Darcy stepped back into the room, reaching for his coat. “Tell him I shall attend him within the hour.”
“No, sir.” The messenger was suddenly firmer. “The prince saidimmediately.”
Darcy’s eyes narrowed. Of course he had.
TheopulentgrandeurofCarlton House never failed to impress, though today, Darcy found it more oppressive than awe-inspiring. The gilded ceilings and lavish furnishings seemed to mock his current predicament. He was led through a series of ornate corridors before being ushered into the Prince Regent’s private chamber.
The Prince lounged on his favorite chaise, swathed in a robe of deep crimson velvet embroidered with gold filigree, one slippered foot dangling off the side with studied indolence. A snifter of brandy twirled lazily between his fingers, and his powdered wig sat slightly askew, as though to remind the world that rules of appearance did not apply to him.
“Darcy,” he declared, lips curling into a satisfied smile as though he had summoned the man by sheer will, “at last. Do sit. Or stand and glower, as is your habit—I leave it to you.”
Darcy remained precisely where he was. “Your Highness,” he said with a controlled bow. “You summoned me with some urgency.”
The Prince made a show of sniffing the brandy, then looked over the rim of his glass with theatrical relish. “Urgency, yes, but not alarm. One should never be alarmed at good news, Darcy. I have reviewed your petition.”
Darcy’s expression did not shift. “I see. And what does Your Highness require of me this time?”
The Prince gave a bark of laughter, the sound echoing off the gilded walls. “So jaded! So delightfully suspicious. Tell me, do you treat all your benefactors with such grim reserve, or am I merely lucky?”
Darcy’s brow twitched. “I have learned to temper my expectations, Your Highness.”
“Quite right. Prudence is the balm of the disappointed.” The Prince leaned forward suddenly, the silk of his robe swishing against the upholstery. “But not today, Darcy. Today, you are to be astonished. Flabbergasted. Aghast, even. I have made my decision.”
Darcy’s jaw clenched. “Regarding—?”
The Prince gestured grandly with his glass, nearly sloshing brandy onto his silk sleeve. “Your family’s estate and title. The matter of Pemberley. I am overturning your father’s disgrace. The revocation was—what was the phrase they used in chambers?—ah, yes. ‘A poorly justified political expediency.’”
Darcy stared, as if the words had reached him from a great distance. “You... have decided to reverse the ruling?”
The Prince raised both brows. “Well, I do not simplydecidethings. I order them. But yes. Yes, I have.“ He grinned again, teeth flashing beneath his curled lip. “Try to look pleased, Darcy. This is the part where you fall to your knees and thank me, is it not?”
Darcy blinked once. “I confess I am… surprised.”
“Oh, that is dull.” The Prince drained the last of his brandy and reached to refill it from a crystal decanter beside him. “Say something interesting. Ask me why. Ask me what devilish scheme I am about. Or ask me what she wore when she kissed you in the Matlock drawing room—because Idoknow. I imagine half of London does.”
Darcy’s throat worked, but no sound emerged.
The Prince chortled into his sleeve. “Oh, you are priceless. And you owe me a new scandal soon, Darcy. The court has grown dreadfully dry.”
Darcy’s brow furrowed. “This is… because of Lady Elizabeth?” he asked slowly. “The scandal. You mean to say—”
The Prince’s laughter erupted like a cork popping from a champagne bottle. “Oh, Darcy. You do make it sound so sordid. ‘Because of the scandal,’” he repeated, as if savoring the phrase. “You wound me. Do you really think me so petty?”
Darcy said nothing—it seemed more tactful than the truth.
“Though,” the Prince added, eyes gleaming, “if I were so inclined, it would be a delightful sort of pettiness, would it not? No, my dear man—it was not the scandal itself, but the way it unfolded. The theater of it. The sheer, glorious madness of it all.”
He leaned forward, voice dropping conspiratorially. “I received an ‘anonymous’ letter the day before the news hit the salons. A warning, you might call it. Your cousin the colonel has rather distinct handwriting, by the way.”
Darcy’s mouth parted. “Fitzwilliam?”
“Oh yes. Full of righteous fury and familial concern. Quite touching, really.” The Prince took another sip of his brandy. “He wrote that you had been wronged, that the girl was the same Lady Elizabeth Montclair whom everyone had believed vanished off to Devon or France or the moon, and that the scandal you were about to cause would likely make headlines unless someone, say, a certain royal personage, chose to get ahead of it.”
Darcy stared, reeling. Of course. Richard’s abrupt departure, the way he had vanished just after the kiss, only to reappear as if summoned by providence—it was all beginning to make sense.
“And then came the moment itself,” the prince continued with a laugh. “A Montclair in the arms of a Darcy. In public. The Marquess of Ashwick frothing at the mouth while the Earl of Matlock looked on. Really, I could not have staged it better myself.”
He set the brandy down, shaking his head with something that resembled fondness. “You, sir, are far more interesting than I gave you credit for. And as for Lady Elizabeth… well. One does not dim such a light. She would make a bishop recant.”
