Page 16 of Gentlemen of Honor (Bennet Gang Duology #2)

Uninvited Guest

Standing in the window of her younger brother’s room, Lydia watched the carriages trundle away with a sigh. Mama and Kitty had finagled a not unwilling Colonel Fitzwilliam into their carriage with Mary, while Jane and Elizabeth rode with Mr. Darcy. Lydia had helped Elizabeth get ready, fixing her hair far nicer than she would think to do, or to ask a maid for, and insisting on her loveliest rose-colored gown. Elizabeth never took enough care with her appearance, and tonight would be special. Lydia was convinced that once Mr. Darcy danced with Elizabeth amidst the splendor of Netherfield Park, he would ask her to marry him.

She would have assisted Mary, too, for she was even worse than Elizabeth, but Mary did not want help. Robert Collins, still in deep mourning for his so-called brother, couldn’t attend the ball. Lydia found that monstrously unfair to Mary, but her sister seemed sanguine. She said she would be happy to dance with their future brother and the gentlemen of their party, and allowed that it would be pleasant to see Netherfield Park in all its splendor, for they’d heard much from Mr. Bingley concerning Miss Bingley’s preparations.

Lydia wished she could see the splendor. For weeks, the whole village had been awash in tales of what Miss Bingley had ordered, both locally and in from London. Hundreds of candles. Braces of ducks. A whole cow had been slaughtered, and new table linens bought, and a giant, glittering punch bowl that rumor said it took four men to carry.

As well, rumor had multiple wagons full of hothouse flowers, along with a team pulling a dray of ice. And forbidden, smuggled champagne. Lydia had only tasted champagne a few times, but she knew she loved the beverage.

She sighed again as the carriages disappeared from view.

“Why are you huffing in my window?” Matthew asked sleepily.

Lydia whirled and rushed to his bedside. “You’re awake again.” She slapped a hand to his forehead, as she’d seen Mary do. He felt warm, but not too warm.

Not that she actually knew what too warm was.

Matthew pushed her arm away. “Hey.”

“I need to see if you are fevered,” she said imperiously.

“I’m thirsty. Is there any tea?”

Lydia whirled to face the tray a maid had left on his desk. “I have delicious broth for you, and medicine, and I can send for tea. You always fall asleep before it can arrive, though.”

Matthew yawned widely. “I am sleepy.”

“No,” she said over her shoulder as she reached the desk. “Do not go back to sleep until you have some broth.” She took the cover from his bowl of broth, happy to see that it still steamed faintly, and brought the tray to him.

He struggled to sit up, but managed before she could decide whether or not to put the tray back on the desk and help him, and Lydia deposited it in his lap. “Eat it all.”

Rather than complain at her order, he forwent the spoon, picked up the bowl, and drank. Lydia issued no reprimand. Now was not the time for manners.

With a gusty sigh of his own, he put down the empty bowl. “Thank you.”

“Do you want more? I can send for more.”

Matthew shook his head. “I think I’ll go back to sleep.”

“Let me pour you some medicine first. Mary and Colonel Fitzwilliam made it.”

“Colonel who?” Matthew asked as she returned to the desk.

“The colonel who has been helping Mary care for you.” Lydia poured the cold, bitter smelling brew into a cup. “He’s the one who got Mama to stop letting Mr. Jones leech you.”

“Leech me?”

She turned back in time to see Matthew shudder.

“I don’t remember,” he said, worry in his eyes. “I mean, I remember a gentleman here with Mary, but not the leeches.”

Lydia handed him the teacup. “Why would you want to?”

Matthew sniffed. “This smells vile.”

“Mary and Colonel Fitzwilliam said you need to drink it.”

Scrunching his face, Matthew took a sip, then grimaced. “It tastes like dirt.”

“There are worse things than dirt,” Lydia said with a shrug. “Like leeches.”

He hurriedly swallowed the rest of the tea. Setting the cup down on the tray, he said, “I really would like to go back to sleep.”

“I will get more broth and see if your medicine can be warmed.” She picked up the tray. “I’ve tasted it and it’s not as bad warm.” She went to the door, her steps light, proud that she’d got Matthew to have a whole bowl of broth and a cup of the brew that Mary and Colonel Fitzwilliam had made to help cure him.

“Lydie,” he called, already sounding half asleep.

She turned back, tray in hand.

“Thank you.”

Lydia smiled at him, watching his eyes drift closed.

She took the tray to the kitchen and asked that another be readied, happy to report to Mrs. Hill that Matthew continued to improve. Both the housekeeper and her mother-in-law doted on Matthew. Lydia thought it had aged them to see him so ill, and Nanny Hill, especially, did not have much older she could get.

As she was already downstairs, she went to the drawing room and secured a pack of cards to take back up with her. She hurried her stride then, worried to have left her brother alone for so long when Elizabeth had said to watch over him. When she reached the front staircase, noting that none of the staff were about, likely because anyone who would possibly call was at Netherfield Park, Lydia dashed upward.

And came out into the hallway to the sight of Matthew’s door slightly ajar. With a surge of worry, she rushed inside.

Thomas was within, seated at the desk with another pack of cards.

Lydia’s shoulders dropped in relief. “I’ll play you,” she said, realizing that her fear was silly. Matthew didn’t need guarding. Elizabeth had likely been trying to make her feel better about being left behind.

Looking over at her, Thomas nodded. “How long do you think they will be at the ball?”

Lydia dragged over the chair from next to the bed, glad that the carpet muted the sound, for Matthew slept. “I don’t know. Hours and hours, probably.”

“Maybe Mary will come back sooner to sit with Matthew so we don’t have to.”

“Maybe,” Lydia allowed. To sit with Matthew, and because Cousin Robert wasn’t at the ball. “We don’t have to stay either. We can always ask a maid. ”

Thomas began shuffling the cards. “Elizabeth said we should stay with him,” he asserted, as if he had been the one sitting with Matthew as the others left.

“I don’t know that she meant all the time,” Lydia protested, simply for the sake of doing so. She didn’t want to leave Matthew alone any more than Thomas did. “I’ll deal. You cheat.”

“I do not,” he said with indignation.

“Do so.” She plucked the cards he’d been shuffling from his hand and split the deck.

They played quite a few rounds, not keeping track of who won or lost, and trading who shuffled. Lydia was dealing out a fresh hand when Thomas’s stomach rumbled so loudly that she giggled.

Thomas looked down, his cheeks going red. “I’m hungry.”

Lydia raised an eyebrow, as Elizabeth often did. “I had not noticed,” she said in her best officious manner, then giggled again. “We should go have supper. Mrs. Hill will have asked Cook to have something waiting for when they get back from the ball, in case they’re hungry. We can send a maid up to sit with Matty.”

“Shouldn’t we wait for them to get back so we can eat with them?”

She shook her head, hungry too, now that she’d thought of it. “They will be gone for hours yet. Besides, supper at Netherfield Park will probably be soon. If we eat now, we can eat again with them later.”

“Do you think Cook made any sweets?” Thomas asked as Lydia gathered back up the cards.

“Even if not, there were biscuits at tea today. Those ones with the lemon icing. There may be some left.”

His eyes bright at the prospect, Thomas stood.

They went out into the hall to find one of the maids, Lucy, about to enter Mary’s room. She had a tray laden with fresh towels, an ewer, and a vase of hothouse flowers, and she smiled when she saw them, dipping as much of a curtsy as her overburdened arms allowed.

“Oh, look at those.” Lydia hurried down the hallway. “Are those for Mary?”

Lucy nodded. “Aye. I think Mr. Collins is remorseful that his state of mourning doesn’t permit him to attend the ball with her.”

“Mary understands,” Lydia said. “They are very pretty, though. He must have sent all the way to London.”

“Do you require any assistance?” Thomas asked, nodding to the maid’s burdens .

“You are a right proper gentleman, Master Thomas, but I am well, thank you.”

Still, Lydia realized, they should not keep Lucy standing in the hall holding that heavy tray. “We are off to the kitchen to find food. Once you’re done in Mary’s room, do you have time to sit with Matthew? Or should we send someone else up?”

“I will be pleased to sit with him, miss.”

Lydia smiled. She always liked Lucy, who treated her just as she did all of Lydia’s older sisters. “Thank you. We won’t be long.”

“There are cards in there,” Thomas offered.

Lucy nodded, made another scant dip of a curtsy, and went into Mary’s chambers, the sitting room of which was shared with Lydia’s, just as Jane and Elizabeth shared. Kitty didn’t share with anyone. Not her sitting room, nor much of anything else.

But Kitty wasn’t here and while she was out, Lydia was going to eat all the rest of the lemon frosted biscuits, a favorite of both of theirs that Kitty usually took for herself.

With that happy thought, Lydia led the way down to the kitchen, taking the back staircase for the sake of expediency. As long as they didn’t get in the way of the staff’s work, Lydia didn’t see any reason to stick her nose in the air and march up and down the main staircase. Especially when it took her to the front of the house, and the kitchen was at the back, where the servants’ stair let out.

In the kitchen, they found a larger spread than usual, all set out prettily on trays to be carried to the parlor once everyone returned from the ball. Not only lemon frosted biscuits, but orange as well, and lavender, awaited them. Still, Lydia first took some cold meat and bread, having learned long ago that if she stuffed a pile of sweets into her empty stomach, her head would hurt.

“Do you see all those biscuits?” Thomas whispered as he, too, made a show of taking meat under the eyes of Cook and the several kitchen maids that still bustled about.

“It must be because Mr. Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam are visiting,” Lydia cast back.

They gathered their food and moved to two of the chairs the staff used, for Mrs. Hill often permitted them to eat in the kitchen. She said that at least it kept their mess contained. As if in answer to Lydia’s thoughts, the knife Thomas had used to spread mustard on his meat fell off the side of his plate to clatter onto the tabletop, mustard splashing. Her brother kept chewing, not seeming to notice.

Sitting straight-backed as her older sisters did, Lydia endeavored to eat with more care, but she was very hungry, now that it came to it, and a few times she did shove more food in her mouth than would really fit. She made certain, though, not to wipe her face with her sleeve. She was not a child, after all.

“Do you think we can have some biscuits now?” Thomas asked, looking down at his cleared plate.

Lydia glanced around at the busy staff, maids coming and going, passing through with clean linens or dirty, with pitchers to fill or basins to empty. “I don’t think anyone will notice if we take a few.”

Thomas unfolded his mustard-stained serviette, grinning. Realizing that his plan was to fill the square of cloth with sweets, Lydia did the same. They could take their pilfered loot back up to Matthew’s room.

Leaving their plates, they returned to the side table where dishes waited to be carried out into the house when the rest of their family returned. Lydia reached for a lemon-frosted biscuit.

A shriek tore through the house.

Lydia whirled, running for the back stairwell before she fully registered that the shriek was a woman’s, and came from above. As she pounded up the stairs, she could hear Thomas behind her. Shouting rose in the kitchen and more footfalls followed.

Lydia burst into the upper hallway. Before her, a black clad man with a mask over the top of his face had his hands about Lucy’s throat.

His gaze found her, then jumped to Thomas. He bared his teeth in a snarl, shoving Lucy away. She crashed into the wall as the man ran at them.

Lydia gaped at him. He barreled down the hallway, drawing a knife. An arm came out, and he made to thrust her into the wall as he had Lucy. He lunged at Thomas.

The training Elizabeth had given them over the past few days fled Lydia’s mind and she latched onto the man’s arm with all her might, terrified of that knife reaching her brother.

The man jerked back, caught by her weight. He let out a low curse. Footfalls clattered free of the back stairwell.

With a yank, the masked man pulled Lydia to him, her back pressed against a strong chest and his knife at her throat. “Take another step and she dies,” he informed the throng of kitchen staff that now filled the end of the hallway nearest Mrs. Oakwood’s rooms.

More footfalls sounded, coming up the front staircase. The man jerked Lydia around. Somewhere behind her on the floor, Lucy sobbed.

“Come near me and she dies,” the man reiterated to the footmen who’d come up the front staircase. “Go back down, all of you. And get away from the staircase. One slip, and she will be nothing but a memory.”

The men backed down the staircase. Lydia wiggled, trying to get her arms free of the one that braced across her body like iron, pinning her.

“Keep moving and your pretty little gown will be stained with your blood,” the man hissed, pressing the knife painfully against her throat.

“Let my sister go,” Thomas cried, his voice shattered with misery.

“I will let her go when I am safely out of this house,” the man cast back. He halted their slow progress down the hallway, then added, “Unless you would care to change places with her?”

“No,” she squawked. “Thomas, stay where you are.”

As if in agreement, Cook, who held a large cleaver in one hand, clasped the other on Thomas’s shoulder.

“Very well,” the villain holding her snapped, and they resumed their sideways shuffle along the hallway.

When they reached the staircase, the footmen and Hector below, he ordered them back farther. Half holding her up, the man hauled Lydia down the stairs with him. The knife at her throat, he made her open the door. He started to drag her through.

“You have your freedom,” she cried, fear shooting through her. She did not want to go out into the night with this man. “Let go of me.”

“Once I am on my horse,” he growled. “Stop fighting or I will render you unconscious. You will serve me just as well in that state.”

Lydia stilled.

He manhandled her down the steps, the cold metal of the knife pressed to her neck, then half-dragged her across the drive, in the direction of the trees. As they drew near, something moved in the deeper darkness beneath the naked branches. Something big. Panic surged in her.

Elizabeth’s lessons welled back up in her terrified brain, more focused this time. As hard as she could, Lydia brought her foot down on the instep of the man who held her.

He let out a cry of pain, his grip on her loosening, the knife falling back slightly. Lydia pulled her arms free and, hands clasped like Elizabeth had shown her, drove an elbow backward into the man’s gut.

He doubled over, releasing her.

Like a fleeing doe, Lydia sprang away. A hand caught at her arm, the sleeve of her gown tearing. He didn’t get a good enough hold and she was running, shrieking, back to the house. The staff of Dovemark spilled out down the steps and into the drive. Cook brandished his cleaver. Lydia reached Dovemark’s staff.

Behind her, a horse whinnied. She whirled, skidding, afraid he was coming after her.

The black clad man was astride now. His horse reared, brown or black. In the darkness, she couldn’t tell. Brandishing his knife, he cried, “Les Boney Bandits frappent encore!” He yanked hard on the reins, bringing his half-terrified mount around, and galloped down the drive.

Lydia’s legs gave out and she sank down to sit on the bottom step. About her, people babbled and yelled. She started shaking, trying to catch her breath. If Jane had been anywhere near as scared as Lydia was now, she completely understood why her sister hadn’t thought not to hit Mr. Collins in the face.

“Help!” Nanny Hill’s querulous voice rose above the din. “Help! Lucy is hurt, and she says that man gave Master Matthew something, and he won’t wake up.”