With high color Elizabeth repeated the query, in a politer and more roundabout way. “But in either case, I hardly know that I am prepared to meet anearl,one of the peers of the realm, with calmness.”
“They are much like other men. Except titled men are rather sillier, and with less sense than men in general.”
Elizabeth laughed. “But your uncle is one.Youcannot expect everyone else to judge as you do.”
“Be at ease. You have now met several ofchildrenof earls, and you are the particular friend of the grandson of one—”
“You refer to yourself?”
“Do you challenge my claim that we are particular friends?”
“Not at all,” Elizabeth replied with that fluttering smile. “I wished to confirm thatyouwere the grandson of an earl who you were thinking of. I know so many, you see.”
After they shared a smile, Darcy said, “You will see what Lord Rochester is like tonight. Beyond any doubt of mine, he has the temperament to kill his wife and a child who he believed was not his. The eyes...they are cold. My mother could barely stand to be in the same room as him—this was before Lady Rochester disappeared, when there was no exceptional wrong known or believed about him. Lady Rochester never should have strayed from her vows, but the way he looked at her... as a child I already perceived something amiss. But Sir Lewis loved his half-brother dearly, and Lady Catherine has always been most fond of Lord Rochester.”
“You think he killed them?”
“No. I do not know. I...” Darcy hesitated. “My father read the whole report of the inquest intently. I was twelve at the time,and followed the case with him, both from the papers and what Papa would say. My fatherthought it was proven beyond doubt that Lord Rochester was innocent of her murder, and that Lady Rochester had fled with Lady Elizabeth, likely to Scotland. There was no sign of them on any road to London. Yet if they are alive, why has she never been seen anywhere?”
Elizabeth blinked several times. It made her feel queer to learn that the possibly murdered girl’s name had been the same as her own. “You then think him innocent.”
“Certainly not innocent. He beat them both severely before they fled. But I do not think he is a murderer. Hartley always thought that his father had murdered them. He had little to do with his father after he finished university. Instead, Hartley has lived in London upon his mother’s fortune.”
“Lady Rochester was a second wife?” Elizabeth asked seeking to confirm this.
“Yes. She had been proclaimed to be an exceptional beauty. She had been kind to me, and she had a decent but not exceptional fortune. Some ten or fifteen thousand...she always seemed sad. I was told afterwards that she had been in love with a minor country gentleman from one of the counties around London, but that her family had forced her to marry Lord Rochester instead.”
The whole story struck some sort of chord with Elizabeth. As though she knew something about it. As though it meant more to her than it should. She herself had once been horribly beaten, as had her mother, and that her mother had then died raving from a fever in a boarding house.
“Did you know them at all? Did you know the girl?”
“A little. I...” Darcy looked at Elizabeth now with a frown. Then he shook his head. “I recall thatshewas a loud bouncing thing. She would run and run and like to chatter and play. Clever, but never the proper style of young lady. But one doesnot expectthatin a girl of merely four or five. Only she would be silent and scared staring at her father any time she was in the room with Lord Rochester. I think...” Darcy was quiet.
“What are you thinking?”
“Nothing of import...I think that my recollection of this drove how I disliked your treatment by Mrs. Bennet. The way Lady Elizabeth looked at her father was much the same as how you looked ather.”
That queer feeling in Elizabeth intensified.
She rubbed her hands together, feeling suddenly cold.
“I apologize Miss Elizabeth, for—”
“No, no, no.” Elizabeth clapped her hands together several times. “And you are most right. I shall not let myself be treated in such a way again. And Mr. Bennet will support me. But Lord! I feel rather sick and queer from the whole story. I wish I had not asked, and I wish that I was not seeing Lord Rochester tonight. Even though I liked Lord Hartley very much.”
“Oh?” Darcy asked with a sudden sharp look.
Elizabeth laughed. “Jealous—you need not be. He is not nearly so tall as you.”
“Is that my chief virtue?” Darcy took her arm and showed her his dear and familiar smile.
“You also,” Elizabeth said with that flutter in her stomach that she felt so often around him, “can speak in that haughty and commanding manner.”
“What do you mean?” Darcy asked.
“My dear Aunt Catherine, you have bothered Miss Elizabeth quite enough tonight,” Elizabeth said pulling herself up and deepening her voice. “I am done listening to it—Oh, but Mr. Darcy, I can confirm the relation between you and your aunt. Only someone who had known you as a child could ignore such a speech.”
Darcy had his own queer smile now. “I hope that my interference was not officious.”
