Page 2 of Chasing Shadows
“Help me,” Wickham gasped, his hand stretching weakly toward the colonel.
Hatch watched the Colonel hesitate, torn between the dying man and the escaping killer. At last, the colonel began to turn, clearly having chosen Wickham. Hatch clenched his jaw.
The colonel will see to Wickham. The killer must not escape.
He knew the streets of Meryton as he knew the lines of his palm. The back lane led only toward the mill road. Without a word or the colonel noticing him, he spun on his heel and raced back the way he had come. Hatch cut sharply between two cottages, the narrow gap scraping his shoulders, and emerged ahead of where the lane emptied. His chest heaved, his pulse roared, but his timing was true. He burst out right behind the assailant.
The killer was in front, a dark shape running at full tilt. Hatch hurled himself forward, fingers grasping at the man’s coat. For the briefest instant, he thought he had him—but a sharp elbow drove mercilessly into his ribs. Pain lanced through him, and he crashed to the ground. Dust filled his mouth, his palms tore against the stones. He rolled, cursing, and forced himself to his feet.
Ahead, the figure stumbled once, only once, then gathered speed with renewed desperation. Hatch gave chase, but the distance widened. The man was quick, far quicker than Hatch would have believed. Before he could close the gap,the shadow darted into the fringe of the wood and was gone, swallowed by the night.
Hatch staggered to a halt, his chest heaving, breath tearing harshly from his throat. His side burned where the elbow had struck, each gasp a stab of pain. He bent forward, hands braced upon his knees, and spat dust from his mouth. A hoarse curse broke from him, raw and unrestrained, and the sound rang out into the night, bouncing back from stone walls and hedgerows as though mocking his failure.
He straightened at last, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, ready to turn and retrace his steps in bitter defeat. Then his gaze snagged on something pale lying against the dark earth.
He stopped short. A square of white cloth lay in the dirt, its corner stirred by the faintest breeze. Hatch bent, his fingers closing over it, and lifted it to the moonlight. A handkerchief.
He lifted the square of linen to his face. At once, a sweetness rose to meet him, cloying and unwholesome, so sharp it seemed to seep into his throat. It was no fragrance of garden bloom, nor the fresh comfort of laundered linen. This scent clung like oil, stubborn and heavy, as though it meant to brand itself upon his very flesh.
Almost at once, his head swam. A dull haze pressed at the edges of his thoughts, and the strength in his limbs wavered. He blinked hard, willing his senses to clear, and snatched the cloth from his nose. The night air rushed in sharp and cold, a blessed relief after that treacherous sweetness.
His stomach gave a twist. He had breathed it before. Hatch closed his eyes, and in an instant the memory returned—Tom Granger’s chamber, the stale air of death, and beneath it all, the same faint sweetness. He had thought it some trace of fruit,or perhaps the wash used on the floorboards. Yet the cloth in his hand left no doubt. It was the same scent.
His fingers tightened until the fabric bunched within his grasp. The thing seemed almost alive, trembling with significance, though he could not yet name what was on it. There was, however, one person in Meryton whom he was certain might. Mr. Jones, the apothecary, possessed both the nose and the knowledge for such matters.
Yet Hatch resolved in that moment that no one else would learn of it. Not yet. The handkerchief was his discovery, his evidence. To reveal it too soon would serve only to warn the murderer, who would grow cautious, careful, and slip further from reach. No. This clue must be guarded until he could be certain.
One thing, however, Hatch knew beyond doubt: the knife that struck Wickham had not been in Fitzwilliam’s hand, nor Darcy’s. To that, he could swear. Yet whose hand had wielded it—who the man was whom he had just pursued—remained a question, dark and unanswered
He tucked the handkerchief securely away and turned back toward Wickham’s house. Perhaps the officer still lived. Perhaps he had seen the face of his assailant before the blade struck. If the colonel bore him now to the apothecary’s care, then fortune might grant Hatch a double prize: Wickham’s testimony, and Mr. Jones’s wisdom concerning the handkerchief’s strange perfume.
Either way, Hatch would not waste what the night had given him. The chase was not ended. It had only begun.
Chapter Two
The morning after Wickham’s death dawned grey and unsettled, as though even the heavens were reluctant to shine upon Meryton. Following the events that had occurred the previous night, the Bennet household had scarcely slept at all. Restless whispers had travelled the corridors of Longbourn through the night, particularly after the horseman had come with his note for Mr. Darcy. He had ridden off that night after breaking the news to Mr. Bennet. When at last the sun lifted itself over the hedgerows that morning, it found the family pale, worn, and on edge.
“My nerves! My poor nerves!” cried Mrs. Bennet, pressing a damp handkerchief to her eyes as she settled into her chair in the breakfast parlour. “To think we have had not one but two murders in Meryton, and now Mr. Wickham stabbed in his very own lodgings! It is enough to drive a woman into her grave! Oh, what is to become of us?”
Kitty and Lydia exchanged wide-eyed glances, half frightened and half thrilled. Lydia leaned forward eagerly. “They say he was covered in blood from head to toe. Mary King told me so, and she heard it directly from her uncle, who passed by the apothecary this morning!”
Kitty shuddered, though her curiosity was not diminished. “And did they catch him—the man who did it?”
“No one has caught anyone,” Mary said reprovingly, though her hands trembled as she smoothed her napkin. “All I’ve heard is that Mr. Wickham was taken to the Apothecarygravely wounded, and that the gentlemen who brought him were unable to save him. Anything beyond that is gossip.”
Mrs. Bennet let out another wail. “Gravely wounded! Dead, more like! And it might have been any one of us! Why, Lizzy—” she clutched at her second daughter’s arm, her eyes wild—“do you not see how nearly it might have been you? What if the killer had chosen to strike at you instead of that scoundrel Wickham? To think of it makes me ill!”
Though none of the Bennet girls had ventured beyond the gates since the dreadful news of Mr. Wickham’s death, their friends who had been present at the Lucas Lodge ball lost no time in calling, each eager to impart their own version of the tale now running rife through the town. The sisters exchanged these varied accounts amongst themselves, even as their mother continued her lamentations.
Elizabeth drew a steadying breath, though her mother’s words struck closer than she liked. She had indeed been near the danger. After Mr. Darcy’s slight at the Meryton Assembly, she, like so many in the town, had foolishly concluded him to be the villain behind the murders when they started. Determined to prove it, she had contrived to challenge him openly in the crowd, hoping, in her rashness, that he would come after her as he had, she believed, gone after others who had crossed him. She had planned to stay awake in her sisters’ chamber and raise the alarm when he came.
In hindsight, the thought was folly. Worse still was the memory of how readily she had trusted Wickham’s every word, never questioning his tale of Darcy’s supposed cruelty. She had allowed herself to be deceived and aided his opinion and that of many others in reinforcing the suspicion upon an innocent man.
Her reckless interference had undone Mr. Darcy’s careful design. He and his cousin had meant to watch Wickham, whom they suspected of the murders. Yet she had made herselfa possible target through her quarrel with Darcy, and he had been forced to abandon the plan. Out of fear for her, he had come directly to Longbourn. There he laid everything bare—disproving Wickham’s lies and clearing his own name. He had confessed his suspicions of Wickham’s complicity in the crimes to her father, setting aside his pride for the sake of her safety.
And now Wickham was dead.
Neither Darcy nor Wickham was the killer.
