Darcy Darlington and the Diamond of Desire by Maya Rodale

Darcy darlington and the diamond of desire

Chapter six ~ In which our heroine finds a very important clue.

Maybe Felicia wasn’t The One for Tristan. Maybe she was. Tristan was about to ask her something—something serious—when old Mrs. Betts, the housekeeper, interrupted and insisted Darcy come inside and join the rest of the staff for supper.

Mrs. Betts did not hold Darcy in high regard and took every opportunity to cast a dirty look or assign a loathsome chore. Or interrupt the moment she had been waiting for all her life!

Tristan seemed reluctant to leave her, but he left all the same, although with the promise to see her soon.

Now there was nothing for her to do but search for the diamond. She had two more days in which to do it. On Wednesday evening was her mother’s Charity Ball, and Darcy had promised to help with the preparations and, of course, attend. She dreamed of wearing the diamond necklace to the ball and waltzing with Tristan.

The next morning, Darcy had the good fortune to be assigned to tidy up the private sitting room of The Evil Lord—the very room where she had spied him examining the contents of a box that was the perfect size to hold a diamond necklace.

Unfortunately, she did not have the complete privacy she wished for. Her fellow housemaid, Jenny, was assigned to help. They stood in the doorway and had a look at the task before them.

“He doesn’t let us work in this room very much,” Jenny explained.

“I see,” Darcy said. Sadly, she did.

Floor to ceiling bookshelves lined three walls with books shoved on the shelves in disorganized piles. Every available surface—small side tables, chairs, the mantle—was littered with stuff, like drinking glasses, paper, more books, handkerchiefs, and lord only knew what else.

“What a mess,” Jenny muttered. “I don’t know how we’ll manage to get this done before luncheon.”

“We could start in opposite corners and meet in the middle,” Darcy suggested with a plan already forming.

“Smart idea.”

“You said this room was not tended to very often,” Darcy started, already knowing Jenny was the talkative sort. One only needed to provide her with a subject, and she had plenty to say. As a sleuth, Darcy considered such people a godsend. As a woman in a strange, lonely, and occasionally frightening situation, Darcy just adored Jenny. Her rambling distracted her from her troubles.

“Aye, we only get in here every month or two. It’s his Lordship’s private study, and he doesn’t like us to enter all too often. He thinks we’ll snoop around.”

“Really,” Darcy said, pushing books aside on the pretence of dusting but really just to see if anything, like, oh say, that box, was hidden behind it.

“I can’t imagine what he thinks we’d be interested in here. It’s all books!”

“And dust,” Darcy said with a sneeze.

“There are rumors he keeps the bodies in here,” Jenny said, lowering her voice. No need to mention whose bodies, of course.

“Where?” Darcy asked, looking around the room. There was no space to hide a corpse or two. Never mind that the murders had happened so long ago, the bodies would be nothing but bones by now. She shuddered at such a gruesome thought.

“There,” Jenny said, gesturing to the fireplace. “In the urns.”

“Oh, their ashes,” Darcy said, understanding. There were two urns on the mantle, one larger, one smaller. Both were silver and clearly had not been polished, well, ever.

“I thought there were three victims. The wife, her lover, and the daughter.” Darcy had learned that tidbit the previous evening from another one of the housemaids.

“Supposedly that’s true. But would he really keep the ashes of the man that cuckolded him? Methinks not.”

Darcy had to agree. She sorted through a stack of books left on a small side table; the box was not in the pile.

“How did he murder them anyway?” Darcy asked with genuine curiosity. There were so many versions circulating around town—still. Some had The Evil Lord Hartshorne poisoning the victims and laughing whilst holding the antidote just out of their dying grasps. There was a story available for every weapon: pistol, sword, or steak knife over the dinner table. Smothering them with pillows during slumber.

“No one knows for certain. But everyone agrees the bodies were destroyed in the fire in the north wing—a fire that he set on purpose. Mrs. Grady, the housekeeper next door, said she heard the screams and that it still gives her nightmares.”

“Understandable.”

“Do you mind polishing the urns? They sure could use it, but I don’t have it in me to go near them.”

“Sure.” Darcy didn’t particularly want to but agreed anyway. But then she lucked out. As Darcy stepped onto the marble inlay before the fireplace, it shifted uneasily beneath her boot. Darcy looked down and then across the room at Jenny. She was dusting the bookshelves at the far end of the room, chattering along.

“Mrs. Betts worked for his lordship when the murders happened,” Jenny said. “But she won’t breathe a word about it!”

“Hmm.” Darcy dropped her rag and bent over to pick it up. She wedged it in the crack between the marble tiles and lifted one up. It made a small sound of stone scraping upon stone, but Jenny didn’t seem to notice.

“I’ve asked her time and again—we all have—but her lips are sealed…”

Darcy slid the stone aside and almost yelped with glee when she saw that the box was stashed beneath it. On her knees and facing the fireplace, Darcy glanced over her shoulder at Jenny, who now washed the windows and continued to be thoroughly engaged with gossip.

“There are some that say Mrs. Betts helped his lordship commit the murders because she was in love with him, and thought that if he didn’t love his wife so much, he might love her instead. He would never marry her, of course. To think of a lord marrying his housekeeper!”

She held her breath and slid the box out onto her lap. It wasn’t very heavy.

But it was locked, naturally. Not problem when one had hairpins!

“Usually Mrs. Betts is the only one allowed to tend to his lordship’s private chambers. We’re only here today because she has taken to bed with a headache.”

“Hmm…” Darcy said, working away at the lock with her hairpin.

“Are you alright, Darcy?”

“Just cleaning the marble.”

“I bet that’s dirty with the hearth always burning. Anyway, as I was saying, I think she likes to tend to this room herself because of the rumor about the diamond necklace the late Lady Hartshorne used to wear. Some say it has magical powers, but I reckon that’s nonsense….”

Darcy did the best she could, but the lock wouldn’t open. Jenny had finished with the windows now. Regretfully, Darcy slid the box back into its hiding place and slid the marble tile over it. She would have to return, and she would have to do so with the key.

The key. The key around the neck of The Evil Lord Hartshorne.

Darcy sighed, resigning herself to another sleepless night.

To Be Continued…

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