The Phantom of Pemberley (23 page)

Carefully, he climbed the stairs leading to the second level. Besides Darcy’s study and several sitting rooms, this level sported additional guest quarters and the main ballroom.There were four secret doorways on this floor. Easing into an empty guest room through an opening behind the wardrobe, he moved quietly to the door. He released the lock and opened it a few inches so that he might observe the goings-on. Servants cleaned wall sconces and picture frames, but no one seemed to be searching for him, a fact that he could not understand, but one he gladly accepted.

If the roads had not turned impassable, he might have stolen some of the rooms’ smaller items and taken them to the next village to sell for a quick profit. But now there was no urgency to fill sacks with silver candlesticks or cutlery. Besides, the missing items would increase Darcy’s efforts to capture him, and right now, James wanted Darcy to assume that he no longer “haunted” the main house.

Leaving the servants behind, he returned to the blackened passageways. Giving his eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness, he took up the candle again and climbed to the next level. Fewer openings were available on this floor. One was in Georgiana Darcy’s room, and the other in the room originally given to Miss de Bourgh’s companion. That room now stood empty, a happy circumstance for him. There were other openings—ones he used to observe the Darcys, the viscount, and his objective—mere slits through which he could watch the comings and goings of the room’s occupants without being detected.The slits were hidden among the items decorating the walls. One was a three-inch section of painted woodwork next to a light fixture; another was hidden by the edge of a picture frame.The best one, in Elizabeth Darcy’s room, was the bottom support for a beveled mirror hung over the mantel. James enjoyed watching Elizabeth Darcy. He marveled at the intimacy the lady shared with her husband.

From the doorway of what had been Mrs. Jenkinson’s room, James watched as Anne de Bourgh slipped into the room next to Georgiana Darcy’s. Evidently, Darcy’s cousin had changed rooms after the first death.That suited him well, giving him some freedom he would not have had otherwise. Miss Darcy followed closely behind her cousin. The girl had matured dramatically over the past two years. Her sweet innocence had become an ethereal sort of beauty. Her pale skin and the soft blonde curls framing her face reminded him of a Greek goddess; he imagined her draped in white satin and posing, statue like. In his imagination, she posed for him before he undressed her and sated himself.

Finally, Elizabeth Darcy entered the hallway, followed closely by her younger sister. “Let us see if the blue muslin will fit you. I think a tuck or two will be just what you need to make the dress work for you. It will go better with your coloring than mine.”The women slipped inside Lydia Wickham’s room without noticing his peering out at them.

Without further ado, he closed the door gently and slid through the open passageway into the darkness. He would make his way to the secret door in the cold cellar. There he would take a round of cheese and some cold ham. The mid-afternoon meal beckoned. If luck stayed with him, he might also find a carafe of port or wine, maybe even an apple or some other fresh fruit.

Tonight, he might risk sleeping in one of the east wing’s empty rooms. Even the extra blankets and counterpanes that he hid in his secret antechamber could not ward off the passage’s cold. He wanted Darcy to develop a false sense of security—to think that his “phantom” had departed. He would take care neither to disturb the bedding nor take so much food that it would be easily missed. He would give the impression that the danger had passed. With a satisfaction he had not anticipated, James made his way to the below-stairs level. Soon, he thought—tomorrow or the next day—he must leave
.
Yet, today would be the day he made it all happen.

A CONSISTENT LIGHT TAPPING came on his wife’s chamber door in the middle of the night. A bad omen. Darcy fought his way to consciousness and rolled to the side of the bed. Elizabeth pulled the sheet to her chest as he slipped on his breeches and robe.

“What is it, Fitzwilliam?” she whispered from behind the bed drape.

“I do not know.” Darcy made his way to the door and cracked it a few inches to look into the worried face of his butler.“What is so important, Mr. Baldwin, that you wake me at this hour?”

“Forgive me, Mr. Darcy,” the man said as he adjusted the candle he carried.“I had the men checking the house, just as you ordered. Jatson reports that the door to one of the rooms in the east wing is locked from the inside. It was not locked when he made his rounds at ten o’clock. I have placed him on guard outside the room, and I have the master key here.” He held up a ring of keys.

Darcy opened the door wider.“Let me find some shoes and retrieve my gun.” He turned around. Elizabeth stood beside the bed, her gown and robe on. “Stay here,” he ordered before she could speak. “Lock the door and do not open it to anyone except me.”

“Be careful, Fitzwilliam,” she cautioned.

He squeezed her hand before exiting the room. Darcy paused long enough to hear her turn the key lock and then followed his men through the shadowy hallways of his home. His heart raced—the possibility of catching the mysterious intruder made him breathless.

A stranger had invaded Pemberley, and try as he might, Darcy had been unable to capture the man. He possessed a description of the intruder, and Darcy had set his men as guards throughout the house, hoping to detain the interloper without any more deaths. Now, it appeared that his enemy boldly took up residence in one of Darcy’s guest rooms. Apprehending the man would give Darcy great pleasure.

Mr. Baldwin, Darcy, and Murray paused at the end of the hallway, preparing their assault.

“Mr. Baldwin will set the key and quickly turn the lock. Then you and I will charge the room, Murray.” Darcy cocked the small handgun he carried. “Be careful—all of you.” He motioned Jatson to join them. “I want no more deaths in this house.”

“I be not leavin’ the hall, Mr. Darcy. No one be ’scapin’ the room,” Jatson assured him.

“Good man.” Darcy and the others began to edge toward the designated room. They stepped slowly and cautiously, avoiding the creaking floorboards. Darcy motioned Mr. Baldwin to the other side of the door frame.

Slowly and meticulously, the butler silently slid the master key into the keyhole and steadied his hand. With a nod of his head, Darcy indicated to his man to turn the key and to step back. Mr. Baldwin followed the silent order. He turned the key, the lock loudly echoing in the empty hallway. Immediately, all hell broke loose. Darcy and Murray hit the door together, but it did not give. Instead, a straight-backed chair, lodged under the handle, and a nearby desk blocked the way.They doubled their efforts, hitting the door with shoulders and shoving with all their might.
So much for the element of surprise!

 

James entered the east wing guest room after the Darcy household had retired for the night. He made his rounds, checking the rooms to which he had access. He saw, for example, the viscount, attired in a casual manner, leave the room assigned to him.The man checked over his shoulder repeatedly as he made his way down the right
hall. James assumed that His Lordship slept elsewhere. He could see the other bedrooms—or at least, the hallway leading to them. But the man did not enter those areas designated for the family. Instead, the viscount turned to his left, moving stealthily through the shadows. Only two rooms in the main hallway were occupied: one by the widow and one by the viscount’s extremely attractive cousin. James’s intuition told him that the man’s cousin was move than a
relative
—likely, the future earl’s mistress. The fact that Darcy would tolerate such an alliance under Pemberley’s roof surprised him.The master of Pemberley had softened, which would help him defeat Darcy.

Leaving Darcy’s guests to their own amusements, he made his way to the house’s empty wing. For a change, he would spend the night in a real bed. He would sleep in his clothes, something he did quite often of late.To secure the room, he wedged a chair under the door handle, setting the straight-back chair at a forty-five degree angle. He turned the key softly to lock the door. Finally, he slid a desk to block the door frame.All those precautions would give him time to escape if Darcy and his men discovered him.

He left the secret passage’s latch unhooked and the door slightly ajar, making it easier to shove it open, as well as setting the sword at ready. Then, as a diversion, he released the window’s locking mechanism. Finally, he crawled into the bed, tossing the counter-pane over him and cradling a pillow. He needed a night’s sleep. For a week, he had slept a few hours here and a few more there. The lack of sleep affected his ability to deal with Darcy’s household effectively.

 

He rested for three solid hours. Once James thought he heard someone in the hallway, but the noise moved away, and he drifted back to sleep; so when the key turned in the lock, he did not expect it, but it instantly alerted him. Jumping from the bed, he threw the linens aside. He had planned his escape carefully, and as he hurried toward the secret passageway, he paused only long enough to pull the shutters and the window open.

Krr-thump!
His head snapped around at the sound of bodies hitting the barricaded door.

“Push!” He heard Darcy order his servant. He would have liked to stay and see Darcy’s face when he realized who the intruder was—but it was too soon. He still had scores to even and vengeance to exact, so he wedged his fingers into the opening and slid the fake door open far enough to fit his body through. Catching the lever on the other side, he swung the door into place and secured the latch just as Darcy and his man hit the door a second time—splintering the legs of the wedged chair and shoving the desk away from the opening.

 

Darcy and Murray hit the door a second time. Darcy heard the wood split and in the small opening he saw a flash of color move away from the bed and toward the far wall. As he and Murray put their backs into moving the furniture piled before the door, a rush of cold air swept through the opening. A loud click punctuated their efforts.

When the desk finally gave way, and he and Murray managed to squeeze through the narrow opening, Darcy’s anger took hold. Even before he made his stumbling entrance into the room, he knew they would find nothing.Turning around once and then once more, he took in the entire room. Other than the chair, desk, messy bed, and an open window, nothing was out of place. “Damn!” he hissed. “What the bloody hell is going on in this house?” Out of pure frustration, he forcibly flipped the desk on its side. If not for the heavy furniture, they could have cornered the intruder.

“I do not see anything outside, Mr. Darcy.” Mr. Baldwin leaned out the window, looking for traces of the man’s escape. “I see no footprints in the snow.”

“I do not think the intruder went out the window.” Darcy’s eyes searched the walls. He motioned Murray through to the adjoining passage, although intuitively Darcy knew the footman would find nothing.

Moments later, Murray returned empty-handed. “I went all the way through the other room, Mr. Darcy. All the way to the outside
hall. The only thing I encountered was Jatson, where we left him. He swears no one came his way. The man had to go out the window. Maybe he went up instead of down?”

“Our phantom scaled the icy walls and entered an open window of the tomb we have created on the upper floor? Absent supernatural powers, that is not possible, Murray.”

The footman shrugged. “Where else could he be, sir?”

“I wish I knew, Murray.” Darcy released the gun’s cocking mechanism. He would not need the weapon tonight. Earlier this evening, he and the viscount had discussed the possibility of the specter’s departure. Things had seemed to resume a normalcy as the day progressed. Georgiana had returned to the piano. Elizabeth and Lydia had taken on the alteration of one of his wife’s summer gowns for her sister. Mr.Worth and Anne had reportedly sat in the conservatory for hours. Mrs.Williams and his aunt, along with Miss Donnel, had played loo, while he and the viscount had taken up a closely matched game of chess. Throughout, his men had remained on watch, but nothing out of the ordinary had happened, and he had relaxed, thinking the worst over.

Now, he chased a ghost—a shadow. No wonder his people entertained the possibility of a haunting—of a shadow man taking up residency at Pemberley. If he was not a man of logic, Darcy thought he might believe in such legends himself. He simply hoped that warmer weather would make an appearance soon, releasing Pemberley from Winter’s icy death grip.

“Close it.” He gestured toward the window. “Nothing to see here.” He walked about the room, letting his fingers trace the wallpaper, looking for something—he knew not what. “He just disappears—into thin air.” His fingers continued their journey.