Page 61 of Her Affections and Wishes

His anger flared. “As though you have not been trying to harm her all week! Where is Elizabeth?”

“My mother said Miss Bennet wanted to go home,” she taunted. “She did not want to wait for you nor travel with us. Good riddance, I say. My mother sent her to Epsom to travel post. She even offered to send a man with her, but Miss Bennet refused. She left in a hurry, I hear. Perhaps she does not want you.”

A shot of fear hit him as he thought of Elizabeth’s missing trunks, and he saw the triumph in Julia’s eyes and instantly felt ashamed. Of course, their disagreement had not sent Elizabeth flying home to avoid him. Her trunks had more likely been put in his own carriage than she had run away from him. He had every reason to be secure of the depth and constancy of her feelings for him.

Even if she wanted to go to Longbourn without him, even if she wanted to end their engagement, she would have told him. She would have broken his heart delicately and in person, not snuck off at dawn.

But where was she?

Julia brought a hand over his, where he held her arm in place, stroking his fingers. “She left you, and I am very willing to console you.”

“I am finished being polite and keeping every suspicion to myself,” he bit out. “Miss Bennet is missing, and you tried to poison her.”

His grip on her arm tightened as she cried out, “It was not me!”

“You threw a vase at her, did you not? You saw us down there and grew angry that I wanted her and not you.”

“No.” Julia looked away, and Darcy forced her to meet his eye. She huffed. “I did not push over the vase…but I knew you were there. My mother told me. She saw you kissing in the entrance hall. She said if you stole away to kiss Miss Bennet, then you must be more easily swayed by female company than we thought. That I should try harder with you and I would eventually tempt you to more than kissing, then you could be coaxed to marry me.”

Darcy’s hold on her arm slackened. Had he been wrong this entire time? “And the carriage? What did your mother have to do with that?”

Julia’s eyes narrowed. “A fool whipped the horse. It was an accident.”

Icy dread seeped into his bones as the truth dawned on him: he had made a terrible mistake. “You were not on the carriage for the second race. Why not?”

“My mother told me not to watch the Oaks Stakes from the carriage—but she did not hit the horse to make Miss Bennet fall. She just told me not to pay her much notice. It was right to draw Mrs Tessier and myself away from Miss Bennet.” She scowled. “It was better to be seen amongst friends without her. A woman like her does not deserve the notice. My mother was not even there. It was a young man.”

Or it was an older woman dressed in trousers. “And the jib-door? That was your idea, and your mother helped you.”

Julia huffed. “Yes! I yelled down to draw Miss Bennet in, then locked the servants’ door whilst my mother blocked the jib-door. I did not know you were already on the stairs. We only thought to hide her away so you and I could spend time together.”

She rested her other hand on his chest with a sultry gaze, and he smacked it away. “I swear, if you touch me again or lie to me, I will strike you.” Julia blanched, and he felt guilty, but Elizabeth was in danger. “You are desperate to marry; is it because you expect a child?”

Julia gasped, then shook with rage, but under his unblinking glare, ultimately nodded. “I am nearly eight weeks gone,” she hissed. “The father is a footman, I think. Or possibly a viscount’s son. One is too lowly to marry, and the other one is already married. I need to marry someone now to convince him the child is his.”

“What a despicable trick,” he ground out. “I suppose your mother supports you. You wanted to seduce someone one evening in this house to make it easier to pass a child off as his and demand that he marries you. Then what about marrying Mr Travers? I saw you in the library⁠—”

“Mr Travers?” she cried, repulsed. Then she gave a dark laugh. “He is my father!”

His mouth fell open at her shocking admission. He had it all wrong again. The tall blonde with Mr Travers was not Julia but Lady Metcalfe. Not once had he assumed an older woman would be preferred over a younger girl. And Lady Metcalfe must be the young woman Mr Travers had been forbidden to marry all those years ago, even though she had been pregnant with his child.

Mr Travers was not a learned man, nor a curious one. And now Darcy knew he was not a man of conviction. Mr Travers once loved a woman, but baulked because of family expectations. He might have made his own way in the world with the mother of his child by his side, but he chose his family’s money. Any sympathy he had for the man was gone. He ought to have married Lady Metcalfe the instant he knew he had a child.

“He is your father?” he whispered, dropping Julia’s arm and still struggling to believe it.

“Sir Edward Metcalfe was my father,” she spat, “although it was in name only. My mother had to marry her distant cousin because Mr Travers wanted his income more than he wanted me. The parentage of my sisters and brother is also questionable. I know they have maintained their affair. Whenever my mother said she wanted to ‘go to a race meeting,’ we knew why.” Julia rubbed her sore arm and gave him a hateful scowl. “To throw her money and body at a good-for-nothing gamester.”

“Is she trying to get you a husband before it is too late, or is getting married herself her true goal?”

“My mother believes he will marry her now that she is free and out of mourning, but Mr Travers will never defy his father. She is a fool! His love of money is too great. But she thinks she will have an easier time appealing to Lord Patten if I was not in my current condition.”

“Where is your mother now? What has she done with Miss Bennet?” he pleaded.

“I don’t know, and I don’t care! I did not poison your bride,” she said, sneering the word “bride.” She moved around him and stormed toward the house, and Darcy was so stunned by her revelations that he let her go.

It explained the increasingly violent incidents, save for the jib-door, which seemed like Julia’s scheme that her mother had happily supported. But Lady Metcalfe tried to crush Elizabeth with a vase, and had dressed as a boy to throw her from the carriage, and then resorted to poison. These were the actions of a frantic, reckless woman suffering from delusions.

Was Lady Metcalfe protecting her daughter in some twisted way, going to extremes to see her wed because the family scandal would be unbearable? Or was it all means to an end to finally have the man who had abandoned her twenty years ago?