Duty and Desire

the bottom of the bath. One of Fletcher’s brows arched, but he turned away to the tray of grooming articles without comment. Darcy retrieved the bar and vigorously applied it, the silence between them deepening uncomfortably.

“The second, sir?” Fletcher’s disinterested voice arose from close by. With a nod, Darcy steeled himself for the rinsing water. It came down gently, carrying the lather out of his hair in directed streams. When he had cleared all from his eyes, he looked up at his valet intently. He had grown rather used to the man’s uncanny prescience and bold repartee, as well as his conscientious service. This falter in an impressive record clearly discommoded Fletcher and his own insensitivity had added the proverbial insult to injury.

Excellent, Darcy! He silently congratulated himself. Estrange your most trusted ally just when he is most needed! Who else but Fletcher might be relied upon to untangle the webs being spun around them? Images of the villainy at the King’s Stone flooded through him again. He needed Fletcher at his best, not sulking over a temporary failure and his own poor attempt at humor.

Darcy rose thoughtfully from the bath as Fletcher held out the dressing gown, guiding the sleeves up his master’s arms, then left him for the dresser to bring out clean smalls and stockings. Donning the garments quickly, Darcy cast about in his mind for how he might restore the man’s confidence and direct his talents without prejudicing his perception. Should he lay the whole before him? Doubtless Fletcher would pry loose the story, or some version of it, from someone’s maid or manservant. Would it not be more useful for him to be in possession of the facts and, therefore, free to observe the inhabitants of the castle unhampered by the shock of revelation?

As Darcy pulled on his black knit breeches and buttoned them over the silk stockings, his social obligations suddenly recalled themselves to his attention. They were to play at charades tonight, he remembered joylessly, and he was supposed to be looking for a wife. In that, too, Fletcher could be invaluable. Darcy passed over the faces of the eligible young women he had met so far and discarded all save one. Lady Sylvanie. He could not say that she did not intrigue him with her otherworldly beauty and enigmatic eyes, but he also had to acknowledge that there had not yet arisen that irrepressible pull that had o’ertaken him every time Eliza ——

“Your neckcloth, sir. Are you ready?” Fletcher held out the perfectly starched article. Darcy nodded and sat down. Well, there had hardly been time, had there? The fact that his interest had been caught so quickly in their short acquaintance was certainly in Sylvanie’s favor. Perhaps there was hope that his needs and requirements would soon be met acceptably and he could go home. With that thought, Darcy felt a pang of longing for the comfort of home — of the woman he had imagined there, in every room. He knew his own desire; it was already engaged in the person of one impudent, exciting, lovely little piece of baggage by the name of Elizabeth Bennet, whose unsuitability reached to the stars. He was here at the command of duty. Duty necessitated that he remain at Norwycke with people whom he was fast coming to loathe.

“Your coat, Mr. Darcy.” Fletcher’s toneless voice broke into Darcy’s thoughts once more. He slipped his arms into the frock coat and shrugged it over his shoulders, then observed his reflection in the mirror as he pulled down his cuffs. The coat was newly made and fit like a second skin, but he found no pleasure in it. He was almost ready and soon would have to depart his chambers for the drawing room battles below. How to span the breach and set Fletcher’s nose atwitching?

“Fletcher,” he tossed over his shoulder while the valet applied the lint brush across his back. “You have read or attended a performance of Macbeth, have you not?”

“Yes, Mr. Darcy. It is strange that you should mention it, for I was thinking of it myself. Your coat reminded me, sir — ‘Out, damned spot!’” He laughed ruefully, then stiffened up again as the correct gentleman’s gentleman he had been since Darcy’s return. “Your pardon, sir.”

“Not at all. But that was not the line of which I was thinking.” Darcy waited until Fletcher came round to flick the brush over the front of his coat. “Do you remember how the line goes, ‘By the pricking of my thumbs…’?”

“‘Something wicked this way comes,’ sir?” Fletcher asked, more than a flicker of interest sparking his face.

Darcy fixed him with a darkling eye. “Precisely, Fletcher.”

Chapter 8 The Woman’s Part

He was less than half the hall away from the drawing room when Darcy caught the first notes of music. The sound was unmistakably a harp. But as he drew closer to the doors, something about its resonance struck him as unusual. His curiosity roused by the quality of the sound as well as the plaintive melody being performed, he was almost impatient for the ubiquitous satin-clad servants to open the doors. They opened finally upon a small group posed, to Darcy’s surprise, not around the grand harp at the end of the room but in a circle near the hearth. Most of the listeners were gentlemen; the ladies having not yet descended, save for Lady Chelmsford and her sister, Lady Beatrice, who sat together on a settee whispering companionably. In contrast, Monmouth lounged against the mantel, while Chelmsford’s chair was drawn in among the shadows at the other side and Poole sat on the edge of a divan drawn up nearer to the hearth, the attention of all of them fixed upon the harpist at their center.

Lady Sylvanie acknowledged his approach with a cool, fleeting glance, but her fingers did not hesitate as she continued playing the music that had captured Darcy’s attention. The small harp cradled against her shoulder gleamed in the firelight. The light reflected along its sweeping curves seemed to quiver in response to the graceful pluck of each chord. Darcy’s gaze was drawn first to those shapely fingers as they called forth such sorrowing sweetness from the strings, but his attention was soon enticed along the performer’s lithe arms to the curve of her pale shoulders and on then to her face. The lady’s eyes were lightly closed but not, he guessed, in concentration upon her performance. Rather, he had the sense that, while they were closed to her surroundings, they opened instead to some secret place the music created. From the lift of one raven brow and the slight smile that graced her face, he suspected she was barely aware of her audience. Her smile deepened as she played, and Darcy, conscious of the sensation of having once again caught a glimpse of a fierce fairy princess, caught his breath.

He watched, fascinated, as her smile faded and her brow creased as if in pain. Her lips parted, and there poured forth from them a song whose words he could not understand but which he knew intuitively was a hymn of longing. The beauty of it swept over him before he’d time to prepare against it and forced him into a chair. Gaelic. His brain informed him of the language, but it enlightened him no further as to the song’s meaning. Instead, the lilting words and haunting tune worked on him, recalling to his mind images and emotions of times long past: the exhilaration of galloping the fields of Pemberley atop his first pony, the wonder of boyhood rambles in the wood beyond the park, the companionable feeling of the fishing expedition to Scotland with his father the summer before his first term away at school.

Then the music changed, slowing to an altogether different key, and he was at his mother’s bedside, his heart stunned with the aching fear of bidding her his last farewell and, deeper still, the feeling of utter loss at his father’s passing. Struggling to break from this turn in the tide of his emotion, Darcy closed his eyes in a determined frown against the music. As if in response to his wishes, the lady’s voice began to drop, gentling, fading into silence as her fingers passed lightly over the strings. Had she noticed his discomfort? Darcy looked up at her from under hooded lids but saw that her head was bowed over her instrument.

“Breathtaking!” Poole exclaimed, breaking the silence as he applauded Lady Sylvanie’s performance. “Absolutely marvelous!” The other gentlemen joined him in vigorous appreciation.

“What is it called, my Lady?” Monmouth addressed her still bowed head. “Is it Irish? It sounded Irish.” Darcy watched intently as Lady Sylvanie lifted her head, her face composed although her startling gray eyes were still withdrawn.

“Yes, my Lord,” came her reply in quiet clarity, “it is an Irish tune.” Her eyelashes swept suddenly up and captured Darcy’s stare before he could look away. The smile in them was of such understanding he was tempted to believe that she was, indeed, a fairy, knowing his very thoughts.

“‘Deirdre’s Lament,’” she continued, her eyes piercing Darcy’s, holding them.

“I beg your pardon?” Monmouth responded.

Lady Sylvanie lowered her lashes, releasing Darcy, before giving her attention fully to Monmouth. “It is called ‘Deirdre’s Lament,’ an old song, my Lord.” The door to the room opened, and her audience looked with her as Lady Felicia and Miss Farnsworth entered arm in arm, followed by Sayre, his lady, and at the last, Manning. With their