Mr. Darcy's heart felt utterly broken as he walked back to Marlborough House in the pouring rain. The rain soaked his clothing, through and through. Water dripped off the brim of his hat. But the man trudged on. He had bigger problems than a little fall of rain.
At present, he could see no way of helping Miss Elizabeth out of her troubles. Anything that Mr. Wickham became involved in, led to the worst results. For years, Darcy had made arrangements, paid off his victims, and kept his family name intact. He was responsible for the man's path of destruction as he never once allowed consequences to reach the man.
As the rain beat against him, he looked up at the sky in futility. The dark clouds thundered above him, and for a moment he wished the lightning would strike him down. Realizing his thoughts were a dangerous taunt to the Almighty, he immediately felt remorseful that he allowed such black reflections to impair his judgment.
Puddles filled the uneven portions of the path and he momentarily became stuck in the mud. So lost in his concerns, he had walked on without attending to his direction. He grunted and managed to free himself from the sludgy mixture of soil and sand, without dislodging his boot off his foot. He promised himself to consider more practical answers for Miss Elizabeth's predicament as he reached the corner of the Old Steine and spotted his temporary residence.
He considered writing a letter to Mr. Bennet explaining his concerns, but he doubted the man's opinion of him would lead to a positive result. Short of tossing Miss Elizabeth and her sister Lydia into a carriage and taking them straight back to their father's house, Mr. Darcy aligned with his Elizabeth in his thoughts. There was nothing to be done.
"Brother! You had us worried!" Georgiana said, pouncing upon her brother's arrival at Marlborough House the moment he stepped into the home, spilling water all over the marble foyer.
"This way, sir," his valet offered, as Mr. Darcy shivered.
"Miss Elizabeth is safely home," he said to his sister and her companion, with a sniff. Retreating back to his suite of rooms, Mr. Darcy gently wiped tears from his eyes with his thumb and middle finger. There was nothing worse in the world than to feel completely powerless in helping those that he loved most. At least with the rain, none of his staff witnessed his loss of regulation over his emotions.
He shrugged off his soaked coat, and carefully, his valet untied his cravat. The thorough soaking had made the knot more difficult than usual, as the cloth did not easily slide against itself.
"I shall call for a hot bath," his man said, and Mr. Darcy nodded.
Over an hour later, successfully warmed and dressed in a fresh suit, Mr. Darcy still lacked a better answer than the one he had before. If he was lucky, he would be able to finish his business in Brighton, satisfying his cousin, by the end of the following week. Then perhaps with Georgiana's assistance, they might persuade Colonel Forster, and Miss Lydia especially, to a personal invitation to Pemberley. He recalled that Elizabeth had mentioned Miss Lydia's constant tantrums wore Colonel Forster's patience thin with his guests.
A letter to Mr. Bennet seemed to be the best course of action for him to take. If the man was unmoved, certainly there could be nothing worse than taking Miss Lydia and Miss Elizabeth away from Brighton. He could think of no better consequence than that he and Miss Elizabeth would be forced to marry. Such an important decision though, he would gain her consent before writing to her father and resolved to beat Lydia to the task of ruination.
The butler of Marlborough House interrupted Mr. Darcy's daydreams of an unorthodox path to wedded bliss with Miss Elizabeth by announcing the arrival of his cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam.
Darcy stood up from the one decent chair he'd found in the entire house and had relocated to the library as his cousin walked in.
"Please tell me there are new developments you can share," Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam began, offering his cousin a perfunctory bow of courtesy. He helped himself directly to the decanter on the far side of the room and continued to talk to his cousin. "I can no longer sit idly by and hope this man will be caught!" He slammed his hand on the table, attracting Darcy's immediate attention.
"Peace, what has transpired?" Darcy asked, carefully approaching his cousin.
Richard's hand shook with the glass in his hand and he swiftly set it down, and then stepped away, highly agitated. Darcy thought he heard his cousin hold back a sob, but he wasn't sure. Eventually, Richard turned around and with a steeled expression, delivered the news he had come to impart.
"The body of Cadet Davies was discovered this afternoon. I sent Angelica away for her safety."
"Shawcroft?" Darcy asked, and Richard nodded.
"But I cannot prove it. Davies told me that he had something more to share with me last night. This morning, the boy missed the muster."
"Murder?"
Richard wisely returned to his drink and swallowed half of it. He flinched at the burn and avoided revealing the lack of information on his side. He came to Marlborough House for an update from his cousin, not the other way around.
"You said a week ago you would know by now if your plan was successful."
Darcy spun around, and with a twinkle of mischief in his eye, he gave his cousin an order.
"Follow me," he said, interrupting his cousin's melancholy mood. It was a shame about the young lad. Richard had taken a keen liking to the boy. There were several ways the boy could have died, though his involvement with Shawcroft's smuggling operation made his death more likely to be criminal, instead of accidental.
Darcy led him down the long hall, through another room, and picked up a lantern waiting next to a locked door. He lit the candle and opened the door, revealing a flight of stairs.
Richard peered down the dark stairwell.
"After you, you're holding the light," he said, gesturing formally with his hands for his cousin to go first. Darcy cursed under his breath after he tried to get Richard to take the light, but the man refused. So he started down the steps.
The walls soon turned to earth, and the passageway was damp and musty smelling. The floor was also slightly sloped down, but Darcy held the lantern high so both men could see their footing.
"I started to think. You know how I like a good puzzle."
Richard encouraged his cousin to continue explaining.
"This house, for example. Built by a man with no limits to his purse, large, imposing, and set back from the sea. Makes one ask why?"
"Because the sea rises? Storms?" Richard asked, and Darcy shook his head as they neared where the path began rising.
"Not likely here in the channel. No, the man who built this house, nay this town, was a lowly vintner with a partner who was a watch-maker. Before the Duke bought the property," Darcy shared, "I wondered how a man of his background could acquire such wealth as to fund this project," he said.
"And what made you think the house had secrets?" Richard asked, looking at the tunnel as proof of his charge.
"It was Miss Elizabeth's book, talking about Brighton renaming the buildings and the town itself. Made me think I should look deeper into the history."
The two men opened another door and suddenly found themselves standing in a large, underground storehouse with supporting timber beams that crisscrossed the earthen walls.
"Smuggling!" Richard said, seeing how the space was still used by the staff for the household's cold storage in one corner, but the space was too large to only provide for the household, even in its most glorious days of entertaining. But then Richard spied the wooden crates that were not a part of the household's dry goods. Some of the crates were open, and he could spy glass bottles that might hold rum or champagne.
"Darcy, what did you do? Did you steal from the vagabonds?"
Darcy laughed. "No. And they're good men. Men I could deal with," he said, still slightly incensed that Shawcroft had refused his aid. "Mrs. Fitzherbert had a few connections, and I paid the butler a handsome bonus for his help."
"You paid for all of this?" Richard asked.
Darcy nodded. "Shawcroft bragged about talking his way into an advance from the courtiers at the Pavilion. Prinny is holding a Midnight Ball on the 24th, to celebrate his return to Brighton."
"Shawcroft must know his goods are gone," Richard speculated.
"Then it's a matter of time before he is caught out. My sources say the delivery is due next week."
Richard was stunned. He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck and cautiously walked up to the crates. Picking up the crowbar laying next to them, he opened one and spied six bottles of champagne packed in sawdust. He laughed and opened another, finding the same. Triumphantly, he threw the crowbar down and applauded his cousin. Then his mood fell.
"How did this get Davies killed?" he wondered, looking around at the crates and wishing he had done more to protect the young man.
Cautiously, Darcy walked over to his cousin and picked up a bottle of the rum. His cousin needed time to mourn, and Darcy wanted to ask Richard about what to do about Mr. Wickham.
When they reached the house properly again, there was a new line of storms lashing against the windows. Richard accepted his cousin's offer to stay and drink to oblivion, and their first toast of the evening was to the young private.