The wine had been poured but the food was not yet served when Mr. Tilney enacted their plan; he intended the meal to be delayed until Sir Walter had been dealt with. Mr. Tilney raised his glass. “Fear not; I have been in the dining room the whole time the table was set; we are perfectly safe. And so, I wish to make a toast, as strange as it may seem to celebrate. I hope you will all add your congratulations to my own, for the long awaited engagement of Sir Edward Gardiner and Lady Allen, as well as the betrothals of Miss Woodhouse and Mr. Willoughby, and Miss Bennet and Mr. Darcy.”
Elizabeth met Mr. Darcy’s eyes from down the table and shared a warm smile with him. She had been so preoccupied with solving the murders that it had not yet begun to feel real to her yet, that she should become his wife. But soon, she knew, she would have time to acclimate to her future life, and she would do very well indeed if he would always look at her with such adoration in his gaze.
As they all raised their glasses, the table humming with excited chatter, Mr. Tilney added one final thing. “And a toast to the man who has killed six people in this castle; we know who you are.”
Just as planned, Mr. Tilney fixed a lingering stare on Mr. Crawford, for long enough that Mrs. Rushworth pushed herchair back and ran to her lover, crying out in his defense. There was now space for Mr. Willoughby to seize Sir Walter from that direction. Elizabeth needed to clear the other side; she needed to move.
Elizabeth stood, ready to pursue Mrs. Rushworth in a charade of calming her down. But her dress caught on the carved scrollwork of the chair, and she did not move fast enough. As Mr. Tilney shifted his gaze and pronounced Sir Walter’s name, Mr. Darcy and Sir Edward began to reach for their pistols. Mr. Crawford was ready to accost Sir Walter, if Elizabeth could remove herself from his path.
But as she tugged at her gown, Sir Walter stood and jerked her by the arm with one hand and reached into his coat with the other. A moment later, the barrel of his gun was cold against her temple.
Chapter Fifteen
Elizabeth held perfectly still, every muscle in her body too tense for any movement to be possible. But her breath heaved and trembled as her eyes darted between Sir Edward and Mr. Darcy.
“Lower your weapons, gentlemen,” Sir Walter said with malicious triumph.
Sir Edward lowered his pistol slowly onto the table in front of him, his eyes wide and locked on Elizabeth. Mr. Darcy looked positively wild, his jaw clenched and his eyes black in the dim light. He swung his arm out wide, angling his pistol away from Sir Walter, and just as he began lowering his weapon, he tipped the barrel upward and pulled the trigger. The large crystal chandelier that hung over the center of the table came crashing down; everyone screamed and scattered from their seats.
It was just enough to distract Sir Walter. He took a few steps back, and tried to drag Elizabeth along within him, but her dress was still tangled on the chair. She went careening backward. Sir Walter turned to shoot, but his shot went afoul, and across the room a porcelain vase on the mantle shattered, sending flowers tumbling to the floor before the hearth.
“That vase belonged to Henry Tudor,” Mr. Tilney tutted as Mr. Willoughby and Mr. Crawford lunged at Sir Walter and wrestled him to the ground.
Elizabeth landed on her back with a loud rip as her dress tore free from the carved swirls on the chair. Her head thudded against the thick carpet, and she was sure her legs were exposed from the knees, but Mr. Darcy reached her before she could begin to right herself. He swiftly kicked the gun from Sir Walter’s hand, and it skittered across the floor; Cathy stopped it with her foot, and awkwardly picked it up, clutching it with two fingers as if it were a live toad. The gentlemen subdued the villain, and Mr. Darcy crouched beside Elizabeth and lifted her into his arms.
In a smooth motion, he covered her exposed legs with her gown and lifted her up as he rose; he did not set her down again. Instead he pulled her closer in his arms and kissed her. “Elizabeth….”
She raised a hand to his face and smiled, her forehead resting against his. “That was very clever, sir.”
“I almost lost you,” he said, his voice rough and shaky.
“You saved me.” She kissed him again before he set her down on her feet, and they both took a few steps back as the gentlemen began binding the thrashing, cursing Sir Walter with the rope that Sir Edward retrieved from a credenza near the fireplace.
When Sir Walter’s hands had been bound behind his back, and his ankles bound as well, Mr. Willoughby and Mr. Tilney hauled him to his feet. He swore and spat at them, red-faced and snarling with malice. “Let me go! I have done nothing wrong in ridding the world of five of the vilest slithering criminals!”
“Five?” Mr. Tilney frowned at him, his voice frigid. “You have lost count, sir – you must mean six.”
Sir Walter gave a cruel, hollow laugh. “Five. Wickham belonged in the gutter; nobody will mourn him. The general, whom you all ought to thank me for ending. Fred Tilney, the blackguard who locked us in this place, would certainly have made more of our secrets than his father. Mrs. Younge – ha! I had no quarrel with her, though she was the general’s spy and a filthy trollop. But I got Mrs. Clay on the second attempt. She eluded me, and thought to surround herself with other servants, as if that would save her. She was so surprised when I cornered her.”
Cathy gasped. “What about Mr. Rushworth?”
Sir Walter offered them all an evil grin as he glared about the room. “It appears there is an opportunist amongst you. Somebody wanted Rushworth gone, though I cannot say I blame them, and so they took advantage of my benevolence in ridding the world of scum, and added his body to the pile.”
Chaos erupted in the room; it was just what Elizabeth and her friends hoped to avoid. Mr. Crawford and Mrs. Rushworth began squabbling with Mr. Bertram, who swung for Mr. Crawford, missed, and received a blow from his foe that sent him careening backward into the credenza. Mr. Parker and Miss Denham shouted at them, Lady Susan howled with laughter, and Harriet inexplicably began weeping. Lady Allen and Emma fussed over her, while Cathy crossed the room and retrieved their bundle of evidence.
Mr. Tilney, looking supremely annoyed by the discord Sir Walter had sown, punched the man swiftly in the gut as Sir Edward and Mr. Willoughby continued to hold him roughly. Mr. Tilney then conducted a swift search of the man’s person, and tossed the stolen keys down heavily on the dining room table.
Mrs. Rushworth gasped. “You?” She stared down at the keys and then back up at him. “When you tried to embrace me, after Rushworth collapsed….”
“Your vanity gave me every chance to pretend to take liberties,” the villain sneered. Mr. Crawford crossed the room and cuffed Sir Walter for his insult.
Cathy came forward and gently nudged Mr. Crawford away before extending her hand to Sir Walter. In her palm was thevinaigrette de toilette.“Is this not yours?”
Sir Walter narrowed his eyes at her. “It is. I misplaced it, or so I had thought. I supposed it might have fallen from my pocket in my scuffle with the captain, and I went back to look for it in the parlor. When it was gone, I began to suspect there was a thief in our midst.”
“What is it?” Mr. Bertram went closer to have a look at the little silver object.
“Mrs. Rushworth and I found it in one of the secret passages,” Elizabeth said. Mr. Darcy still had his arm wrapped protectively around her, and she had no intention of withdrawing from his embrace.
