Darcy looked at his former captor with the haughtiest, coldest glare he could give. “I cannot help you, for she is no friend of mine.”
“What would Miss Elizabeth Bennet feel to hear you say that?”
He fought against every instinct to react: to wince in resignation, to cringe in fear for Elizabeth, to lash out against Markle.
“Why, sir, your face has lost its colour,” Markle said with a chilling smile. “Colton learnt a few things in Hunsford yesterday. A few pints and coins, and he learnt her name, but not where she lives. We traced the carriage from Dartford to Cheapside, but not beyond.”
Darcy shrugged and tried not to quicken his pace. “She is just some woman you abducted by mistake. We went along with pretending she was Miss de Bourgh so you would not kill her in anger over kidnapping the wrong woman. She is nothing to me.”
Markle barked a mirthless laugh. “No man looks at a woman the way you looked at Nan if she is ‘just some woman.’”
“You should return to Kent and look for your nephew,” Darcy said as evenly as he could.
Markle made a quick sound of disapproval with his tongue. “My men will follow you all round London. You will cross paths with her at a dinner or a ball or an amusement.”
“Unlikely,” Darcy said. “I do not know that lady socially, and have no way of seeing her.”
“What about your sister?” Markle asked. “I suspect you will seehersoon.”
Could a man faint from terror and vexation? The only way Darcy could open his mouth to take in a breath was from the hope that Markle was only trying to taunt him. It must be a ruse. Surely, Georgiana was safe. “You are mistaken. I do not have a sister.”
“Miss Darcy lives in Upper Wimpole Street with a lady named Annesley. Terribly easy to find her. This morning she wore a green pelisse over a white gown and went shopping on Bond Street.”
Wrapping his hands around Markle’s throat would get him stabbed, and then what would happen to Georgiana or Elizabeth?
“You have two days to bring me my nephew,” Markle said when Darcy struggled to answer, “otherwise Miss Darcy will be my guest. For her sake, I hope you have a different answer as to where my nephew is. I am not a patient man.”
He had to keep Markle walking and talking with him until he reached the club to get help to detain him. “I thought you wanted this Miss Bennet, and now you are claiming I have a sister you can kidnap. For a man of business, you seem disordered.”
“By all means, tell me where Miss Bennet is and I will have no need for Miss Darcy. I suspect a lover might be more encouraging to you than a sister.”
“You are wasting your time with me, Mr Markle.”
“Two days to bring me Kirby, or your sister will pay for it with her life. And,” he added darkly, “when I do find Nan, because I promise you that I eventually will, she will wish you turned Kirby over to me immediately.”
His heart was now racing away. “Return to your smuggling and?—”
Markle was no longer next to him. Darcy stopped on the pavement and turned round, but Markle had been absorbed by the crowd.
His cousin methim at Brooks’s in the Small Drawing Room. Darcy had somehow made it into the club, made himself sensibleto write Fitzwilliam a note, and now held an empty glass in a hand that had finally stopped shaking.
“Georgiana and Mrs Annesley are now with her sister, just off Fetter Lane,” his cousin said as he sat next to him. “I thought that safer than taking her to my family or to some other friend of rank where Markle might think to look for her.”
That was two miles east in a less fashionable neighbourhood, but Darcy was nevertheless frightened. “Was someone watching her house?”
Fitzwilliam shook his head. “She is safe for the present. After removing Georgiana from Wimpole Street, I went to Charles Street. The boy is safe.”
Darcy’s eyes narrowed at Fitzwilliam’s tone. “But?”
“But I asked in the mews, and one of your neighbour’s grooms said a man had been there last night asking about where you usually went and how often you ordered your carriage as though he was looking for employment. The same groom told me a different man loitered in the stables this morning.”
Darcy rolled the empty glass between his hands. “I have to assume Markle has been watching my front door as well.”
“If I were watching a house, I would pay someone in the stables to report to me if your carriage is ordered. But that leaves the front door unobserved. I sent Mr Easton to the neighbouring houses to enquire from the servants if anyone saw someone out of place.”
Darcy looked up from the glass. “Your voice says he discovered something.”
Fitzwilliam nodded grimly. “By Berkeley Square. A man had been there for hours this morning. Not troubling anyone, not poorly dressed, just pacing or standing as though waiting for someone. Mr Easton noted you could see straight down Charles Street from there.”
