“It looks as though I am not the only one,” Reginald mused.
“What do you mean by that?”
The earl snorted. “Oh, come, Darcy. If I were blind, I would have noticed it in the first ten minutes, but as I am not blind, thank heaven, it took less than one. You are smitten with the lady.”
“Smitten! I think not. I take care to appear more friendly than my usual manner because it seems to put her better at her ease. She was not brought up as we were and finds no comfort in formality. If you think my bearing more… casual, I suppose, it is only for that.”
“Indeed.”
“Yes, indeed.” Darcy drank again, in more agitation this time. “You know I would never dishonour Richard.”
The earl pinched the bridge of his nose. “I know. I suppose the thought occurred to me that if you had begun to give up hope of him, having his wife near was a little like keeping something of Richard.”
Darcy made a face. “Not as you suppose. Her character is nothing like his, but yes, I have been pleased to pay my respects to him in some small way by trying to keep her comfortable and happy. It is not an onerous chore, for the lady is pleasant and has a cheerful turn of mind. Even when she is sharp or melancholy, which is infrequent, there is something so utterly forthright about her that makes her quite refreshing company. She will be a great comfort to him when he returns.”
“Hmmm.”
“You disbelieve me still?”
Reginald swallowed the last of his drink. “I think you are using a great number of words to convince me of something you yourself have ceased to believe.”
“Spare me. When have I ever failed to act upon proper conviction? And do not toss Anne in my face, for you know as well as I that the reluctance has been hers as much as my own.”
The earl shrugged and fingered his glass. “I have seen men’s heads give way to their hearts before. Are you certain that is not the case with you?”
“Perfectly. You do the lady and even my own character an insult to suggest otherwise.”
“Very well, very well. I shall drop the matter, but with a caution. I am no fool, but others may be even more observant than I, and some with a greater thirst for intrigue. I think of the ladies, naturally. You would not wish for anything to be… misconstrued.”
Darcy’s fist knotted, and he consciously flexed his fingers. A display of temper would not do. “I shall give no one anything to reproach, and if I know Mrs Fitzwilliam, she will desire the same. She is perfectly innocent of any wrongdoing!”
Reginald lurched to his feet to refill his glass. “Then, I shall not speak of it again. What day do you sail?”
“Next Thursday. I depart for London in two days, and I intend to speak to someone at the War Office before I go.”
The earl nodded. “I heard the Transvaal had been taken and annexed. Might be just the break we needed. If Richard was held prisoner, he may already be rescued.”
Darcy fingered his glass. “I do not like that we have had no word, and I cannot help but wonder if we have waited too long to do something.”
“What, I ask, do you think you could have done sooner? It does not surprise me overmuch that we have not heard more than theDaily Mailhas reported. You know, it must be a bit of madness and all that—pushing troops into recently occupied territory and still guarding the flank. And there is the trouble of the guerrillas cutting the telegraph wires whenever it suits them. I say it is perfect timing, for now you may get some real information and perhaps even…”
“Escort his body home?” Darcy drained his glass and looked away.
Reginald pressed his knuckles into his mouth until they were white, and he drew a slow sigh. “I meant to say bringhimhome, assuming… medical discharge, that sort of thing.”
“Yes. That sort of thing.”
“Darcy…” Reginald leaned forward, his voice tight. “We have not spoken of it—superstition, I suppose, not willing to confess the obvious—but have you prepared yourself to learn the worst?”
Darcy shook his head. “Have you?”
“No, but I must be practical about these things. All his affairs would be mine to oversee. Not that there would be much—that bit of money from Mother, presently in the four percents. His personal effects all go to me in his will—pistols, a few mementos. His most cherished possession, his horse, I think he left with you. But when he wrote that will, just before he left England, he did not have a wife to consider. What are we to do with her?”
“She inherits his accounts, and whatever pay might be leftover from the Army, and she starts a new life,” Darcy answered gruffly.
“So, you will send her back to America?”
Darcy shrugged. “If that is her wish. She misses her home, but some things she has said make me wonder if she will decide not to return. I say we do our part to act as family to her, as surely as if she had been his acknowledged wife before he left.”
