Free The Elizabeth Papers by Jenetta James Page B

reason woke him with a jolt. It was a mindless, ridiculous act. If she saw him, it would be even worse. Holding that thought, he turned the key, indicated left, and with one, strong hand on the steering wheel, got himself out of there.
    Later, in his flat, fatigue was catching up with him when his iPhone buzzed the arrival of an email.
    From: [email protected]
To: Charlie Haywood
Date/time: 08/08/2014 22:55
Subject: Result
    Attachment: doc.pdf
    I can’t believe I am doing this. See attached. There wasn’t much in there--just some letters. Not the original handwritten ones. For some reason, somebody had typed them up in the 1940s. So it is not even a struggle to read. You have the luck of the devil, and you don’t deserve it. If I lose my job, I am moving in with you.
    Issyxxx
    By midnight, still sleepless, he had read the lot several times. There was something there. It was almost beyond comprehension, but it was true. Dots linked up with lines in the darkness and dazzled him. He felt the familiar rush of success, the drunkenness of it swelling him. His head was singing with it. After ten years of searching for people’s secrets, the avenues of discovery still amazed him. There was a secret in this Darcy marriage—a real secret—and these letters proved it. Who would have thought that it could come back to haunt the descendants of Elizabeth Darcy two centuries later? Involuntarily, he recalled the sight of Evie Pemberton, dwarfed by her own canvas. He dismissed that vision. It didn’t matter. This was his brief, and as usual, he was on it. He deleted Issy’s email details and message before he forwarded the file to Cressida Carter. The subject read, “We are on to something.”

Chapter 8
    June 1, 1860
Pemberley
    Galbraith,
    I write further to my last letter and very much regret the need to do so. Since writing, I have become aware of a piece of servant’s gossip that, it appears, has been commonly known at Pemberley for some time. I shall not bore you with the circuitous manner in which it reached me, but, inevitably, a number of people here are aware of it.
    You may or may not recall Hannah Tavener. There is no reason you should, but she was Elizabeth’s maid throughout our marriage and travelled with Elizabeth everywhere. She was always with us when we went to Town, and you may have seen her at Darcy House when you called. In any event, she was a loyal and trusted servant to Elizabeth, and I am not romantic when I say she was also her friend. Hannah nursed Elizabeth during the fever that killed her, caught the fever herself, and was dead within three days of her mistress. I attended her funeral and, you may recall, made a significant gift to her family for whom her wages were a source of financial security. However, coming as it did so hard upon the unexpected loss of my wife, Hannah’s death seemed simply one of a barrage of sorrows.
    I now learn that, in her last hours, she made a declaration that Elizabeth had asked her to dispose of something and that she had failed to do so. I have no idea what it was that Elizabeth may have wished to destroy or her reason for asking Hannah to do it. I have had each of the servants — whom I know to have gossiped about this — in my study, and I regret that none of them knows anything more. I have interrogated the rector who gave her the last rites. He concurs with the story and recalls that Hannah, who was delirious at the time, pleaded with him to assist in “getting rid of it for Mrs. Darcy.”
    Thus, my enquiries have foundered. I do not need to spell out to you, Galbraith, what my fears are with respect to the Rosschapel business. If there is something abroad that Elizabeth knew of and that may reveal truths known only to us, then I want it to be found. If you have any wisdom as to how I should proceed, then I would be glad to hear it.
    Yours,
Darcy

Chapter 9
    June 7, 1820, Pemberley
    Unusually, it is early morning, and I write while Fitzwilliam sleeps. These