Darcy opened his mouth and began to step forward, but other men pushed round him and that old panic rose in his gorge before he could speak. Gardiner glanced his direction, sensing a man whose path intersected directly with his own. He did not, much to Darcy’s disappointment, respond with welcome or even recognition. He touched his hat as if to a stranger—a politer gesture than many others might have offered—and continued on his way.
Darcy was left to gaze helplessly after him. Gardiner was clearly about some business he did not wish to delay, but perhaps he could be diverted once he had completed his task. So hoping, Darcy followed at a discreet distance.
Gardiner did not have far to walk and soon entered what appeared to be a shipping brokerage firm. A moment later, Darcy too had entered, but he seemed to have lost his man among the throng. There was a queue—if it could be called such an organised thing—men pressed against one another as one mass, many of them holding manifests or ledgers. Gardiner did not appear to be among them.
Darcy was tugging at the weedy little cravat about his neck, his forehead beginning to sweat with the breath of other men bearing suffocatingly down upon him. His eyes darted to and fro, fearing that Gardiner had somehow already slipped from the building and he had missed his opportunity. He was already fainting back, his hand searching behind himself for the door again, when Gardiner’s distinctive laugh rang out somewhere over the heads of the others. Closing his eyes and gritting his teeth against the discomfort of the large crowd, Darcy dove into the mass to follow the sound.
“Gardiner!” another voice joined in laughter, “I had thought you still in Derbyshire!”
Darcy froze. Gardiner had returned to Derbyshire? When? How?
“No,” Gardiner replied, smiling. “I was there less than a fortnight. Some pressing business, you understand, but it has turned out most satisfactorily.”
“I should say it has! What is this new venture I heard rumour of? You have been busy, my good fellow. Did you really buy two of your own vessels? Why, you will not much longer need my services!”
“Indeed, I did! My business on the Continent has proved a lucky success. I happened to meet with just the right man who needed precisely what I had, do you know. A shame about that other fellow, but I suppose it could not be helped.”
Darcy’s pulse was hammering in his ears and his mouth had suddenly gone dry.A man from Continent. A sudden success. Another man the loser….
“Aye!” the other was answering. “But what of that other business? Did you not say in your last note that your presence might be required in Derbyshire periodically? That is a deal to manage, old man, with all that traveling back and forth.”
“Oh! It is not so dreadful. It is all a matter of seeking the right people to suit one’s purpose, is it not? I’ve a most reliable and capable correspondent there to see to whatever may need doing, though there is a vast deal more to manage than has been their previous experience. Still, I’ve no doubts that it shall work to the advantage of everyone.”
Darcy’s knees began to weaken, and he found himself nearly stumbling back against another man as the room spun all round him. Gardiner…one of the only people who had knowledge of his planned visit to Wickham that last night…. He closed his eyes and shook his head slightly, trying to stop the disconcerted reeling of his stomach.
“That’s what it is,” the other man agreed with Gardiner. “The right people, you have it there. A man stepping into such fortunate circumstances as yourself must search out men upon whom he can depend, or he will find it all yanked from him like that other fellow.”
Gardiner laughed. “And that is why I came to see you, old friend. I find I have need of your expertise for my new ventures. May we step into your office?”
As the two men threaded their way to the little clerical rooms at the side of the building, Darcy began to force his way to the main exit. By the time he emerged once more to fresh air, black spots were dancing before his vision and a trickle of sweat wove between his shoulder blades. He leaned against the outer wall, pressing himself weakly against the cold brick of the brokerage house.
Betrayed by such a friend! He had not thought himself capable of misjudging another so badly! Whom else must he now doubt, if even Edward Gardiner had seen fit to profit by his dispatch? The heat of anger seared his cheeks, rage tinting his vision as he glared blankly out upon the street. How many others had stood to gain substantially, with him out of the way?
Mentally, he rambled through a list of all those who might hold something against him. Wickham? It was hard to extort money from a “dead” man, but not from his bereaved sister. Wickham would have known, however, that Georgiana would be guarded all the more vigilantly by… his nostrils curled with a sharp intake of breath.Richard.
He lurched from the wall, marching with purpose toward the street. He must get as far from London as possible to think! And then… and then, he knew not what.
A passing cab, thinking he meant to hail it, stopped along the curb. “Where to, suhr?”
Darcy wheeled to a stop, staring into the darkened portal of the cab through the little window. The horse shifted its feet, rocking the cab faintly.Just like the rolling, black hold of that first ship. He heard the driver ask a direction of him again, but his mind only saw the black, stifling interior of the public carriage. His breath came quick and uneven, and he felt his body stepping defensively away.
“Suhr?” asked the driver again.
He was shaking his head, his brows jerking in vehement rejection of the man’s services. “No! No, I intend to walk.”
The driver had shifted from his seat to open the door, but he returned to his normal posture and shrugged. “Suit ye’self, suhr.”
“Wait!” Darcy cried as the wheels began to creak away. “Where might I hire a saddle horse?”
The driver paused and stared at him, shifting his tongue pensively over his teeth. He held out a hand. Darcy sighed and fished a coin from the purse.
The driver seemed pleased. “Fer this, suhr, I’ll take ye there me’self.”
“I shall walk,” Darcy repeated. “Just the direction, please.”
The driver pointed with his whip. “Three blocks down, to the left, fifth stall. Ask for Ralph, an’ tell ‘im Jerry sent ye.”
“Much obliged.” Darcy put his fingers to his hat brim and all but ran in the direction indicated. The sooner he fled London, the better—and the sooner he might find the one or two people he did trust. Each click of his heels on paving stones seemed to sound out the musical syllables of the one word crowding his mind.Elizabeth.
