Duty and Desire: A Novel of Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman

Darcy emptied the contents of his glass and turned just as Poole approached to demand his making of a fourth couple with Lady Beatrice. Placing the glass on an available tray, he traversed the room to the lady’s side, offering his hand and as pretty and meaningless a speech as he was able. Lady Beatrice gracefully received his meager compliments with perfect understanding, and they took their places in the square. As he anticipated the start of another country dance, he looked for Sylvanie, but she was not among the dancers.

“Called away, Mr. Darcy.” Lady Beatrice turned to him in the beginning curtsy with a knowing smile. “Lady Sylvanie and her serving woman left shortly after you parted, should you desire to know.” Darcy felt a flush rise to the level of Fletcher’s blasted knot.

“Indeed,” he replied indifferently and proceeded to ignore her speculative glances. It was not until some time later, after the last dance of the evening’s gathering was announced, that Lady Sylvanie returned, although without her companion. Darcy espied her from the corner of his eye as he set his partner into a turn under his hand. When the last chord sounded, he hurriedly performed his bow to the lady, but Lady Sylvanie’s eyes had already passed over him and come to rest upon Sayre. Her chin high, she accosted him in conversation with Lord Chelmsford and drew him apart with a show of humble insistence. Too distant from their exchange to overhear her words, Darcy could not misinterpret their effect. Sayre’s face turned first wary, then displeased. He looked about the room in agitation as his half sister continued to speak. Then something she said arrested his attention. He blanched. His eyes flicked to Darcy and then back to her as he bent to whisper something. Lady Sylvanie nodded, and the color returned to Sayre’s face. He nodded back curtly, and the two parted.

Darcy was certain the exchange had to do with the sword. The lady had demanded her brother put it down in play and, it appeared, had won the day. But to his surprise, the prized weapon had nothing to do with the announcement Sayre called the room to attend. “Gentlemen, gentlemen!” he boomed above the sea of conversation. “And ladies!” The room quieted. “It has been brought to my attention that the dancing has so pleased the ladies that they are persuaded that the evening should not yet end. It is proposed that tonight, if they so choose, the hardy females among us be welcomed to observe the gentlemen in our night’s battle of chance.”

Along with the other men, Darcy stood in astonished silence at the proposal. Ladies present during a night of gambling? He’d heard whispers of such at parties hosted by His Royal Highness’s closest friends, but what was this? In contrast, the young ladies seemed very taken with the idea, and it was their enthusiasm that recalled the gentlemen from their dumb surprise into a tentative, then zealous display of approval of the scheme.

“Sayre!” shouted Monmouth above the hum, “I propose that your metaphor be turned to fact and that the ‘battle’ be engaged in the honor of each gentleman’s own lady!” He turned a wicked grin upon the twittery bevy of silk and added, “Of course, each lady must favor her champion with a token to display on the field, something intimate of her person to spur him on, a charm—as it were—to provide him luck at the table.” The outcry from the ladies that greeted his demand was one of deliciously scandalized delight, and immediately they set about in frantic searches of their costumes for ribbons, lace, or handkerchiefs that might answer Lord Monmouth’s requirement.

It was then that Lady Sylvanie came to Darcy, her lips curled in a derisive smile that invited him to join her in amusement at the scrambling and posturing of the others. Without a word, she brought from the warmth of her bodice a scrap of white linen bound into a small bundle by a strip of leather, and taking a pin embedded in her dress for the purpose, pinned the token to his lapel, directly atop his heart.

“What is this, lady?” Darcy asked in a whisper, remembering his glimpse of it earlier when she had tucked it in her bodice.

“My favor, Sir Knight. Were you not listening?” she teased him. An involuntary current raced through him. For all his suspicions of her, her closeness and their intimate contact were still not easily dismissed.

“But you could not know that Monmouth would suggest such a thing. This ‘favor’ was not lately made.”

“No, not ‘lately’ made, you are correct.” She smiled as she tested the charm’s security on his breast, “but of far greater worth than the trumpery now being exchanged. You see, everyone believes in luck. It is merely a matter of degree…or daring.”

“Dare I ask what it contains?” he returned, hiding his distaste behind a show of wit. Given what he suspected of her, the possibilities were revolting.

“This and that,” she answered lightly. Then looking up at him through thick, black lashes, she added, “It will not fail us. Later, when all is well and we are private, I will show you.”

Sayre’s voice called them to order with a command to the gentlemen that they escort their fair ladies to the library. The excited pairs took their places, and it was soon seen which of the females had dared to accept the invitation. Lady Felicia’s presence on Manning’s arm did not surprise Darcy in the least, nor the disclosure that Miss Avery would be retiring at her brother’s command. Lady Chelmsford also declined to pierce the mysteries of the gaming table, declaring herself too fatigued to begin a new amusement. Miss Farnsworth had bestowed her favor upon Poole, Lady Beatrice’s hand rested on Monmouth’s arm, and Lady Sayre clung to her lord. To Darcy’s mind, she appeared somewhat agitated, and he could well imagine that Sylvanie’s interference in her designs for the evening had not been received with equanimity.

Sayre and his lady took the head of the line, and the company proceeded under their lead. Darcy cocked his head in wordless invitation to Lady Sylvanie and offered his arm. With equal hauteur, the lady obliged him, and they took their station. Their stately procession was conducted with only a solitary lamp held high by a manservant to light their way through the shadowy corridors. Aside from the two servants who opened the library’s doors, Darcy saw not a single soul but those of the company.

The library itself was transformed. The bare shelves had been arranged with candles, a fire crackled in the hearth, and around the room were set chairs and tables for the ladies. To one side the board, which usually supported only the stronger beverages, now boasted the lighter fare favored by ladies as well as the sterner stuff required by the gentlemen. In addition, serving dishes of sliced bread and cold meats, along with chicken salad and fruit, competed with the tall amber and green bottles for the company’s attention. But most compelling was the repositioning of the gaming table. It now occupied the middle of the room, and all else was arranged around it in receding circles. The gentlemen’s chairs were already drawn up, and at each place rested a card. A quick survey confirmed Darcy’s expectation. His card placed him facing the nearby window. He looked back at the woman on his arm, who returned him a percipient smile. But even as he nodded his understanding, the smile suddenly fled her face; and her hold on his arm convulsed, her attention wholly caught by something behind him.

“Good evening, sir…my lady.” Fletcher’s voice came from behind Darcy’s shoulder.

Thank God! Darcy exhaled deeply while the tension of the evening abated. He turned to acknowledge his trusted ally. “Fletcher?”

“Mr. Darcy.” Fletcher bowed deeply. “All is in readiness, sir.” He rose and met Darcy’s eyes only briefly before adding in a meaningful accent, “I have seen to everything myself.” If Darcy understood his valet aright, he had examined the tables and chairs for hidden compartments and assured himself of the inviolate purity of the packs of cards that lay in their seal-bound boxes. “Good man.” Darcy nodded his approval.

“May I prepare a plate for you, sir? Or Her Ladyship?” Fletcher’s gaze passed blandly from Darcy to Lady Sylvanie. “A glass of wine, perhaps?”

“My lady?” Darcy inquired, looking down into Sylvanie’s face. Her eyes, he observed, were narrowed upon Fletcher in an alarming manner, and her hold upon his arm had not diminished since her first sight of the valet. To his supreme credit, neither Fletcher’s face nor his posture indicated notice of the lady’s animosity. Nor did he flinch from his purpose, for he stood his ground and waited in seeming polite, disinterested silence for a response.

The tension of her clasp lessened, and with a brief glance at him, she answered, “A glass of wine is all I shall require for the evening.”

“Very good, my lady.” Fletcher turned to his master. “Sir, His Lordship has ordered broken open a bottle that has aroused some interest among the gentlemen. Would you care to examine it before I procure you a glass?” The polite disinterest Fletcher had turned upon Lady Sylvanie still ordered his features, but new as they both were to this sort of game, Darcy did not need a sign painted for him.

“My lady,” he addressed her carefully, “may I escort you to a chair before seeing to this bottle?”

“You may,” she answered smoothly and indicated a chair immediately behind and to the right of the one assigned to him at the table. “I shall be most comfortable. We both shall, as you come to understand.” She lightly caressed the token at his breast and then, with a secret smile, allowed him to conduct her to her place. Repressing a shudder at the dark, conspiratorial temper of her words and the satisfaction of her countenance, he seated her and strode directly to Fletcher at the board.

“Yes?” he hissed to him as he took the bottle Fletcher handed him and feigned a serious contemplation of the label.

“Something is happening, sir. The old woman had everyone in a state over the preparations for this game. Is it not unusual for ladies to be present, sir?”

“Yes, in my experience; although I’ve heard—But that is not to the point. The servants are disturbed, you say?”

“Indeed, Mr. Darcy, but not only due to the sudden change. The snow ceased some hours ago, and servants caught in Chipping Norton by the storm have finally gotten through to the castle. It is the rumor they’ve brought, sir, that has the underhousehold in such a ferment.” He paused, and his eyes fell upon Lady Sylvanie’s token. “What is that, sir?” he whispered in a horrified voice.

“Lady Sylvanie’s token for luck tonight at the table. Forget it, man! What is this rumor?” Darcy’s effort to keep his voice and body from expressing his agitation was near choking him.

His gaze still focused on the token, Fletcher’s voice quavered. “The rumor, sir, is that a child is missing, a boy-child of one of Sayre’s poorest tenants. A babe, really, not yet old enough to walk.”

“What!” Darcy hissed and looked involuntarily to Lady Sylvanie. The lady cocked her head in question in such a way as to communicate that her patience for his conversation with his valet was wearing thin. A child missing! Good God! Darcy’s stomach turned as he warred against the rising fear that the scene he’d come upon at the Stones was about to be played out in truth. If this was so, the danger of the situation was now multiplied, but he could not multiply himself, nor could he send Fletcher out to turn over the entire castle single-handed. Neither could he call upon Sayre. What did he have but his suspicions and servants’ gossip? He saw his only course and set it into motion. “I must take my seat, and you must attend me; but I will send you on various ‘errands’ during the game. See what you can learn. But for God’s sake, Fletcher, take care!”

“Yes, sir.” The valet breathed deeply and nodded, then indicated the bottle. “Do you wish anything, sir?”

“Not this!” Darcy dismissed the ancient bottle of Scotch whisky. “A thimble of port for now will suffice. Your news…” He left the sentence unfinished, dismissed Fletcher to procure the wine and port, and turned back to the room.

The other gentlemen, glasses in hand, were taking their seats while the women floated toward theirs, giddy at their daring in attending an activity from which they had heretofore been excluded. Lady Sylvanie waited for Darcy, her pose one of patient calm; but when he took his seat, she reached out her hand, her fingertips brushing his, and he knew that the fire he had detected during their dance was returned. He forced himself to respond in kind to her smile, but in truth, after this latest news he could now barely stand to be near her. Uncomfortable at the realization that she would be at his back throughout the night’s play, he renewed his gratitude that he had thought to require Fletcher’s attendance.

In a few moments, the valet approached them, two glasses in hand, and Darcy marveled again at the impassivity in his face and demeanor. “Mr. Darcy, my lady,” he murmured as he handed them their glasses. Then, at Darcy’s nod, he took up a position on his master’s left.

“Does your valet stay with you?” Lady Sylvanie asked in a tight voice, belying the smile on her lips. “I was not aware that such a thing was done.”

“No more so than the presence of gentlewomen,” he replied evenly just as Sayre, sitting opposite him, rapped for attention. Chairs were pulled up to the large, round gaming table that Sayre had specially commissioned in more prosperous times. Manning took the place to Sayre’s left, and Poole appropriated the next at Darcy’s right. On Darcy’s left sat Monmouth, followed by Chelmsford. As had been his custom, Trenholme did not join them at the table but hovered about the rim of play, anxiously watching his brother while soothing his fears with liberal amounts of whatever libation lay at hand.

“There now, shall we begin?” Sayre reached for one of the packages of cards and offered it to Manning. The Baron obliged him, taking it and breaking open the seal before handing it on to Poole, who shook the cards from their wrapping and passed the deck back to Sayre. “Is Primero agreeable?” Their host looked round the table and, encountering no opposition, began to remove the unneeded 8s, 9s, and 10s. The amendment completed, he then shuffled the deck and dealt out two cards each.

Darcy picked up his cards: The 4 and 7 of spades—a numerus of 35—possibly the beginning of a fluxus but not enough to tempt him to place a bid. He flicked his hand to pass as Manning and Poole had before him. Monmouth and Chelmsford did the same. Evidently, no one was feeling lucky as yet. Sayre dealt out the remaining two cards each and placed the deck to one side. A wave of expectation flowed around the table as the ladies bent forward to see what their champions had drawn. Darcy’s gaze flickered through the assemblage about the table, assessing the expression of each lady’s face as the gentlemen brought up their new cards and arranged them in their hands. The other players did the same, and Darcy experienced his first satisfaction with the evening when their glances rested briefly on the lady behind him and turned quickly away. No, they would gain nothing by observing Sylvanie, of that he was more than confident. He palmed his two new cards and assessed his hand: an ace of spades and a 2 of diamonds joined the other cards in his possession, now a numerus of 51. He still had the outside possibility of gaining a fluxus from the draw, but if the cards came his way, he held in his hand the majority of the lesser maximus as well. He decided to pass and see what the draw brought him.

Manning passed, discarding two cards and drawing two, but Poole placed half a crown on the table and bid a primero 30, an obvious underbid. Darcy passed as he had intended, discarded the 2 of diamonds, and against all odds, he drew the 6 of spades, satisfying the requirements for both a maximus and the more powerful fluxus! He counted his hand, hardly daring to breathe, and came to a total of 69, only one point short of a perfect 70. A light sigh of satisfaction accompanied by the rustling sound of skirts being rearranged drifted to his ears from behind him. Darcy’s shoulders stiffened. Did Sylvanie mean him to credit her for the cards in his hand? He steeled himself against any such temptation as he regarded his incredibly fortunate hand. No, neither the lady nor her devilish token had anything whatsoever to do with it! He set his cards facedown on the table.

Monmouth staked Poole’s half crown and threw in a crown with a bid of primero 36, to the delight of Lady Beatrice, leaving Chelmsford to pass and exchange two cards. The play was now to Sayre, who staked Monmouth and advanced two guineas with a bid of primero 40. Manning looked from under hooded eyelids at the coins on the table and, with a careless smile, tossed out two guineas and another two along with a bid of primero 42. Poole met it, and the play came back to Darcy. Two guineas pinged against the pile of coins on the table, followed by two more as he announced a maximus 55. Poole flinched, but Monmouth gamely staked Darcy’s bid. Chelmsford passed again, replacing only one card, and the play was back to Sayre. His Lordship staked the two golden boys, as did Manning, who peered sharply at Darcy and then advanced three more. Losing his nerve, Poole passed, discarding a card and drawing a replacement.

It was now back to Darcy. Manning obviously held much more than a primero 40, but unless he held a chorus, Darcy had him. Without referring to his cards, which still lay on the table in front of him, Darcy leaned forward, placed three more guineas in the center and advanced another five.

“Too deep for this hand,” Monmouth drawled and passed. Chelmsford followed. Sayre bit his lip and hesitated for a few moments, but finally his fist closed around his coins and he met Darcy’s five. Manning’s gaze flicked between Darcy and Sayre. Five coins joined the pile, but no more. With no one bidding, the hand was ended. Darcy carefully turned his fluxus faceup on the table. He felt rather than saw Fletcher’s startled response, but it was nothing to the reaction of the others.

“Good Lord, Darcy, a damned perfect hand!” While the others exclaimed over the cards, Manning looked at Darcy speculatively and then glanced beyond his shoulder at the lady.

“But one, Manning,” Darcy corrected him, solidly meeting his gaze.

“But one.” Manning accepted the revision and set about gathering up the cards for the next round. Sayre fell back in his chair, his eyes trained on his sister, while Trenholme whispered heatedly in his ear. Darcy leaned back and motioned to Fletcher, who removed a purse from his coat pocket and proceeded to take possession of his portion of the winnings. Monmouth leaned around him and snorted. “Anticipating so good a night that you’ve brought your valet along to hold your purse, have you?” The question was tinged with disfavor.

Darcy suppressed a grimace at the gibe. Deciding instead to take the offensive, he returned dryly, “Been long away from London, Tris? It is all the crack to bring one’s man to the table. Lord———’s valet even arranges his cards for him.” Monmouth’s visage darkened at the pricking, telling Darcy that his shaft had hit a mark he had suspected only after reading Dy’s letter. “A pit of vipers,” he’d said, “knaves, rascals, and simpletons.” Well, Dy had certainly had it right. He usually did, confound the man!

“Darcy, we’re waiting!” Sayre had dismissed his brother and now winked at Darcy broadly. “Your lady, sir!” At Darcy’s questioning frown, Sayre motioned behind him. “Honor your lady, Darcy, so we can get on with it!” Darcy shot a glance at Fletcher, who returned it with widened eyes but no suggestions. With all the room’s eyes upon him, he stood and turned to Sylvanie. Her hand rose languidly from her lap and slipped softly into his.

“You win me honor, sir,” she said in a voice that invited him to more than possession of her hand.

“Your servant, my lady.” Darcy clasped her fingers briefly and bowed over her hand but offered her no more personal a salute. A disappointed groan was voiced among the gentlemen as he took his seat, but the complacency with which he met their dissatisfaction discouraged further comment. Manning began dealing the cards for the next hand.

As the evening progressed and play became more intense, Darcy’s winnings increased respectably. He did not win every hand, but overall he was more than ahead in the number of coins Fletcher was required to scoop up from the table. He also managed to send his valet on various “errands,” but each time Fletcher returned with nothing more to report on the rumoured missing child or the activities of Lady Sylvanie’s serving woman, who seemed to have vanished. If they were to discover anything, it appeared it would have to be from Sylvanie, and that fell to him alone.

One by one, the other men at the table dropped from play in favor of flirtation with their ladies or observation of the contest, which was now reduced to Sayre, Manning, and Darcy. Trenholme would sit with them occasionally, but his anxiety over his brother’s losses and his animosity toward his half sister soon sent him back to the board for another glass, followed by an increasingly uneven pace about the room. Finally, Manning called for a break, to which Darcy gladly agreed. He rose and stretched in an attempt to work the stiffness from his muscles. Lady Sylvanie, who had risen during the last hand and refreshed herself with a turn about the room, came for him and drew him to the window out which he had gazed earlier. The moon was now up, and shone full and stark, every bit the stern mistress the ancients had imagined her.

“The moon is full,” the lady observed softly. “Even she is with us tonight.”

“Lady,” he began, adopting a laconic tone, “what could the moon’s interest be in tonight’s all-too-mortal diversion? We are merely men playing at cards.”

“Men do nothing ‘merely.’ You will come to understand that…in time,” she responded.

“But you desired that I see the moon full. Why? Is there some significance in it?” he pressed her. If she regarded it as an omen, a signal for action, he had to know.

“Have you never heard that the full moon blesses lovers caught in its beams, Mr. Darcy?” She laughed throatily. “But I had forgotten, such unmathematical a notion you probably dismissed years ago!”

This romantic turn was not getting him anywhere! “I have heard no mention of Sayre’s sword, my lady. Perhaps it is your notions that will be disproved tonight!” He flicked a finger at the linen scrap on his lapel. Lady Sylvanie’s lips pursed in momentary displeasure, but she set her countenance to rights with a tight smile.

“He has not yet lost deeply enough, but it will not be long.” She spoke with conviction as she looked into his eyes. “You see how Trenholme paces and worries him. He will put down the sword within the hour.”

Darcy searched her face for some indication that she hid a darker secret behind her eyes than credence in the contents of a linen-bound charm and the force of her own will. The woman before him did not shrink from his examination. “Come,” she whispered finally, “Sayre is about to begin.”

After escorting the lady back to her seat, he took his own and reached for the cards, nodding to Sayre and Manning, who sat in readiness to receive them. The luck went very badly for Manning in the first two hands. As he played, he continually shot narrowed glances at Lady Sylvanie and then back at his hand, his jaw set stiffly. Finally, after betting heavily on a fluxus only to lose it to Darcy’s chorus, he threw down his cards, invited Darcy and Sayre to “cut each other’s throats, if that was their purpose,” and withdrew to the more agreeable pastime of allowing his wounds to be dressed by the amiable Lady Felicia.

“It is just the two of us now,” said Sayre. He reached for a new package of cards and shoved them toward Darcy, who took them but made no move to free them from their wrapping.

“Should you wish to cry ‘Draw!’ I would not object,” Darcy offered. Hearing him, Trenholme sat down heavily in Manning’s seat and in a whisky-soaked slur implored his brother to agree, but Sayre would have none of it.

“Draw, Bev? When has a Sayre ever cried ‘Draw’?” His Lordship replied in disdain and turned his back upon him. A murderous look crossed Trenholme’s face at his brother’s rebuff. He lurched unsteadily out of the chair and departed to smolder in anger in a dark corner of the room.

“Now then, Darcy”—Sayre’s smile was as false as his good cheer—“no more talk of leaving the table with the winner undecided.” He indicated the much-diminished pile of coins thay lay about him. “I believe I have the wherewithal to mount a successful campaign. But as the hour is advancing and the ladies are tiring, I will bow to the necessity of bringing the issue to the point. I propose a different game and higher stakes. What do you say, sir?”

Darcy hesitated. His winnings were substantial. With no more than the ready cash of his quarterly portion added to it, he had no doubt he could bring Sayre to his knees, but to what purpose? Sayre’s ruin might be Sylvanie’s objective, but all Darcy really desired of him was the sword. The sword! That was the solution! Darcy glanced at Lady Sylvanie. Her eyes, urging him to accept Sayre’s proposal, decided him. He would act and, with that action, end this charade on his own terms.

“Your proposal is accepted on the condition that I name the stakes.” He might have shouted his counteroffer for the hush that came over the room.

Sayre’s cheer faded, to be replaced by wariness that extended to his wife and his brother, who now abandoned his corner and drew near Sayre’s elbow. “What do you propose, Darcy?”

“You may name whatever game you like, and I will put up the entirety of tonight’s purse”—He paused for the gasp that circled through the room—“against your Spanish sword.”

“No!” Lady Sylvanie cried, but Darcy ignored her, his eyes trained upon Sayre.

“What do you say?” He pressed Sayre to respond.

With the eyes of the room upon him, His Lordship’s jaw quivered and then set. “Done!” A wave of excitement rippled through those gathered as Sayre shouted for one of the servants to go immediately to the gun room and, on pain of the loss of his skin, bring the sword carefully to the library. He then turned back to Darcy and slapped his hand down on the table. “Picket,” he announced.

“Agreed.” Darcy broke open the new package of cards and gave them to Monmouth, who had retaken his place on Darcy’s left. The 2s through 5s were quickly dispatched, and the deck was passed to Poole to shuffle. While the noise of speculation rose about the room, Darcy noticed Fletcher at the door, returning from his latest “errand.” Excusing himself, Darcy stepped quickly to the empty bookshelves, motioning to his man. “News?” he demanded as soon as Fletcher joined him.

“Sir, I believe a delegation of some sort is on its way to the castle. Torches have been sighted in the distance from the direction of the village.”

“A delegation! Why do they come? What do Sayre’s people think?”

Fletcher’s mouth pulled into a grim line. “The servants who brought back the rumor about the child left their prejudices along with their coins at the taverns in the village. Her Ladyship’s companion, whether rightly or no, is credited with the child’s disappearance.”

“Then it is a mob more like—disorganized, dangerous, and unpredictable,” Darcy responded, “or we would have had the local magistrate here hours ago warning of it. Did you observe these torches yourself?” Fletcher nodded. Darcy thought for a moment. If this mob were convinced that someone at Norwycke had taken the child, it would not easily be deterred. “Any sign of Her Ladyship’s woman?”

“None, sir,” Fletcher replied ruefully. If the old woman had hidden herself and the child, the only person likely to know where they were in this cranny-ridden edifice was Lady Sylvanie. If—the thought chilled him—the babe was not already past finding. Had the price of the sword been the life of the child? He prayed it was not so.

“Stay by me and I shall inform Sayre,” he ordered. “If he organizes his servants to meet this ‘delegation,’ you follow along and discover their grievances. If he ignores it, apprise me of its progress toward the castle. I will endeavor that Lady Sylvanie does not leave the room, but if she does, you are to follow her. She is our only hope of finding them both.”

“Very good, sir.” Fletcher bowed his obedience, but concern was written plain on his face.

Darcy discreetly caught the attention of his host as he sat down beside him. “Sayre, I have it on good authority that you are about to have visitors.”

“Visitors!” Sayre responded loudly. Trenholme’s head came up straight at the sound. “At this time of night?”

At that moment the library door opened again, this time to admit Sayre’s ancient butler, who advanced as rapidly as his age allowed, bowed, and began to speak before Sayre could object to the interruption. “My lord, a number of torches have been seen on the road from the village. Is it my lord’s desire to send a man out to discover what may be the cause?”

Sayre blanched under his red displeasure at his butler’s interruption. For a few confused heartbeats he was dumb, his eyes wide. Then he rallied and pounded a fist into his other palm. “Cause! The cause is no mystery! Damn Luddites! They’ve come here as well,” he fumed. Alerted by His Lordship’s tone, several of the others interrupted their conversations to attend, but he waved them away. Darcy stared at him, a deep frown upon his face. Luddites? No one had heard of any of those ragged revolutionaries this far to the south, and although he could not be certain, Darcy could not recall any of the sort of industry the Luddites targeted being part of Sayre’s holdings. “Gather some of the menservants and see to the drawbridge,” His Lordship ordered.

“But, my lord,” the old man remonstrated, “the bridge hasn’t been drawn since my father’s day and that when he was a boy! I doubt it will work, my lord.”

“Try!” Sayre bellowed. “And if it will not draw, then barricade the entrance. And send someone for the magistrate! Let him handle it! I am engaged in important business and do not wish to be disturbed further!”

The old retainer bowed and retreated to the door, only to be met by a younger version of himself entering with the prized sword cradled in silk wrappings. The two exchanged looks, and to Darcy, it appeared that the older acquiesced to the younger. An agreement had been forged, and it did not appear well for Sayre or any other member of the household.