And he wanted to hear the wails and laments of those who loved that refusing whore.
“All right,” he said at last to Mr.Blight.“Have all her family watched — spend whatever is necessary.Know if they receive a letter from her, know if they behave different from their normal, know if they have a strange visitor.She will eventually long for England, and when the time happens, wewillseize her and remand her to the crown.”
“Yes, milord.”Blight bowed, his Adam’s apple bouncing against his greasy cravat.
“Dismissed.”
Blight went to the heavy oak door with a fine nude with exceptional breasts painted onto it.Some classical allusion that Lachglass had long since forgotten was the excuse for the painting.Mythology, in Lachglass’s view, was of value solely because it let everyone stick statues and paintings bare as Eve’s arse in public areas.
“And Spitey Blighty?”Lachglass added, as the man opened the door, his hand hovering next to the egg white breasts of the nymph on the door.
Blight looked back at Lachglass, hopefully a little wary, though Lachglass didn’t think he was.
“Fail me again, and I’ll fucking bury you alive.”
Blight inclined his head in his own impassive manner, and there was something in the curl of the man’s lip that suggested the threat amused him rather than frightened.
Chapter Ten
Fitzwilliam Darcy did not, in the general course of experience, get sick on the sea.He watched Elizabeth vomit with first concern, and then with a fond affection for her when he realized that she was not relapsing, or in any particular danger, but simply sick in the very unpleasant way many, many people had been.
Elizabeth lay on the deck, looking up at the stars, with Darcy next to her, for a half hour.They did not talk, both lost in their thoughts.
But he found himself, almost as though by accident holding her hand.
She gripped his back tightly.
He wanted to marry her.He always did, but now more than ever.
After some time of commune with the cold salty stars, Elizabeth began to drift off to sleep, and Darcy roused her.She looked at him with a smile, such a smile.Her smile was felt more than seen in the dim starlight.
She trusted him to care for her.
He took her arm to help her up.They came to their feet, and he helped her to the cabin that had been set aside for General Fitzwilliam, but which the officer gallantly gave up for the sake of the lady.They didn’t have any servants with them, so Darcy looked at Elizabeth in confusion, not sure if he should leave her in the bed to… undress herself… or if he should help her in some way.
Elizabeth seemed to see his confusion and she said with a sweet voice, steadying herself on his shoulder against a sudden rocking of the ship, “I will be quite at my leisure here.”
“Are you certain you need no help?”
Elizabeth laughed.“Quite, quite certain.”
Darcy looked at her with a smile as in the flickering light of a sea lamp she used her hand to steady her way through the narrow room, and then she sat on the thin bed.He closed the door behind Elizabeth, the tin knob cold on his hand, and went back up to the deck.
General Fitzwilliam joined him, with a freshly lit cigar in his hand, the glowing ember of the end bright against the velvety field of stars high above, and the single sliver of moon.
“Thank you, thank you, and thank you again,” Darcy said to his cousin.
General Fitzwilliam grunted and smiled, leaning much of his weight on the smoothed railing of the ship.“My pleasure.Just invite me early to any future like occasions.I like to be involved.”He took a deep pull from his cigar, and then blew out the smoke which pleasantly curled with the astringent and almost sweet smell of Carolina tobacco around Darcy before the salty sea breeze took it away.“When shall you two marry?”
Darcy coughed.
“Don’t be daft, she adores you.You adore her.What is there to wait for?”
“I can’t.”
“What do you mean you can’t?”General Fitzwilliam ground his cigar out on the railing and peered closely at Darcy.“You don’t mean to say you’ve got a secret wife somewhere?”
“Of course not!”
