Lydia returned the other items to the box and replaced it in the wardrobe, but she kept the small portrait of her husband to set beside her bed.“I would have liked to have known this young man. We could love each other until death do us part.” She patted the frame, treating the miniature as a symbol of their renewed relationship. Feeling much more content, she turned for the door. They would take the afternoon meal soon, and Mr. Darcy preferred his guests to be prompt.

Lydia stepped into the hall, only to find Cathleen Donnel also exiting her assigned room. The sleeping quarters followed a T-shaped hallway.The main guest chambers were situated in the vertical line of the T.The Darcys took the left branch of the horizontal line of the T, and their aristocratic guests took the right. Lydia’s room lay where the lines intersected—the perpendicular point—and Miss Donnel’s, the farthest away from her room, at the far end of the vertical line of the T. Lydia idly wondered about the arrangement. Should not Miss Donnel be closer to her cousin?

Cathleen did not speak, but Lydia nodded her head in the direction of the approaching woman and stopped to wait for her. They could enter the dining room together.

At that moment, Anne de Bourgh turned the corner, entering the main hall from the right. Lydia paused long enough to offer the woman a curtsy. “Miss de Bourgh!” Lydia gushed. “Is it not uncanny that we meet at Pemberley? I have heard so much of you and of Lady Catherine from my cousin Mr. Collins.”

“Mr. Collins is a ninny,” Anne grumbled as she approached. If the girl wanted to offer her some civility, mentioning her mother’s clergyman did not play well. In Anne’s opinion, Mr. Collins was nothing more than a walking mouthpiece. He spoke only of what he thought his patroness Lady Catherine might approve. It was not beneath the man to gossip and to fawn over Lady Catherine to stay in Her Ladyship’s good graces.

“Of . . . of course, Mr. . . . Mr. Collins, can be somewhat pretentious,” Lydia stammered.

“That would be an understatement,” Anne insisted.

Both women moved toward the main staircase. Miss Donnel reached it before they did.As the three women prepared to descend the stairs—catching up their skirts to steady their steps—Mrs.Williams opened her door to follow. Both Anne and Lydia paused—mere seconds to observe Mrs. Williams. But Cathleen did not do so; she began her descent.

The next twenty seconds seemed to both speed by in pure chaos and simultaneously pass as slowly as a snail through a peculiar mix of events. Cathleen boldly stepped forward, only to find herself tumbling through the air, banging against the railing and support wall, before coming to a stop on the landing eight steps below. Her scream of surprise and pain echoed off the walls.

As one, Lydia’s and Anne’s heads turned to behold a flurry of muslin and lace wrapped around Cathleen Donnel’s legs while she fought for control—arms flailing.They watched and squealed, both terrified and mesmerized.

Evelyn Williams saw the woman take the first step—observed the horror on Cathleen Donnel’s face, but she could not move quickly enough to make a difference. Pushing against Mrs. Wickham and Miss de Bourgh, Evelyn tried to prevent the accident, but this was impossible. Her scream joined Cathleen’s in a cacophony of sound.


Adam Lawrence strolled casually along the hallway. At least, Pemberley offered a refined sophistication. The rooms were lofty and handsome, and their furniture suitable to the fortune of their proprietor—neither gaudy nor uselessly fine—with less of splendor and real elegance than the furniture found in many homes he visited. He and Cathleen could be stranded in a run-down inn right now. Lawrence decided that even with the inconvenience of Darcy’s terms for his stay, this was decidedly better.

However, just as he turned the corner to the main hallway, Adam heard her—heard Cathleen scream. Immediately, he reacted, shoving his way past a stunned Anne de Bourgh to catapult himself down the carpeted steps to reach a crumpled and twisted body on the landing.

“Cathleen,” he pleaded as he moved her hair away from her face. “Speak to me. Come on, Sweetheart.” When he cradled her head in his hands, a groan told him she was conscious.


Darcy replaced the pen in its holder. Unable to find the original, he had rewritten the letter to Mr. Laurie. He had retraced the events leading to Mr. Baldwin’s recent evening visit to his office, and Darcy knew that on that evening he had not folded the letter in preparation for posting. He left it lying on his desk. And so for an hour today, he had moved everything in this room, carefully looking under and behind furniture.The letter was nowhere to be found, another spoke in a wheel of mystery.

He was deep in thought, so when the initial scream came, followed closely by a choir of dismay, it took him by surprise. Instinctively, he ran toward the noise, afraid that it signaled a problem for Elizabeth or Georgiana. Taking the steps two at a time, Darcy quickly covered the distance, and discovered a very upset viscount comforting his mistress as she lay writhing in pain on the landing.

“What happened?” Darcy asked as he knelt beside Adam Lawrence.

Lawrence did not look up—his concentration was on the woman as he began to check for broken bones.“I am not certain—I heard a scream.”

Darcy looked up to see three women staring down at them. “Might any of you speak to what occurred?” He stood slowly to survey the area.

“I saw Miss Donnel lose her balance,” Evelyn Williams said. “But I could not reach her in time.”

Anne stared in disbelief at Miss Donnel. “I do not believe that either Mrs.Wickham or I can add anything, Fitzwilliam.”


Mrs. Jenkinson had followed Anne de Bourgh from the room. She had returned to their adjoining chambers to retrieve a shawl for the woman she admired and respected. Mrs. Mildred Jenkinson had served as a companion to Anne de Bourgh since before the girl turned sixteen, nearly twelve years earlier. As much as possible, she shielded Anne from Lady Catherine. Her Ladyship was a difficult employer, but Mildred stayed because she thought that otherwise Anne might crumble in submission to her mother.With Mr. Darcy’s marriage to Elizabeth Bennet, Lady Catherine had become harder to predict. In her anger at her nephew, Her Ladyship often lashed out at the closest person—her daughter Anne.

Lady Catherine had for years planned a union between the cousins, despite the daughter’s subtle objections and Mr. Darcy’s open refusals. In Mrs. Jenkinson’s opinion, such a joining would be marital suicide: their dispositions were too much in opposition for a relationship to succeed. Mildred had watched Mr. Darcy’s reaction during that ill-fated Easter dinner when Miss Elizabeth Bennet visited the Collinses and dined at Rosings. She had been amused by Mr. Darcy’s response to the interactions between his cousin Colonel Fitzwilliam and Miss Bennet. Mr. Darcy, usually so cool and reserved, had left his aunt in midsentence in order to station himself by Miss Bennet’s side. Unfortunately, Lady Catherine had observed this, also. Her Ladyship immediately launched a campaign to belittle Miss Bennet at every opportunity.

Yet it had all been for naught. Mr. Darcy had married Miss Bennet, finding the happiness that eluded him for years. Now, if her dear Anne could prove so lucky, Mildred could rest easy. She understood everyone’s concern regarding Lieutenant Harwood because Anne knew so little about the man. But Mildred Jenkinson could not harbor ill feelings toward him. Farce or not, the lieutenant’s mindfulness of Anne’s good qualities brought sparkle into the life of the woman Mrs. Jenkinson so dearly loved. Only Lady Catherine saw the situation as deplorable, and her disapproval had driven Anne to a desperate act: Anne arranged a tryst. Mildred did not approve, but she understood.

Shawl in hand, she had followed Anne at a more leisurely pace. However, when she had heard the scream, she rushed forward, fearing the worst, but found only a man in the Pemberley livery blocking her way. “What is going on?” she cried. She peered around the man’s shoulder. He stood perfectly still. “Move!” she ordered as she tried to press past him.

“I would not,” he growled.

Mildred looked up into his eyes, which were red with anger. The man frightened her, but she mustered her best duenna voice—the one she had used years earlier for misbehaving children—and ordered,“See to your duties, sir, and remove yourself from my way.”

The man leaned menacingly over her, but he said no more. When she raised her chin in defiance, he whispered in a gravelly voice, sounding much older than his appearance indicated, “Beware, old woman!” And then he left, disappearing in the direction of the family quarters.

Mildred stared after him for a few brief seconds, overpowered by his rudeness, but as he withdrew, her sensibility returned, and she rushed to Anne’s side.

Darcy glanced down to where Lawrence continued to tend to his mistress. “Can she be moved?” he asked as he knelt again.

“I can find no obvious injuries, but I am no physician,” Lawrence said. “Yet, I think we can move Cathleen to her room.”

Darcy started to motion for a waiting footman, but Lawrence shook off the offer. The viscount circled to the opposite side of the woman, where he might lift her without hurting Cathleen or himself. However, before he had made a move, his eyes fell on the first step. “What is that?” He indicated with his eyes for Darcy to look to what he saw.

Darcy obeyed the urgency in the viscount’s eyes. “I do not know.” He bounded up the eight rises and reached for what he and Lawrence now realized had caused the accident. A thin piece of hemp—pulled tight—stretched from the banister’s spindle and hooked around a decorative nipple in the wall’s baseboard.