“The next time you and Brougham decide to have a go at each other, I trust you will send me notice.” Sir Hugh Goforth used his queen of clubs to scoop up the trick he had just won. “Heard it was one damned fine show of swordsmanship!”
“Would not have thought that frippery rattle pate knew which end of a sword meant business,” Lord Devereaux drawled as he threw his cards into the middle. “Although, I will grant, he is a regular hell-for-leather in the saddle. Ran his horse into the ground at Melton last year, I understand. Had to put a bullet through him.”
Squarely caught between a desire to defend his friend and fear of revealing something he ought not, Darcy gathered up the cards and confined himself to shuffling them. It had been more than a week since their confrontation at Genuardi’s, but he had only today looked in at Boodle’s, where both their absences from the clubrooms had prompted speculation.
One by one, Sir Hugh soldiered the cards Darcy dealt him into the company in his hand while Devereaux and the fourth of their rubber palmed theirs all at once before setting about to order them. Darcy glanced again at his unlikely partner across the table. Lord Manning met his speculative regard with a mocking lift of a brow. “If you had been at Cambridge instead of Oxford, Devereaux,” Manning observed, “you would not labor under such a misconception. Brougham is, or was then, an excellent blade. When he and Darcy were not flinging academic prizes in each other’s face, they were drawing edges.”
“Ah, inside information!” Sir Hugh closed the fan of his cards. “The betting books are in Darcy’s favor at the moment. A pony on Brougham or Darcy, Manning?”
“Oh, on Darcy” — Manning sneered — “but only to annoy him. He hates to be the subject of public interest; do you not, Darcy?”
“Shall we play, gentlemen?” Darcy deflected Manning’s question. “Your bid, Devereaux.” With His Lordship’s bid, the game and the evening proceeded with no further mention of a possible re-match, but with a shift of his shoulders Manning ably communicated that his point had been proved. The appearance of his old antagonist in the club’s rooms had surprised Darcy, for although Manning was a member of Boodle’s, he was also a member of White’s and had demonstrated his preference for the latter with a prolonged absence from the former. Darcy had not seen him to exchange even a word since the horrible business at Norwycke Castle. There was no telling why Manning had suddenly chosen to grace Boodle’s with his presence unless it was for the perverse pleasure he took in pinching at Darcy, as he did now. For that, Manning had certainly positioned himself well, offering himself as Darcy’s partner when, upon reception of an urgent note, Sanding-ton had to quit the game.
Although he could not enjoy his company, Darcy could not fault the man’s play. Manning was as shrewd at cards as he was at provocation, slicing at their opponents’ strategy as deftly as he did the reputations of those other club members who chanced to pass by. Both Goforth and Devereaux snorted with amusement at the remarks, leaving Darcy alone in disgust of the Baron’s entertainment and wishing himself elsewhere. They ended the evening victors, but Darcy took little pleasure in it or in Manning’s curt expression of satisfaction. Nodding his reception of his partner’s tight-lipped compliment, Darcy rose from the table, intent upon departing for Erewile House when Manning stepped around to him. “A word?” The tone of his request was almost civil.
“Your servant,” Darcy replied evenly, masking his irritation. Manning motioned him over to a small table away from the swell of activity. Taking chairs, they once again faced each other. “What is it, Manning?” Darcy demanded without preamble. “I am for home and have no desire to tarry.”
“I wish to speak to you…about a personal matter.” His Lordship’s arrogant voice faltered even as his eyes shifted away from Darcy’s. “I know how incongruous that must sound. Imagine me asking something of you! Only the most pressing necessity would, I assure you, bring me to you with this. Damn!” He fell back in his chair, his aspect stormy. Everything tempted Darcy to rise and leave, but something in the picture Manning made stayed him. Sitting back, he waited for the Baron to continue. “It is Bella; you remember my sister?” His Lordship looked back at him.
“I hope that Miss Avery is well.” Darcy’s brows came together. What could Manning want with him concerning his sister?
“Yes…and no! She is not ill in the common sense of the term.” His Lordship scowled. “But you know how she is! Ever the colorless little mouse. And that blasted stuttering of hers!” Darcy’s frown deepened. Yes, he knew quite well Manning’s opinion of his younger sister and his careless mistreatment of her. Returning him what he trusted was a look communicating his disapprobation, Darcy was gratified to see His Lordship had the grace to flush and cease his complaints.
“Here it is, Darcy.” He lowered his voice. “I have come to see that Bella has lacked proper guidance. Our parents died before she was eight years old. Her governesses since have been adequate but not inspired. I have never known what to do with her.” His voice rose again in irritation. “And, Lord knows, my sister, Lady Sayre, never showed her a particle of interest even before the business last January. I have wasted a Season on her already and am in a fair way to be doing so again this year.”
“My sympathies go out to your sister —”
“Yes!” Manning stopped him. “I thought they must. You handled her so well at Norwycke. That is why I have come to you.” Darcy stared at him uncomprehendingly. “You are very close to your own sister, I believe.”
“I have that honor.” He regarded Manning with suspicion.
“I have noticed your unusual esteem for each other; so has Bella.”
“When —?”
“Saw you together at the theater, Monday last, Lady Lavinia’s recital on Thursday, although you came late and left early, and the opera on Saturday.” He ticked them off. “The short of it is this: Bella stands in admiration of you and Miss Darcy.” His Lordship’s rancor was unmistakable. “And frankly, although you are insufferably correct in all particulars, it is obvious that you do more than suffer the company of your sister. A man of your intelligence…” Darcy’s brow lifted, feigning just a bit more astonishment than he truly felt at this, the first genuine compliment he had ever received from Manning. “Yes, I admit to all your talents and graces,” Manning conceded. “A man of your intelligence and temper would not be so attentive to his much younger sister if she were a hubble-bubble, bird-witted miss on the one hand or a damned nattering bluestocking on the other. Bella would do well to acquire some of your sister’s self-possession and intelligence.” He paused as a servant came by with a tray. “You there, what is on deck?”
“Brandy, my lord.” The man bowed and offered the tray.
“Excellent! Dry work this!” Manning snatched a glass. “Darcy?”
“No, I thank you.” He watched as the Baron attempted to soothe the discomfort of the distasteful position in which he found himself.
“Would you — despite our long-standing antagonism — would you allow an introduction, encourage a friendship between Miss Darcy and Bella?” The proud look, so briefly abandoned, returned, daring Darcy against pity or triumph in whatever his answer might be.
Everything inside Darcy went very still as he made shift to recover from the surprise of Manning’s request. How could he answer him? It involved so much: years of what Manning had rightly called an “antagonism,” of which he had taken the brunt, the foisting upon Georgiana of a “friend” not of her own choosing, and the increased contact with Manning that this meant for both of them. This was not to mention that Manning’s Sayre connections were in serious social and financial disgrace, one of whose members was up to her lovely neck in sedition! Narrowing his eyes on the man across the table, Darcy looked for anything that indicated some feeling in his bosom for his sister’s difficulties beyond irritation and the desire to be relieved of responsibility for her. The fact that Manning had come to him for assistance was unaccountably wonderful and spoke in favor of more than a concern for his sister’s effect on his purse, but the hard eyes and arrogant demeanor Manning displayed as he waited for his answer mitigated against the possession of softer affections. If Darcy agreed, it appeared that it would make no real difference in Manning’s disdain of him, a disdain he had never understood or discovered how he had earned. If there were any justice in the world, he should take this opportunity to —
Though justice be thy plea… — as his jaw hardened to deliver his refusal, Georgiana’s soft vow to be his Portia, his advocate, recalled itself — we do pray for mercy. What more would be his bid for justice in this than revenge for his own offended pride? In his struggles, had it not been Georgiana’s mercy and Dy’s rougher sort that had pulled him through?
“Well?” Manning barked at him, his lips preparing to curl into a sneer when the refusal came.
“Would Thursday morning be convenient for Miss Avery?” Darcy inquired. “Perhaps eleven o’clock?” The astonishment on Manning’s face was, he found, worth every ounce of his surrender to mercy’s better angels.
“You agree? I’ll be damned!” Manning sank back against his chair, astonished. “Dashed decent of you, Darcy!” he managed after several speechless moments. “I did not expect…Well, that is neither here nor there. Yes, eleven on Thursday; Bella will be ecstatic.” He rose and awkwardly extended his hand. “Th-thank you.”
“You are welcome.” Darcy gripped His Lordship’s hand. He had done the right thing; he was sure of it now. But that conviction did not include spending any more time with Manning than was strictly necessary. “Now, I am for home. Can I drop you anywhere, Manning?”
“No, no,” His Lordship quickly responded, evidently no more at ease with this new way of relating to him than Darcy was with him. “I shall look in at White’s a bit, and then my dancer will be waiting…” He let the sentence dangle and shrugged. “Until Thursday.”
“Thursday.” Darcy nodded, then took his leave of Manning and his club. Sauntering down to the sidewalk, he smiled to see Harry jump from the carriage and move swiftly to open the door and bring down the steps.
“Evenin’ Mr. Darcy, sir.” The groomsman pulled on his forelock.
“Good evening, Harry,” Darcy returned as he mounted the small steps. “Tell James to take us home. I have had enough for one evening.”
“’ope it were a good un, sir.”
“Oh, it was an extraordinary one, Harry! Proof of your assertion, I would say.”
“Which one ’ud that be, sir?”
“That ‘the Quality be a strange lot.’ ” He quoted Harry’s sage observation back to him.
“Humph!” Harry snorted. “Proof o’ that ain’t in want!” He made to shut the door and then stopped short and ducked his head, apparently scandalized by his own free speech. “Beggin’ yer pardon, Mr. Darcy!”
“Close the door, Harry.”
“Yes, sir.”
The door clicked shut, but Darcy waited only until Harry was back up on top of the carriage before he gave in to the humorous truth of his groomsman’s philosophy. “Strange” surely described Manning’s seeking him out tonight and the odd turn their association had taken.
“I cannot tell you what a relief it is to be back in London.” Miss Bingley accepted a cup of tea from Georgiana’s hand and settled back comfortably in her chair. “The shops and theaters of Scarborough are nothing, never mind what my aunt may claim for them! You may imagine, Georgiana, how I longed to return to civilization.”
Darcy watched as his sister responded with a politely sympathetic smile before pouring out the next cup for Bingley. “It was not so bad as that.” Bingley looked up at him. “Though I will admit to feeling more at ease here in London than among our relatives and our parents’ older acquaintances in Scarborough. I fear we have quite lost touch with them. Another life altogether, it seems.” He ended on a pensive note but then rallied. “It has been weeks since we were last here! How was your visit in Kent, Darcy? Warmer than ours in the North, I should imagine.”
“Yes…warmer.” Darcy’s voice caught only briefly. Georgiana looked up into his eyes, extending him a supporting smile. He nodded his receipt of it. “But it did not last. Both Fitzwilliam and I were more than glad to return to Town.”
“And your portrait, Georgiana.” Miss Bingley’s voice bridged the lull that threatened to settle upon them. “I am so distressed that we returned too late to see it. Was the Unveiling well attended?” She paused, then shook herself with a throaty laugh. “But of course it was. I should rather ask who attended. Come, you may crow your triumph to us!”
Such an invitation! Darcy looked hard at Bingley’s sister, wondering again how she could have so little understanding of Georgiana. Mistaking his observation of her, she cast him a sideways smile that spoke of a conspiracy of indulgence in which he declined to claim his share. “You are mistaken, Miss Bingley; I acceded to my sister’s wishes and issued no invitations. The portrait was displayed to family only and is on its way to Pemberley as we speak.”
“Really?” Miss Bingley looked between brother and sister in puzzled disbelief.
“It was my wish, Miss Bingley, which my brother was kind enough to grant.” Georgiana held out his cup to him with a tender smile. “He is very good to me, is he not?”
Her lips pursed in an uncertain smile, Miss Bingley assented to her proposition.
“What are your plans now that you have returned?” Darcy directed the conversation away from himself. “Society will soon explode into activity, and you will be much in demand.”
“I have not altogether decided.” Bingley set down his cup. “My desk is already awash with invitations and notices.”
Darcy nodded his understanding. “You must take care that you hold the reins, Bingley, and are not driven by Society’s whip. Else, my friend, you will end in the ditch.”
Bingley grimaced. “I shall keep your advice in mind. It is just making a beginning —”
“Upon which subject I have spoken to Hinchcliffe.”
“Hinchcliffe!” his friend exclaimed, a glimmer of hope gilding his features.
“The same.” Darcy grinned to see the cautious relief in Bingley’s face at the mention of his formidable secretary. “He is of the opinion that his nephew might well start in your service as an undersecretary in charge of your social affairs, if you are agreeable.”
“Agreeable! I should say!”
“It is done, then. Shall he report to you tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow — Yes! He may come tonight! I shall send a note round this minute if you will allow.”
“By all means!” Darcy gestured to the door, then turned to his sister. “If you will excuse us.” Once in his study, he pushed a sheet of paper across his desk and flicked open the inkwell as Bingley availed himself of a chair.
“This could not have come at a better time.” Bingley grinned as he took the pen Darcy offered and then bit his lip in all seriousness as he dipped it into the inkwell and set himself to writing. Darcy sat back and watched Bingley scratch away at his note, content with both the utility of the help he was able to offer and its glad acceptance. “There,” his friend exclaimed, dotting the i of his name with a flourish and pushing the note toward him. “Tell me if it is acceptable. I would not wish to risk Hinchcliffe’s opinion with a misspelled note.”
The short epistle was soon read, but as Darcy looked back to Bingley with assurance upon his lips, he caught him in what could only be termed a dejection of spirits, his eyes focused on nothing present in the room, the laughter lines about his face gone slack. Even as Darcy watched, Bingley’s shoulders slumped and a furrow appeared across his brow. Quickly returning his gaze to the note, Darcy felt his contentment vanish. The prescription he held in his hand for the relief of Bingley’s social obligations would do nothing to cure the heartsickness that resided still in his friend’s bosom. As he trained his eyes upon the note, a wave of wretchedness engulfed him. What a pitiable pair they made! Bonded now in more than friendship, each had found his soul’s match in a Bennet sister; and as a result of Darcy’s interference, they both suffered the certainty of living the rest of their days only half alive. Yes, Charles loved Jane Bennet just as surely as Darcy loved Elizabeth. He had eyes to see that now. It was worse in Bingley’s case, for Jane Bennet loved him back, if Elizabeth was to be believed; and he believed Elizabeth. How damnably conceited of him to have held himself the arbiter of love! He had wronged Charles, wronged him unforgivably in a high-handed manner and in a matter that Charles’s own heart should have sought out, free from his influence or interference. What recompense for such a grievous error could he ever make him? Even this kindness smacked of a patronizing superiority.
“Ahem.” He cleared his throat and straightened his waistcoat, giving his friend opportunity to recover himself. When Bingley’s head came up, Darcy pushed the note back across the desk. “It will do. Shall it be sent?”
“Yes, by all means,” Bingley returned with a quick, faint grin. “I would not wish to accept the wrong invitations.” He took up the note and slowly creased it into precise thirds as Darcy looked on, dismayed at his quip. Did Charles truly have so little faith in his own judgment? Had Darcy’s attempt to act his mentor convinced him instead that it was safer to put his life in the hands of others he held wiser than himself ? If this was so, he had done Bingley a further wrong.
“You need only take young Hinchcliffe’s recommendations as suggestions, Charles. The final word is yours in this as in all your dealings. If you should find yourself somewhere you discover you would rather not be, you will know what to do. You have ever landed on your feet in any social occasion in which I have observed you.”
“Is that so?” Bingley’s face brightened tentatively. “A compliment, Darcy?” His uncertainty cut Darcy to the quick. When had he fallen into the pattern of treating his friend as less than his equal? How had the man borne his condescension?
“No, the truth, Charles.” He faced him squarely. “If more of humanity was possessed of your innate good nature, your ability to make those around you comfortable and well disposed toward the world, Society would not be half the gauntlet that it is.” He paused to see the effect of his words. The brightness in Bingley’s face had gone a bit flush, but the grin on his lips assured Darcy it was from pleasure rather than anger or embarrassment. “Lord knows, I could profit from some of your talent.” Darcy sighed both for the truth of his confession and for his relief that Bingley was coming back to himself. “Perhaps I should apply to you for lessons!”
“Lessons!” Bingley laughed and rose from his seat. “Shall the master and student change places?”
“No.” Darcy shook his head and stood. “You are graduated, Bingley! I have encouraged you, wrongly, to lag behind in the classroom. I would rather we were friends coming to each other’s aid.” He extended his hand, which Bingley, though surprised, took readily. “Equals standing ready to assist each other along the way.”
“Of course, Darcy, of course!” Bingley beamed at him.
Darcy nodded and strengthened his grip on Bingley’s hand. “I overstepped the bounds, my friend. What I can rectify, I shall. I promise you.”
A knock at his study door a week later brought Darcy’s head up from his book and that of his hound from close contemplation of that activity. Trafalgar rose from his station at his master’s side and padded over to the door, his nails clicking against the polished wood floor between the islands of carpet laid about the room. As Darcy watched, the dog reared on his haunches against the door and batted expertly at the knob until the latch disengaged, then jumped back to nose open the portal. A happy whine from deep within the animal’s chest told Darcy who would soon appear.
“Trafalgar has become quite the gentleman, Fitzwilliam.” Georgiana leaned down to stroke the broad, silky brow above liquid eyes turned to her in hope.
“A highly discriminating one, though.” Darcy shook his head at his sister’s fawning supplicant as he rose to greet her. “He will do the pretty only for those of whom he approves. You, my girl, merely happen to be one of that select party.”
Georgiana laughed and, with one last pat, straightened. “I have come to inform you that Miss Avery has gone, and you may leave the safety of your den for other parts of the house.”
Darcy looked askance at her. “Do you mean to imply that I have gone to ground?”
“I cannot help but notice that you have managed to be absent or to find pressing business in here every time Miss Avery calls.” She smiled at him as she came to his side. “Even so, she thinks you are the perfect gentleman.”
“Georgiana!”
“And that I am the perfect young lady.” She sighed. “It is a bit difficult, is it not, to be so worshiped?”
Darcy took her arm and led her to a settee. “Is it very hard to receive her? I know I have imposed upon you abominably.”
“No, Brother, not ‘abominably.’ Miss Avery is a very different sort of friend but not an unwelcome one.” She laid her head on his shoulder. “Fitzwilliam, she is so crushed by the weight of her brother’s scorn one moment and his dismissal of her existence the next. His opinion of her she takes as the world’s. It is no wonder that she is so timid. When I think —” She stopped and pressed her face into his shoulder.
“When you think what, sweetling?” he prompted, brushing her curls lightly.
“When I think how kind you have always been to me, encouraging me…Oh, thank you, Fitzwilliam!”
He had turned and was halfway back to his desk when it suddenly occurred to him. He turned back. “Georgiana, are you still of a mind to subscribe to that society?”
“The Society for Returning Young Women to Their Friends in the Country?” He nodded. “Oh, yes, Fitzwilliam! Have I your permission?”
“Allow me to look into it further, and if I am satisfied, you may direct Hinchcliffe to disburse what sums you deem appropriate.” His sister, her eyes shining, made to rise, but he held up his hands. “No, do not thank me. I have been remiss in this as well as in my own charitable concerns. Truly, I have done nothing more than authorize the continued maintenance of our father’s charities. Neither have I looked beyond Hinchcliffe’s assurances that their boards were respectable and their books balanced.” He looked away from the bright warmth and wonder in Georgiana’s face, his jaw working as he summoned up the words. “I have held myself aloof from such things. That,” he confessed in a low voice, “will no longer do.”
Trafalgar looked after Georgiana as she left the room but appeared to decide against an impulse to follow, turning back to his master instead. Darcy returned his solemn regard. “Well, perfect gentlemen are we?” Trafalgar yawned broadly and then snorted, shaking his head before laying it back down upon crossed paws. “Quite so,” Darcy agreed and rose.
Walking slowly to the window, he leaned against the frame and looked down onto the square. Miss Avery held him to be the perfect gentleman, did she? A drop of rain tapped against the window and then another. Miss Avery had narrowly escaped a wetting, or conversely, he and his sister had narrowly escaped an entire afternoon harboring her from the weather. He traced the passage of a drop as it flowed down the pane. He must be objective, dispassionate, if he was to sort it all out. It had been nearly a month since Hunsford. He ought to be capable of a dispassionate objectivity by now.
What had been Elizabeth’s initial impression of him? From their first encounter at the assembly in Meryton, when he had uttered that graceless dismissal of her, she had set him down as a figure of amusement. He had done no less than to prove her right. Like a pompous fool, he had held himself apart, strutting about the social circles of Hertfordshire with nothing better to do than look down a very ungentlemanlike nose at everyone.
How could it be that he, who had the best of examples before him and the most solemn of intentions, had come to this? Somehow, in the long years of his childhood and youth, he had gone off course, taken on the trappings and attitudes that made him seem now a most unlikable man and a stranger to his own heart.
Trafalgar’s whine and hard nudge against his hand brought the room back into focus. “Yes, Monster.” He stroked the animal’s head. “All is well, at least where you are concerned,” he amended.
With a low, rumbling sound, Trafalgar pressed his head against Darcy’s knee.
“Yes, I know. The questions remain.” He stroked the silky ears again. “But the answer would be more than I wish to contemplate.”
With a grimace, he ceased stroking Trafalgar’s ears, ignoring the nudge and whimper. It was impossible! Even could he bring himself to petition for it, there was no pretext under which he could seek out Elizabeth, nor were their paths ever likely to cross. Nevertheless, the idea was novel enough to force him to his feet. If it were possible, could she forgive him?
His imagination brought her to him so swiftly he almost started. Admire and love her, he had claimed. How could he possibly do so when he had misread her every action, misconstrued her every word? The extent of his self-deception was astounding! He had presumed himself in possession of her mind and heart when, had he been questioned, he could not have stated with any certainty what she thought or felt upon any subject of importance or what she most desired in life.
Love her? No, he had dallied during these many weeks in his rooms at Pemberley, London, and Kent with an imaginary Elizabeth of his own design, woven from the colored threads of his own desires. In such a state he had gone to her, and she, with no money or prospects of her own, had roundly refused him — refused him, even with so much at stake. The consequences Elizabeth had embraced rather than trust her future to his care loomed more solidly before him than had they heretofore. What kind of woman would do so?
Turning his back to the window, Darcy crossed his arms over his chest, presenting such a picture of concentrated intent that Trafalgar raised his head from his paws, his body tensed in hopeful readiness as his master once more took up the pace of the room. He had come thus far to find an answer, a way through to some resolution of this shocking month of self-revelation, and he was determined to bring all his faculties to bear on the question. What had he to offer as proof of his contrition? Nothing! Certainly nothing that a woman of such principle as she exhibited would be inclined to accept or respect! For a moment he stood there, helpless, before it struck him. The road to becoming a man worthy of the respect of such a woman began in seeing the world and measuring himself through other eyes, eyes that were sensitive to his defects and shortcomings.
Could he hold to such a resolve? Any idea of her love as his reward must be put aside. Even were they to meet, it must be as indifferent acquaintances. But no matter! He would honor this woman who had scorned his station and state to her own hurt and brought him to see himself. He would do it, he swore, by striving hour by hour, unseen and unremarked, toward a conduct of his life that would have gained Elizabeth Bennet’s approval.
Darcy made for his desk and, seating himself, reached for his pen and knife. He would need a well-pared instrument for this project. Trafalgar hoisted himself up from his recumbent position next to the settee and padded over to where his master labored. With a sigh followed closely by a grunt, his haunches hit the carpet, and he turned inquiring eyes upon the figure in the chair. Darcy looked over from his task with a ghost of a smile. “Bored are we?” Trafalgar’s regard did not waver. “There is no hope of going out in this rain,” he told the dog flatly and, having finished a fine, strong point to his pen, set down the knife. “And even were it a perfect day, I could not oblige you. I have pressing business of a reformational nature, which you” — he bent a censorious eye upon his hound — “would do well to imitate, Monster.” Trafalgar sniffed in answer and sank down once more upon his stomach, propping his muzzle upon his paws. “So say you, but it is long overdue.” Darcy turned back to his desk and drew forth a sheet of paper before dipping the pen into the inkwell. His brow furrowed, and for a moment he hesitated. Then, adjusting his grip, he put the point to the sheet and wrote, “A Gentlemanly Manner.” He underscored it twice. “Long overdue,” he addressed the hound lying beside him, “for both of us.”
Several days later, following Darcy’s weekly session at Genuardi’s, his cousin Richard caught him up for the first time since their return from Kent. They had not parted on the best of terms, Richard having tried to tease Darcy out of his “sulks,” as he had named them, and he near taking his cousin’s head off his shoulders in return. So Richard had taken himself off, lending himself wholeheartedly to his military duties at the Horse Guards and his social duties to the female portion of Society, leaving Darcy to his own devices until such time as Darcy had regained his humor or Richard was in want of pocket money, whichever came first.
“What ho, Cousin!” Richard’s wide grin appeared as Darcy lowered the towel from his face. Genuardi had pushed him hard; it had felt good. It was good to see his cousin again too.
“Richard! Come for some practice? Regain your edge? I’ll stand you!” He motioned to the fencing floor.
“Oho, no thank you, Fitz!” He shook his head in mock horror. “I heard about your ‘practice’ with Brougham and have no desire to be publicly humiliated or worse. Came to see if you might be thirsty after all your exercise. Drop by Boodle’s perhaps.”
“Excellent!” Darcy said, glad for the opportunity to mend this most important of fences. “Give me a few moments.” When he had dressed, they sauntered up St. James’s Street and on to the club, Richard letting fall family news and select bits of drollery from military life as they went. Finally, when they were nursing glasses across a table from each other, Richard paused, lifted his, and then lapsed into an uneasy silence.
“Is there something in which I might be of assistance?” Darcy asked quietly when enough time had passed.
“Well, I could always use another win or five at billiards, you know.” Richard’s lips twisted into a rueful smile. “But that is not why I sought you out.”
“Regardless of your reason, I am glad you did.” Darcy leaned toward him. “I was insufferable, a veritable bore on our journey back from Kent. I do not know how you swallowed your spleen or resisted the temptation to plant me a facer, for I surely deserved it.”
“It might have something to do with the results of that quite physical exchange we had in Rosings Park, which left me with some nasty bruises!” Richard chided him, then changed his tone to a nasal whine. “Besides, I was wearing my best traveling waistcoat and did not want it ruined with blood — yours or my own!”
“And you a colonel in His Majesty’s —”
“Never mind that!” His cousin cut him off and, laughing, lifted his glass again, and again brought it down with an air of hesitant sobriety.
“You had better tell me what it is before it chokes you.” Darcy eyed his cousin over the rim of his glass.
“It has taken me the greater part of a day and a night to decide whether to tell you at all, old man, so give a fellow some time!” His cousin lifted his glass in salute to him and downed what remained. Setting it down with slow precision, he glanced up at him. “I have seen her. Miss Bennet. Here in London.”
Everything went still as Richard’s words slowly took on sense and meaning. Elizabeth in London — now? “Where?” he asked hoarsely.
“At the theater last night. She was with a small party, an older gentleman and his wife and a lovely creature whom I take to be her sister. And, of course, Miss Lucas.”
“Did you speak to her?” Darcy could not help but ask. He grasped the smooth solidity of his glass as if it could steady him.
“No, I did not think it wise even if I had been able to reach her, for there was a fearful crowd on the floor. I do not believe she saw me. She looked…”
“Yes?” Darcy prompted.
“She looked well, as she always does, even amid the opulence. I believe she watched the audience as much as she did the players.”
Darcy almost smiled. Of course she would. Had she not professed herself a student of character?
“I hope I have done the right thing in telling you, Fitz.” Richard’s concern was genuine. “I could not convince myself that you would not wish to know, yet damned if I wanted to be the one to tell you. Better forewarned, I thought, than chance that you might come upon her unprepared or never know that she is here and…and…”
“You did the right thing, Cousin, and I thank you for it.” Darcy nodded slowly, then took a long pull at his drink. Gracechurch Street. Time…he needed time to think.
“Will you…” Richard stopped and looked away.
“Will I…?”
“Will you…ah, be escorting Georgiana to services Sunday?” His cousin’s recovery was admirable, Darcy had to admit that.
“Yes, I will. A new clergyman Brougham desires me to forward for installation will be conducting the service, and —”
“ ‘Brougham desires!’ ” Richard’s incredulous guffaw attracted stares and uplifted brows from every corner of the club’s dining room. “You must be joking! Oh, that is rich, Cousin.”
Darcy flushed with annoyance at his slip. Naturally, such a statement would be viewed by the world as ludicrous and in perfect opposition to the persona Dy tried to portray.
“I should almost wish to see such a clergyman as would attract Brougham’s attention.” Richard continued to laugh.
“Then why not come?” The challenge had sprung from his lips without thought and more for the sake of turning the conversation away from Dy than anything else. “Her Ladyship would be pleased, I have no doubt, to hear from your lips an opinion of this new man, and His Lordship —”
“His Lordship would not believe a word of it, but Pater will defer to Mater on this one. Hmm.” Richard sat back and pondered the advantages and disadvantages of his cousin’s proposal. That he considered it at all meant that his pockets were already to let, or near to it, for the quarter.
“A game of billiards might be had later.”
“Five,” Richard shot back.
“So, that is how the land lies?” Darcy’s brow rose. “Three.”
“Done!” His cousin grinned. “Shall we order another round?”
“We?”
“Oh, only in the broadest sense, Fitz. I have not yet won your money!”
Several days later found them elbow to elbow in the Darcy-Matlock pew on a warm May Sunday. In the intervening time, Darcy had not tried to see Elizabeth, nor had he any business, real or imagined, in the vicinity of Gracechurch Street that might make a chance meeting possible. There would have been no point in it. The last thing Darcy wished to behold was the tight look of politeness, or the hurried excuses to be gone that such a meeting would generate. He would deserve no better in return for that uncharitable letter that he would give almost anything now to have written differently. No, it was better to retain his memories of her in a gentler hue. She would not be in London long. Opening his prayer book, he nudged a corner into Richard’s arm and pointed to the scripture for the day as Dy’s clergyman began the reading.
The shadows were lengthening, the corners of his study already in darkness, when Witcher knocked and delivered a calling card. “Who is it?” Darcy asked, reaching for the card.
“The Honorable Mr. Beverly Trenholme, sir. I cannot say that I recall the gentleman.” The old butler’s brow wrinkled in distress. “But he says he is an old friend.” Trenholme! Darcy thought. What in the world…?
“Yes, Witcher, but from university days. I do not believe he has ever called on me here in Town. I spent some time after Christmas with him and his brother, Lord Sayre, in Oxfordshire.”
“Oh, begging your pardon, sir. Of course, Oxfordshire!” Witcher shook his head. “Shall I bring him in, sir?”
“Please, Witcher. There’s a good man.” Darcy rose, straightened his waistcoat, and pulled at his cuffs, the habitual motions helping to clear the tumble of questions Trenholme’s sudden appearance had provoked. Dy’s warning stood out starkly from among them all, and Darcy wondered whether agreeing to see the man might be more than Brougham would think wise.
The door opened. “Mr. Trenholme, sir.”
“Darcy! It is good of you to see me!” Trenholme advanced into the room, one hand extended. In the other was a handle attached to a long, thin leather case.
“Trenholme.” Darcy nodded his greeting and took his hand. It felt cold, and he could almost swear that it trembled as they shook. “Please, be seated.” Trenholme pulled forward a chair and then, after laying the case gently on the desk, he sat down with a sigh.
“Can you believe that it has been almost four months since last we saw each other?” He sighed again. “Such an awful business. Sayre and I are more than grateful that you have kept mum about my step-mother’s suicide and Sayre’s financial straits. It only postponed the inevitable, but one is glad for whatever time the wolves may be kept from the door.”
“It is over, then?” Darcy asked evenly.
Trenholme shook his head. “I will not pretend it is not, not with you. Everything movable has been stripped and delivered here for auction at Garraway’s. The estate itself goes on the block at the end of the week.” A look of murderous hatred shaded Trenholme’s face. “It should have been mine! Sayre never cared about anything more than the coin he could wring from it for one more go at the tables. And then that Irish b ——!” His voice rose. “Turned our own people against us. You watch her, Darcy! Watch her for the lying little traitor she is! She’ll stab you in the back without a thought.”
“What do you mean?” Darcy stared hard into Trenholme’s eyes while in his mind he tried to piece together names, faces, and conversations from his fractured memories of Sylvanie’s soiree. “Traitor? What do you know?”
“What I know is that, between her and Sayre, I no longer have enough money to get drunk on, which is the only state in which I do not wish to send them to —” He stopped. “That is not why I have come. I came to deliver this.” He leaned forward and nudged the case toward his host. “You won it fairly, and it should not be sold to pay one farthing toward Sayre’s debts.”
Darcy opened the case; his breath caught in his throat. The Spanish sword lay there, cradled in velvet. It caught the lamplight immediately he picked it up, blazing in a living fire.
“I may be a coward and a drunk, but I know what is right in a debt of honor. Sayre will damned well pay this one!” Trenholme declared with vehemence.
Darcy hefted it, adjusting his grip on the pommel. It was every bit as perfectly suited to his hand as he remembered.
“Trenholme, I hardly know what to say!” Darcy placed the exquisite weapon back in its velvet swathing.
“There is nothing to say. It has been yours since that night, and you had every right to it all these months. You certainly had enough witnesses to go to the Law if you had wished. Sayre should be grateful that you did not, grateful enough to have sent this to you himself.”
“He does not know you brought it to me?” Darcy asked sharply.
“He does now!” Trenholme laughed mirthlessly and rose. “Left him a note!” He nodded his leave. “I’ll not take up any more of your time, Darcy, but remember what I said about Sylvanie. Monmouth’s taken a viper to his bosom, no doubt about that. If there is any deviltry afoot, Sylvanie will be in the thick of it, make no mistake.”
“But what will you do?” Darcy’s question stopped the Honorable Beverly Trenholme as he reached for the doorknob. There must be something! Darcy cast about for anything he could offer the man that would answer yet not offend or humiliate him.
“I am for America, I think.” Trenholme turned back. A grim smile played upon his face, but even the slight animation that lent never reached his eyes. “I hear English gentlemen are still welcome in Boston, even if tea is not.”
“Tea?” Darcy looked askance at him. “I do not believe the current grievances of the Americans have anything to do with tea, Trenholme.”
He shrugged. “I thought they sent a shipload of tea overboard into Boston’s harbor.”
“Over thirty-five years ago! Tea has been safely shipped to Boston for thirty years and more!” Darcy’s jaw worked fiercely to suppress the laugh that threatened insult to his guest. “You need have no fear of going without tea in Boston.”
“Oh. Well…” Trenholme seemed to have run out of life as well as words. Passage! The word pealed in Darcy’s ears.
“Wait a moment!” He left Trenholme and went to his desk, drawing out a diary from the top drawer. Flipping through the pages, he came to the section detailing his shipping interests. “If I could arrange your passage to Boston, would you take it?”
“Free passage?” Trenholme’s eyes sparked faintly.
“Free passage,” Darcy affirmed. “I have controlling interest in a ship bound for Boston, but it leaves tomorrow morning. That is little time…”
“I do not require any more time than it would take to gather my things and get to the docks. Do you know what this means, Darcy?” the man cried as his host bent to write out a note to the ship’s captain. “Saving the passage money, I shall not arrive in America a pauper.”
“Certainly inadvisable.” Darcy straightened and handed Trenholme his authorization. “Give this to the captain, and he will take you aboard. It will not be comfortable, not what you are accustomed to…”
Trenholme took the note and then Darcy’s hand. “You’re a good man, Darcy. I shall never forget this.” He gulped once and then, turning swiftly, walked out the door, leaving his benefactor to look after him in hope that it was true.
“Why do you continue to check your watch?” Georgiana asked her brother as he pulled the timepiece once more from his waistcoat pocket. The weather continuing so fine the next day, they had decided to take a turn in St. James’s Park.
“A friend left for America early this morning. According to the schedule, his ship should reach the open sea within the next quarter of an hour. I suppose I was trying to guess exactly where he might be.”
“A good friend?”
“Perhaps. I hope I was a ‘good friend’ to him whatever the case.”
The sound of a horse’s hooves pounding the turf at a reckless pace caused Darcy to turn sharply about and then to push his sister behind him and away from the path. The horse and rider continued toward them, checking only at the very last moment.
“Darcy!” the rider gasped, his eyes wild and hard.
“Good God, Dy, what do you think you are doing?” Darcy shouted angrily.
“No time for that! Where is Trenholme? Do you know where he is?”
“On a ship bound for America! Why? What is this?” A cold fear clutched at his vitals.
“When did you see him last? Did he say anything about Lady Monmouth’s whereabouts?” The horse under Brougham danced, putting into motion the desperation in his voice.
“Last night, and no, he did not say where she was. Only that he wished her dead and warned me to watch for her. What is it, Dy? What has happened?”
“The Prime Minister…Perceval.” Brougham looked beyond him, seeking Georgiana’s eyes. Darcy knew the moment Dy found them, for they softened, but in less than a breath he withdrew back into himself and looked again at Darcy. “The Prime Minister was shot dead not fifteen minutes ago in the halls of Parliament.”
Darcy barely heard Georgiana’s cry for the force of his own shocked “No!”
“It is true.” Dy pulled at the reins, his mount’s agitation increasing. “We have the assassin, but there are others.”
“Sylvanie?” Darcy breathed, “You believe Sylvanie to be involved?”
“The murderer is John Bellingham, Fitz, the man who insulted you, who kept so near Sylvanie at her soiree. Her Ladyship must be found!”
“What can I do?” Darcy caught at the reins and drew Brougham closer. “Anything!”
Dy shook his head. “Nothing directly. I must be off and can give you no assurance of my quick return. Take care of Miss Darcy, Fitz! I know you shall, but do so for my sake as well? It could be quite some time.”
“Of course, without question! Take care, and Godspeed, my friend!”
“And you.” Dy looked down on him with a wistful smile. “Miss Darcy.” He nodded to her and was gone.
Georgiana was in his arms in an instant. “Oh, Fitzwilliam. What has happened? Where is Lord Brougham going?”
“The world has turned upside down,” he whispered against her hair, “and Dy has gone to fix it.”