Page 73 of Till Death Us Do Part: Book 2
Darcy thought she seemed far more interested in that answer than earlier ones, but it could just as well have been the wine, since he was not exactly thinking at peak capacity.
“I followed it up for months. I spent half of my mourning period quietly investigating. I wanted to know beyond doubt exactly what happened. The witnesses seemed credible, but most of them were inconveniently absent. The ship was on a Clipper Route, which goes from the Continent, south to New Zealand, then across the South Atlantic, around the Cape of Good Hope, up to the American cities, and finally back to England. It would be gone for a year or more. Two of the witnesses were servants from Pemberley, but they used funds my wife left them to emigrate. I tracked them to Philadelphia, but they disappeared westward after that. “
“Hardly surprising, when their mistress was killed on their watch. Many men of your station would start searching forscapegoats. They would be particularly vulnerable, and it sounds like you left them little reason to trust your forbearance. It is interesting that they had enough money for that.”
“Yes, my wife engineered a very clever scheme to make several thousand pounds. She left them enough to set themselves up for life.”
“Interesting.”
“Yes, interesting. You can see why I found it soconvenient. Elizabeth was stuck at my estate for six months, but much to my shame, I did not allow her to be a proper mistress. She, very cleverly in my opinion, pretended to be in mourning so she would not be well known. She spent a lot of time with the two lowest ranked servants in the house, then took them with her. I never met either. She knew the housekeeper, the butler, my stablemaster and a few others moderately well, but never spent a lot of time with any of them. It was as if—”
He faltered, wondering if he was going to start wallowing in guilt, but Amanda helped him out.
“It sounds as if she was holding herself in reserve. Not allowing herself to become a part of the estate or vice versa until she was certain it was her place. Keep in mind you could have easily put her aside, stuck her in a cabin in the woods, or anything else you wanted. Perhaps her place in your life was, as you said about the vows, provisional.”
“Yes, it was provisional, and when the probation period ended, she set out to force the issue. She left at the end of six months,to the minute.”
“Was shecapableof finding you? Had the accident not occurred, would she have been successful? What makes you so certain she was not genuine in her efforts?”
Darcy had thought about that a lot that first year, so he answered at once. “Yes, I believe she could have found me. She would have been too late, but absent the accident, she could havequickly discovered I had been there and gone without a lot of effort from Porto. She would have returned a few months after I did with none the wiser.”
He thought about it a moment more. “I eventually found the man who escorted her and sent me the news of her death—Mr Baker. He was normally a thief-taker, the same man who returned her to her father twice.”
“Yes, you mentioned that. It would seem your wife was particularly inept at escape.”
“No, I think not. I think Mr Baker was very, very good, and he admitted that he was lucky both times.”
Amanda looked thoughtful. “Mr Baker seems a man with a certain—how can I say it—moral flexibility.”
“That he does. I even asked him about it, and he described his personal code of ethics. I expected it to be purely avaricious, but it was more nuanced than that. When he takes a case, he gives absolute loyalty to the client for the duration of the job, but there are limits. He would not allow me to engage him to investigate my wife because he still considered himself loyal to her mission, even though she was dead. He said her death in no way removed any obligation to her. It simply transferred that loyalty to her memory.”
“That seems a peculiar place to draw the line.”
“A man like that must either be completely amoral or work out a code of conduct. He could well have brought people back to things they did not deserve, with my wife being a perfect example, so he had to have some guiding principle, even if he had to bend his logic in half to follow it. If he worshipped only money, it would be easy, but I got the idea he was more subtle than that.”
“Interesting.”
“Mr Baker finally convinced me to accept my wife’s death.”
Amanda leaned forward. “Did youreallyaccept it? You seemed convinced I was your wife that first day. Do you still harbour such delusions? If so, it would make me very nervous.”
Darcy looked over and gave his companion the respect of seriously considering her question before answering.
“I am beyond that. You still remind me of her in many ways when you let down your guard a moment. You have her humour, you match or best her in intelligence, you look more like her than her sisters do.”
Then he chuckled and added, “To be honest, you match her in pure grit. Having said that, I appreciateyoufor yourself, not for your similarities to her. If I may be so bold as to say so, I would like to consider you a friend.”
She stared at him for some moments, and finally said, “Very well. You may have my friendship gladly.”
He smiled, and they touched their wine glasses together in a toast to friendship.
They sat for a moment in companionable silence, and finally Amanda said, “Now that we are friends, I suppose I should push you along a little.”
“Along in what?”
Amanda thought for a few minutes, and asked, “Are you absolutely certain you are past your wife’s passing?”
Darcy pondered a moment, and finally said, “I suppose there was the last little thread holding on. I remember when I stopped searching. It was Baker who convinced me.”
