowledge in actually planting the diamonds, I fail to see a way he could not have been involved in some part of the business.”
“I reached the same conclusion. What I cannot determine, however, is his motive. You have had no previous intercourse with this man, no occasion to give him offense. Why should he lure us to his home and enact such a scheme?”
They were interrupted by Mr. Melbourne’s knocking on the door to hurry them along. It was just as well; Darcy had no answer to give. He found himself equally unable to divine Captain Tilney’s intent.
The journey to Northanger required a fraction of the time their exodus had. They raced along through a landscape cheerfully disrespectful of their serious errand. When they passed through the gates, a noble structure, for once not obscured by fog and mist, greeted them.
Dorothy, however, did not. Instead, a butler appeared at the door the moment the carriage stopped. The white-haired servant bore himself with the air of a domestic who has served a home and family so long that he feels ownership of it.
“Is your master within?” Mr. Melbourne asked.
“He—” The butler stopped, appearing to reconsider what he had been about to say. “Yes, I suppose he is.”
They entered the hall, where sunlight streaming through the high arched windows lent the lofty space a much happier air than the gloom that had pervaded it during their stay. The butler left them to themselves and passed through a door that had remained shut throughout the Darcys’ previous visit. He returned shortly. “Mr. Tilney will receive you in the drawing room. May I relieve you of that, sir?” He gestured toward the damning cane, which Mr. Melbourne carried.
“No. This remains with me.”
Expecting to follow the familiar route to the stately room where they had first met the captain, Darcy was surprised when the butler led them through the door he had just used. It indeed opened into a drawing room, but one of much more modest proportions and modern furnishings. Upon their entry, a tall, slender man came forward
