In Want of a Suspect (A Lizzie & Darcy Mystery #1)

Sixteen

In Which Darcy Loses All Composure

GUY, AS IT TURNED out, did not have a talent for being discreet.

The moment that Darcy walked through the doors with him, the little dog began to pull at his leash and sniff about with great excitement. Reeves widened his eyes at the sight of them, and Darcy thought for a moment that the man would tell him dogs weren’t allowed in his own firm.

Darcy cut his gaze down at Guy. So much for sneaking in.

“Reeves,” Darcy said, making a split-second decision. “I was wondering if you could do me a small favor and hold this dog while I run to my desk?”

“Is that Miss Bennet’s dog, sir?”

“Yes, he is. I’m afraid if I bring him back, he’ll cause all sorts of mayhem.”

“Yes, sir,” Reeves said, and Darcy wasn’t sure if he was agreeing that the dog would cause mayhem or agreeing to watch him. Darcy held out the leash hopefully.

The man took it and gave the dog a tentative smile. “Mr. Tomlinson will return soon, sir.”

Tomlinson wasn’t there! That was the first bit of luck Darcy had had in a while. “I’ll be quick,” he promised.

Recognizing he’d get no better opportunity, Darcy walked toward the office, keeping his head down. From his pocket, he withdrew his key. It was the same that let him into the records room, but it was also a master key that opened even office doors. He’d never abused the privilege of carrying this key before and he could only imagine his father’s horror at finding out that Darcy had used it to enter the office of another employee—a superior!—to rifle through his paperwork.

But Darcy didn’t hesitate to insert the key into the lock and open the door.

The office was dim, with only a bit of daylight coming in through the drawn curtains. Darcy closed the door behind him, eyes searching for a place to start. The desk held a mountain of paperwork, and there were filing cabinets against the back wall. Darcy decided to start there.

None of the files were labeled, however, which meant that as Darcy paged through the folders he had to open each one and scan the documents within to get a sense for what they were. He kept his eyes open for the names Amelia or Reginald Cavendish, Josette Beaufort, even Leticia Cavendish, but found nothing. A voice inside him that sounded suspiciously like Lizzie whispered, Hurry .

He shifted his focus to the desk. This was more precarious. If he moved any of the files, Tomlinson might suspect that someone had been in here poking about. Darcy tried to memorize the exact position of the piles before he reached for the first file, but quickly realized how futile it was. He was in too much of a hurry. He’d have to just try to be careful.

The files on the desk were mostly familiar. Insurance claims, a libel case he was on, new business contracts, a loan agreement he’d reviewed last week. He even picked up a stray letter that appeared to be from Mr. Tomlinson’s mother in Milnthorpe—he caught a glimpse of a sentence that read “proud you are making something of yourself” and an entreaty to come visit before he tossed it aside as well.

This was useless. If Tomlinson was keeping files in his office that should be in the records room, then where would they be? Not on the desk. Anyone could come into the office at any time and lay eyes on anything that was left out. No, these files would be hidden.

He moved to the drawers of the desk, testing each of them. There were six, and five of them slid open, revealing various tools, nibs, jars of ink, and bundles of letters. But the bottom right-hand drawer was locked.

Darcy cursed, not even wasting his time on the other drawers. The lock was too small for his master key. He cast about the room, looking for any place that might be a hiding spot for a key but to no avail. Besides, if this drawer held very important documents, Mr. Tomlinson wouldn’t be as careless as to leave the key in his office.

There was nothing to do but pick the locks.

Marianne Dashwood had given them a lesson once. Lizzie had been rather enthusiastic about it, and Darcy had barely paid any attention because gentlemen did not pick locks. But today was proving to be the exception.

Darcy grabbed Mr. Tomlinson’s penknife and slid it between the drawer and its casing. It was a rather crude and rough way of breaking the lock, and a distant part of him realized there was no going back now. He was going to scuff the wood and possibly break the lock, and Tomlinson would know someone had broken in. He might even suspect him. But Darcy didn’t care anymore.

Click.

The lock gave and Darcy yanked the drawer open.

There weren’t very many files in the drawer, which surprised him. But the very first document he picked up was the last will and testament of Mrs. Amelia Cavendish. Excitement coursed through his veins as he thumbed through the rest of the documents. It was here! It was all here and...

He came across a letter with a broken seal.

A letter addressed to Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy.

August 23, 18—

Cavendish House

Dear Mr. Darcy,

I hope you can forgive an elderly lady for the impudence of writing you when a handful of years have passed since we were last acquainted. I write not for myself, but the sake of my granddaughter Josette. Despite the fact she has turned down your offer of marriage, Josette assures me you remain honorable. I know my days are near their end. Very soon my affairs will be exposed by solicitors and creditors, and all my secrets will come to light. I do not fear for this, except in one matter that I entrust to you. It is my hope that you still care for Josette enough to protect her future.

As you are likely aware, my daughter, Anne, Josette’s mother, fell for Joseph Beaufort, a Frenchman who visited London before the Revolution. I was against their marriage, as was my husband, but she eloped with him to France. In the weeks following the news of the Revolution, we had no word, no address, and no reason to believe that she was safe. Joseph’s family was nobility, and we feared the worst. I was so disheartened that my son, Jacob, became determined to travel to France and discover the fate of his sister. It was dangerous and his father tried to dissuade him. I, to my everlasting regret, did not. I hoped he would defy the odds and both of my children would return to me safely.

But months passed without a word, then years. By then my husband had passed and I had very little hope I’d ever see either of my children in this life. Five years passed, and one day a man arrived on my doorstep with a little girl who was a mirror image of my Anne. The girl, as you may have guessed, was Josette, and her guardian angel was Dupont. He was Joseph’s dearest friend, and he bore the tragic news of Joseph’s and Anne’s deaths, but he also brought their daughter to me, and for that I am eternally grateful, and I immediately gave him employment.

Josette, as you likely have inferred, has lived a difficult life. She speaks little of the things she saw before she arrived in London. Dupont has told me about my daughter’s life in France and her last days, and I believe that she was too ashamed of her elopement to return home to us when circumstances in France became dangerous. That, too, is a regret I carry to my grave. But Dupont also told me of Joseph’s family, particularly of his brother Francois, who had a girl of his own, just a little younger than my Josette. They were close as children, and I knew that Josette missed her cousin and worried about her as she grew older. It was an ache that I understood well, and Dupont convinced me it was one that I could do something about.

Not long after your attachment to Josette ended, Dupont received word from friends in France that Leticia was still alive. With my blessing and full support, he left London to retrieve the girl. To Josette’s everlasting joy and my eternal relief, he was successful. He returned with Leticia within a matter of weeks, and I agreed to shelter her.

But given the popular opinion toward the French and Napoleon’s encroaching war, Josette and I recognized that introducing Leticia to society was, in its own way, a risk. Not to mention, her status in London was precarious as a French citizen, and with the increase in anti-French sentiment, we worried about her becoming detained, or worse, deported. It was becoming increasingly evident that Leticia would not allow herself to be pushed aside or hidden away—you will see what I mean when you meet her. And so we concocted a story, only slightly less scandalous than the truth. We said that Leticia was the illegitimate daughter of Jacob and a woman he met on his ill-fated journey. We said that I had long suspected I had another grandchild, but I had lost track of her and her mother in the ensuing war. We said that she had surfaced and had proven to my satisfaction that she was kin, so she was granted the safety of British citizenship. It was only a matter of planting a few well-placed rumors and soon the entire ton accepted the story. If anyone doubted it, then Josette was able to convince them with the level of affection and sisterly care she shows her cousin.

Which brings me to the reason for my writing. Everyone will assume that I have amended my will to include Leticia, for they all know her as the daughter of my only son. But I fear doing so would prompt a probe into her parentage and a close inspection into Leticia’s past would ruin her reputation, and Josette’s—she is a devoted cousin, and she will not cut ties with Leticia. Therefore, I am not leaving Leticia anything, and I need a solicitor who understands the delicate nature of this unique circumstance.

Leticia will not dispute the will. Josette does not need the law to do right by her cousin, so you should not worry there. My only concern is that recently Leticia has attached herself to a young man—she thinks I do not know, but although I may struggle to grip a pen or soupspoon these days, there is nothing wrong with my eyes. I’m sure she’ll have confided in Josette, but I fear I have too little time to properly meet her young man and ascertain that he can be trusted with our secret. If he is an honorable gentleman, then he shall make her very happy. If not, then I fear he cannot be trusted—and under no circumstances should he learn that Leticia shall have no inheritance from me.

I am entrusting you, Mr. Darcy, to see to these affairs. You remind me of my Jacob, and I was very happy to see you and Josette together for the short time you enjoyed each other’s company. I am very sorry it did not lead to a union, but I hope that even after all this time, you still care for her well-being. She will need someone she can trust in the coming weeks.

Expect her letter upon my death. I am in your debt.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Amelia Cavendish

The hand that held Mrs. Cavendish’s letter trembled.

She had written Darcy, mere weeks before her death. And Josette—she had likely written him after her death, expecting that Darcy would know her situation and help. But he’d never gotten either letter. They’d been intercepted—intercepted by Mr. Tomlinson before his father had even left for the Continent!

Suddenly, he became aware of a high-pitched barking sound. Guy! And it was definitely his angry bark, not his excited bark. He tucked Mrs. Cavendish’s letter in his inner jacket pocket, not bothering with the rest of the files. Beyond the door, a voice began to yell—not just any voice, either. Tomlinson’s voice. Bloody hell.

He was trapped. If Tomlinson was back, there was no way that Darcy could slip out unnoticed, and the window of his office didn’t open. He looked down at the scratched wood of the drawer he’d forced open. He still wasn’t certain what exactly Tomlinson’s ploy was, and he wasn’t ready to confront the man.

Lizzie’s voice came to him: So create a diversion.

He pushed the previously locked drawer shut and picked up the nearest stack of files, only to toss them on the floor. And then the next stack, and then the next. It was rather satisfying, actually, to hear the whomp! of the files falling to the floor, the skittering of paper across the waxed surface. He reached for the next stack, even as he could hear Tomlinson’s voice coming closer. “Where is he? That dog is here, so he can’t be far! Bring him to me at once!”

The office door swung open, just as Darcy tossed an entire armful of paper into the air.

“Darcy! What is the meaning of this?”

If he hadn’t just been caught ransacking his supervisor’s office, he might have laughed at Tomlinson’s shocked expression. Behind him stood Reeves, struggling to keep hold of Guy’s leash as the dog strained toward Darcy, yapping away.

“Oh,” Darcy said, dropping the paper he held. “You’re back.”

“Darcy, I demand to know what you are doing in my office!”

“You know, I find that I prefer a messy office,” Darcy said. ‘To me, it shows that you’re in the thick of it, you’re accomplishing things.”

“I don’t know what you think you’re doing in my private office—”

“Going through files,” he interrupted. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“You have no right—”

“I think I have every right,” Darcy corrected him. “This is, after all, my father’s firm. My father’s office. My father’s desk, my father’s inkpot, my father’s files... well, you get the idea.”

“Your father isn’t here right now.” Tomlinson stormed toward him, and grabbed a fistful of his jacket. “While he’s gone, I’m in charge, and you have crossed a line—”

“I don’t actually think I am as bad of an employee as you make me out to be,” Darcy interrupted, pulling out of Tomlinson’s grasp. “In fact, I think you’ve been misplacing my work for weeks to discredit me.”

If Darcy had known how it would feel to simply call out Tomlinson, he might have done it weeks ago. The man sputtered for a moment, but Darcy would have guessed it was for the benefit of all the men listening just outside the door. His eyes were cold, and Darcy knew that he’d crossed a line. “You’re speaking nonsense, Darcy. The fact that your father founded this firm doesn’t give you leave to ransack my office!”

Darcy dropped the other papers he’d been holding and walked toward the office door. Tomlinson blocked him, puffing up his chest to seem larger than he really was. He glared down at Darcy, but there was a flicker of something in his eyes—oh. He was enjoying this, Darcy realized. Perhaps he thought that Darcy would hit him. That surely would bring down his father’s wrath, more than anything. The idea of his own son, brawling with the man he’d left in charge in their very proper law firm... the image of it nearly made Darcy laugh.

Darcy wasn’t about to lose his composure. Not because his father would have been disappointed in him, but because Tomlinson, for all his height, was just a small man who enjoyed making others feel smaller than him. And he was, quite frankly, not worth Darcy’s time.

“Consider this my notice,” Darcy said. He stepped around Tomlinson and headed for the door.

“Your father will hear of this!” Tomlinson yelled after him.

“I imagine he will,” Darcy agreed.

Darcy took Guy’s leash from Reeves and clapped him on the shoulder. As he walked out of Pemberley he looked happy for attention. Like that was what he was hoping for all along, and now he’d finally gotten it.

“You know Guy,” Darcy said.

Henry looked up at him, shrugged. “He was Mr. Simon’s dog.”

“Henry,” Darcy said, his voice very serious. “I’m not upset, but... please tell me the real reason why you’ve been following Lizzie around. It’s not just because she was kind to you, is it?”

For a moment, Darcy was afraid Henry would bolt again. He stared up, wide-eyed. But then Guy nudged his hand and moved closer to Henry, begging for more attention. Henry looked at the dog and mumbled, “It’s not fair.”

“What isn’t fair, Henry?”

“I wasn’t sneaking or spying, but I saw what they were doing! I didn’t mean to!”

“What were they doing?” Darcy asked urgently.

But Henry didn’t answer, at least not directly. “They always come at night. They move crates and boxes in, a whole lot of them. Mr. Simon walks around the outside, with Guy. Guy always finds me, but on the nights the crates come, Mr. Simon yells and chases me away.”

“And Lizzie is going there tonight?” he asked. “To see what’s in the crates?”

Henry nodded miserably.

“Is there something else you’ve not said, Henry? Something more to it?”

“They always come, the next night,” Henry whispered. “They take the crates somewhere else. They’re bad people. Even Mr. Simon doesn’t like them. One of them kicked Guy once.”

A sick, icy feeling replaced the confusion. “Who, Henry?”

“The man,” he said. “The man at your office.”