Page 31 of Lord Lonbourn's Daughter
That attempt at comfort made the girl cry even harder.
“A-am I allowed to c-come home?” she stuttered between hiccups.
“Of course you are, dearest. We have been looking for you for eleven days,” Lord Longbourn consoled his daughter.
Lady Kitty giggled through her tears.
“I have only been away three.”
Longbourn and Darcy exchanged looks, entering a silent agreement not to reveal the length of her absence.
“Let us all go home. The doctor can wait.”
“Excuse me,” Darcy addressed father and daughter. “I shall investigate the other rooms if you do not mind. Madame Heroux, can you show me around?” He gestured towards the door with a shiny guinea in his hand. The nurse smirked and led the way.
There were rooms on both sides of the hall. Madame Heroux opened the doors and let him look inside. All the inhabitants were females of various ages, but none of them was Georgiana or Lady Lydia. The room at the end of the hall was his last hope. Madame Heroux opened the door and hastened inside. The young girl in the bed had scratched herself until she bled. With the nurse occupied with applying salve to the distraught patient, he used the opportunity to have a look about.
The sound of a carriage slowing down drew him to the window. A glance out revealed a slow-moving carriage passing his own. It did not stop at the front as he would have guessed but pulled in around the corner. This room was much larger than the previous one, situated at the end of the house with windows on three walls, and Darcy moved to the one overlooking the mews. A gentleman not much older than himself emergedfrom the carriage. It could be Dr Sauveterre returning to his establishment.
The driver tossed the reins to a groom while he joined the doctor, talking animatedly while pointing at something inside the carriage. Darcy wondered whether it was a new patient.
The driver reached inside and pulled out something that was wrapped in burlap sacks. It was a deadweight, and the two men were struggling to carry it into the house when the sack split open, revealing the contents to Darcy, who fought the bile rising in his throat. He hastened back to the earl and his daughter. He felt no need to talk to the doctor but wanted to get them out of there as soon as possible without raising the nurse’s suspicions about their haste.
“I do not think there is much else we can accomplish here. Let us return home and let Lady Kitty’s sisters take proper care of her.”
“Yes, I agree. I am taking my daughter home, Madame Heroux. We shall return in the evening to question you and your employer. For now, I shall be satisfied providing my daughter with the loving care of her sisters.”
Darcy had not noticed that Madame Heroux had followed him. She was extending an upturned hand towards him. He had forgotten to give her the coins. He handed them over and helped support Lady Kitty out of the door—she was of little help to herself.
Elizabeth was waiting with her sisters at Bennet House. Darcy was not eager to tell his wife what had transpired, but she needed the information to take proper care of her sister. He was saved much explaining due to Lady Kitty’s obvious condition.
“She has been given laudanum,” he blurted out with his usual lack of tact.
Elizabeth asked nothing more before her sisters took Lady Kitty upstairs. He should not be surprised; he had married a lady of superior intellect who knew when to speak and when to act.
“In what condition was she found?” Elizabeth enquired the moment her sisters were out of earshot.
Darcy explained about the clinic that treated melancholy and female troubles by dosing their patients with so much laudanum they were hardly aware of their situations.
“Quacks that extort people with ill health,” he grumbled. “Laudanum relieves pain but has never cured anyone of anything to my knowledge. My own physician uses it with caution, asserting it could become an addiction if administered too generously.”
“They must be punished!”
“I have some hope of achieving that, but I must speak to your father before I take action.”
“Thank you!” Elizabeth touched his arm, and he soared from her praise and the familiarity with which the touch was given. He would do anything for this lady; she just did not know it.
She was gone, half running up the stairs before any form of reply had begun to form in his mind. He watched her proceed. The soreness she had tried to conceal that morning, which had impeded her ability to walk, seemed to have dissipated. He was an ogre, importuning her twice on her wedding night. He had not thought it through, or he might not have taken a virgin for a second time on her first night as a wedded lady.
Longbourn was waiting for him in his study, so he hastened to the patriarch’s sanctuary.
The earl poured them two generous tumblers of port to fortify them before he rang the bell for his butler. Mr Schneiderappeared promptly and confirmed that no letters had been delivered while they were gone.
“You were in a hurry to leave Tothill Fields earlier, Darcy. Would you care to explain why?” Lord Longbourn enquired.
Darcy was not surprised the earl had noticed his haste. The man was astute.
“Yes, I was. I thank you for understanding and refraining from questioning me at that moment. I observed a man I assumed was Doctor Sauveterre return with something wrapped in a burlap sack. The sack split, revealing an elderly woman who had been dead for some time. By the dirt on her clothes, I suspect she had been dug up.”
