~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
It seemed like time slowed down. The driver drew a pistol from beneath his coat and aimed it at Lizzy,“I should have killed you when I discarded you!” he spat as he applied pressure to the trigger. Biggs and Johns had dropped the baskets and were pushing the ladies aside when the Earl ran between the driver and his wife and daughter.
There was a sound of a shot at the same instant that Richard launched his sabre like a missile that with the momentum of the galloping horse flew straight and true. The last thing Sam Hodges wide eyes saw was the sabre as it buried itself deep within his chest with the power behind it throwing him some feet away from the carriage.
Lizzy looked at her papa; he was on his knees feet away from where Biggs and Johns had pushed them and put their own bodies in front of them like huge shields. Papa’s eyes were wide open like he was trying to work out something and could not quite puzzle it out. Then they heard Richard’s anguished shout!
“No, please God, no, not my father.” Biggs and Johns picked up Lady Elizabeth and Miss de Bourgh respectively and rushed them inside through the nearest side door while their mother found her feet and ran to her husband’s side. From the front her husband looked as he always did, but when she went to Richard and looked at what he was staring at in momentary shock, she saw that the back of her Reggie’s shirt was covered in blood.
Richard snapped out of his shock and started bellowing orders to have his father moved to his bed and to have Mr Finch come to Snowhaven with all speed. He then went to his father’s study and ordered the guard to move the bound woman to a windowless room in the cellar and make sure that she was well guarded along with the man that had surrendered. He sat down and wrote the most difficult missives of his life, one to his brother and one to the Darcys.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
The Darcys were getting ready to start toward Snowhaven when a Fitzwilliam groom came tearing down the drive at full gallop and pulled his horse to a stop sending gravel flying in all directions. He handed a note to Mr Darcy and turned his horse and took off just as fast as he arrived.
George recognised his nephew’s script; the note was short but drove him to immediate action.
Make all speed to Snowhaven, the situation is dire.
R
Luckily Mr Darcy and William had intended to ride alongside the carriage. George mounted his horse and told William to follow him. He handed his wife the note and told the driver to make all possible speed and then he and William had their mounts at full gallop within the first few yards as they rode the ten miles toward what they felt was impending disaster.
Chapter 13
When George and William Darcy skidded to a halt at Snowhaven, they knew something was very wrong when the saw the body lying on the gravel with a sabre impaling its chest. They also noticed a lot of blood not far from the carriage. Both ran up the steps and into the chaos that was Snowhaven.
“Smythe,” George Darcy barked,“where is my family?”
“In the master suite, sir,” the normally stoic man said sadly. Father and son ran up the grand staircase taking the stairs two at a time. They walked into the shared sitting room to the picture of the Countess sitting on the settee, Anne under one arm, Lizzy under the other, and all three crying.
“What has happened?” George asked his sister as gently as he could.
“Reggie,” was all she managed before the racking sobs took over again.
The two Darcy men found Richard at his father’s bedside applying pressure to his back as Reggie was lying on his side. He was awake momentarily and the two saw his eyes follow them before he succumbed to unconsciousness again. They walked around the bed to where Richard was sitting, his hands bathed in his father’s blood.
“Who shot my brother?” George asked.
“Thebrigandwho is holding my sabre for me tried to shoot Lizzy. Father jumped into the path of his bullet. He did not need to,” Richard said bitterly as silent tears ran down his cheeks,“Biggs and Johns had pushed all three women out of the path and were covering them with their own bodies.”
“There is no way that your father would have known that and, in that instant, he did what I would have done. If I thought I could protect one of my children, I would gladly give my life,” George stated as he laid his hand on his nephew’s shoulder.
“Andrew and Marie!” William exclaimed,“Have they been informed, do I need to write to them?”
Richard shook his head.“I wrote to them while father was being carried to his chambers. The letter is in the hands of one of couriers riding south hard as we speak.”
“What is this all about?” George asked his anger with the perpetrators growing by the second. Richard explained what his father had told him before he lapsed into unconsciousness and the parts that one of the men who had been with his master in the study filled in. Both Darcys were silent while they assimilated what they had just learnt.“The dead one is the one who discarded Lizzy?” he asked for clarification. Richard nodded. Answers would have been good, but he had no regrets that he had buried his sabre into the blackguard’s body.
“The other two are being held in the cellar?” William asked. Again, Richard nodded.
“Once we have your father seen to, we will go and have a littlechatwith the two criminals,” George said menacingly. If his brother succumbed to his wound, after they extracted all and any intelligence from the two, he would make sure that they would swing, regardless of what Reggie had told the woman. She was part of this and the actions of all three had led to the Earl lying in his bed while his life’s blood escaped his body.
William returned to the sitting room to check on his aunt and her daughters and thankfully found his mother and sister comforting them. Alex had been taken right to the nursery. Thankfully, by the time that they arrived, a servant had thought to cover the body in the drive with a large piece of linen, so it was not seen by the two youngest Darcys. His mother was seated between Anne and his aunt while Georgie was holding her cousin on the other side of Aunt Elaine.
Not too much later, Mr Finch burst into the room not standing on ceremony, and William simply pointed to the master’s chambers. George Darcy joined the family soon after as Reggie was being examined. Richard refused to leave his father’s side, and none would have tried to move him and still been on their feet.
“W-will m-my Reggie live?” Elaine asked tearfully.
