“Slipworth,” Darcy called, and the valet appeared at his elbow. “Help Anders carry that trunk inside. He will show you where it is to go.”
“Begging your pardon, Mr. Darcy,” Anders replied, swallowing anxiously, “I think you will want to see them.”
He returned his attention to the coachman. “The tools,” Darcy repeated. He simply wanted to be certain.
Anders nodded, his demeanor grave.
“Why would . . .” Slipworth began to say, but Darcy cut him off.
“I will meet you . . .” He paused to allow Anders to finish the statement.
Anders did. “In the old sewing room, sir.”
Slipworth’s cheeks flushed. It was beneath his position to be hauling trunks, but Darcy gave him a stern look, and the valet reached for one of the leather loops. Darcy walked ahead of the pair, keeping a watch for any others on his staff.
Darcy entered the sewing room, a small room down the servants’ corridor from the kitchen. It was used for storage now. When Mrs. Spencer, the housekeeper, had mentioned in her clipped, stern way, how dark this room was, he had given her leave to fit up a larger, airier room with better light on the other side of the house. No one would think twice about Anders taking a trunk there, though they might wonder why the master accompanied it. Slipworth and Anders came in behind him, struggling with the trunk between them.
Darcy closed the door and rested against it.
“What is it we have hauled in here?” Slipworth asked imperiously, addressing Anders. “It feels as if you had filled the entire thing with earth.”
There was a quick knock. “Darcy?” It was Fitz, speaking just above a whisper. “What the blazes are you doing in there?”
Darcy sighed. Fitz was impossible to mislead. Whatever this was, it would be unwise to keep his cousin out of it. He opened the door just wide enough to pull his cousin inside and shut the door again.
“I was trying to procure something to eat, but your cook defends her borders better than the French,” Fitz said, eyeing the trunk. “I thought I heard you in the back hall. What is all the mystery?”
“We were about to be enlightened,” Darcy replied, and nodded at Anders, who silently assessed Darcy and then the other two men.
“Come, Anders, let us see what you have hidden away,” Darcy said, a little impatiently.
“Oh, it was not me, sir,” Anders insisted, growing paler than he had been outside, no small feat for a man whose complexion was so dark. “Not me.”
Darcy frowned and exchanged a troubled glance with Fitz. His cousin motioned with a tip of his head to the valet and raised an eyebrow.
He knew that Fitz was asking whether the man was reliable. Though Slipworth was rather pompous and had his oddities, he was loyal and entirely discreet. Whatever Anders had to show them, none of the men in this room would reveal it. Darcy gave his cousin a single nod, then turned his attention to Anders. The man threw back the boot’s lid, the buckles on the straps hitting the wood floor with a muted thud.
Darcy stepped forward and peered into the box. The room was rather dark even in the middle of the day. He could make out a mound of brown wool and a mop of chestnut curls. His heart nearly stopped in his chest.
It was a woman.
From behind him, Fitz released a long hiss. Darcy crouched beside the trunk to brush the hair from the woman’s face. For a long moment, he could not breathe. He rocked back on his heels and grabbed at the edge of the trunk to steady himself.
Inside, curled up and unmoving, was Miss Elizabeth Bennet.