“Yes. Give me proper instructions, Ned, or whistle for your lady’s companion. Then see what happens! Your fine madam will be in some fellow’s bed quick as lightning! You know how I keep her at Hemmings. My-er-helpers are nigh exhausted servicing the bitch.”
“Well, that’s why you brought them, after all. Instructions-let me see…If the little hussy goes out in the carriage, you go with her. If she walks, you walk with her. And feed your fellows Spanish fly or whatever else they need to keep on fucking her.” He began pulling on his gloves, so big that they had to be specially made for him. “Only remember that all it will take to bring you down is one enquiry to the Marquess of Ripon.”
“I don’t give a bugger about the Marquess of Ripon! Remember, my name’s not Mirabelle Maplethorpe.”
“Perhaps the informant would have something to say about Miss Miriam Matcham.”
“I wish you’d find someone else to do your dirty work, Ned!”
He paused with his hand on the door, and laughed. “Be of good cheer, Mirry! I hear that even in New South Wales they have bawdy-houses. No, no, I’m teasing! You’re safe with Ned Skinner.”
When he reached Jupiter he didn’t tighten the girth; he took the saddle off completely, changed the bridle for a halter and tied the horse so that it could move to graze but not emerge from the shelter of the trees, the bases of which were hidden from the house by a tall hedge. Jupiter taken care of, Ned lay at full length and dozed for a while. He came awake in a trice; there was noise from the house, men coming and going as if hurried.
Darkness fell. Ned Skinner continued to watch. Yes, he was right! They were quitting the place! A wagon arrived and was loaded with the best of the furniture and carpets, drove off with two of the five men travelling on its box. At midnight Mirry emerged with a birdcage in one hand and a frilly parasol in the other, just as the carriage came from the stables. She stepped into it, followed by her maid, and two more of her henchmen sat on its box. The equipage rolled away, leaving Lydia and one man behind. No, Lydia was to be left alone. The fifth man soon appeared in the trap, geeing his fat pony to an awkward trot. He probably had the silverware, thought Ned cynically.
What could Lydia be doing, not to have raised the alarm? There were lights in the drawing room and lights in an upstairs bedroom; she was there, then, but drunk or sober? Drunk, he decided. Sober, she would have screamed the place down.
The thing was, what to do? He had to come to a decision right at this moment, well before a new dawn arrived and Lydia embarked upon a walk to-Bingley Hall? Yes, Bingley Hall. Of course she would encounter someone on the road, someone who would either convey her to her destination or to the constabulary in Leek. Ah, but there was no constable in Leek! Like his fellows, he was searching for Mary. No matter. Once she was seen, Lydia would be entirely removed from his control.
The overriding drive in Ned’s life was his love for Fitz. No one else could command his devotion. And what did it matter if half of what he did for Fitz was unknown to Fitz? Love carried no sort of conditions in Ned’s mind; it was something so pure, so powerful that it needed no acknowledgement. Lydia Wickham was out to ruin Fitz’s public career-a great man brought down by a silly, brainless bit of a thing not fit to lick his boots.
Tonight. If it were to be done at all, it must be done tonight, while she was alone in the house, deserted by servants and companion. Did she have any jewellery? Any money? He doubted the latter, but jewels were a possibility. Two of her sisters were very wealthy, so they could have gifted her with some pretty pieces. Not that it really mattered, only that it would seem more logical. Furniture missing, carpets missing, silverware missing, jewellery missing…
He brought out his watch and saw that the time was a little after one. Almost an hour before he had to decide.
“What do you say, Jupiter old man?” he asked the horse.
Hearing its name, it lifted its head to look at him, nodded, and went back to its grazing. Jupiter says yes, he thought. Good old Jupiter says yes.
The idiots hadn’t even locked the house behind them! Ned pushed the front door open and entered softly. A slight glow from the drawing room enabled him to locate a candelabrum; he lit a fresh candle from a burning wick and went to the stairs, which did not creak. Hemmings was a good house.
The sound of snores guided him to Lydia’s bedroom; even if of late she had been sober, tonight she was certainly drunk. Sure enough, there she was, sprawled on the covers of her bed, in a pink muslin day dress. A pretty wench, he thought, gazing at her without a flicker of desire. Such a profusion of near-colourless hair spilling around her-a nuisance, considering what he had to do.
There were plenty of pillows. He chose the stiffest of them, over-stuffed with down, climbed onto the bed and straddled her, the better to come at her head. It was not an ideal way to kill anyone, for the deep mattress yielded more than the pillow did. Only a very strong man could do it, but Ned Skinner was superlatively strong. He put the pillow over Lydia’s face and held it there, sitting his rump on her to immobilise her despite her feeble little struggles. For a full quarter of an hour by the mantel clock he did not relax, then judged her dead. Suffocation was slow, he was aware of that.
Removing the pillow revealed that her eyes had bulged a trifle, their whites webbed with red veins, and her mouth was open on sadly discoloured teeth. He sat heavily on her chest now, to make sure that she could not draw a breath. She did not, for Lydia Wickham was dead. Fitz was safe from this latest Bennet peril.
In the morning a butcher or a grocer would arrive, wonder why there was no answer to his knock, then his calls, and finally his hollers. After that, discovery was inevitable. Two branches of candles burned in the room; by their light he searched for money and jewellery. Her empty purse lay on the dressing table, together with an empty grey tin box that had probably held her jewels. How splendid! They had stolen everything.
Half past two by his watch; dawn would come in about two hours. Jupiter made ready for the road, Ned Skinner mounted and cantered off. He was going straight home, but not by the customary route. He skirted around Pemberley, and finally came down on it from the north. Only someone actually following him would have known where he had come from; and no one had followed. As always in the aftermath of such sickening deeds, he kept his mind absolutely fixed upon the memory of Fitz’s beardless cheek pressed against his own infant pate. The first lovely thing in an awful life.
Curiously, it was Ned himself who brought the news of Lydia’s demise to Pemberley, and that lay at Elizabeth’s door.
The southern Peak District had become the focus of the search for Mary, for that was where the caves were located, and everyone had decided that Mary was imprisoned in a cave. Only the most visually spectacular of them were known; visitors thronged to go through them, each holding a candle-lamp, every group blackening their beauty a little more from the smoke. But many caves never saw a candle, and no one dreamed of their existence or extent.
When Ned rode in on Jupiter, he saw Mrs. Darcy in the stable yard, and tipped his hat to her courteously. To his surprise, she beckoned him over when he had dismounted.
“Mr. Skinner, could you spare the time from your search to call in at Hemmings and see how Mrs. Wickham is doing?”
The hair rose on the back of his neck; had his eyes been a lighter colour she might have noticed their pupils dilate, but their blackness saved him. The request had taken him completely aback. For a moment he simply stared at her, amazed, then he turned his reaction to good purpose by looking at her in puzzlement.
“Do you have a feeling, Mrs. Darcy?” he asked.
“A feeling? Of what sort?”
“Oh, I don’t know, exactly. A presentiment or some such?” He looked apologetic. “I suppose it was the look on your face, ma’am. With all the to-do about Miss Mary, I confess I had clean forgotten Mrs. Wickham.”
She thought more kindly of him, and put a hand on his arm. “Dear Mr. Skinner, perhaps I do have a presentiment. How acute of you to see it! I hate to ask you to make the ride, but Angus and Charlie are staying somewhere, and it is a week since Mrs. Bingley and I visited her. Miss Maplethorpe promised to write, but has not. I worry that something is amiss.”
“Think nothing of it, Mrs. Darcy. Jupiter and I will start at once. He’s a good lad, my horse. The only one can carry me.”
Thinking of the horse, she had a qualm. “Are you sure? Ought not Jupiter to rest?”
“No, ma’am. He and I are up to the ride.”
And he managed to make his escape before the sweat on his brow became noticeable. Oh, the wretched, wretched woman! A thorn in Fitz’s side for twenty-one years now, and a thorn in Ned Skinner’s side too. Still, he
