Fitz whistled.“Very, very fine disguise.I’d pass you on the street without knowing you.”
“Well then, I’ll be off for our rendezvous in Brighton.I have a message of my own for my cousin, but do you want me to give him any personal regards?”
Fitz laughed.“Damned glad again,Ineed not claim any relation to that man.I’d ask you to wish him a jolly Happy Christmas, and a fine New Year as well, but afteryourpersonal regards have been received, he’ll hardly be in a proper state to appreciate those from anyone else.The pity.”
General Fitzwilliam laughed and started whistling.“It will be such a fine day.I think some part of me has wanted to do this since I was seventeen and I saw him beat his poor horse to death because he fell off.It will be a good day — make sure you look as ill as possible, and groan, and do not let anyone who is not in the conspiracy examine your face closely, and—”
“Don’t be a mother hen.”Fitz grinned.“Ten days or so of nothing to do but lie in bed and pretend to be sick, and maybe read a novel.”He worriedly glanced at the surgeon.“I will be well enough that I can read?”
The surgeon said in a serious voice, “I fear General Fitzwilliam even lacks the strength to keep the pages of a book raised.He certainly can sign no papers until the period of crisis is past.”
“Deuce.Should have known this was a crap assignment.Well, General Fitzwilliam will orderyouto read to me.”
“I have many duties,” the surgeon replied with an almost malicious smirk.Of course it was General Fitzwilliam’s opinion that all the best surgeons had a malicious streak.It was necessary to do the hacking parts of their job right.
“Don't ya worry.Don’t ya worry,” General Fitzwilliam’s valet, Jacob said.“Much as I hate to let the old general—”
“I’m only thirty and five.”
“—go off all alone into danger, I’ll keep ya company.I’ll even read to ya.Even one of those novels, and not the bible, though the bible would be good for ya soul.”
“Especially,” the surgeon inserted, “when you are so ill as to be quite on the verge of death, and with a contagious illness, so no one will be brave enough to bother General Fitzwilliam as he engages in deathly struggle with it.Major Williams, I’d recommend asking for him to read from the Bible to you.”
“All in hand I see.”General Fitzwilliam began whistling again, and he left the room.Ten minutes later he was on a horse to Calais, accompanied by an old veteran soldier who could be trusted in anything.From there he hopped on a packet boat owned by the Rothchilds whose captain owed him a favor.
*****
Two tied, blindfolded, and gagged gamekeepers in the employ of Lord Lachglass sat against the far rocky wall of the finely constructed hunting blind overlooking the field where Darcy and Elizabeth had come to parley.They both had large purpling bruises on their foreheads.
The location had been chosen by Lord Lachglass so he could put a pair of his most trusted men in this well-hidden hunting blind and have them shoot Elizabeth and Darcy if anything went wrong.
Both of the gamekeepers had that morning, long before General Fitzwilliam beat both of them over the head with a short truncheon, agreed they would do no such thing, and if the pair ran away, they would shootovertheir heads, and then claim to their employer that they had both missed.
That was before they had seen the soldiers.
The pair in fact would not have dared to shoot at all, if they had had the opportunity.
The Scottish soldier who had months earlier pretended to the Bow Street Runners to be illiterate as Elizabeth escaped England, stood next to the general, keeping an eye on Fitzwilliam’s back as he’d taken the shot.“Ye made a fine shot.Fine, fine shot I tell ye.”
“I did.”General Fitzwilliam wiped his handkerchief over his forehead.“Deuced closer than I wanted.But clever of Mrs.Darcy to get him to shift his aim point.But damn.A hell of a close matter.My cousin is a lucky man.She would have been a fine soldier if a man.”
“A brave woman.That she is.”
“That she is.”
“A fine shot, sir,” Fergus repeated as he quickly disassembled the rifle and without properly cleaning it packed the pieces away into long loaves of bread they’d carefully carved to let them fit the disassembled weapon in this morning.It was a trick they’d learned from the guerillas fighting the French in Spain.“A fine shot.”
General Fitzwilliam let out another long breath, some of the tension going, though he still needed to escape the murder scene and safely return to Cambrai, and his half-brother and his duties.“One of my better efforts,” he said, as the two of them hurried out of the hunting blind, walking through the denser parts of the forest.They went directly away from where the soldiers and the excitement was still audible.“Did I ever tell you of the times I hunted with Lord Lachglass?On this estate.We once shot at deer from this very hunting blind.Lachglass was an excellent shot, but he preferred to wing the birds to killing them, so they’d suffer before they died.It was my first realization — something was rotten in his soul.”
“A fine shot on your part, sir.Ye made a fine shot.”
“I should have done this years ago.Years and years ago.”
They reached the stream that General Fitzwilliam remembered from hunting on his uncle's estate so many years ago, and the two of them used a bar of soap they’d packed with them to wash off all the residue of the powder from the gunshot.
“How does my disguise look?”
“Perfect, General.Perfect.”
