Page 33 of A Matter of Murder

“Right, well, word in the village is that she is the reason Netherfield is cursed.”

Lizzie winced. She might have delivered that news a bit more gently.

Bingley looked puzzled. “Please explain.”

Lizzie and Darcy did so quickly, with a clarifying point here and there from Charlotte. When they were done, the entire room was blessedly silent before Caroline crossed her arms and said, “Of coursethis place is cursed.”

Bingley reached into his pocket and withdrew something. Lizzie recognized it as the silver coin they’d recovered from the dead man’s pocket, now polished. “This silver—it could be from Honoria’s fortune?”

Darcy reached out a hand for the coin, and Bingley gave it to him. “It could be.”

Lizzie leaned in to look at it. Now that untold years’ worth of grime—and other things Lizzie did not want to think about—had been cleaned away, Lizzie could see that one side boasted a shield topped with a crown, and a year: 1731. On the opposite side was a cross surrounded by filigree, and HISPANIARVM was etched above it. Charlotte leaned in to examine the coin alongside Lizzie and then gasped.

“What is it?” Lizzie asked her.

“I’ve done some reading,” Charlotte said slowly. “About the history of the West Indies.”

A flush crept across her cheeks, as if she were embarrassed to admit that she was curious about her mother’s homeland. Charlotte didn’t talk about her mother very often. Lizzie knew that her parents’ marriage had been rather scandalous at the time. Her mother was from the West Indies and her father had been a British merchant. They’d spent their time mostly outside of England, away from wagging tongues, but when their untimely deaths had left Charlotte orphaned as an infant, she was sent to London, where she grew up under the guardianship of her father’s business partner.

“What have you learned?” Darcy asked.

“The Spanish conquered much of the Americas,” she said. “And they stole gold and silver and whatever else was valuable. They made coins, like this one, stamped for the Spanish king. And they sent them back to Spain in great fleets. But... one fleet was almost entirely lost. It was caught in a hurricane, and most of the ships sank. Thousands and thousands of coins were lost to the ocean. This was in 1733, but the coins that were lost were the 1731 mint.”

Lizzie did the mental math—that was roughly eighty years ago. But Honoria would have come to Netherfield Park only fifty years earlier. “Were the coins ever recovered?”

“Many were,” Charlotte said. “But there were many that weren’t. Treasure hunters and pirates have been searching the waters for them for years.”

“So, which was Honoria?” Bingley wondered. “Heiress or scavenger?”

“Both,” Charlotte said, earning her a look of surprise from those gathered. “The silver was stolen from rightful citizens of the land by the Spanish.”

“No wonder everyone thinks it’s cursed,” muttered Darcy.

“What a bunch of nonsense,” Caroline said, crossing her arms. “Rumors from a backward village don’t mean anything! They’re jealous of the Bingley family wealth.”

“It looks so small,” Lydia said. “Are you sure it’s worth much?”

“Honestly, Lydia,” Mary said, voice dripping with condescension. “It’s solid silver in an age of silver shortages! If Bingleyhas a mountain of them somewhere in this house, then he has... well, not a small fortune. A very, very large fortune.”

“If your great-aunt had that much silver, then why didn’t she use any of it to fix the roof or decorate the rooms?” Lydia demanded.

“Lydia!” Mary and Lizzie both reprimanded.

“What?”

“I’m sure she had her reasons,” Lizzie said doubtfully. But she couldn’t help but wonder whether that reason was connected to the dead man in the flue. It would be impossible to open the house to builders, servants, and guests while concealing a body.

“We should look for it!” Lydia said.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Lizzie began to say.

“Why not?” Bingley asked, looking to Jane. “We know this old house has more than a few secrets.”

“It might be an interesting diversion,” Jane said, surprising Lizzie. But then, her eyes kept straying to the stack of invitations she was penning, and Lizzie imagined her sister was desperate for a bit of peace.

Lydia clapped her hands in delight. “I already know how I shall spend my share! Kitty, come on—let’s start in the ballroom!”

“What?” Bingley said. “Girls, come back here! We ought to lay down a few ground rules!” He turned and said, “The rest of you, pair up. And the east wing is still out of bounds!”