Page 43 of One Night with Mr. Darcy
“Oh, Lord, Darcy, if we think he’s—” The colonel broke off. When he spoke again, there was a cold matter-of-factness to his tone. “We should just kill him.”
Mr. Darcy’s jaw worked. “Kill him?” His own voice was a different tone than usual.
He and the colonel walked, neither looking at the other. Their gait was casual and even.
“Yes,” said Mr. Darcy finally, when the colonel didn’t answer. “Yes, that would be better. We don’t need any of it coming out and publicly damaging Georgiana worse than she’s already been damaged. And he’s clearly presented some kind of pattern. Maybe he is even using his position as a man of God to lure girls to him and do… do whatever it is he does. Death is likely the best thing for him, in the end.”
“We need to be sure, though,” said the colonel. “So, we need confirmation from Georgiana. Once we have that, I can do it. I don’t mind. I’ve had experience.”
“I can shoot a man,” said Darcy quietly. “It doesn’t seem hard.”
“You’d be surprised.” This was wry. “But at any rate, we shall both be happy of the other when we’re disposing of him, doubtless. So, we’ll do it together. If we shoot him together, so much the better for both of us, I think. Then we can dig together, drag around his weight together, bury him together.”
“Yes,” said Darcy.
“But that will only be the beginning. What has he done to her?” The colonel stopped walking. He let out a ragged breath. “Good God, Fitz.”
“I shouldn’t have let it go on—”
“None of that,” said the colonel. “A man like that is a weasel, as I say. Slippery thing, hard to pin down. He’s done a number of things to hide what he is and evade blame. But we are onto him now. That is all that matters.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
ELIZABETH WAS LAUGHINGas Charlotte bounced little Willie on her knee.
“No, you mustn’t worry,” Charlotte told her. “He is talking, so he’ll get there. If he was utterly wordless, we might worry, but he’s got quite a number of words, doesn’t he? He’ll put them all together soon enough, and then you’ll wish you could shut him up.”
“I doubt that greatly,” said Elizabeth. “Is it just because he’s a boy? Little Louis, your brother?”
“Oh, he was a bit further along at this age than Willie, to be sure, but I still think it’s no cause for worry.”
“I wonder if I should be giving him to the nurse more often.” Elizabeth did have a nurse, but the nurse was also a housemaid, and only a part-time nurse. She could change the woman’s duties to working full-time with Willie, and maybe that would help him.
“Personally, I think it’s best to be with his mother as much as possible,” said Charlotte. “Of course, that is just what people like us would think, though, because we are trying to justify the fact we could not afford servants for such things. You can afford it. Perhaps it would be better for you, even if not for him—”
“It just hurts my heart to be away from him,” said Elizabeth.
“Well, now that I’m here, I can help if you need time to see to your other duties. I just adore this little chubby-cheeked sweet one.” Charlotte pinched one of Willie’s cheeks.
“No,” said Willie, shaking his head. “No, no, no!”
Both women burst out in laughter.
There was a knock at the door.
Elizabeth got up from where she was perched on the floor to open it up. Mr. Darcy was standing there.
“I suppose this isn’t a good time,” he said softly. “I had hoped to find you alone, I must say, but I see that you have company.”
“Yes, later?” said Elizabeth. “I shall come to you?”
“You mean to my bedchamber?” Mr. Darcy shook his head. “Definitely not.”
Charlotte was drinking all this in, expressionless, but Elizabeth could see the wheels in Charlotte’s head churning. Oh, Lord, she’d take one look at Willie and put it all together. When Mr. Darcy and Willie were near each other, the resemblance was even more obvious. Why did the boy have to lookso muchlike his father?
“Well, now isn’t a good time, I’m afraid.”
Charlotte spoke up, “Oh, invite Mr. Darcy in, won’t you? He’ll think you’re frightfully rude, else, I think. Maybe this sort of behavior is why you used to claim he didn’t like you.”
