not yet determined how best to approach my father, nor the precise terms of our proposal. And now—” A laugh escaped her, one that sounded disbelief and delight. “We are parents sooner than either of us ever anticipated.”
“So Captain Wentworth will not be surprised by this arrangement?”
“Only that our own wishes were effected so easily. In truth, I myself am amazed.”
“Then I shall go tell him he is wanted, but leave to you to share why.”
“Thank you. Let me take my leave of you now, and say that I have enjoyed talking with you. I doubt Captain Wentworth and I will return here after attending to Alfred—I think he has had as much celebration as he can tolerate for one day.”
“Alfred, or Captain Wentworth?”
She laughed again. “Both, I expect.”
Elizabeth longed to hear more of the history Mrs. Smith had been imparting to her before Mary Musgrove’s interruption—not out of a gossipy interest in scandal, but to better understand the events that had led to Lady Elliot’s death. Unfortunately, Mrs. Smith departed with the Wentworths, taking her trove of knowledge with her. Elizabeth and Darcy quit the Assembly Rooms soon after.
Later, she shared what she had learned with Darcy as they walked along the Cobb. It was a lovely, tranquil evening. The heat of the day had eased; both sea and sky were calm. Though a light breeze drifted across the bay, no wind caught her bonnet as it had on their first night in Lyme, when she had been forced to retreat into the alley beside the Lion to unknot its ribbons. Sunlight stretched long upon the waves, a golden contrast to the dark matter of their conversation.
“The relationships between the Clays and the Elliots are more tangled than we ever imagined,” she said. “I heard today that Mr. Elliot’s late wife had an affair with Mrs. Clay’s late husband.”
Darcy’s brows rose. “I thought I had interesting news to communicate, but you have trumped me. When did this occur?”
“I do not know. Mrs. Smith told me of the affair, but she cut her narrative short when Mary Musgrove joined us. Mary, however, revealed additional information about Sir Walter’s relationship with Mrs. Clay. Apparently, she openly pursued him last winter, hoping to seduce him into marrying her.”
“Ultimately, she succeeded, though one wonders why she ran off with Mr. Elliot in the interim. She could not have thought it would advance her suit.”
“Perhaps Mr. Elliot saw what she was about, and to end her scheme—and obscure the paternity of any child she might have conceived with Sir Walter—made her promises of marriage that he never intended to keep. He would certainly not be the first man in the history of elopements to do so. And Mrs. Clay, believing him, preferred the young heir to the aging title holder.”
“An aging title holder whose estate is hazardously close to bankruptcy.”
Now it was Elizabeth’s turn to express surprise. “How did you learn this?”
“From Mr. Elliot. He spoke of it while I was with Captain Wentworth.”
“Well, marrying either of them would procure her the title of Lady Elliot sooner or later—an improvement over her past affairs. Apparently, Mrs. Clay had a proclivity for naval officers before setting her sights on the Elliots.”
“Indeed? Then I am surprised Mr. Elliot would bring her to a seaside resort, with half the navy ashore.”
Darcy’s statement prompted a memory of the conversation she had overheard in the passageway of the Lion the night before Mrs. Clay’s accident.
Elizabeth stopped. Mr. Elliot was a guest of the Lion. And until that night, so was Mrs. Clay.
Her own eyes wide with astonishment, she met Darcy’s gaze. He regarded her questioningly.
“I believe I might have overheard a conversation between Mr. Elliot and Mrs. Clay the night before she died.”
“How?”
“In the alley beside the Lion, when I stopped to adjust my bonnet. I heard a couple quarreling—I assumed it was a husband and wife, but now, knowing what we do about them both, I believe it was they.”
“What was the subject of their argument?”
“Infidelity—on the part of both parties. She was accusing him of continuing affairs he had told her were ended, and of having come to Lyme to rendezvous with his lovers. He responded that she was also guilty of unfaithfulness, but that she was hardly enticing in her present condition.”
“That sounds like it could be they.”
“Then she brought up a promise he had made to her, told him he had run out of time, and departed—I expect, for Sir Walter’s.”
“Where she got married, thwarting Mr. Elliot’s expectations of inheriting Sir Walter’s title,” Darcy finished. They resumed walking. “This other affair you mentioned, between Mrs. Clay’s and Mr. Elliot’s spouses—the couples knew each other for some time, then?”
“Yes, intimately.”
“I should say so.”
“Darcy!” She glanced round, but there was nobody nearby to hear them. “What I meant was that they, along with the Smiths, were particular friends. Though what happened after the affair was exposed, I did not learn.”
“How was it exposed?”
“Let us simply say that Mr. Clay was carried away by his passion for Mrs. Elliot.”
He stopped again, searching her face to make sure he had correctly interpreted her meaning. “Mr. Clay died in the act of cuckolding Mr. Elliot?”
She nodded.
Darcy’s gaze drifted past her, beyond the edge of the upper Cobb, to the pavement below. Without her realizing it, they had reached the section of the seawall where Mrs. Clay had fallen. “And Mrs. Clay died within hours of leaving Mr. Elliot for Sir Walter.”
The chill that passed over Elizabeth had nothing to do with the breeze coming off the sea.
“How did Mrs. Elliot die?” Darcy asked.
“Mrs. Smith did not say—our conversation was interrupted.”
“I think we need to find out.”
Twenty-Three
“As to his marriage, I knew all about it at the time. I was privy to all the fors and againsts; I was the friend to whom he confided his hopes and plans; and though I did not know his wife previously … I knew her all her life afterwards, or at least till within the last two years of her life.… He was very unkind to his first wife. They were wretched together.”
The Wentworths lived in a charming two-story house high up the cliff on Pound Street, a dwelling they had taken for six months while they decided where they wanted to settle permanently now that the end of the war had cast the captain ashore. From the exterior, it looked everything a newlywed couple could want in their first home: a neat façade with bay windows and fresh paint, a garden blooming with more flowers than many twice its size, and a door that was always open to friends.
