Page 32 of Mr. Darcy’s Victorious Bride

"Mr. Darcy, I expect. He copies him. The walk. The hands behind the back. He'll be wanting a cravat next." Henson nodded at a cot at the end of the aisle. "I've moved my bed down beside the stall, miss. Pratt sleeps over the tack room. Nobody gets at that boy but through the two of us."

Jane smiled. Then she saw the broom, still propped against the stall wall within the boy's reach. He had not put it down.

Going up to check on Lydia, Jane stopped at the landing window.

Corporal Pratt was crossing the stable yard below, and not at his usual ambling patrol. He was walking toward the lane with his hand at his belt. Beyond the gate, on the Meryton road, a rider had stopped. He was not watching the house. He was watching the stable yard.

Jane stood very still. Who was he? The rider sat a long moment. Then he turned his horse back toward the village. Pratt stood in the lane and watched him out of sight.

Jane pressed her hand flat against the cold glass. Lydia was safe home, and still someone was watching Netherfield. Everyone she loved was inside this house, save one small boy in the stable below.

She sent word to the housekeeper to bar every outer door by dusk. Then she went to check on Lydia.

CHAPTER 10

Richard's note came up from Meryton before the breakfast things were cleared. His own man brought it, mud to the knees.

Mrs. Darter's shop was entered in the night. Every bolt of silk cut through with a knife. She is unhurt and very angry. I am with her. R.

Elizabeth read it twice. Then she set down her cup.

"You are going," Jane said. It was not a question.

"I am going."

"Fitzwilliam will not like it."

"Fitzwilliam is in London, and Richard is in Meryton. I shall be under a colonel's eye from the moment I step down." She was already rising. "She made my ball gown, Jane. She pinned me into it with her mouth full of pins and scolded me for breathing. I will not send her a note!"

Jane looked at her a long moment. "Take the carriage. And a groom on the box."

"And a pistol, and a regiment, and Miss Maisie to bite anyone who looks at me," Elizabeth said. "Yes, dearest. The carriage."

Meryton had never looked so ordinary. The baker's boy whistled past with his tray. Two ladies she half knew bowed from the draper's step. Who would guess that a man had come here in the dark with a knife?

Richard stood at the shop door with his arms folded. He came down to hand her out, and he did not smile. "I thought you might come," he said. "I told myself you would have more sense."

"Then you were wrong twice. How is she?"

"See for yourself."

The bell over the door rang its usual bright note. Elizabeth stopped on the threshold.

The shop floor was covered in silk. Not bolts. Strips. Blue, dove gray, and a deep rose she had once fingered and put back for the price. Who had drawn a blade down the length of every roll on the shelves? The cut edges lay curled on the boards.

Evie was sweeping with a face swollen from crying. Mrs. Darter stood behind the counter, measuring a length of plain cotton against the brass rule. She was singing under her breath. A hymn. Elizabeth knew it at once. Jane had taught it to her in this very shop, the last time the sisters came in for a fitting.

"Mrs. Darter."

The singing stopped. Mrs. Darter looked up, and her face did something complicated. "Mrs. Darcy. You should not have come." She had pins through her apron and a length of ruined blue silk over her arm. Anger had brought the island French up strong in her voice. "Look at my floor! Look at it! Four months of stock, on a London man's credit, and I am still paying for it."

"The cotton?"

"Not touched. The ribbons, not touched. The cash box, not touched." Mrs. Darter laid the blue silk on the counter and smoothed it flat. It could not be saved. "They wanted me to know it was not thieves. It was a message. That man's solicitor stood where you are standing and told me there would be consequences. I told him to leave my shop. These are the consequences."

Elizabeth's stomach turned over. She had been cut before. She knew exactly how much care went into a cut meant to be read. "Why were you singing?" she asked.

Mrs. Darter's mouth worked. "Your sister taught me that hymn. I sing it and my hands stay still. If I stop, I start shaking. And I will not give that man the satisfaction of shaking."