The Last of the Wine

by DJ Clawson

This is the last story in my series that began with "A Bit of Advice." At this point you should not be starting with this story, unless you really like a challenge. You should go to my profile page for links to the stories in order.

Author's note: My computer has crashed. No important information was lost but I'm posting this remotely. Sorry for any delays.

And now, back to our story:

Chapter 38 - Showdown

Cassandra leapt into his arms, and he sat down on the bed and let her cry until she was done, and could compose herself enough to say, "Does anyone know?"

"Only two people upstairs – the man holding you, and my friend. But the only person I've seen clearly in five years is you." One of his eyes was still poor, and he would require a stronger prescription, but he could see, and fairly well. It was more disorienting than he thought it would be, and even the small light from the sole candle burned his eyes. "Beneath the scars, my eyes must have healed. I needed my sight to fight Mr. Bower."

"You cannot tell Papa about him! You cannot tell him he..." But she could not finish the sentence, and leaned on his shoulder.

"He what?" But there was no response. "He what, Cassie?"

"Please don't kill him."

"He violated you?" He was angry, yes, but it needed to be said.

"I deserved it. Please don't tell Papa."

"Your papa is not in the condition to hear much of anything right now," he said, and she picked up her head and looked at him. "He is very ill. He drove himself out in the rain looking for you, and now he is sick. If not for his age, he would be recovering, but he is not. You are the only one who can help him."

"He will not want to see me. You do not know him."

"So you say, and you are his daughter, so it is hard for me to dispute your claim. I can say that he has done little in three days but call your name. And yes, he knows about Mr. Hyde, but perhaps we will leave Mr. Bower out of the equation for now. And he still wants to see you – he needs to see you."

"Mama is with him?"

"Everyone is with him – your brother and your sisters, Aunt and Uncle Bingley. He will not be comforted. If he were strong enough to stand, we would have to hold him down, because he would want to keep up the search. If you do not go to him, he will die. It is too much for him."

"To see his daughter in disgrace?"

"To know she is not well and be able to do nothing, even see her or speak to her. He has no room in his heart for anger at you. If he ever had any, it is certainly gone now."

Her hands were shaking, and she held one of his. "I wanted to go to Mama that morning, but I saw him – I did the wrong thing. I did so many wrong things."

"You were ill."

"Mr. Hyde brought me here, but I had no idea – I would not have – " She looked up at him. "Is he really ill?"

"He will recover a bit, certainly, when he sees you. He is not a young man."

"My whole family is there?"

"They will not say anything, I am sure of it. They are not upset. They are too worried." Danny rose, offering his hand. "I am weakened from my surgery, so I cannot drag you, so you have a choice. But I would plead with you to return to your father's side and comfort him in his illness."

She looked down, then up again, and took his hand. Her legs were unsteady, but together they found their way up the stairs, where Mirela had Mr. Bower's uninjured arm tied to a window bar. "Mr. Maddox." She was shocked to see him with his glasses, so clearly returning her gaze. Or had she always reacted to him that way?

He bowed. "Miss Mirela." But he did not take his eyes off her. He saw her briefly, after the fight, with her long, black hair in a braid, her skin dark, but only in a timeless way that made them all seem pale and ugly in comparison. That was brief, and there was more blood in his eyes then. Now he could see, truly see, and he forgot Cassandra for a moment, even though she hung on his arm for strength. "Mirela..." He came to his senses. "May I introduce my cousin, Miss Darcy?"

The women curtseyed awkwardly.

"What about him?" Mirela gestured to the half-conscious, moaning Bower.

"Please don't kill him, Danny," Cassandra pleaded.

"Don't worry. I don't have it in me." He drew his sword cane and stood over Bower, a strange sense of power in having his victim at his mercy, truly at his mercy, with no preconditions. He knew what he had to do. "Cassie, look away."

She did. Mirela did not. She did not flinch as he flipped the sword and stabbed Mr. Bower as he would with a long ice pick, and the man howled. No doubt, he was in unimaginable pain, but Danny just drew the blade back, and carefully put it back in the case. "You will live. Not happily, but you will." And he turned away from Mr. Bower, who was not pierced in any way that would kill him, but he would certainly never violate a woman again. That part of him was no longer connected.

According to their intelligence, Mr. Trenton Hyde was currently residing on the top floor of a boarding house within the city limits. Georgie disappeared shortly before they approached the front stoop.

"Good luck," Geoffrey said.

"You, too." And she was gone into the night, with her bag on her back.

"What is she going to do?"

Geoffrey looked at the nervous Vicar. "Hopefully nothing."

The landlady opened the door before they could knock. She was short and heavy, and she certainly had a presence. "She's already here."

"What?"

But it was not Georgie who appeared inside, but Sarah Darcy. "I want to help."

"You can help Papa."

"I'm not helping him. This will help him."

"Not if you get hurt," Geoffrey growled.

"I have you, I have the Vicar, and I have Georgie. I won't get hurt. Now let's go, before we tip him off."

Geoffrey looked to the Vicar, who only shrugged. "I don't approve of this."

"I don't require your approval," Sarah answered definitively, and began up the steps. He rushed to catch up with her, knowing there was nothing he could do for the moment. Maybe in the room, it would be different. He was the one with the guns, and he didn't bother handing one to her. She did not know how to use one.

It was the third floor, the only room. Too high to jump out the window, or so Geoffrey was fairly sure. He hadn't checked the building beforehand. "Mr. Hyde?"

There was no answer. With a nod of approval from Geoffrey, Mr. Emerson called out, "Trenton, open the door."

They waited in the darkness. The hallway was only lit by the moon through the sole window. Finally the door swung open, and a man only distantly familiar to Geoffrey from services at the church at Lambton – he sat in the back sometimes – appeared. "You must be kidding me."

"Trenton – "

But Hyde was only interested in the man with two pistols in his belt, even if he wasn't holding either. "Mr. Darcy. My condolences on your sister – there is an awful rumor circulating about her in town."

Geoffrey drew a weapon, but it wasn't his pistol. It was only his jutte, which was a bit like pointing an unsharpened dagger at Hyde as he stepped in the room, Hyde backing up appropriately. "Where is she?"

"Not so easily, found, eh?" He was not intimidated. "Twenty-five thousand pounds. You know that's a very reasonable price – only half her dowry when I could perfectly well ask for the full fifty."

"Twenty-five thousand pounds for directions?"

"And my silence, of course." He looked at Emerson. "Tom, you might want to chime in here, for your own good. Doing penance again?"

"I never should have trusted you!"

"You didn't trust me. I proved myself a sorry, unforgivable lot again and again, enough for any fool to learn. But that was nothing compared to you. So now you are to be Cassandra's savior?"

"You have no right to call her that," Geoffrey said.

"Her Christian name? I would say being inside her does allow me a certain level of intimacy."

Sarah and Mr. Emerson grabbed Geoffrey before he could charge. One hand held his jutte, the other on his now drawn gun, which he held up. "My sister is not a whore!"

"She is now, if the man I left her with has his way with her, and he will. His reputation is worse than mine, and for a good reason. But he's good at hiding women who don't want to be found." He sat down at the end of the long table. His dinner was half-finished and he poured wine for himself as they worked to hold Geoffrey off. "I'll give you the information – Ian Bower. Drop his name in the right circles and you'll have him, and for the right price, your sister. But you can stop threatening me. Killing me might insure my silence, but they do hang murderers, and who would have more cause than the brother of a fallen heiress?"

Geoffrey snarled and stepped back, or at least stopped trying to fight them. Emerson stepped forward. "Trenton, have mercy. Repent and they will be kind."

"What do you know about repentance, you G-dless sodomite?" Hyde said it so casually that Emerson might have refuted it, but he did not.

"I've learned hiding only leads to further disaster," Emerson said. "It was my past dalliances that led to Miss Cassandra's destruction by a man I should never have associated with, much less tried to hold in check. Was it always about money?"

"Between you and me, I hope so. As for Miss Cassandra, she practically threw herself in my arms. How could I resist against her overeager charms? I'm practically the victim here."

It was Emerson, not Geoffrey, who charged first. He went flailing, having no idea what he was doing, and Trenton merely held a leg out and kicked him. His boot was so heavy, and the impact so difficult, that Emerson flew back and hit the ground in the doorway with a thud. Sarah ran to him. "Mr. Emerson?"

"He'll be fine, but uninterested in your attentions," Hyde said. He looked up at Geoffrey as he put a leg up on the table. "Now that your precious, G-dly Vicar is dispatched, shall we get down to business?"

"I want an address."

"Seagull Island Road, Number Twelve."

Geoffrey put away his pistol, but kept the jutte in his hand. He looked briefly at the window behind them, then at Hyde. "Twenty-five thousand pounds for your silence."

"Yes. And I think Tommy is more than willing to contribute to the fund, if you are still speaking to him at the end of the night."

Geoffrey steeled himself to keep from attacking this man again. "I will find Mr. Bower and when my sister is found, we can discuss it."

"You know where I am."

Geoffrey turned to his sister and grabbed Mr. Emerson, hauling him up by the arm. "Come." They were down the stairs with Emerson's limping, and he called back up, "Hyde?"

"What?"

"We'll be back," Geoffrey said, in front of the landlady, and they departed to the street. On the steps outside and across the street he could see to Emerson, who seemed to have sprained or broken something, but was doing his best to hide it.

"Are you coming back to pay him?"

"Of course not. I was only establishing to his landlady that he was alive when we left him."

Trenton Hyde had the window open. He faced the door as he picked at his teeth, his back to the window for a breeze, and he dropped the knife in his lap when the figure went right over him and onto the table, landing without a sound. She was barefoot – he could tell the gender from her tiny feet, the ankles striped with blue paint. She straightened the candlestick before standing, and even at full height, she was not very tall. The wolf headdress made her more imposing.

He came to the most logical conclusion he could make. "So the rumors are true. You're mad."

Georgiana Darcy drew out her arms. Both had long metal claws attached to them, secured by a wrap around her hands.

"You intend to kill me?"

"Yes."

"You want to make it that obvious?"

She stepped forward carefully, so not to disrupt his dinner setting. He drew his gun, but she either couldn't see it through the wolf mask or did not care. Maybe she thought she was bulletproof. "Is it true? About Mr. Bower?"

"Yes."

"You should have said no. It might have saved your life."

He held up the gun more distinctly. "If I'm found dead – "

"You violated her."

He swallowed. "I believe the term is seduced. She was not unwilling."

"It was not a very gentlemanly thing to do."

"I am not a gentleman. And neither is your Vicar, a poor choice if there ever was one. I – "

"I heard." She took another step forward, avoiding the crystal wineglass. "I heard everything. Put down your gun. It is not going to help you."

"Put down your weapons first – if you can."

She leapt off the table without disturbing so much as the wine in the glass, and was similarly noiseless when she hit the ground. Slowly and methodically, all while his pistol was still pointed at her, she undid the straps and set both pairs of claws on the table. They were terrifying when he could see them better, even when they were off her person. She even removed the wolf mask, letting it fall back on her neck with the rest of the hood, so Georgiana Darcy's war paint-marred face was exposed for all the world – mainly him – to see. She did not hesitate, but nor did she show any emotion he could register as either fear or rage, the two he was most familiar with from the prior group. "Now you."

"Not so fast. If you have no money, we have no reason to speak."

"You violated my sister-in-law and left her with a man of suspicious character, and of course, you want money." She stepped closer, and repeated, "Put the gun down."

Maybe it would be wise. At this range he would kill her, and then how would he explain it? Because he would still have to explain it, and however mad she was, it wouldn't make her less dead. He knew of no one he could pin this on, not on the spur of the moment. And she could probably see his hand shaking. "Remove your weapons."

She took off her rosary of all things, holding it up in one hand and letting the beads hang on the upright palm of the other. "Some things are not removable. Just as some things are unforgivable." She clapped her hand and he felt her finger on his chest, and then an explosion of pain that his brain could not describe before it stopped describing things to him altogether. He only knew pain and then he knew nothing at all.

Cassandra Darcy's legs were wobbly, but Danny and Mirela held her up, and she made it to the inn. Her mother, of all people, opened the door. "Cassandra. My darling." She did not ask. She did not beg anything of her, except, "Go to your father."

Her tears made everything hazy, almost dreamlike, after being in the dark for so long. Even though it was late at night and the room was lit only by candles and the moon, she felt like she had returned to the light. Anne was there, and she heard her mother talking to Danny, and her Uncle Bingley running to him, and of course some excitement about that, but Anne just led her to the bedchambers, where her father lay.

Never had he looked old to her. Of course he was always older, as he was her father, and only distantly could she remember when he was not grey, but he was old now, like her Grandfather Bennet had been. However long it had been – she knew it only to be days, but it felt longer – had been a century to him as far as his appearance was concerned. He was asleep, but Anne said it was all right, and he wanted to see her, and Cassie sat down in the chair presented to her and took his hand. "Papa."

"Cassandra."

"Yes, Papa."

He opened his eyes, as if not expecting her to really be there. "Cassandra?" His voice was different now, less lost and more confused, like he wasn't just calling out, but he still needed to be found. His hand tightened a little over hers and she held it. "I don't – " Anne's arm came from somewhere, to put another towel on his head. He briefly closed his eyes again. "I'm sorry."

"Papa, it's not your fault."

"I didn't mean – please come back."

"I am back." She held his hand, so much larger than hers, and wondered if he really felt her. "I'm right here, Papa, I promise you, and I'm not leaving."

He opened his eyes with new focus. "Cassie?" He had not called her that since she was a child, but it was not meant to be diminutive, she could tell. He just didn't know. He couldn't be sure. Maybe it was the fever, affecting his brain.

"Yes. And I'm sorry, for everything I've ever done wrong, and for blaming you, if you'll have me back."

"If you'll have..." he repeated. "I don't understand. You can't leave – please don't leave me."

"I won't leave you. I promise."

He reached out with his other hand, but he wasn't strong enough, and she helped it to her cheek and held it there. His eyes had little focus to them, and his tears probably made it worse, not better. "Cassie. My baby."

"Yes."

"You didn't leave – you've come back." He added, "I'm sorry."

"I know. I'm sorry, too."

"Will you stay?" It seemed to him the most important question he had ever asked in his life.

"Yes, Papa. Of course I will."

He smiled, just a little, cracking the face of weakness and age. Soon it would shatter. "Thank you."

"Rest, please. You're not well."

"So I'm told," he said, and she could hear his old, defiant voice in there, but he did as she asked, and before her eyes fell into a peaceful sleep.

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