Carrie Bebris - Pride and Prescience

“I have given up trying to explain Randolph’s behavior.”

Her thoughts tumbled forward. “She fairly exploded at Randolph the day I sat with them. At the time, I believed her complaint was of the bandage, but now that I look back on it, I think she was trying to remove her ring.”

Darcy made a reply, something about Mrs. Parrish attempting to ease her discomfort, but Elizabeth’s mind raced too fast to hear him. She recalled her mother’s visit upon their arrival at Netherfield, and Caroline half-removing her ring then. That had been before the fire, before her burns.

She remembered Caroline holding up her left hand when she appeared, ghostlike, on the balcony; Caroline showing off the ring at her wedding breakfast… the last time Mrs. Parrish had truly seemed herself. She recollected the way the ring had radiated intense cold when she herself had removed it this morning — the same way Professor Randolph’s watch was unnaturally warm to her touch.

Her heartbeat accelerated. “Darcy, there is something baleful about that ring.”

A sigh was his only reply. But his expression revealed his thoughts. Once again, he did not believe her.

“Caroline has not been the same since she started wearing it.”

“Elizabeth,” he said gently. “If gaudy, overpriced jewelry caused madness, all the ton would be afflicted. Mrs. Parrish’s problems derive from more than a simple object.”

She bristled at his facile dismissal. “A simple object she’s been trying to remove almost from the day she started wearing it.”

“She has an injured hand. It chafes.”

“Maybe she injured her hand because of the ring. It caused her to be careless. Or—” her thoughts leapt—“she injured herself on purpose, for an excuse to remove it.”

Darcy closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. “Elizabeth…”

“Perhaps she scratched Mr. Parrish with it for the same reason. So he would take it from her.”

“Now you have strayed into absurdity. If Mrs. Parrish is that desperate to remove her wedding ring, why does she not simply take it off herself?”

“Because she doesn’t want to wound her husband’s feelings. Or—” The image of Professor Randolph intruded her thoughts once more. Somehow, she knew with certainty, the supernaturalist was involved. “Perhaps she physically cannot.”

“If you could slide it from her finger, what prevents her?”

“Randolph. He charmed or cursed it somehow, as part of whatever plot he’s working against the Parrishes.” At his scornful look, she pressed. “Consider, Darcy — he stood up with Mr. Parrish at the wedding. The ring was probably in his possession before the ceremony. He had ample opportunity to work his dreadful sorcery upon it.”

He looked heavenward, like a man praying for patience. “Elizabeth, I will not give credence to these preposterous notions. A man has died, and his suspected killer’s whereabouts are unknown. There is too much at stake to waste further time in fanciful conjecture.”

His words stung. He’d spoken to her as if reprimanding a child. That she loved him made his disbelief all the more painful. She knew she was right, knew there was more to Caroline’s condition and Kendall’s murder than cold facts. Why could he not set aside his deuced pride and trust her instincts?

She shook with frustration, anger, hurt. “Darcy, I need you to believe me in this.”

“I cannot.”

She swallowed hard and willed her voice to steady. “Then I guess there’s nothing left to say.”

She walked past him, silently begging him to stop her. But he let her pass unchecked, and did not even turn around to see her close the door. He must have heard it, though, for she applied enough force to rattle the frame. Then she headed down the hall, back to the Parrishes’ chamber.

If Darcy would not save Caroline from that ring, she would.

Darcy stayed in the room but a minute following Elizabeth’s decisive exit. He did not want to argue with her. Truly he did not. Clashing with his wife left his stomach knotted. But these ideas! How could he, or any reasonable man, be expected to take them seriously? How could she?

If the truth were ever to be discovered, it would be through deduction, not intuition. A review of the facts, not I sense things sometimes. How could he take “I sense things sometimes” to the magistrate as evidence of guilt? Arrest this man — he attacked his victims with a ring and a pocketwatch. He’d be laughed out of the county.

No, reason and logic would prevail. And it stood to reason that a man with his hands in as many pockets as Lawrence Kendall would keep some record of his affairs. He’d produced papers enough where Bingley was concerned — perhaps he possessed other documents that would reveal a clearer link between him and Randolph.

To Darcy’s knowledge, no one had yet gone through Kendall’s personal effects. Now that his daughter had arrived, those items would soon be transported out of his reach. He had better examine them now, before Juliet Kendall ordered them packed up and loaded onto her coach. If she had not already.

He passed no one in the hall on his way to Kendall’s chamber, to his satisfaction. He could not bear another spat with Elizabeth just now, and in his present mood had no patience for anyone else. He arrived, however, to find Kendall’s quarters occupied.

Juliet Kendall sat at the desk. In her hand she held a closely written page, one of a sheaf of papers spread before her. Damn! She had beaten him to Kendall’s documents; he would never see them now. He braced himself for her vitriol.

She glanced up to see who had interrupted her reading. “Mr. Darcy,” she acknowledged. Her voice was uneven, her expression stricken.

The strain of her father’s death must be wearing on her. Though it seemed ungentlemanly to press that advantage, he tried to rapidly devise a strategy that would persuade her to let him see Kendall’s records. Ultimately, he assured his conscience, he was only trying to help her by identifying her father’s killer.

“Miss Kendall.” He bowed. “Forgive my intrusion. Are you finding everything all right?”

“I am finding more than I expected,” she replied. “Including this.” She handed him a letter.

New Orleans

1 September 18—

Dear Sir,

After a perilous Atlantic crossing, I reached Louisiana and have spent the past three weeks performing the enquiries you entrusted to me. Your suspicions are confirmed: Mr. Frederick Parrish is not the man he claims to be.

The local authorities were unfamiliar with him by the name Parrish, which I presume he adopted when he arrived in London. But when I showed them the likeness you had the foresight to commission without his knowledge, they recognized him immediately as Jack Diamond (also assumed to be an alias). Diamond is a drifter; no one quite knows where he came from before arriving in New Orleans. In the twelvemonth or so he spent here, he earned his living as a pickpocket and a swindler, with a talent for confidence games. His disarming persona fooled everyone; it was not until he killed the son of a wealthy plantation owner in a knife fight that his true nature became known.

Diamond disappeared from the area about a year ago and has not been heard of since. Many thought him dead. He had made lots of enemies, including several prospective grandfathers — if you understand my meaning.