Beginning, Previous Section, Section IV, Next Section

Chapter 13

Posted on Tuesday, 11 January 2000

iv.

Two weeks later

Tom lay stretched out on his back on a stone bench, alone in the shadowy gardens of Rosings Park. Stars burned cold and white, beautiful and remote in the dark sky. Out of reach. He had to keep reminding himself of that.

He'd seen 'her' three times in the past two weeks, and they had met and parted as friends. And each and every time he had spoken with her the words he really wanted to say had jammed in his throat. He just could not bring himself to tell her the detestable facts he had discovered about her fiancée. It was certain she would never hear him out. Never in a thousand years would she believe Lord Cauldwell to be capable of anything less than saintly behaviour. And any one who tried to malign him would instantly become beneath contempt. Tom saw all this with an aching heart, and nearly all his evenings were spent in this way - alone, with a head full of thoughts that only chased each other in circles and a heavy, relentless pain burning somewhere in the vicinity of his chest.

Tom considered moving on, and leaving the whole ugly situation behind him. He had already been in Kent for longer than he had intended to be. It would certainly be the most sensible option to take. And yet he couldn't bring himself to do it. He couldn't just leave without knowing that Alice was going to be all right. And as things stood, he felt her future couldn't be more perilous.

No, he had to stay. He had no choice, not really. He had to stay at least a little longer.

A light breeze rustled through the treetops overhead, and a cricket paused in its gentle rhythmic chirping, leaving behind a conspicuous silence in the dark gardens. Then the breeze swept through once more, and drifting amongst the rustling leaves was another sound that Tom didn't recognise. He sat up and swung his feet onto the ground.

There - it came again. A low murmuring in the distance. Perhaps voices? In the middle of the gardens at this hour of the night? Tom stood up, and began to follow the sound. At one stage, he thought he had lost the trail, but even as he hesitated the sound came again, much louder and much closer than he had thought. It was definitely voices, and it seemed an argument had escalated. Someone began to shout, and every word was suddenly clear. It was a woman's voice. Alice. Oh God, that was Alice. Where was she?

"...You swore!" Cried the voice, painful and incredulous, "You swore to me we would marry! I never would have done what we did if I hadn't believed you...I believed your every word..."

"Alice, don't be a fool!" The man's voice was hard, a strange mixture of anger and disdain. "You can't honestly have expected marriage of me. With your background? You couldn't have been so naive as that!"

"But I was...I did..." A sob was caught in her throat, breaking up her voice. "I believed you...I loved you! You loved me too...you did, you said so...Maxim? Please, tell me you loved me, tell me it wasn't all a lie..."

There was a pause, disturbed only by Alice's tearful breathing.

"You're a sweet girl, Alice," Maxim conceded at last, his voice softer, "And I won't deny that I've grown fond of you. I will be sorry to leave you behind. So how about this. Once I get this marriage over with, I'll go back to London and set you up some little house. Arrange an allowance. Then I'll send for you. I haven't got an official mistress at the moment. You'd be perfect. What do you say?"

Another pause. And then a small, heart-wrenching wail as Alice blurted out, "Maxim, I'm pregnant!"

"Pregnant?" His voice had changed again. Once again it was loud and hard, but now with an edge of incredulous fear. "Well I suppose you're going to try and tell me it's mine," he blustered, after a moment's silence.

Alice could do nothing but sob as her heart and her world shattered in an agony of pain and humiliation.

"For Christ's sake, Alice, would you shut up for a minute!" Her hysteria was grating dangerously on Maxim's nerves, as his polished aristocratic poise crumbled away revealing the spoiled little boy who got angry when things didn't go right for him. And things were starting to go very wrong indeed.

He had come to Rosings Park to court and marry Anne de Bourgh. She stood to inherit a fortune in land and gold, and despite his own considerable wealth, he coveted more. He had been invited here by the girl's mother, who was suddenly inexplicably keen to see her only daughter married well. It was whispered that the unexpected matrimonial frenzy was in response to the original candidate for her son-in-law marrying another. It was out of misplaced spite, perhaps, that Lady Catherine had decided that to strike a return blow Anne must be married immediately to a man of the utmost calibre in breeding and wealth - no other credentials necessary. Lord Cauldwell's name had inevitably come up and he was pleased about it. And up 'til now, things had gone well. He'd met his wife-to-be, and found her to be a plain and docile thing, easily manipulated. Perfect, really. And her pretty little companion had proved an unexpected and delightful diversion for his stay in the country. Things couldn't have worked out better.

But now...now he was getting out of his depth. And he hated it.

Alice bit down on her fist and tried to contain her sobs, but they were too powerful. Trying to quell them only heightened their intensity, and they began to wrack her whole body as she cried still louder.

Maxim looked around in agitation. What if someone heard her? He certainly didn't want Lady Catherine to learn of this. It would seriously damage his credibility as a worthy suitor for her wealthy daughter.

"Alice, I said shut up!" He repeated angrily. It had no effect. His temper strained to its limits and snapped. In fury he lifted his hand, intending to slap her until she was silenced.

Alice never even saw his intention. She was scarcely aware of the burly shape that plunged between Maxim and herself, and only distantly conscious of the thud of a fist landing a heavy punch. Some instinct of self-preservation prompted her to back blindly away from the brawling figures.

Maxim was unprepared for the original assault, but he recovered quickly. He was not nearly as strong as Tom, but he wasn't bad with his fists, and he was fast. He ducked two blows before landing one of his own. There was a sickening crunching sound, and both men knew it was broken nose.

For a moment Maxim allowed himself a grim smile of satisfaction, but it faded quickly as the bigger man suddenly seemed to let himself go. Maxim realised with a spurt of fear that Tom had been holding himself back before, no doubt expecting the aristocrat to be an entirely feeble fighter. Now that he had discovered that Maxim was not utterly helpless in a fight, he had let rip, and Maxim knew immediately that he was no match for this brawny country-bred boxer.

He caught another blow in the temple that made his head spin, and he stumbled away from Tom, getting his first clear look at Alice's defender. Bleeding from a cut in his lip, he called out, "So it's your kid, is it? I should have known the whore wouldn't be able to confine herself to just one..." He faltered as Tom made to come after him again, and backed away from the terrifying prospect of the cold-eyed giant of a man on the warpath.

"Get out of our sight," Tom hissed, "Yer pathetic. Get away from 'ere an' don't ever come near 'er again."

Maxim opened his mouth to throw back some suitably insulting abuse, but in a rush of clarity, he thought the better of it. He snatched one last look at the pale young woman standing behind the man, her brown eyes still swimming with bitter tears. A sudden and unfamiliar wrenching sensation rent his heart. He did not know what to make of it, and in his present circumstance, didn't even want to try. He turned on his heel and ran.

Tom turned back to Alice. It seemed quite natural that he should take her in his arms, and she let him hold her as her tears continued to fall, silently now.

Finally, he heard her voice, no louder than a whisper. "You heard?" Was all she said.

He nodded slowly, his big hand very gently stroking her hair. "I heard enough," he replied softly.

There was silence for another long moment. "My father will die of shame," she whispered, her voice choked, her grip tightening on the folds of his shirt as she turned her face into his chest. "I never meant for this to happen," Her voice was muffled, "Oh Lord...my poor baby..."

Tom shook his head, even though she couldn't see him. "It'll be all right," he promised her, lifting her chin to force her gaze to meet his, so that she could read the promise in his eyes. "I tell ye everything will be fine. I'll take care of ye. Marry me an' I'll take ye away from here. I'll take ye back to Derbyshire. It's where I was born, an' I've a farm there that I'll inherit some day. We can go there an' I'll make you happy, Alice, I know I can..."

"Marry...you...you want to marry me...?" Alice's eyes were momentarily glazed with shock. Then another though occurred to her. "But the baby!" She cried in protest, and her voice softened. "Tom, I can't marry you. I won't give up my baby."

Tom looked astonished. "I'm not askin' ye t' give up the child!"

Alice blinked. "But you surely wouldn't want to take on another man's child..."

"I don't care about th' bairn, Alice, I care about you! Marry me an' the child'll have a name. Ye both will. My name. An' no one'll ever know any different. Think about it Alice."

Alice stared dazedly into the earnest hazel eyes and realised what this astonishing crazy generous fool of a man was offering her. She forgot that he was only a farmer, while she was a gentleman's daughter. She forgot that she barely knew him. She felt the strength of his arms around her and the security of his embrace. A port in the storm. So much had happened these last few hours - every aspect of her life was in utter chaos and she had no future to speak of. Her heart was nothing but an aching hollow in her chest. And suddenly this man was here and he was offering her a chance to build another life. Her only chance. A miracle.

She held his gaze.

"I will marry you, Tom Evans" she said, and for the first time that evening her voice held even.

Tom pulled her close and held her tightly. "Thank God," was all he could say. "Thank God."

Chapter 14

Posted on Saturday, 15 January 2000

i.

Nothing can be compared to the misery of being bound without Love; bound to one, and preferring another.
~Jane Austen in a letter to her niece, 1814.

Jessie listened to her grandmother speak without interrupting. Her expression was blank, but Ma Evans did not miss the surreptitious sweep of her fingers against her eyelids as she concluded the story. "...They were married th' next morning," she finished, "But it took almost a month fer them t' make it all th' way back t' Lambton. Tom had t' stop an' work t' pay their way. When they arrived here, Alice was four months gone."

"With me," Jessie finished dully.

Ma Evans nodded carefully. "With you." She confirmed.

Jessie looked up. "How do you know all this?" She asked, "Did Tom tell you?"

The old woman shook her head emphatically. "Certainly not," she said indignantly, "Tom promised Alice that no one would ever know that you were anything but 'is legitimate child." Her voice softened. "Alice believed Tom was everything that she could have asked fer in a father fer you. That by rights, 'e should have been your father."

Jessie was a faintly confused by that. She felt there was irony in it somewhere, but her feelings were too churned up to see where. "Then it was Alice who told you about me," she reasoned, "But why would she do that? When she was so determined that no one should ever know about my real father?" Lord, but it felt strange to say that! "And what was his name, anyway? I mean, besides just 'Maxim'."

Ma Evans sighed. "That's another story again, although I'm afraid I canna tell ye his whole name. That was something Alice never told any one, though I can only assume that Tom knows it. I guess it was t' avoid ever linkin' your name with 'is. But 'ow do I know as much as I do? Well, see, th' cottage we had before you were born really wasn't much more'n a hut. We had our land, t' be sure, but we were still poor. Old Pa Evans, God rest his soul, 'ad passed on while Tom was away, so it was just me an' him an' Alice, all livin' together in that tiny cottage. Anyway, one night I woke up t' hear someone mumbling in their sleep. It was Alice. I sat up, an' by th' light of th' coals in the hearth I could see that Tom was awake too. He was whispering to her, trying t' calm her I suppose. Anyway, it worked, an' her voice died down as she drifted back to sleep. Just before she fell silent, though, she said one word that no one could mistake. It was a name. 'Maxim....' "

Ma Evans' forehead was furrowed as she remembered that night. "I think it must 'ave pierced poor Tom right through th' heart. He got out of th' bed an' went straight t' the door, out into th' night. It was approaching winter by then, an' it must 'ave been close to freezing outside. But he went. The door slammed behind him an' Alice woke up. She realised Tom wasn't there an' she was frightened at first, but then I told her what had happened, an' she jus' looked at me. I'll always remember 'ow she looked at me, the blankets pulled up high to 'er chin an' 'er lovely hair all out an' 'er big eyes strained wide with horror. I didn't ask, but I think my eyes held all my questions, an' she saw them. So she began t' tell me. Told me everything. Begged me t' forgive her fer deceiving me at first, but I couldn't be angry, not really. She asked me t' keep her secret, an' I swore I would. I have, too. Until today."

She fixed the beautiful young woman sitting before her with a hard, speculative stare. There was so much of Alice in the way she looked and moved, and in her quiet strength. But she'd also inherited a good measure of Alice's desperate vulnerability, although Jessie did a better job of hiding it. Ma Evans could see how it must have tortured Tom over the years, haunted by his wife's spectre in the form a of little girl with Alice's face and her lover's sapphire blue eyes. Then to watch the child slip away from him to mingle with aristocrats at the 'big house', watch her playing hand-in-hand with the young Master of the estate, and day by day steering herself with increasing inevitability toward the same fate as her mother...and yet sworn to silence. No wonder he had turned to the drink. No wonder he had learned to resent the innocent infant who had cost him so much.

Ma Evans had had enough of binding promises, but there was one more she needed to hear before she left to sleep. There was a profound weariness in her bones she couldn't deny much longer.

"I want ye t' swear something to me, Jessie," she said softly, "Yer in a dangerous position now. I want ye t' swear t' me ye will be careful. That ye'll take what I've told ye an' think on it. Don't let history repeat itself, Jessie. That would be the greatest tragedy of all."

Chapter 14

Posted on Monday, 17 January 2000

ii.

When Jessie left the big house the following afternoon, she found Brendan waiting for her by the pond. Just as he had said he would be. Never once had he let her down, and somehow she knew that Brendan Atworth never would. The thought created an inexplicable sadness inside her, but she refused to analyse the feeling.

He was sitting on the grass with his elbows resting lightly on his drawn up knees, staring sightlessly across the dark surface of the pond. He had not heard her approach.

"Hello Brendan," she said softly.

Instantly, his air of pensive reflection was shattered, and his face split into its customary welcoming grin as he turned to face her. Yet Jessie was not so caught up in her own troubles to be blind to the unfamiliar strain behind that smile. She lowered herself gently into the grass beside him.

"Hello Jess," he returned her greeting, a little too heartily perhaps.

Jessie saw no reason to skirt around the issue. "Brendan," she asked without preamble, "Is something the matter?"

He started uneasily, and the glance he threw her was uncertain. "Well. Aye, somethin' is...um." He took a deep breath, and faced her resolutely. "Jess, there's somethin' I've been meanin' t' ask ye."

Jessie felt a shiver of cold premonition tingle down her spine. "Oh," she said softly, looking away.

Brendan, left without a choice, pushed on. "I think th' whole town must know 'ow I feel about ye, Jess," he told her quietly, "And I think per'aps ye knew too, didn't ye? Deep down, ye always knew."

Blinking hard at the unbidden tears welling in her eyes, Jessie paused a moment before nodding silently. She kept her face turned away and said nothing.

Brendan had known that this would be painful, but he hadn't been prepared for the piercing ache that burned through his chest. "And I know what yer thinkin' now..." He bit back a sad curse. Damn James Darcy. Damn him.

Jessie gave a half a laugh, still unable to look at him. "How could you know?" She asked bitterly.

His voice was gentle. "It can't be, Jessie. You know it can't."

Jessie froze. He couldn't know. Oh God, no, he can't know that I -

She forced an uncomprehending lilt into her voice as she said, "I can't imagine what you mean." The lie was painfully transparent to them both.

"Jessie..."

"I know," She cut him off quietly, aware that it had been easier to lie to herself than it had been to lie to Brendan, "I know that it can't be. Ever. I just...don't know what to do about it."

Brendan drew a deep breath. "You could marry me," he blurted it out, and his words began to tumble over one another, "I mean, I'm not rich, but I have me trade an' th' smithy...an' no one would dare talk about you an' the young Master if they knew ye were me wife...so ye'd be safe from th' scandal, see? An' ye'd be happy, I mean some day...I could make ye happy, Jess, I could, if ye'd only give me a chance to..."

He felt that he was babbling, and stopped abruptly. Held his breath. Now it was he who couldn't look at her. A long minute passed.

And then, at last, he felt a gentle hand come to rest on his arm. Very slowly, he turned his head. Jessie's bright blue eyes gazed up into his. And he knew her answer. He stretched out his arms to her and held her close.

"I love ye, Jessie," he whispered into her hair, his forehead furrowed in determination, "Ye won't regret this. Some day, ye'll feel th' same way about me. Ye'll see. Everything will be all right now. I swear it."

Chapter 14

Posted on Wednesday, 19 January 2000

iii

The schoolroom door slammed open, and Jessie jumped in shock. Then she saw who it was, and her pulse doubled again. She was at once relieved and regretful that morning lessons were over now, and she was alone to face him.

James wasted no time on meaningless preamble. "Jessie, what's going on?" He demanded the moment his eyes came to rest on her. He crossed the room in a couple of strides and come to a halt in front of the desk where she sat, his appearance almost feverish.

Jessie took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. She had already steeled herself for this confrontation, but the reality of it was inevitably more difficult. "If you refer to my betrothal to Brendan Atworth," she replied calmly, not meeting his gaze, "Then I should think it patently obvious what is going on. I am to be married to him come the spring."

"But why? How could you when you know that I - " He cut himself short.

Jessie, who had meant to be so calm, so controlled, felt an irrepressible wave of anger surge through her, and leapt furiously to her feet. "That you what, James? Go on, say it. I dare you to say it!"

His eyes narrowed as he regarded her. "That I...love you."

Jessie felt her heart contract sharply to hear him say that, but the battleground of feelings she'd been so determined to keep hidden had found release in anger. "You love me? Do you even know what that word means, Mr. Darcy? Have you thought about what it means to say something like that to the gardener's daughter? In all of this, have you ever once thought about any one but yourself?"

He took an involuntary step back at her assault and his face twisted in hurt. But only for a moment. Then his expression hardened again and Jessie could almost have sworn it was his father standing there. "I don't pretend to understand you, Jessie," he said tersely, "Perhaps you should explain just what the hell the rules are in this game you're playing."

"Game? You think I'm playing a game with you?" Jessie's eyes widened with incredulous bitterness, "I suppose you think it's been fun for me! I suppose you think it was fun to grow up without a place to belong - outcast by servants, inferior to gentry. That it was fun to hear the whispers behind my back as I walked down the street... 'There goes Tom Evans' girl, the one who's been setting herself up to share the young Master's bed since she were seven summers old.' Did they ever whisper about you, James? Did you ever find yourself cut off by strangers in the street on account of me? No, I didn't think so. I had all the fun to myself! And when we turned fourteen the game really started getting good, didn't it? You told me you loved me then, too. Do you remember? I guess not. It was a word you used so easily, you, who had never known a lack of it. What about those seven years that I spent alone on the other side of the country, where were you then? Did your heart wither cold and bitter in your chest? Did you walk alone at night and watch the dark river flowing under the bridge and wonder what you had to live for? Or were you here, charming the county belles and attending balls and being adored by all? And now that I'm back, I find that nothing has changed. You still have no concept of anything except what you want. How dare you tell me that you love me? How dare you say that word to me, when I've loved you heart and soul since I was six, and suffered for it, every minute of every day! Do you think everything will just fall into place that you've had your little revelation? Damn you, James, you're the Master of Pemberley and I'm no one! 'Common as muck' - I've been told so since I was born. What do you mean by telling me you love me when you know you can never act on it! You can't marry me, I won't be your mistress and if you're going to storm about like this and demand explanations from me as to why I'm allowing myself one last desperate bid at a decent life, then we can't even be friends!"

She broke off, breathing heavily after her long-winded attack. For a long and painful minute, neither said a word. At last Jessie spoke again, but the ire had gone from her voice, leaving only weary sadness in its wake. "I've had to fight for every scrap of happiness I've ever known, James. And I'm tired of fighting. To keep my heart locked away out of some kind of misplaced loyalty to you would be an exercise in painful and lonely futility. Brendan offers me future where I won't have to fight any more. I won't make the same mistakes as my mother. I have...I have to go now..."

She dropped her gaze and walked around the desk. James lifted his hand as if he would have liked to stop her, then let it fall again. Jessie swept passed him without pausing, and a moment later she was gone.

James stared after her. He wished there was something he could say to call her back. He wished there was something he could throw, just to hear it shatter against the wall. He wished there was something he could do that would take away all the pain she had suffered, and give him the right to have and to hold her, forever.

But he did nothing. There was nothing he could do.

Chapter 15

Posted on Saturday, 22 January 2000

i.

Murder most foul, as in the best it is,
But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.
~Shakespeare

Damn her!

Simon paced up and down in his room, the flames of his fury heating his hatred until it boiled and spat. Engaged to that caveman of a blacksmith! Damn her! Why was everyone around here so twisted in the head? Jess Evans was nothing but a garden rat, and James was a lusty enough young man...they were attracted to each other. They even fancied themselves in love! So why were they all pretending to be paragons of virtue and restraining themselves? What happened to a good old-fashioned roll in the hay, followed by a good old-fashioned scandal?

Just one mis-step, that was all he needed from them. Just one little breach of propriety and his whole scheme would be back on track. Well, he had waited long enough. Too long, even. It was only a matter of days before the full scope of his own misbehaviours would reach the ears of gossipers in Derbyshire, and once that happened, all was lost. His fury swelled again, laced with an urgent fear that bordered on hysteria. He couldn't let it happen. He had no choice. If James and Jessie would not co-operate, then he would simply have to take matters into his own hands.

Carried forward by the burning strength of his renewed resolve, he left his room immediately. He had to get Jessie Evans on her own, but how? Considering her open dislike of him, it would not be an easy task. He couldn't get near her now, for she would still be in morning lessons with the Darcy's little brat. After lessons she would go walking, and that would be a perfect opportunity for him to make his move, if it weren't for the deterring presence of that brawny fiancée of hers she liked to meet down by the pond...

Wait a moment. Wait a moment. That was the only thing in his way. If he could just get the blacksmith out of the picture, he would have his chance.

He paused at the top of the staircase, his face hard as he considered his choices.

His gaze flickered disinterestedly over a young maid who stood on one of the middle steps, her hand pushing a cloth in listless circles as she polished the banister. Normally, her presence would not have merited a second glance. Now, his restless gaze skittered back toward her and inspiration struck. He grinned, and it was not a pleasant sight.

"You there," he commanded the girl's attention, "I want you to carry a message for me. Do you know Miss Evans? The governess?"

The girl nodded slowly, keeping her gaze fixed respectfully on his boots.

"Then go and tell her that her fiancée wishes to meet her in the Game Woods this afternoon." He took a gold coin from his pocket and walked swiftly down the stairs to stop beside her. He glanced around furtively, then pressed it into her unresisting palm. "Tell her," he said again, in a voice which expected no contradiction.

With calculated boldness, the girl lifted her pale blue eyes to his face. There was a pause as she considered him.

"But 'er fiancée ain't gonna be there, is 'e." She said at last, her voice soft. She did not bother to make it a question.

Simon started momentarily, astonished by her unexpected perception. He undertook a closer inspection of the girl before him. She had a sweet face, framed by corn-yellow curls. But he also recognised a hardness about her rosebud mouth that belied all the sweetness. He smiled tightly, recognising an ally. "No," he replied bluntly, "He won't be there. I will be."

The girl nodded that slow, considering nod of hers. The gold coin disappeared into a pocket of her apron. "I'll do it." She said calmly.

Simon's smile grew broader. "Good," he turned abruptly and ran down the rest of the stairs, pausing at the bottom. "Very good," he repeated under his breath. Stop me now, Father. I'd like to see you try!

Chapter 15

Posted on Friday, 28 January 2000

ii.

A brief but necessary warning: this chapter contains some violence.

The Game Woods? Why the Game Woods? With her forehead lined in mild bemusement, the question circled repeatedly in Jessie's brain. She pulled her shawl a little tighter around her, and pushed forward against the biting wind. The Game Woods were slightly closer to the big house than the pond, and better protected from the wind, too. Perhaps Brendan thought to give them a more sheltered meeting place now that the winter was closing in. Really, there was any number of reasons why he might have changed their arrangements. There was no need to question it like this. No need. So why did she have this strange coldness in her belly, this feeling of... premonition?

Jessie shivered again, and not just because of the wind. The Game Woods loomed before her, but on this gray, blustery day, she could find no beauty in their shadowy mysteriousness.

Stupid. Stupid. When did you start addling your brain with these silly superstitious imaginings? What's the matter with you, Jessie?

On the fringes of the small forest, she paused. Goosebumps prickled on the nape of her neck, and she turned quickly. There was no one in sight.

"Brendan?" She was shocked and disgusted to hear how tremulous her voice sounded. But the name was snatched from her lips by an icy blast of wind, and no one answered.

Perhaps she should just return to the house. She turned eagerly to act on that thought.

No. She reprimanded herself sharply, That is your cowardice speaking. That and your over-active imagination. Brendan said to meet him here and you will not let him down on account of any silly invented imaginings.

She turned back and faced the woods. Just a little deeper. If Brendan did not show, then she would check at the pond, and then go home. That was the most sensible plan. She squared her shoulders, and passed under the trees.

Shadow enveloped her almost immediately. Luckily, her feet knew the path.

"Brendan?" She called his name again, her voice carrying eerily through the silent woods. As she walked further, the shadows grew deeper and the dimness intensified.

She stopped walking. The feeling of being watched was back, stronger than ever. She peered around.

So still.

So quiet.

She was not the type to scare easily, but it was unmistakably fear that gripped her now. This had been a bad idea. She should not have come into the woods. She should have trusted her instincts.

"Brendan?" She tried one last time, her voice edged with desperation, but no longer expected an answer. Jessie began to walk fast in the direction she had come. It wasn't enough. Fear spurred her pounding heart into a frenzied rhythm that beat frantically against her rib cage and she began to run.

The dark figure that moved from the shadows of the trees to stand in her path was smiling at her. No, not smiling. Leering. Too late to stop herself, she tried to dodge, but strong arms reached out and wrenched her to a halt. Lean fingers dug into the flesh of her upper arms.

Her gaze snapped upward. The leer was still present, making a parody of Simon's handsome face.

"Hello, Jessie," he drawled prettily, leaning closer, "You're in an awful hurry. Did something frighten you?"

Jessie struggled desperately, but his iron grip only bit deeper into her arms. She bared her teeth in a grimace of pain and fear.

"Or perhaps..." He pretended to look wondering, as though the idea had only just dawned on him, "Perhaps it's me you're afraid of? I say, that's monstrous unfair, isn't it? I mean - " His tone changed, and he jerked her roughly against him, " - I haven't even given you reason to fear me...yet."

Jessie writhed in terrified disgust. In the dimness of the woods, his cold blue eyes were blazing at her, like the stuff of nightmares. "Don't touch me!" She begged, almost inarticulate with the horror of this reality. He ignored her, forcing her back against a tree.

Oh God, oh no... Gulping in air, she threw back her head and screamed as loud as she could. The sound was cut short as Simon jerked her with such force that her head cracked hard against the trunk of the tree. The world spun dizzily before her eyes as pain exploded in the back of her skull.

Jessie slumped soundlessly against Simon, then slid in a daze to collapse at the foot of the tree. He cursed her luridly.

A few seconds - or was it minutes? - later, Jessie's vision began to clear again. She opened her eyes and focused blearily on the long, cruel silver object that was hovering only inches from her face. A knife. She blinked rapidly. A knife being wielded very dangerously by a man whose eyes blazed with cold, calculating madness. He crouched before her with easy agility.

Jessie closed her eyes tightly and pressed herself back against the tree. She began to pray wordlessly, her fists clenching uselessly in the soft loam of the forest floor. She could barely hear the words he was saying as she forced them to the edge of her consciousness.

"What would he do, do you think, if I were to slice your pretty face, hmm? Challenge me to a duel, perhaps? Or if I were to rape you, that might be better again. He'd probably try and kill me on the spot. How would that be for scandal? The Darcys' perfect son on trial for murdering his cousin, all on account of one little garden rat! That's no good to me though...I don't want to be dead. I can't very well claim my fortune if I'm dead, now, can I? Or, should I say, his fortune?" Simon laughed then, as if he'd made a tremendously funny joke. Jessie opened her eyes. His face was twisted, his eyes wild. Her stomach clenched in nauseous fear, and she wondered insanely if she would throw up on him.

"Get up," he demanded suddenly, standing up but not sheathing the knife. Jessie did not move. She wasn't even sure that she could.

"Get up," he repeated, his voice louder and rough with impatience. He lifted his hand and slapped her hard across the face. Jessie felt her teeth cut into her bottom lip, and tasted blood. Perhaps he intended to beat her before he killed her. Why? Why is he doing it? But try as she might, thoughts would not come clearly. She had no answer.

"You lazy b - " What ever he had to say was cut short. Jessie opened her eyes in time to see a solid arm following through a heavy blow.

"Brendan, NO!" She screamed the words, falling forward on her hands and knees, reaching out to him. "He's got a knife, Brendan, please, don't - "

Too late. Through a haze of pain and copper curls which had fallen over her face, she saw the figures move together and brawl, and heard the sharp hiss of in drawn breath as Simon's knife-hand came up in a defensive panic. Brendan's strong back arched in agony, and Simon stepped back as the larger man fell heavily to his knees.

Jessie launched forward, her breath sobbing in her throat as she put her palms on his blanched face, running them over his cheeks and shoulders and chest in a frenzy of helpless desperation.

"Brendan!" She cried his name into his face, demanding recognition, searching for any response at all. His beautiful green eyes were glazing over, and he quickly became too heavy for her to hold upright. She laid him out on his back, her hands leaving his face to seek out his wound. A dark stain was spreading swiftly across his chest from an obscene stab-wound beneath his right rib. Uselessly, she placed her hand over it, as if that might stop the bleeding. She tore desperately at her gown, thinking to make a bandage of sorts, but the thick material was too strong to rip.

Behind her, Simon melted into the woods without looking back. She neither knew nor cared.

"Brendan! Brendan, speak to me!" She tried again, patting ineffectually at his cheeks and clutching his burly fist in hers. Tears dropped steadily onto his face, and rolled over his skin as though he were the one who wept. Image after image was burned into Jessie's soul, until all she could see was the spreading stain on Brendan's shirt, the glazed brightness of his eyes against the pallor of his cheeks, the blood on her hands, her bloody fingers entwined with his, and the endless tears that rolled over his face.

She was dimly aware that his breathing was slowing down, and growing harsher with every rise and fall of his chest. "No," she whispered again, "No, you can't die! Brendan, do you hear me, you can't die!" Her voice crescendoed, torn ragged by her sobs.

There was a faint pressure of his fingers around hers. In a whisper of out-going air, she could not mistake the sound of her own name. His breath shuddered in his throat. The pressure dropped away.

"Oh no..." Weeping uncontrollably, Jessie pressed her ear against his silent heart. Blood stained her clothes and her skin, but she didn't know or care. She sat up and cradled his head her lap. Leaning close, she began to whisper to him, telling him everything she'd meant to say when he was alive, everything he'd deserved from her but never received, everything she'd wanted to be able to give him. Told him how sorry she was, how desperately, desperately sorry, that the only repayment she had given for his selfless love had been his death. She was responsible for this, she knew. As surely as if she had wielded the knife herself, she had killed Brendan Atworth.

She hoped they would hang her for it. It was no less than she deserved.

Chapter 15

Posted on Monday, 31 January 2000

iii.

It was James who found her.

He'd entered the woods on horseback, with nothing more dramatic in mind than the exercising of his mount. With the days growing shorter and colder, he doubted he'd have time to ride all the way to Lambton and back, so he had chosen instead to placate himself with a brief canter over the grounds of the estate.

He'd always liked to ride alone, but never had he valued the stolen moments more than he had these past few days. His feelings were too tangled and painful even to contemplate company, and the silent tension at Pemberley was nothing less than torturous. There were times when James believed he was actually suffocating there.

His mother, who knew of Jessie's engagement to Atworth by the same mysterious means through which she knew about everything that went on around the estate, had understood immediately the reason behind his unconcealed melancholy. This meant that on top of his own anguish was the added guilt of knowing that it was he who had caused the pallor of his dear mother's face and the distressed wringing of her hands when she spoke to him.

"It was for the best," she had told him. Best for whom? he had wondered silently. He could not think of one single person really benefiting from the whole damned tangle.

His father was an even more stressful presence. Darcy could see that something was very wrong with James, and he was also aware that Elizabeth knew what it was. But for the first time in his married life, he found his wife had shut him out. She refused to explain the source of James's recent misery, nor would she reveal the reasons for her own sad-eyed silences and helpless sighs. His own hurt and frustration with the situation simmered ominously beneath the surface of his customary outward composure, and as days passed he grew noticeably cooler toward both James and Mrs. Darcy.

Heavy silences fell over the family's dinner table, and even Cathy, who understood none of the guilt and hurt which had divided her family, was affected. She took to hiding in her room with Dan, her puppy, and speaking only to him.

James had watched the poison of his misplaced love wind its way into his family's lives. It had brought division and mistrust and pain to them all. Why? Because he had been foolish enough, weak enough, naive enough, to fall in love with the gardener's daughter. God knew he hadn't intended to. He just had.

And she'd loved him too. Once upon a time, to be certain of that would have brought him unparalleled joy. Now, it meant only more pain.

Because she had been stronger than him. She had suffered more, and it had made her strong. She had acknowledged what he had refused to, and had forced to him to recognise their situation for what it was. At first, part of him had resented her for that, but he was not a complete fool. He knew deep down that she had felt their necessary separation as cruelly as he had.

The proper solution to the whole affair was quite obvious. Jessie had a good man to take care of her. It was, as she had said herself, her one and only chance at happiness. And much as it hurt him to know that the only shelter she could ever have was in the arms of another man, James knew he must put his own selfish wants and desires aside, and concentrate on being a good Master of Pemberley. He had to remember the doctrine he had been taught since early childhood - that privilege came with obligation. His first duty was and always must be to his tenants and the preservation of the ancient order. Society functioned around the premise that everyone knew their place and had a role in life to fulfil. The nobility did not mingle with the peasant strata, and vice versa. Neither class could or would accept or condone an inter-marriage between the two social extremes. His father believed this. His mother, however reluctantly, accepted it as fact. Tom Evans had known it, so had Brendan Atworth. Even Jessie understood. And so did he. He understood. But God damn them all, he resented it with a bitter anger he simply could not contain.

This was the last thought he had as he rode beneath the threadbare canopy of the woods, and come across an apparition of nightmarish horror.

Jessie lay on the forest floor, her long skirts tangled around her legs and her hair torn loose. Her upper body rested lifelessly across Brendan Atworth's bloody and unmoving chest, and he could see that one hand was still tightly linked with the dead man's. There was blood all over them both.

It was so cold. The air was frigid and still. Nothing moved and the icy silence of death hung heavy over the wood. For one terrible, interminably long minute, James believed she must be dead, and he knew that the whole Universe must have frozen solid in clear ice. No one would ever move, smile or feel anything ever again. Not now.

And then suddenly his horse had stamped and shuffled, and Jessie had looked up. The world started turning again, and his silent heart thumped back to life, but the nauseous ache of shock and horror only intensified. He slipped instantly off his horse and crossed the ground that separated them.

"Jessie!" His voice was choked as he knelt opposite her, instinctively reaching out to stroke her hair back from her face. "Are you all right?"

She made no reply. Her empty blue eyes were locked in a cold stare that seemed to look right through him, never seeing him at all. "Jessie," he called again, urgently seeking recognition. "Jessie, speak to me, please! Jessie, what's happened here?"

She blinked, very slowly, but did not focus on him. "I killed him," she said softly, her voice no more substantial than a wisp of cool air. In the deathly silence of the woods, however, he could not help but hear her.

The shock of that confession knocked him back. "Killed...no you didn't...you couldn't..." For a moment his expression was bewildered and repulsed, but only for a moment.

His expression hardened, and he leaned forward again, placing a palm on each side of her face. "You listen to me Jessie," he ordered fiercely, forcing her gaze to stay level with his, "I do not believe you. I do not believe you killed Brendan Atworth. You have to tell me the truth now Jessie. Tell me what happened here. Tell me who did this."

She did not try to drop her head, and her gaze remained frighteningly remote as she whispered, "I did. I did. This is my fault."

A sudden rustling noise from the bushes behind him cut short whatever James had been about to say. He twisted sharply, but was too late to spy anything more than still-swinging branches and a dim figure running bent over through the trees. He could not even be sure if it was a man or a woman. Could it have been the murderer?

He looked back at Jessie, and knew that one thing was sure. Someone had been watching. Someone had seen him arrive at this place and speak to a girl whose face, hands and clothes were soaked with blood. A girl who sat beside a murdered man and claimed openly that she had killed him. Whose eyes were as empty as a mad-woman's but who spoke with a soft calm that was more terrifying than anything else.

And who knew when the next person would happen along? And how long had she been here already, sprawled on the icy ground as wintry winds buffeted her unprotected body and her face pressed against a dead man's chest? James saw that her fingers were white with cold, even though she did not shiver. She did not seem to feel anything at all.

Still sick with his own shock and grief, James leaned over and very gently, pressed Brendan's eyelids closed. The once lively green eyes disappeared for the last time. Jessie would not watch, turning her face away. James turned to her and finger by finger, he forcefully unclenched Jessie's hand from Brendan's. She did not resist, but that could just as easily have been because she could no longer feel her fingers at all.

"Come on Jessie," James coaxed softly as he climbed to his feet, "It's time to come away. There's nothing more we can do here."

She did not appear to hear him. With a worried frown, he tilted her chin upward to look into her face. "Damn you Jessie, look at me," he begged her, "I'm James, I'm here. You'll be all right."

Still no response. What if she really had lost her mind? That was a thought too terrible to contemplate, and James pushed it away.

For the second time since her return to Pemberley, James found he had no choice but to lift Jessie into his arms and carry her. Again, she offered no resistance, and seemed not to notice even when he raised her up to sit sidesaddle on his horse. He climbed up after her, and secured his arms around her. He could not help but take one more look behind him.

Brendan's body was no more than a bulky shape on the forest floor, and as James looked on, he saw the first flakes of snow drifting slowly between the trees.

Chapter 16

Posted on Wednesday, 2 February 2000

i.

The glories of our blood and state
Are shadows, not substantial things...
~James Shirley

Dark amber liquid flowed swiftly into the bottom of a heavy crystal glass, filling it a good two inches. Fitzwilliam Darcy placed the brandy decanter back on a tray with noticeable distraction, then picked up the glass and carried it across the room to his son. Seated on a small sofa close the fire place, James did not seem to notice. When his father tapped him lightly on the shoulder, he glanced up dully and then accepted the glass without comment.

The grandfather clock in the corner ticked steadily in the silence. The fire in the hearth crackled softly. No one spoke.

Darcy paused a moment, then turned away and began to pace the room once more. How? He demanded silently of himself, How can this have happened? Who had any incentive to murder Brendan Atworth? Who would even be capable...and why?

The frustration built inside him. Frustration fuelled by sadness, for he had known and liked the young blacksmith, but also by anger that Atworth's murderer should have slipped through his fingers so easily. He was the Master of this estate and was responsible for the safety of all his tenants. How could he have failed so tragically in his duty? Now a man was dead, and such a good man at that. By far the most popular in town and not at all conceited with it. And no money to tempt a foot pad...it just didn't make sense. He turned abruptly to face James once again.

"You claim he was stabbed?" He asked suddenly.

James only nodded mutely, his face drawn and his demeanor one of defeated exhaustion.

Darcy frowned heavily, and resumed his pacing. Neither of them paid any attention to Simon, who stood silently by a sideboard, absorbing everything that went on with respectful gravity.

A soft click from the direction of the library door brought Darcy's pacing up short. His wife entered, her expression wan and strained. Very quietly, she closed the door behind her.

James was already on his feet. "How is she?" He asked urgently.

Elizabeth regarded her son with a deep sadness dulling the sparkle of her eyes. She shrugged wearily and shook her head. "Jenny is sitting with her now," she replied softly, "She's been cleaned up and we've worked her past the worst of the frostbite. She ought to keep all her fingers, so that's something. She's warm and in bed, but no one can get any sense out of her." She seated herself miserably on the couch facing James by the fire.

"My poor Jessie..." She whispered, as much to herself as to the rest of the room, "To have come upon him herself...I can't bear to think of how it must have been for her..."

Darcy and James had no response that seemed adequate. Not knowing what else he could do, Darcy crossed the room and placed a gentle hand on his wife's shoulder in a small gesture of comfort. Elizabeth's hand came up to grasp it, needing his touch more than words could say.

It was Simon who spoke to break the silence, and his words were hesitant. "I say, do you think...?" All the head in the room turned toward him. He backed off. "No. No, forget I said anything."

"You may as well say it now, Simon," Darcy observed dryly.

"Well...does it strike any one else as odd that this Jessie did happen to be the first to come across him?"

His companions were all non-comprehending. Simon restrained a small spurt of frustration, and elaborated patiently. "I mean, he was killed in the Game Woods, wasn't he. And they're practically deserted this time of year. No one goes into them. No one has need to. And," Simon continued quickly before any one had a chance to interrupt him, "She had...please forgive my indelicacy, Mrs. Darcy, but she had an awful lot of blood on her clothes, didn't she? Which means she had to have been there very soon after he was killed because he was still bleeding heavily. Very, very soon after. Perhaps even... during."

He waited for that to sink in, watching James' reaction most closely. He was not disappointed. James turned on his cousin in disgust. "What exactly are you trying to imply, Rutherford?"

Simon regarded him calmly. "I'm only making a suggestion, James. Don't you think it ought to be considered?"

"Why? What motive could Jessie Evans possibly have for wanting to kill Brendan Atworth? The man she wanted to marry, for Christ's sake!"

"I should think the motive was obvious," Simon returned quietly. A tense silence greeted that statement. The only sound was the sharp cracking of the log in the fire, and a soft hiss as the flames leapt higher. Everyone in the room waited to hear what Simon had to say next. "Jessica Evans had to kill Brendan Atworth," he stated calmly, "Because he had to be out of the way if she was to become James's mistress."

James was across the room before either of his parents could stop him, but Simon had already anticipated his reaction and was prepared for the attack. Even so, he had difficulty fending off the ferocity of James' blows before Darcy managed to reach his son, and drag him back.

"You b******!" James spat the word, his eyes silted in rage. "You utter b******!" He continued to struggle against the restraining grip of his father, whose surprise at James' unbridled reaction was considerable.

"James, get a hold of yourself!" He commanded sharply, before releasing his son from restraint. He was only partly mollified to see his son hold himself back from a renewed attack, although his hands remained balled in furious fists and his dark eyes burned in fierce outrage.

"Now explain yourselves," Darcy demanded angrily, looking from one young man to the other, "I would have dismissed Simon's suggestion as ludicrous, but your reaction was inappropriate in the extreme, James, and I can't help but wonder what brought it on!"

Simon managed to keep his simmering hatred for his cousin in check, knowing that his main advantage in this confrontation would be a clear head and a restrained temper. He had to maintain control if he was to engineer a situation where others lost theirs.

"Surely it is quite obvious what brought it on," he slipped in quietly, "It's hardly surprising that James should defend the little harlot when she's been sharing his bed for months. Isn't that right, James?" He goaded softly.

James could feel his hands trembling with his barely contained rage. "I don't know where you dig up your twisted little lies, Simon," he managed heavily, "And I don't care to find out. What I do want to know is why you're doing this. What is it you're hoping to gain?"

"Lies?" Simon made a great pretense of being affronted. "Lies? I'd say the expression on your face speaks for itself, James. Would you be so magnificently riled up if the girl was no more to you than your little sister's governess? I think not." He turned to face Darcy. "Wouldn't you agree, sir?"

Darcy's expression was darkly serious as he turned his gaze on James. His son was breathing heavily, his expression almost feverish with rage and indignation. Simon's calm reasoning made sense. If there was nothing at all of substance in Rutherford's accusations, then James would have had no cause to react so violently.

"James," Darcy made a concentrated effort to keep his tone neutral, "I would like to hear what you have to say. Will you defend yourself against these accusations?"

"Will I..." For a moment, James seemed dumfounded. Defend myself? Then the realisation of betrayal dawned. "You're believing him, aren't you?" He demanded, his voice wondering. "You're actually buying his lies! You could believe this of me..of her..."

"Jessica Evans was a childhood friend of yours, if I recall," Darcy reminded him stoically, "But one whom I had to warn you away from even before she was sent away to school at your mother's instigation."

He did not break his son's gaze. "If you tell me that it is remembered loyalty to your friend, and that alone, which fuels your defense of her now, then I will believe you."

Interminably long moments of taut silence stretched out. Unconsciously, Elizabeth's hand rose to press against her throat. Her heart thudded so loudly in her chest that she felt sure it must be overheard. Simon held his breath, waiting for either the culmination or the ruination of all his endless scheming.

Darcy's voice showed the first sign of strain as he repeated at last, "Is that the extent of your relationship, James?" Perhaps there was the tiniest hint of pleading in his tone.

Again, there was silence, but this time it was James who broke it. Gazing straight into his father's eyes and holding his gaze with perfect steadiness, he made his reply.

"No it is not," he said calmly, "I love Jessica Evans with everything that is in me. And there is nothing I want more in this world than to make her my wife."

There was a moment's shocked silence, then Simon's face split into a leer of glorious triumph as all hell proceeded to break loose.

Chapter 16(ii)

Posted on Saturday, 12 February, 2000

ii.

When Jessie opened her eyes, she was alone. A large fire crackled in the hearth and she could feel her back pressed deep into the feather-down softness of a luxuriant mattress by the weight of several thick, warm blankets. Her gaze travelled slowly around the rest of the richly furnished room, dimly recognising it as one of the guestrooms at Pemberley.

What was she doing here? Her eyes fell on the cushioned seat beside her bed, which still bore the imprint of someone's recent presence at her side. Who? Why? Her shell-shocked mind had no real interest in the answers. She remembered nothing, felt nothing, thought nothing. Despite the stuffy heat of the small room, Jessie felt cold.

With shaking hands, she pushed her blankets aside and put her feet on the floorboards. Someone had dressed her in a long white nightdress which she did not recognise. Its rich softness felt alien against her skin.

Her bare feet made no sound on the polished wooden floor as she crossed the room and pushed open the door. Raised voices drifted up the staircase and reached the ears of the pale young woman now standing in the hallway. Familiar voices. Jessie followed them, clutching at the banister as she descended the stairs.

"...How long this has been going on!" It was a man's voice, angry and incredulous. Coming from behind the closed door of the library. "I just don't understand how you could have the gall to stand there and tell me you've seduced a peasant girl and you want to marry the - "

"Don't!" A second voice cut in, with a fury that matched even the first man's anger. Despite the violent tones, listening at the door, Jessie's dull eyes brightened slightly. James. The name hovered hesitantly in her numb mind, and she clung to it. James. I need James. She reached out her hand to open the door.

"Don't you dare insult her now! You don't know anything about her or about - "

"Damn it, boy, do you think I can't guess? Is she pregnant? Is that it?"

"Always so quick to believe the worst of people, aren't you Father! Would it really matter what I answered you now? Whatever I told you, facts would stay the same. I do love Jessie and I will marry her."

Marry Jessie...me...? Jessie pulled her hand back. But he can't marry me...

He is...and I am...

Brendan...I am to marry Brendan...but Brendan's dead...Brendan's dead...

Oh no. Oh God. Oh no...

The memories came flooding back, crushing her soul like a blade of grass beneath an avalanche.

With a small cry of wild anguish, she turned and ran blindly down the corridor, her only thought that of escape.

In the library, the argument only escalated. Elizabeth watched in distress as the accusations flew, torn between defending her son and supporting her husband. Darcy's anger was fuelled by deep shock, James' by years of unexpressed resentment of the consuming love he had been forced to repress.

Things were fast approaching their climax when the library door suddenly flew open to admit a panic-stricken serving woman. All heads turned.

"Beggin' yer pardon, sirs, but I - she's gone!" Wailed the woman, wringing her hands uselessly. Her gaze fixed fervently on Mrs. Darcy. "I'm so sorry, Ma'am - I only left her side a moment since she were sleepin' so peacefully an' all, but when I came back she were gone!"

Elizabeth was on her feet in an instant. "What do you mean, 'gone', Jenny? Where has she gone?"

Jenny looked stricken. "I can't say fer sure, Ma'am, but I think...that is, the door through to the garden in the morning room's hangin' open, Ma'am, and..."

"She heard." James finished, his voice suddenly quiet. Attention was transferred to him. "She must have heard us arguing. She's not herself, she's still in shock. She heard us fighting about her and ran from us." His gaze flicked to the wide bay window, where thickly swirling white flakes were falling fast. The first snow of the season. A strange mixture of fear and premonition clenched in his gut.

"I'm going after her," he declared quickly, and made for the door. His father's voice low and hard, held him back momentarily.

"James."

James turned in the doorway.

"If you do marry this girl," Darcy continued, his voice rasping with the effort of his restraining his unabated anger, "If you can forget yourself and your obligations so easily, then you can forgo your right as Master here. Pemberley will never be yours."

His pronouncement was greeted with silence for several long moments.

All of a sudden, the full import of his words impacted on Elizabeth's mind, and she surged to her feet, white-faced with shocked outrage. Her voice emerged in a low hiss. "Fitzwilliam, how can you - "

James held up his hand. "It's all right, Mother," he interrupted quietly, "I understand." He met his father's gaze calmly, the anger gone from his voice. "But I understand other things, too - things that have taken me far too long to learn. I tried to live by the rules you set me, Father. You and the rest of your society. I want you to know that. I tried until my heart ached to follow the path you insisted on, and succeeded only in making everyone that I love miserable. Now the woman I've loved all my life needs me more than ever, and for once in our lives I'm not going to let her down. You threaten me with disinheritance? Father, I was born in this house and there isn't a word to describe what I feel for it. But it's still just a building. It's stone and wood and mortar. And if I let Jessie go, that's all I exchange her for. That's what I'll have to console myself with for the rest of my life. It's not enough. Nothing is. Not Pemberley, not wealth, not society... Not even your approval, Father."

He paused, and looked to his mother. Her fine brown eyes were swimming with tears as she gazed back at him.

He looked to his father once more. "I'd have thought you of all people would understand that. Goodbye, Mother. Father."

And with that said, he left the Library behind him.

Chapter 16 (iii)

Posted on Thursday, 17 February 2000

iii.

It was just as Jenny had said. The door to the morning room, leading out onto a stone balustrade and into the gardens, was hanging open and beating an uneven rhythm against the outside wall as the cold wind buffeted it with slamming gusts. The draft alone made him shiver. Snow continued to fall thick and fast, and through the swirling drifts James could see that the sparse gardens were already blanketed in white.

Jessie's footprints were barely visible now, the imprints having already been filled with fresh snow. Stepping out onto the balustrade and hurriedly descending the steps into the garden, James brushed some fresher flakes away from one of the prints. Good God, her feet were bare! He cursed softly to himself, and launched out into the storm.

There had been no time to change his indoor clothes for anything warmer, but James never considered turning back. If the cold felt so very bitter to him, in his house coat, breeches and boots, then he could not bear to think what Jessie must be enduring.

"Jessie!" He shouted her name into the storm, but only the wind replied. He ran with his head down and his eyes squinted, trying to protect himself from the worst of the storm's blasts. At one stage, he feared he was lost. He searched the snow in vain for more indents, but fresh snow was falling too fast, and burying the prints. He stared about him in frantic frustration. He could see the dim outline of a building nearby, and recognised the stables. He started towards them.

The sudden sound of pounding hooves alerted his senses and an instant later a large bay stallion burst from the swirling dimness and galloped past within six feet of him. Something very small and clothed in white was hunched low over the horse's neck, clinging fast to the mane.

"Jessie!" His desperate call was snatched up by the wind and dissolved uselessly into the storm. The shape disappeared, and the sound of the horse's hooves pounding the earth faded into the flurry.

Without another sound, James turned and ran toward the stables. He did not pause in the shelter, but dashed straight to the first stall he saw and flung it open. A tall white mare was untied in her stall, and he swung himself onto her back with the ease and speed of an experienced horseman. Spurring hard, he felt the mare rear slightly, then plunge forward, out of the stall, out of the stable and into the snow storm.

As they flew along, James shook his head vigorously to get his curls out of his eyes, then leaned low over the horse's neck, urging her faster and faster. His vision of the world was limited to a couple of feet of shifting white dimness, but he was now working from the landmark of the stables and had a good idea of where obstacles lay. An icy fear twisted his heart as it occurred to him that Jessie had never been taught to ride, let alone navigate obstacles.

"Jessie!" He roared her name into the wind. How was he ever going to find her in this? Surely he could not loose her now. Not now. He had given up everything for her - his inheritance, his birth-right, his position... he'd even turned his back on his own father. All for the love of the gardener's daughter. Damn it, he needed Jessie as he needed his very soul, and knew that she needed him too. He saw now that it had always been that way between them - they were melded, joined... part of one another. Always and forever more. James simply refused to believe that she could be taken from him now.

Under his breath he repeated a numbly fervent prayer as he continued a futile search for any sign of her mount up ahead. He had to overtake her, he had to stop her. Where was she? Where -

Up ahead, a small shape distorted the smooth drifts of earth-bound snow. There was no horse in sight. The unmoving form was almost invisible, distinguished only by a single splash of colour in a world of cold white.

James signaled urgently for the horse to stop, slipping down from its back even before it had slowed to a walk. White feet, white hands, white dress, white face, all so perfectly still. So terrifyingly beautiful. The Ice Princess that the school girls had whispered about seemed now a reality - an exquisite Princess crowned by a magnificent halo of tumbling curls, which appeared almost blood-red against the sterility of the snow. Now to sleep for a hundred years... Or perhaps forever.

Cold as James' fingers were, when he knelt and pressed them to her throat he felt the contrast of warmth. Her pale skin was like ice. And yet a very slight pulse remained. James closed his eyes tightly, offering a brief but fervent prayer of relief. Slipping one arm under her shoulders and the other behind her knees, he gathered her close.

Blue eyes flickered open, fixing on his face. There was recognition there at last, and a quick flare of warmth. A rush of passionate feeling overcame him, and he lowered his mouth to her ear to whisper desperately, "I'm sorry for everything, Jessie. But I'm not sorry for loving you. I will never be sorry for loving you."

Blue-tinged lips moved ever so slightly, but no sound emerged. Jessie's eyelids fluttered briefly, then closed once more.

James' fear stabbed deeper, and he knew he could waste no more time. Within minutes, he was back within the warm halls of Pemberley, with Jessie still cradled in his arms.

Chapter 17 (i)

Posted on Thursday, 24 February 2000

This is a court of law, young man, not a court of justice.
~ O.W. Holmes

i.

Elizabeth watched her son sleeping.

He slept leaning forward in his chair, with his head resting quietly on the edge of the bed and his hand curled firmly around Jessie's. Even in sleep, his expression was drawn and worried, his dark curls tousled from agitation.

It was years since he had looked more like the little boy she had loved, and Elizabeth felt a bittersweet pang of nostalgia at the illusion. For it was an illusion. James was not a boy any more, and after the night that had passed, she knew that she could never see him as such ever again.

She recalled him still, striding white-faced and frantic through the halls of Pemberley with the unconscious Jessie lying cold and still in his arms. He had refused point-blank to surrender his burden, choosing instead to lay her to bed himself, bellowing for a physician to be called upon at once. Only the bravest of the servants had possessed the courage to step forward to tell him that would not be possible - at least until tomorrow. Within an hour they would be hopelessly snowed in.

So he had tended to her himself. Orders flew left right and centre. Stoke up the fire, bring more blankets, bring hot water, bring cloths and towels. Bring brandy, bring salts, bring dry clothes. Elizabeth was already present of course, and he noticed her a second later. She had stepped forward, understanding what he required of her and ready to respond in kind. She was there for him, and for Jessie. His eyes expressed his love and gratitude where words would have failed.

Now, at last, the storm inside and out had abated. The room was lightening, and the uproar of few hours ago had long since faded to silence. Only Elizabeth and James were left by Jessie's bed side, keeping vigil as they had throughout the long and sleepless night. The hours of darkness had seen little change in the girl's condition. She had not stirred once since being brought back to Pemberley, and the only indication that she still lived at all was the faint, steady pulse of the blood in her veins.

Elizabeth rubbed tiredly at her face, her heart aching both for Jessie's plight and for James' torment.

Her hand froze suddenly, as a tiny shiver skittered down her spine. It had always been a sign that her husband was near. She turned her head slightly, glimpsing his figure in the corner of her eye, but not looking at him.

For a long moment, Darcy said not a word, taking in the scene before him. Then he turned to his wife. "Elizabeth," he said, his voice low.

She nodded very slightly. "I know," she whispered in reply, understanding him perfectly. "Outside."

As silently as they could, they left the room together. Darcy closed the door softly behind them, and gestured down the hall to the green sitting room.

Safely ensconced there, Darcy made no preliminaries. He gazed intently at his wife. "You knew, didn't you," he accused calmly, not asking the question so much as stating the fact. "You knew from the start what was going on between them, and you kept it from me."

Elizabeth stared at him for a moment, then nodded very slowly.

Her husband gave an agitated gesture. "Tell me now, Elizabeth. I think it's time I knew the whole story."

Mrs. Darcy shrugged slightly, and turned her face to the window. He was quite right. It was time he knew.

She was astonished at how easily the words came. Words and explanations and feelings which had been locked up inside for seven long years, all now finding unexpected release. She told him of the letters James and Jessie had continued to write, months after being ordered apart. She told him it had been that evidence of their continued regard for one another, and not simple generosity, which had prompted her to sponsor Jessie at school. She told him of her guilt, and her final decision to bring Jessie back, believing that she owed the girl the attention, and that seven years of separation would have dulled the intensity of the couple's mutual regard. She told him of Jessie's eventual betrothment to Brendan Atworth, and how the emotions that development had stirred revealed beyond doubt the enormity of her miscalculation. For James Darcy, heir of Pemberley estate, and Jessica Evans, gardener's daughter, loved one another still.

Darcy did not reply immediately. Instead he turned away, his forehead heavily furrowed. Striding toward the fireplace, he leaned against it momentarily, then turned back in agitation.

"Why, Elizabeth?" He demanded heavily, "Why did you never tell me of this? Why did you shut me out?"

"I think you've already proven why, Fitzwilliam," Elizabeth replied softly, keeping her anger in check with a conscious effort, "I think you justified my reasons for silence this evening when you disinherited our only son!"

Darcy winced slightly. "And what other option was left to me?" He retaliated, "He speaks of marrying this girl! I can not tolerate that! The Darcy name will not tolerate it."

"The Darcy name? The Darcy name? Is that all you care about? Is 'the Darcy name' more important to you than your son's happiness?"

He wheeled away from her. "You're supporting him!" He accused, "You actually approve of this farce of a match, don't you?"

Elizabeth did not need to think about her answer. She had spent the longest hours of her life by the bedside of an unconscious girl, watching her son tend to her with heart-rending tenderness, watching over them as he slept with her hand linked tightly in his. She'd had plenty of time to reflect, and to reach her final conclusions.

"Yes, Fitzwilliam, I do approve." She raised her chin defiantly. "Jessie's station is unfortunate. I wish that Miss Evans had been a daughter of the aristocracy, because it would have made things so much easier for she and James both. But they have chosen one another. Who am I to come between them?"

"Elizabeth, listen to yourself. It's foolish romantic idealism to think that - "

"Foolish romanticism?" She would not let him finish, and her eyes flashed angrily, "You know, you're starting to remind me very much of a man I knew many years ago. He thought in just the same way. Romanticism was foolish. The connection of his name to an impoverished-gentleman's daughter was 'highly reprehensible'. His pride meant more to him than the feelings of those around him!"

Darcy paled slightly at her vicious referral to their past, then his countenance darkened as his own anger rose to match hers. "Have you never forgiven me for that, Elizabeth? Twenty years ago I spoke those words. I regretted them, I paid my penance, and humbled myself in an apology which you accepted! And suddenly you throw them back in my face. Tell me the truth, Mrs. Darcy. Have you been carrying those words with you all these years? Has our life together meant so little? Taught you so little of the truth?"

"That's not what I meant, Fitzwilliam! I - " No. No, it was not what I meant, but... he's right. Elizabeth's words were suddenly trapped in her throat as the realization struck her. He's entirely right. I never could forget those words... I've tried and tried but I never have.

She looked up and met her husband's gaze, her eyes suddenly bright with tears. Darcy, misinterpreting her reaction, cursed softly and ran a hand through his hair. "Elizabeth, I'm sorry. I did not mean - "

"No!" She interrupted him, shaking her head, "No, don't apologise. Perhaps it is not the time, but there may not be another and I... I want to say this." She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself.

"It's true," she confessed quietly, trying to hold his gaze. "I didn't like to think on them, but it's true that I never have been able to forget the words you spoke that day. In a hundred tiny ways, over the years, I've been reminded of them."

Darcy frowned, not understanding, but Elizabeth held off his questions with a wave of her hand. "Let me try to explain," she begged, pausing briefly to bite at her bottom lip, and then pressing on. "There were the times when my family would visit," she recalled falteringly, "And you'd... you'd try so hard to be gracious... and I was always so ashamed, so embarrassed... And when I first came to Pemberley, how I struggled to be the perfect mistress! How careful I was that you should not discover any of my mistakes! I was so worried, always so worried that I might give you cause to regret your choice of a poorly connected, inexperienced girl as your bride... Foolish concerns, I know. Foolish because I knew you loved me, and yet..."

Elizabeth could not bring herself to meet her husband's eye, but forced herself to continue. "You see, beneath all the hurt pride and misplaced righteousness that fueled my passionate refusal that day, there was always that shadow of truth. In the eyes of the outside world, I knew that I was being seen as inferior to you. I was, by society's standards, a poor match. We both recognised it. How could we not? And even though I knew that your love for me had been strong enough to overcome all the reasons you had not to marry me, the fact that love won out did not mean that the objections you listed were cleared from the board. Do you see? And... that's why I couldn't bring myself to let go of the hurt your first proposal caused me. That's why..."

Elizabeth's voice trailed off, uncertain of whether or not she was making sense now. She sighed. "I'm sorry, Fitzwilliam," she finished, "I've loved you every minute of the 25 years we've been married, and I could never ask for more than what you've given me. I just... Never could forgive and forget in the way that you deserved."

Darcy had never in his life felt such an overwhelming compulsion to hold his wife close. He succumbed to the instinct without resistance, and moved across the room to lock his arms tightly around her. He felt her return the embrace, tentatively at first, then with increasing fervor.

"I love you, Elizabeth," he whispered, "And there's nothing else that matters. That's all you have to see. Without you, all that I have and all that I am would be nothing."

And as he held her, Darcy suddenly saw in his mind's eye the image of his son, dark-eyed and sad, looking from him to Elizabeth and back again. ...If I let Jessie go ... all I exchange her for ... is not enough. Nothing is... I'd have thought you of all people would understand that...

You... of all people... would understand.

Darcy raised his hand, stroking his wife's hair in the gentlest of motions.

Yes. I understand.

Chapter 17 (ii)

ii.

"I am very sorry, Sir, but there is nothing I can do. Once this affair is brought to court, the woman in question will not avoid a death sentence. She will inevitably hang."

"No, she will not hang." James' expression remained calm and utterly implacable as he regarded the other man from across the wide oak desk. "She will not hang because she is not guilty."

The two men sat in one of Pemberley's distinguished study, and a large fire crackled comfortably in the hearth to combat the winter chill of the outdoors. Relations between the men, however, were far from comfortable.

Mr. Browning, long standing solicitor to the Darcy family, hooked a finger in his increasingly stifling cravat to loosen it. His usually calm demeanor was beginning to tarnish and his steady voice was growing strained as he entered his second hour of argument with the young Master of Pemberley.

He had been summoned from his offices in the nearby town of ___ton the moment the roads were sufficiently cleared to relay the message. There was apparently some legal matter causing the family great distress, and they urgently required his trusted professional opinion. And no, letter correspondence would not do for an issue of this nature.

Well, now that he was acquainted with the situation, he wished he could have offered them more welcome news. But there was no other advice he could give. If everything he had been told regarding these circumstances was true, then there was nothing he could do to defend this girl. He had questioned in private endless servants, and even the Darcys themselves, and although most were adamant that the girl must be innocent, their protestations meant little in the face of the damning facts they were forced to relate.

It was not his place, of course, to question the behaviour of the young master or indeed any of the Darcy family. But by the man's own admission, he had more than a friendly interest in the girl, low born as she was. And what ambitious young woman, when offered the prestige of a rich and handsome man's attention, would not consider trying to rid herself of her poorer betrothed? So no matter what the girl's friends here might say, she had a motive. A court would certainly not discount it. On top of that was the physical evidence - the amount of blood on her dress, and the fact that she was found at the scene of the murder almost catatonic with symptoms of shock, presumably on account of the crime she had just committed. Then there was the fact that she had tried to run. Mr. Darcy had insisted that although it was a guilty conscience which had driven her attempt at flight, it was not guilt over having actually committed murder. He tried to explain that even though Miss Evans blamed herself for Mr. Atworth's death, he had known her since childhood and she was incapable of such a violent deed.

Well, Mr. Browning was an observant man, and a rational one. He could see that there was a small possibility of the girl's innocence, considering the degree of loyalty and passionate defense she had inspired in those who presumably knew her best. However, he knew full well that there was nothing to be gained by arguing over his own opinion of the girl's guilt or innocence. His opinion mattered nothing. The only opinion that counted in this case was that of the jury, and Browning was well aware of what their view of this scandal would be.

A girl of negligible social standing who stood to gain a rich man's attention by ridding herself of her fiancee had confessed to his murder. A case had never been simpler.

In order to fulfill his duty to the Darcys, his only task was to advise them on the girl's position with the law. And all that the law knew or needed to know was that a man was dead, and the woman with the best motive looked damn guilty. The best hope he could offer was that she might escape the death sentence and be granted deportment to one of the colonies. Things were that bleak.

He was sorry for it, but not as sorry as the Young Master would be, that was certain. The man simply would not accept the facts. Browning began to suspect that he would be here a good few hours yet, and perhaps even more, arguing the same points over and over again until this desperate young man resigned himself to the inevitable reality.

The tempers of both men were wearing thin when sharp scuffle outside the door cut them off.

Both looked up as an angry voice cried, "NO! The Master is not to be disturbed - "

The door swung open and a young serving woman wrenched out of a footman's grip and stumbled into the room. Browning raised one eyebrow, and James frowned.

"I'm terribly sorry, Sir," the footman apologised instantly, "She was very forceful. I'll remove her at once." He reached for the woman again, who fought him off determinedly.

"Mr. Darcy, don't ye remember me?" She demanded, her voice brash and bitter, tearing her white serving cap from her tell-tale blonde curls.

James's eyes narrowed momentarily. "Mary?" He said, after a brief pause.

Mary nodded, her head held high and her eyes desperate and defiant. "Yes, Mary. I'm surprised ye still recall. Ye were th first of many t' make it clear t' me that I would never be quite so memorable as Miss Jessica Evans."

"What's this about, Mary?" James' voice was impatient. He recognised the bitterness in the girl's tone as stemming from her envious dislike of Jessie, and the idea did not please him. He had no time now to play any games.

Mary said nothing for a long moment. James waited. The footman hovered uncertainly. Browning looked on with tired curiosity.

All of a sudden, her defiance seemed to crumble, and her shoulders slumped. Her voice, when she spoke, was almost inaudible, even in the silence of the room.

"I've come because I know who killed Brendan Atworth."

Continued In Next Section