Page 59 of In Want of a Suspect

Darcy crossed the space between them and gathered her up in his arms. “I’m not dead! I’m all right! Someone locked me in the records room, I just got out this morning and came straight here.”

Lizzie held herself rigid for a moment and then relaxed into his embrace. Her arms came around him and squeezed tightly. “I am very cross with you,” she said into his jacket.

But now Darcy was truly alarmed, for her reaction to seeing him seemed awfully drastic considering he had missed one dinner. “Lizzie, did something happen?”

She inhaled one more time, then stepped back. Guy danced between them, clearly happy to see him as well. “Yes,” she said, and carefully withdrew a heavy object wrapped in a length of muslin from her basket.

Lizzie set it on the pink velvet counter and unwrapped it. At the center was a brick, with the wordstopscrawled in black letters on its wide side. Darcy’s heart plummeted.

Lizzie looked at Elinor Dashwood. “Someone threw this through my front window yesterday evening, and I need to know everything about where it came from.”

Thirteen

In Which Lizzie and Darcy Consult the Misses Dashwood

LIZZIE’S RELIEF AT FINDINGDarcy safe and sound was quickly overshadowed by his alarm and Elinor’s and Marianne’s shock at the sight of the brick.

“Good heavens,” Elinor proclaimed.

“Are you all right?” Marianne asked.

“We’re all unharmed,” Lizzie assured them. Darcy was staring at the brick with a clenched jaw, so she could only imagine what sort of angry thoughts were brewing in his mind. “The brick didn’t land anywhere near us.”

“You don’t throw something like this through a drawing room window unless you’re content with the idea of causing harm,” he said darkly.

Guy began barking, an excited, happy sound as he lunged toward one of the shop’s displays.

“Guy, shush! This is quite unbecoming!” Lizzie scolded. But then Guy dove under the table’s cloth, and a peal of laughtercame from beneath the table. The tablecloth flipped up, revealing the youngest Dashwood sister, Margaret. Guy licked her face and danced in happiness.

“Hello, Miss Bennet. Did the window make an awful mess?” Margaret asked.

“Margaret! You’re not supposed to eavesdrop!” Elinor scolded.

“It’s a public shop,” Margaret protested as she crawled out. “I like your dog.”

“Thank you,” Lizzie said. “And, yes, it made an awful mess. We’ll be picking glass out of the carpet for weeks.”

Darcy made a strangled sort of noise just then, and his face was twisted in misery. “Lizzie.”

“He’s been very worried about you,” Margaret said.

“Margaret,” Elinor said with a warning in her voice.

“Oh?” Lizzie looked between the sisters and Darcy. “What were you all discussing just now?”

“Romantic woes,” Margaret quipped as she tussled with Guy.

“Margaret!” Elinor clapped her hands. “That’s it! In the back!”

Margaret protested but was pulled along by her oldest sister. Marianne went to the front of the shop, locked the door, and flipped their sign so it readClosed. “Lizzie, I think you’d better start from the very beginning.”

Lizzie was not entirely convinced that they hadn’t been talking about her, but she quickly recounted the previous evening’s events. Darcy listened with horror, and when she had finished he looked miserable. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there.”

She wished they were alone so she could step closer to him. “What is this about being locked in the records room?”

“I stayed late to look at a file,” he said. “Mrs. Cavendish’s file, actually. And someone locked me in the room—I didn’t get out until this morning.”

“Why on earth would someone lock you in?” Lizzie demanded. “And what did you find in Mrs. Cavendish’s file?”