Not quite expendable.
He had learned, over time, how to make himself useful without making himself vulnerable.
Today, he was merely observing. The broadsheets had already laid out the public narrative—a lone assassin, a close range shot, a swift trial, a grieving nation. But he wondered if anyone inside the Home Office was quietly doubting that narrative.
He took his usual route through the halls, pausing at an open door where a clerk was furiously copying out reports.
“Troubled times,” Darcy murmured, as if making casual conversation.
The clerk barely glanced up. “A terrible business, indeed.”
“The trial seems swift.”
The man let out a soft snort. “Swift? That’s one way to put it. They’ll have him hanged before the week is out.”
“Efficient justice.”
“Political justice.”
Darcy lifted a brow. “Oh?”
The clerk sighed. “The Home Secretary wants this buried. No debate, no fuss—just a quick execution and a return to order.”
A pause.
Darcy let the silence linger, then asked, as casually as he could— “I have never yet seen a case so simple. Uncomplicated and clean, and perfect for the broadsheets.”
The clerk stiffened.
Darcy leaned in slightly. “Have you heard any rumors?”
The man hesitated. Then, in a lower voice— “There was a whisper—nothing confirmed, mind you—of someone else in the lobby. But if there was a second man, he disappeared clean. The ministers don’t want to hear it.”
Darcy’s fingers tightened into a fist behind his back.
Someone else.
He was not the only one who had heard the rumor.
He did not linger. The Home Office was not a place for idle loitering, and a man who asked too many questions soon found himself with more problems than answers.
By the time he stepped back into the grey afternoon light, he had already pieced together what he knew for certain.
The prince had called him in because of a rumor. That rumor had made its way inside the Home Office. And at least one man—possibly more—had doubts about the official story, but the Crown wanted the public knowledge to remain limited.
Darcy sighed. The Prince Regent had been right about one thing. There was more to this.
He was going to have to find out what.
DarcyhatedLondonatthis hour.
The streets were crowded, noisy, suffocating, filled with the mingling scents of sweating horses, unwashed bodies, and the filth of the gutters. The evening traffic of carriages and pedestrians moved in chaotic waves, forcing him to weave his way through the press of bodies.
He should have taken a carriage. He did not like to be jostled and delayed, and yet, he had chosen to walk. He needed the movement, the sharp bite of cool air, the sensation of his boots striking against the cobbles.
He needed time to think.
He had spent the afternoon in various clubs and pubs and back alleys, sifting through half-truths and whispers, and had walked away with little more than confirmation that the rumors existed. And that—supposedly, anyway—no one in power wanted them acknowledged.
