“‘Tonight, I curse you,’ declared the lord, ‘and all who would sell their patrimony. To you it is given to hunt down such curs to join you here in this field forever.’ With those words, he threw the bloody knife into the ground at the son’s feet, and in an instant, they all were turned to stone.”
Miss Avery cried out at Trenholme’s end and moved to sit between her brother and Lady Felicia. Manning swallowed several times before he was able to summon up a laugh. “Sayre was right, Bev, a great deal of rubbish fit only for frightening children.” The stones could now be seen across a small dale. The drivers turned the teams away from the main track into a smaller one prepared for the passage of Sayre’s guests.
“A dreadful tale, Mr. Trenholme.” Lady Felicia brushed at her coat. “It is no wonder that your grandsire desired to change it.” She paused and then queried, “But why ‘whispering’? Is there something you have not related, sir?”
“Why, yes, there is, my lady,” Trenholme replied, as if she’d reminded him of something he’d forgotten. “It is said that the rebel knights watch over the lands that make up the old lord’s estate for any who would break up the holding or sell it off piecemeal. And if they find such a one, he is given warning so he may mend his ways before they come for him.”
“A warning?” Darcy asked, an appalling suspicion forming in his mind.
“Yes, Darcy, they whisper his name.”
As the drivers pulled the teams to a halt at the base of the hill from which the Knights maintained their reputed vigil over the countryside, Darcy dismounted and handed the bay to a stable boy who had appeared rather suddenly from behind a less sinister outcropping. Evidently, the party had been preceded to the site by a number of Sayre’s servants. Now visible to one side was a sledge from which refreshments for the guests had been unloaded and a cheery fire prepared against their arrival. As he watched the occupants of the sleigh disembark, Darcy could not determine whether Miss Avery or Sayre was the most affected by Trenholme’s recital. Once coaxed out of the conveyance, Miss Avery made obvious her wish to stay close to her brother by clinging to his arm. Manning, just as clearly, desired her elsewhere and finally sent her over to the fire with an order to “drink something hot and try to stop behaving like a little fool.” Sayre made straight for the fire as soon as he descended, demanding a flask of whiskey be produced immediately. No sooner was the flask in his hand than he availed himself of a prodigious gulp, all the while regarding the stones with a baleful eye.
Those who had not been privy to Trenholme’s story strolled toward the path that led up to the circle of weathered, lichen-covered stones on ground swept almost clean of snow by the wind. “Come, Sayre, are you not joining us?” Trenholme called from among the other guests, displaying a glee in his brother’s fearful loss of composure that Darcy found, under the circumstances, not only distasteful but disturbing. “P’rhaps we shall catch a whisper or two!”
“Go to the Devil,” Sayre shouted back and turned away from the stones and his brother’s laughing countenance.
As troubling as his hosts’ behavior appeared, Darcy was disinclined to indulge in further speculation upon it. The suspicion that had arisen in his mind concerning Trenholme’s purpose during his tale was dismissed as unworthy and evidence of his own disordered thoughts rather than nefarious intent on the part of the teller. Sayre and his brother had engaged in a certain rivalry as far back as Eton, he reasoned, and it most likely extended to the cradle. That in the intervening years its animosity had increased was not to be marveled at, although the turn it appeared to have taken was a curious one. Darcy would not have credited that either brother was of a superstitious nature beyond that of any man addicted to the gaming table. At least, when it came to stories of ghosts and their curses, he would have derided the notion, save it was undeniable that Sayre had been profoundly affected. Even as Darcy looked on, His Lordship downed another gulp from the flask, his nose shining a distinctive pink against an unnaturally pale visage.
Turning away to join those on the stroll, Darcy began up the short, steep hill. At the head of the party, Trenholme acted as guide. Poole and Monmouth followed closely, as did Miss Farnsworth, who had tossed the train of her habit over one arm, thus exposing a shapely pair of ankles as she strode with the gentlemen. Behind them, Lady Sayre leaned upon Lord Chelmsford’s arm, Lady Chelmsford having decided to remain with the warmth offered by the fire, and the two appeared engaged in close, private conversation as they slowly made their way after the others. Having divested himself of his sister, Manning squired Lady Felicia toward the stones, taking every opportunity the terrain offered to put a hand to her waist in assistance. There was but one of the party unaccompanied in the climb to the Whispering Knights, Darcy noted, and she appeared to be waiting for him.
“You see, I am quite left behind, Mr. Darcy.” Lady Beatrice smiled helplessly at him as he drew near her. She rose from her perch upon a fallen companion of the stone guards above them. “I fear the way is rather steep.”
“Please, permit me to offer you my arm, my lady.” Darcy extended his arm, suspect of her true purpose in waylaying him and in no doubt that she would enlighten him soon enough.
“Thank you, sir. I see your manners are those of a more polite century than this.” Lady Beatrice’s lips pursed for a moment as she looked up to those who had so unceremoniously left her to fend for herself before turning a handsome smile upon him.
“You are very kind, ma’am,” he replied smoothly. Lady Beatrice was not exactly a young widow, perhaps just forty years old, but she could not be accused of looking her age. Rather, with her fine figure, delicate porcelain complexion, and gracious manner, she was the fulfillment of what was as yet only a promise in her daughter. Regardless, he was fairly confident it was of her daughter that she wished to speak. Whatever were her designs, Darcy was not to discover them as yet, for a call from behind them stopped their progress.
“M-my lady, Mr. D-darcy,” gasped Miss Avery as she hurried toward them. “Your p-pardon, ma’am, but may I accompany you? I do not w-wish to stay with Lord —” She stopped and bit her lip. “That is, L-lord Sayre is not…Oh, dear! I m-must see my b-brother!”
“Of course, my dear.” Lady Beatrice withdrew her hand from Darcy’s arm and drew the young woman’s arm through her own. “You may certainly accompany Mr. Darcy and myself; is that not so, sir?” Darcy nodded a curt assent as he looked back to the fire and Lord Sayre, who was still nursing his flask. Blast the man! Had he no better sense than to disgrace himself and then frighten his young kinswoman with his intemperate behavior…all because of a legend? And Manning! Darcy looked back up the hill to the Baron, silently excoriating the fitness for Society of one who showed more interest in another man’s betrothed than in the safety and comfort of his own sister.
“Th-thank you, my lady,” breathed Miss Avery in great relief. She disengaged her arm from Lady Beatrice and stepped lightly before them, whereupon Her Ladyship possessed herself once more of Darcy’s arm.
“Poor child,” Lady Beatrice commented, shaking her head. “Do you not have a sister near to Miss Avery’s age, sir?”