“Give over! When all is within our grasp?” The voice rang out strongly and echoed against the chamber’s stone walls. A door set low in the wall and down a few steps behind Lady Sylvanie opened, and the bowed shape of her companion ascended the stairs, a child limp in her arms. “The time is at hand, and we stand in no need of your feeble help!”
“Doyle!” Lady Sylvanie gasped sharply as the old woman pushed her aside and faced Darcy.
“Mr. Darcy has worked it all out, have you not, Mr. Darcy? Or is it your manservant who has pieced it all together? Clever man” — she sneered — “but not clever enough. Men never are.” Darcy’s astonishment at her boldness was nothing to his doubt of his senses when the crippled serving woman seemed to grow before his eyes. Her preter-natural increase in stature was matched by a decrease in age as, with a mocking smile that was now level with his face, she untied her widow’s cap and threw it from her. Hair black as night, touched lightly with streaks of gray, tumbled down about her shoulders.
“Lady Sayre!” exclaimed Fletcher, in awe at the now straightened figure that stood defiantly before them.
“Yes, Lady Sayre,” she answered him but did not take her eyes from Darcy. “Not that plaything upon which my stepson has lavished the title. Twelve long years it has been, and all would have been set to right already tonight, Mr. Darcy, if you had acted as you were bid.” Her eyes slid to her daughter. “He is right in one thing, Sylvanie. We must leave now, but we do not leave empty-handed, defeated. We will have our full measure of —”
With her attention diverted from him, Darcy moved to seize the child; but as he made his move, the woman brought a small, intricately carved silver dagger to the child’s throat. “Mamá!” Lady Sylvanie cried as Darcy froze, his eyes flying to meet hers in alarm. “What are you doing?”
“‘Une femme a toujours une vengeance prête,’ ma petite!” Lady Sayre replied with a laugh. “Stand away from the door, sirs!”
From the corner of his eye, Darcy could see Fletcher slowly moving around them. “What will you do with the child once you are free from Norwycke, ma’am?” Darcy demanded, centering the lady’s attention upon himself.
“I think you know, Mr. Darcy.”
“Another visit to the King’s Stone? It has been you; has it not? Rabbits, kittens, pigs…” Lady Sayre’s lips twitched as he cataloged her activities. “It was you I saw that first night, returning from the Stone and your latest —” His face darkened with disgust. “In point of fact, the entire plan has been yours from the beginning. Tell me, is Sayre’s agent still alive, or is he buried in some forgotten place in Ireland?”
“Tell him it is not so, Mamá.” Lady Sylvanie looked desperately at her mother, but she did not reply. “The child is in no danger,” she declared again hotly as she turned to Darcy, “and the man was paid off. I saw the purse! He is somewhere in America!”
“Truly, my lady?” Darcy addressed Lady Sayre in a voice heavy with sarcasm. “Sayre’s man is living happily in America, and the child will remain unharmed?”
“Tell him, Mamá!” Sylvanie’s eyes glistened with anger. At that moment a shout echoed faintly from somewhere above them.
“The rabble from the village has breached Sayre’s defenses,” Darcy observed calmly. “Most likely they are ranging through the castle as we speak. Madam, I believe you have run out of time.”
“Sylvanie, leave us!” Lady Sayre ordered, her eyes flaming.
“Mamá, I cannot leave you —”
“Go, now! You know where!” cried Lady Sayre. With a low wail, Sylvanie shook her head, tears streaming down her face. “Sylvanie, obey me!”
“Mamá,” she sobbed, and turning away, she stumbled out into the black corridor. They listened to her running footsteps until they faded into the darkness.
“You have destroyed her; you must know that,” Darcy whispered.
“You know nothing,” Lady Sayre spat at him. She shifted the child in her arms. Throughout their interview he had not stirred. Darcy decided that he must have been drugged and that it was a mercy. If the child had struggled, he would probably now be dead. “You do not know what it is to love someone to distraction, to bear him a child,” she continued. “To raise his ungrateful sons, gladly suffering the snubs of his relatives and friends, only to lose him to a stupid accident and an incompetent surgeon.” Fletcher had by this time made his way to a table covered with candles and made a motion of tipping it. Darcy nodded.
“And then Sayre sent you and your daughter to Ireland, where, for twelve years, you plotted this elaborate scheme of revenge.”
“Yes, just as I thought: a clever man and almost my son-in-law. Think of that! But I can stay in your delightful company no longer, sir.” She moved to the door.
“Now!” Darcy shouted. With a great clatter, Fletcher sent the table over as Darcy leapt the distance to Lady Sayre and laid hold of the hand clutching the silver dagger. Fletcher was soon at his side and, with several strong, quick tugs, wrested the child from Lady Sayre’s startled grasp. A scream of rage erupted from the lady, and for a brief time, it was all Darcy could do to maintain his hold on her without doing her an injury. Finally, he was forced to exert such pressure on her arm and wrist that, with a cry of pain, she dropped the dagger to the floor.
“Your pardon, my lady.” Darcy released the pressure but retained the lady’s arms in an unforgiving hold. More shouts and the sound of boots outside the chamber caused the three of them to look toward the door. Trenholme’s face was the first to appear, followed by Sayre’s and Poole’s.
“Oh, my God!” Trenholme almost fell as he tried to back out of the chamber. “Lady Sayre!”
“Here!” demanded Sayre, pushing his brother aside. “Darcy! What are you — Ah!” Sayre’s eyes nearly started out of his head as his stepmother’s visage came into view. “But you’re dead! The letter…it said you were dead!” he squeaked.
“And I am, Sayre. Dead and returned to haunt you.” Lady Sayre laughed cruelly, then under her breath launched into a string of arcanum that caused Sayre and his brother to go white with fear. More footsteps were heard, and Monmouth poked in his head.
“Lady Sylvanie?” He looked at Lady Sayre in confusion.
“Her mother,” Poole supplied.
“Mother? That cannot be, Poole; her mother’s dead! Does look dashed like her, though! Cousin, maybe.”
“Tris,” Darcy interrupted Monmouth’s speculations. “Lady Sylvanie has escaped down the corridor. Perhaps you could find her and escort her back?” Monmouth grinned and saluted him before ducking out and taking up the new chase. Darcy peered over Lady Sayre’s shoulder to her older stepson. “The mob, what happened?”
Sayre looked at Darcy vaguely, as if in a dream, but Poole stood ready. “We stopped them at the drawbridge, Darcy. Showed ’em our pistols and some of Sayre’s musketry. That held them until the magistrate came with his bullyboys.” He motioned to Fletcher, who still held the insensible child in his arms. “That the brat they wanted?”
“That is the child, yes. Fletcher, it might be wise to see to returning the child to his parents,” Darcy instructed. “But take care still. Perhaps a note to the magistrate first?”
“Yes sir, Mr. Darcy.” Fletcher inclined his head and, with a tired sigh, wound his way out of the crowded room.
“Sayre!” Darcy next addressed His Lordship sharply. “What do you want done with Her Ladyship? Sayre! Do you hear?”
“Done?” Sayre continued to cringe from the figure of his stepmother, who had not ceased her mutterings as she stared at him with a fixed hatred. “Done?” he repeated weakly.