Page 31 of Love Among the Shadows
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.
Eighteen
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.
Elizabeth set down her spoon and said quietly, “Mama, you distress yourself needlessly. I am here, safe, and you must not give way to such fancies before my sisters.
But her words did little to stem the tide. Lydia began to chatter of pistols and highwaymen, Kitty whispered fears of ghosts, and Mrs. Bennet continued to bewail her fate until Mr Bennet himself entered the room.
“Well,” he said dryly, surveying the chaos, “I see the gossip has already made its way to Longbourn. Meryton cannot contain a whisper for more than half an hour, much less a murder.”
“Do not jest, Mr Bennet!” his wife cried. “Our lives are at stake! Murder stalks the very lanes, and you treat it as though it were a jest at whist!”
Mr Bennet took his seat, poured his tea, and regarded his wife with that mixture of patience and irony his family knew well. “I do not jest, my dear. I merely observe. Murder is indeed a serious business, and I should be glad to hear the particulars from those who know them, rather than from every housemaid between here and the Green.” His eyes flicked toward Elizabeth, thoughtful and keen.
Elizabeth lowered her eyes. She could not forget the manner in which Mr Darcy had spoken the night before, urgent and protective, as he revealed the plan he and the colonel had contrived. He and Mr Bennet had remained awake tokeep watch, determined to guard her should she become the murderer’s next prey. Their vigil had been cut short only by Wickham’s calamity, yet its weight still pressed heavily upon her. For all his falsehoods, Wickham’s death struck her with a strange heaviness, a mingling of pity, shame, and sober fear.
The morning meal dragged on, the family restless, when at last Hill entered to announce that two gentlemen had arrived.
“Colonel Fitzwilliam and Mr Darcy, sir.”
