Carrie Bebris: The Deception At Lyme

“No—their family home is in Somerset. I know Miss Ashford from London; she and I have studied with the same harp master since we were girls. I met her eldest brother once about three years ago, but this is the first time I have seen him since he inherited the baronetcy from his father. He is Sir Laurence now. That makes him sound older than merely ‘Mr. Ashford,’ do you not think? Yet he is not too old—” She turned to her brother. “I believe about the same age as you, Fitzwilliam. I did not realize until today that you know each other.”

“We have met occasionally at White’s,” Darcy said.

Georgiana, noting the unaltered state of Elizabeth’s bonnet, offered her assistance, but Elizabeth declined.

“It can wait. I am impatient to reach the waterfront.” She glanced over her shoulder toward the inn’s entrance, but saw no one who answered her mind’s image of the couple she had overheard.

In but a few steps more they passed the Assembly Rooms and arrived at the beach. From here they could see the Cobb half a mile southwest. Small boats bobbed in the harbor created by the semicircular breakwater, which extended at least a thousand feet from mouth to shore. The seawall met land near a cluster of buildings their landlady had referred to as Cobb Hamlet. Separated from Lyme proper by an undeveloped cliff prone to landslips, the harbor and hamlet were linked to Lyme by an elevated promenade known as the Walk, which ran parallel to a cart road that skirted the beach.

Elizabeth, Darcy, and Georgiana ambled along the Walk, taking in the sights, sounds, and smells of the sea. Dusk approached, and waterfront activity both on- and offshore was winding down. Vendors packed up their wares; sailors finished unloading goods from recently docked ships; horses pulled the last of the carts toward the Customs House for clearance. Four bathing machines, having long since completed their service for the day, were parked on the beach out of reach of the lapping tide.

A set of steps led from the Walk down to the cart road and the beach itself. The rising tide brought the water quite close, and Darcy asked whether Elizabeth would like to go down and dip her hand in the seawater breaking onto shore. She responded enthusiastically.

At the base of the stair, a young gentleman who had been about to ascend moved aside to grant them clear passage. Even in the fading light, his features evinced considerable time spent at sea. The sun had tanned his skin to a rich hue and bleached to pale gold the long hair tied back beneath his hat. The result was not unfavorable; in fact, he possessed a mien of health and vigor superior to most of the other sailors they had passed as they walked through Lyme. He nodded politely at Elizabeth and Darcy as they reached the bottom step—a civility they returned—but when his gaze shifted behind them to acknowledge Georgiana, a spark entered his blue eyes, and an expression of patent admiration overtook his countenance.

Elizabeth turned to regard her sister-in-law. A well-favored, graceful girl even in ordinary moments, Georgiana at present appeared altogether fetching. The wind that had played such havoc with Elizabeth’s bonnet had brightened Georgiana’s eyes and loosened tendrils of honey-blond hair that fluttered becomingly around cheeks pinkened by the persistent sea breeze—or perhaps by consciousness of being the object of so admiring a look. No one could be insensible of such attention from a handsome gentleman, certainly not a young lady of nineteen.

And certainly not her brother.

Darcy glanced from the sailor to Georgiana, and saw his sister through the stranger’s eyes—the eyes of a man. A man who was not her brother, not her protector, but a warm-blooded buck who could not help but respond to the sight of a beautiful woman. Worse—a man turned onshore after months at sea entirely deprived of women’s company. Decent women’s company, anyway.

Though there had been nothing improper in the sailor’s expression or manner, his interest put Darcy on guard. It reminded him all too vividly of the last time he and Georgiana had been at the seaside, and the evil she had so narrowly escaped. Darcy had thwarted the designs of one fortune hunter, but scavengers of Mr. Wickham’s breed flocked in watering-places like gulls.

Before Darcy could offer his hand to assist Georgiana’s descent, the stranger offered his own. She accepted his aid, placing her hand in his. She negotiated the stairs without incident, but as she stepped onto the beach—her attention entirely upon him, to the neglect of her own feet—a small mound of shingle shifted beneath her, throwing her out of balance.

The gentleman quickly caught her, preventing a fall. Darcy stepped forward to help steady Georgiana, relieving the sailor of any need—or excuse—for further contact with his sister. Georgiana took Darcy’s arm, but required it for only a moment. She had regained her equilibrium. Her composure, however, was not so easily recovered. She cast her gaze about, fleetingly meeting the stranger’s, then shifting it to look at anything but the man’s countenance.

His face reflected amusement. Hers was in high color. She stammered a few halting words of gratitude, by all appearances directed at the wall behind him. The edges of his mouth upturned to a half-smile.

He tipped his hat—“Your servant, miss”—and continued on his way.

Though she had refused to meet his eyes, Georgiana watched his back as he nimbly cleared the stairs and hastened along the Walk.

“He thinks me a careless featherbrain.”

Darcy, too, observed the retreat of the man who had found his sister’s discomposure charming. “The opinion of a common sailor you will never again set eyes upon should cause you no distress.”

“He is not a common sailor. From his manner and dress, he is a gentleman. I wager he is a naval officer, as Gerard was.”

Indeed, there were enough ships in the harbor that the stranger could well be an officer on one of the small naval vessels, if not the master of a merchantman. Darcy doubted, however, that the man could ever wear a uniform as proudly as their late cousin had worn his the last time Darcy and Georgiana saw him. A newly commissioned lieutenant of the Royal Navy, Gerard Fitzwilliam had died three years ago in action aboard the Magna Carta.

“Even if that fellow is an officer, neither dress nor stripes make a man a gentleman,” Darcy said. “Put him from your mind.”

They strolled along the beach a little way, but the sun soon dropped so low that the filtered light faded quickly. The wind picked up, and the temperature, which had dropped decidedly since they began their walk, caused both Georgiana and Elizabeth to shudder. Electing to postpone the pleasure of their first promenade on the Cobb itself until the morrow, they headed back toward their lodgings.

Darcy looked at the sky once more. Clouds obscured the young moon. Perhaps a storm was gathering after all.

“Lily-Anne, stay with mamma and papa!” Elizabeth called after her daughter. Her admonition, however, was spoken in vain; her voice drowned in the crash of waves against the Cobb.

Darcy pursued their racing toddler. His strides overtook the child’s short steps well before Lily reached the edge of the seawall upon which they walked. Built to hold back an ocean, the breakwater was wide enough for their whole party—and then some—to comfortably walk abreast. Nevertheless, Lily-Anne had given her mother a scare. They were on the upper Cobb, which rimmed the lower Cobb on one side and fronted the open sea on the other; beyond either of the upper wall’s edges was a sheer drop—onto merciless pavement or into the ocean itself.