Whatever doubts had once restrained Mr. Bennet appeared to have been burned away.
He turned the key.
The safe opened with a muted scrape, and Mr. Bennet withdrew several carefully wrapped bundles, setting them upon the desk one by one.
Elizabeth moved closer, her hands clasped tightly before her.
Richard leaned against a bookshelf, his expression grave and alert.
Mr. Bennet unwrapped the first bundle.
Gold caught the light at once—bright, unmistakable, and gleaming.
Coins, heavy and worn smooth by centuries of earth.
A torque, its twisted strands intact.
A brooch set with garnet, still deep and rich in color.
Darcy felt the breath leave his lungs.
“Incredible,” he murmured before he could stop himself.
The next bundle held silver—a bowl, fragments of plate, coins stamped with imperial profiles worn but legible.
The third revealed smaller artifacts: rings, a clasp, a delicate hair ornament so finely worked that Darcy wondered how it had survived the centuries unbroken.
He stepped forward slowly, reverently, approaching the relics.
“There must be—” he stopped, recalculated, then said quietly, “at least thirty thousand pounds’ worth here. Perhaps more, if the workmanship is as early as I suspect.”
Elizabeth closed her eyes.
Darcy looked at Mr. Bennet then, no accusation in his gaze, only stark understanding. “This ought to be reported.”
“I know,” Mr. Bennet said heavily. “Heaven help me, I know.”
Darcy gestured toward the window, beyond which the quiet of the estate belied the unrest beyond its hedges. “There is a frenzy in the area. People dig with no regard for boundaries or sense. Sir William’s brooch has inflamed them all. What would happen if it became known that Longbourn heldthis?”
Mr. Bennet’s mouth tightened. “Someone already suspected enough to break in.”
Elizabeth inhaled sharply. Darcy turned back to Mr. Bennet at once.
“Someone broke into the house?”
“Into this very room,” Mr. Bennet replied. “The library was ransacked last night. Papers scattered, drawers overturned. It has been mostly set to rights, but—” He spread his hands helplessly. “You see now why I could no longer delay.”
Darcy’s thoughts turned, unwillingly, to Bingley. It was impossible not to wonder whether such desperation had arisen from rumor alone—or whether careless enthusiasm, too freely expressed, had lent it substance. A suggestion here, a boast there—such things did not remain contained. They spread, took root, and in the wrong hands, turned quickly to action.
He felt a cold, unpleasant certainty settle in his chest—and dismissed it almost immediately. Bingley would not. But theBingley who resided at Netherfield Park was not the same friend Darcy knew from Town.
“You wished to care for your family. That is not a failing.”
Elizabeth frowned slightly. “Is it not? If that care places others at risk?”
Darcy did not answer at once.
Elizabeth looked at him then, gratitude and anguish mingling in her expression. He could see the weight of the secret dropping from her shoulders.
