Page 22 of Lord Lonbourn's Daughter
“His lordship is sleeping, Mr Darcy,” the importuned butler had the nerve to inform him.
“Wake him up. Now!”
The butler stared wide-eyed at him. He should not have shouted.
“Look, it is of the utmost urgency that I speak to Lord Longbourn on a matter that cannot be delayed. He will thank me for waking him when I relate the matter to him.”
The butler nodded, shuffled his feet towards the stairs, and disappeared. Darcy pulled off his hat and ran his hand through his sweat-soaked hair, wondering when he would have time for a bath. It might be days. Who cared about that when Georgiana was missing?
Rapid descending footsteps reverberated through the entrance hall.That was quick. The earl must be a light sleeper.Darcy looked up, but it was not the Earl of Longbourn whom he espied on the stairs but his daughters. Lady Elizabeth led the trio with a candle in her hand. She was dressed in a robe with her hair hanging in a thick braid over her shoulder.
She took one look at him and gestured for him to follow her into her father’s study.Good heavens, her feet are bare!Her sisters remained fixed on the staircase, looking at him with anxious expressions.
“May I fetch you a tumbler of brandy?” Lady Elizabeth offered.
He nodded, trying not to look at her, but she was making it difficult to uphold gentlemanly behaviour.
She poured a generous amount and handed it to him.
“I shall bring you something to eat when my father arrives,” she promised.
“There is no need, Lady Elizabeth. I am perfectly comfortable.”
She appraised his person but made no comment.
“What is all this noise in the middle of the night?” Lord Longbourn’s voice boomed from the passage, and his daughter hastened to meet him.
“It is Mr Darcy who has come to see you on an urgent matter. His appearance suggests he has been riding all night…”
“Damnation, what could be the matter? Well, off to bed, girls. I shall inform you at a godlier hour when I know what is amiss. There is no need for all of us to be up all night. Shoo.”
Lord Longbourn entered the study similarly attired to Lady Elizabeth, who busied herself with lighting the candles. The earl’s directive to return to bed did not seem to apply to his second daughter. She halted to pour her father a tumbler of brandy before she hastened out of the study. Lord Longbourn wasted not a moment to enquire what was afoot.
“What brings you here at this ungodly hour, Mr Darcy? Looking unusually haggard if I may say so.”
“I went to Ramsgate yesterday,” Darcy imparted before the earl could interrupt him.
“You have been back and forth to the Kent coast? No wonder you look the worse for wear.”
Darcy handed the earl the note he had found in the parlour at Ramsgate. He could see when the information sunk in as his lordship’s hands begun trembling in indignation.
“Bloody hell!” Lord Longbourn bellowed.
“My thoughts exactly,” Darcy confirmed.
“What has been done?” his lordship enquired.
Darcy gave Lord Longbourn a swift narrative of what he had accomplished in Ramsgate, ending his account with the description of the men, enquiring whether any of them sounded familiar to the earl.
His lordship replied dryly that he spent very little time in the seedier parts of town. The descriptions of the malefactors fitted every brewer or blacksmith that had ever lived but none of his footmen nor driver. Darcy had his suspicions about the Midlander, but it was too soon to draw any conclusions.
“The handwriting has a feminine touch, which might prove to be important,” Lord Longbourn contemplated whilst studying the note on his desk.
Lady Elizabeth returned with a tray of bread, cheese, and wine. She obviously harboured no qualms about venturing downstairs to the kitchen.
Darcy had told Lady Elizabeth there was no need to bring refreshments, but seeing the food, the ravenous gnawing of his stomach increased ten-fold. He could not remember when last he had eaten something.
“You cannot entertain our guest dressed like that, Lizzy,” Lord Longbourn admonished.
