Page 47 of An Accidental Meeting
Elizabeth’s countenance lit up like a child who had been given an unexpected holiday from her lessons. “May we?”
“Of course.”
She smiled at him, then took a few steps further down the line of conveyances. “You miscounted, Mr. Darcy. This one makes nine, though it is oddly out of place in your collection.”
“It is a buggy,” Darcy said. He had nearly forgotten about it. It had been maintained, but not truly used in years. “It is not mine. It was sent here by the D’Arcy’s, my cousins who remain in France, in Normandy.”
“They sent you a buggy? Why?”
“Not to me, Miss Bennet, to Pemberley. My cousin Osmont shipped a great many of his family’s belongings here during the Treaty of Amiens.”
Her sympathetic expression told him that she understood the general situation, if not the particulars.
“I was at university when all his belongings arrived, but during the festive season my father mentioned to Wickham and me that the buggy had been disassembled and shipped along with everything else.” Something niggled at him.
“Mr. Wickham?”
He frowned. “Yes, he accompanied me home as he had no horse or coach of his own. He was supposed to be studying for ordination, but he was to be found most often in my father’s study.”
Elizabeth offered him a sympathetic look, and then walked over to the buggy to open the door. Darcy was grateful she was willing to skip over his mention of that scoundrel.
“The floor is a little high here.” She turned to him with a small smile. “Do you suppose that is the fashion in France or are they all small people there?”
He had never so much as opened the door, never having had any interest in folding his tall frame into the small space. Now that Elizabeth had done so, he could see there was a difference between where the floor ought to be and where it was. It was cleverly done, for no one had noticed in all the years it had been sitting here.
Except for Elizabeth, of course. But then, little escaped her.
Given what had been discovered in the frame, Darcy immediately strode over to rap on the floor with his knuckles. There was a hollow sound. Nothing unusual, but given the gold in the picture frame . . .
“Anders,” he called to his coachman.
“Yes, Mr. Darcy?” he asked.
“Clear the area and return to me.”
“Yes, sir.” Anders turned on his heel and was gone.
“What is the matter, Mr. Darcy?”
“Nothing is wrong, Miss Bennet. It is only that I think we may need to secure some items of value for my cousins.”
Elizabeth’s brows pinched together as she looked at him, but she did not speak.
Anders was soon back, and Darcy nodded. “Anders, please remove the floorboard from the buggy. And do so carefully. I wish to replace it when we are done.”
“Very good, sir.” Anders located a few tools and set about carefully easing the wooden floor up from where it was nailed in.
“What is happening, Mr. Darcy?” Elizabeth asked.
“I assume you recall the frame,” Darcy said.
“The one that fell on poor Mrs. Reynolds?”
“The very one.” He glanced around and lowered his voice. “There was a small fortune in gold poured into ceramic moulds and secreted inside three of the sides.”
Elizabeth’s eyes widened. “How . . . ”
“The frame lengths were hollowed out and the moulds were long and round, shaped like pipes. They were simply slipped inside.”
