Page 65 of Her Affections and Wishes

“I scarcely know her,” Mr Travers repeated.

Darcy cursed viciously. “You do know her! You did not marry her when you ought to have done, and now your daughter is in the same situation. It has driven Lady Metcalfe to this wild scheme.” A dreadful thought came to him. “She told you about Miss Metcalfe. Did you tell her you would not marry her unless Miss Metcalfe found a husband?”

“I do not know what you mean. She is nothing to me. A friend I see at race meetings.”

“And do you ask her for money to gamble with when you see her at these meetings, just like you asked me to fund your spending this week? Good God, do you take her money and take her body? Lady Metcalfe thought she could finally have you, and you pushed her away again. But you were never going to marry the mother of your child, were you?”

Mr Travers blanched. “You have said quite enough. That woman and her daughter are nothing to me.” He turned his horse and rode away.

Of course Mr Travers denied her. He would engage in the act with her, but he had been taking advantage of Lady Metcalfe’s affection for him for over twenty years. And now Lady Metcalfe had fallen into some sort of insanity from desperation.

The compulsion to find Elizabeth and find her now crashed over him as Darcy turned in his saddle and looked all round. Men and boys with carts were everywhere, but what if Lady Metcalfe never even came to the turf? What if Lady Metcalfe drove toward Epsom and then took the road to London and dumped Elizabeth somewhere along the way?

A wave of terror washed over him, and he blew out a ragged breath, his chest heaving. He could not give up hope.

Lady Metcalfe wanted Elizabeth out of the way so Julia could trap him into marriage. She wanted her dead, but she lacked the resolve to do the act herself. The vase, the carriage fall, the poison. They all could have been deadly, but they were acts committed from a distance, a physical and emotional distance. Would Lady Metcalfe strangle, stab, or shoot Elizabeth? Likely not. If they were here, there was time to find her before any further harm came to her.

The alternative would destroy him.

“Mr Darcy!” Henry cried. “I think that is our pony.”

He pointed across the turf to just past the sharp bend in the course. It took Darcy a moment to settle his eyes in the right place. There was a cart next to a publican’s booth, the back adjacent to the turf, with a man in the bed with his back to them. The pony looked like any other yellow dun.

“But how can you be certain at such a distance?”

Henry squinted and sighed. “I am not sure. Mamma?”

“Oh,” fretted Mrs Tessier, who fidgeted with her bracelet as she peered across the course. “I do not know.”

The man in the cart stood upright and roughly nudged whatever was at his feet. Could that be them? Or was he a drowning man grasping at straws? “Is that Lady Metcalfe?” Darcy asked.

“No, that is just a young man,” insisted Mrs Tessier, who had her hands against her bonnet’s brim to further shield her eyes from the glare.

There was something in the cart, but who could tell if it was Elizabeth? He could not even tell if that was Lady Metcalfe.

There was a shift in the crowd’s energy as the horses in the final race approached the starting place.

“Those are my clothes,” muttered Henry.

“What? How can you tell?”

Henry pointed again. “See when he bends down to pick up those horse rugs again? My mother asked for two suits of clothes for the girls to wear to the races. Miss Bennet wore one, and I swear that is the other. Green coat, cut away at the front, velvet collar, turned-back cuffs, striped nankeen trousers.”

Henry was practically a clotheshorse for all his love of looking fashionable. If that was Lady Metcalfe, the bundle at her feet must be Elizabeth. A cheer went through the crowd as all the horses were now at the starting place. Darcy watched the person bend down and haul the bundle toward the edge of the cart, and then he saw two feet furiously kicking.

Horror filled his heart, and he swayed in the saddle.

She had Elizabeth wrapped in something so she could not move, and Lady Metcalfe was going to toss her onto the turf to be trampled to death by the racing horses.

“I have to get over there.” How was he to get around in time, and in this crowd of thousands?

“There is Sir John,” cried Henry, pointing to his right. He waved his arms and yelled for his attention.

Sir John was across the course, struggling to make his way through the cheering throng. Even if Henry got his attention, he would never make it to the cart in time. Darcy would have to ride across the turf to get to Lady Metcalfe before the horses started.

He pressed his horse forward to cross the turf, but two men rushed in front of him. There were no barriers to keep the course in good order, but bystanders or race officials stopped anyone who did not have the sense not to put themselves into the way.

“Stay off the turf!”