Pamela Aidan - Duty and Desire

“The same.” Darcy pulled out his sequence for Sayre’s perusal. His Lordship’s gaze flashed expertly over the cards. A brow twitched.

“No winner,” Monmouth reported, “but a quint for Darcy for fifteen points, making a total of twenty. Gentlemen?”

“A quatorze of queens.” Sayre threw down each royal lady as if she were at fault for his previous deficiency.

“Of jacks.” Darcy displayed his cards.

“To Sayre.” Monmouth looked at Darcy with concern and put Sayre down for 14 more points. “Twenty-and-three.” His Lordship’s smile was more of relief than of triumph, and he hurriedly pulled out an additional ternary for 3 more points. “Twenty-and-six then.” Monmouth touted up Sayre’s points. “To Darcy’s tw ——”

A disturbance at the door drowned out Monmouth’s announcement, and the sight of Norwycke’s ancient butler entering into the room brought Sayre to his feet. “What is it now?” he growled before he’d had a clear view of the man. Then, “Good God, man! What the devil has happened!”

At Sayre’s first protest, Darcy had risen and swung around his chair, alert for any eventuality. He now stood by Fletcher, and the two of them exchanged warning glances as the old retainer stumbled farther into the room. The man was a fright. His neckcloth, half undone, dangled down over his thin chest, and his powdered wig was aslant. His rheumy eyes were stricken with fear and, oddly enough, thought Darcy, sadness.

“My lord…my lord,” the man gasped.

“Yes! Speak, man!” Sayre thundered.

“I could not, my lord! Served you, your father, grandfather…all my life. Could not betray —”

“Betray! Who betrays me?” Sayre’s voice raged and echoed against the library’s walls, wavering between anger and fear, and caused the ladies to demand what was the matter.

The old man swayed in the face of his master’s fury. “The servants, my lord. They will not take up your defense at the castle gate. Some” — he gulped — “some have said that they’ll not defend the evil within from the righteous anger without. Give up the child, my lord, I beg you!”

“Oh, my God!” cried Trenholme.

“Child? What child?” roared Sayre. The question was taken up by the rest of the room as they rushed to Sayre, but Darcy swiveled around, intent on a quite different object.

“Fletcher! Where is Lady Sylvanie?”

While the whole of the room formed a clamorous circle about Sayre, Darcy and Fletcher scanned its shadowy recesses in search of the lady. Several of the candles, he noted, seemed to have been extinguished, casting the edges of the great old room into darkness.

“There, sir, at the door!” Fletcher’s clear voice galvanized him into action, and soon both men were circling the other distraught, fearful guests in a bid for the door. That achieved, they stepped together into an empty hallway, lit in only one direction by a few feeble candles. Which way had she taken? “Mr. Darcy, I fear —” his valet began.

“Yes, into the darkness. Come!” Darcy plunged forward, Fletcher beside him, racing into the deepening shadows. They quickly reached a juncture with another corridor sunken almost completely in night. Another decision! “Listen!” Darcy commanded and endeavored to quiet his breathing and the beat of blood through his veins. Faintly, the tapping sound of a woman’s slippers disturbed the unearthly somnolence that seemed to hang in the air. “There!”

“She is making for the older portion of the castle.” Fletcher’s whisper echoed eerily as they turned in pursuit of the sound. “She’ll be the very Devil to find if —”

“Then we must enlist the aid of Providence,” Darcy said over his shoulder as he took the hall at a rapid stalk, his ear cocked against the tapping of his quarry.

“I have, sir, and regularly since we arrived at this…place.”

As most men born to privilege, Darcy had long become accustomed to the presence of servants about their duties in even his most private apartments; therefore, the utter lack of any of that class in their traversal of the castle impressed him as singularly ominous. The old butler had spoken the truth. Little — if any — aid in defense of Norwycke could be expected from Sayre’s people, and once emboldened by the numbers outside, they were more than likely also to take up the hunt for Lady Sylvanie and her companion. He and Fletcher must reach them first or who knew what outrage might be committed to haunt the halls of Norwycke and the consciences of its inhabitants and guests?

Ahead of them and around another corner, a door was heard to shut with a soft click. Rounding the corner first, Darcy was confounded by a Stygian darkness that, try as he would, he could not pierce. Evidently they had passed belowground. “A candle! Fletcher, did you see any candles?”

“A moment, sir!” Darcy heard his valet fumble about his clothing, and in short order, a candle was shoved into his hand. “Hold it before you, sir.” Darcy stretched out his arm. Never before had the sound of a flint being struck been so welcome.

“You brought a candle?” Darcy caught Fletcher’s eye in wonderment as the flickering candle created a hesitant pool of light. His valet merely returned him a crooked grin before both of them turned to survey the passage. From the look of it, they were in a long-unused portion of the castle’s storehouse, for a series of doors set in stone walls marched along as far as their meager light could illumine. Holding the candle high, Darcy took a few exploratory steps, his ear cocked to the side to catch any sound, but all was silent.

“Mr. Darcy,” Fletcher called in a low voice, “the candle! Please, sir!” Darcy returned swiftly and handed him the candle.

“Have you discovered something?”

“When you walked before me, sir, I noticed — There! Do you see, sir?” Darcy peered down in the direction of Fletcher’s finger. Footprints! Vaguely outlined in the dust of the abandoned hall were his own footprints where he had preceded Fletcher down the passage. If his could be detected, then could not Sylvanie’s be also? Taking the candle, Darcy held it low, searching for a disturbance in the dusty passage that was not of his own making. Precious minutes ticked by while he ranged to and fro across the corridor, but his careful search was finally rewarded.

“Here! Fletcher!” he shouted in triumph. Then, hoping that the door would not be locked from within, he pulled on the handle. The massive door, swinging back obediently on noiseless hinges, opened upon a room that seemed unusually bright after their dark passage through the castle. Both Darcy and Fletcher blinked and squinted as they stepped inside, their one small candle ridiculously faint against the light that now surrounded them.

“Darcy!” Lady Sylvanie appeared suddenly out of the penumbra cast by the many flaming candles. She advanced upon him, an imperious look upon her face. “You should not have followed me!”

Stung by her continuing hauteur in the face of her impossible situation, Darcy drew up and matched her will with his own. “My lady, should or no is immaterial,” he declared icily. “I am here, and here to warn you that you can proceed no further. You endanger your brother’s life, the well-being of his guests, and the future of the servants of this house with this detestable course! Give over! A mob is at the very doors of the castle. Release the child to me, and I will see to it that you and your companion leave Norwycke unharmed and bound for wherever you will.”

“ You will see…!” she sputtered.

“You have my word on it, but you must understand this.” He leaned over her, his eyes commanding. “I do not negotiate. Your game is played out, and you have lost!”