Page 194 of A Question of Character

“Fair. Fashionable. Spoke with easy manners. The landlord could not recall his name, if he gave one.”

Darcy closed his eyes briefly. “That tells us little.”

“It tells us we are not chasing shadows.”

They mounted again.

As the afternoon wore on, Wickham’s earlier confession resumed between them.

“You said a man used your name,” Darcy said.

“Yes.”

“The same man?”

“I cannot prove it.”

“But you suspect him.”

“I do.”

“Who is he?”

Wickham gave no reply.

Darcy looked over. “If he has my sister—”

“I know.” Wickham shook his head. “I know. Believe me, I am not withholding from vanity. I am trying to be certain before I place a name before you. The man I mean had a gift for making innocence look guilty and guilt look like an unfortunate accident. If I name him wrongly, we lose time.”

“Then tell me what you know.”

“There is one man whose name must be considered,” Wickham said. “I did not speak it when the Ramsgate account first appeared because suspicion is not proof, and I would not accuse another man merely because he once wronged me. But Miss Darcy’s disappearance alters the matter.”

Darcy’s expression hardened. “Who?”

“George Wycombe. He has used my name before, particularly when debts or women were involved. The similarity has served him too well. I cannot swear he is the man you saw in Ramsgate, but if Georgiana believed herself attached to George Wickham while corresponding with another, Wycombe is the first person I would seek.”

Wickham nodded once. “We became acquainted after I left Cambridge. He was amusing, well connected enough to open doors, and careless in precisely the way I admired then. Our surnames were similar enough that mistakes occurred. At first it was a joke. A bill addressed to him came to me; an invitation meant for me went to him. He found it vastly entertaining.”

“And then?”

“Then debts came in my name that were not mine. Small at first. Wine. Cards. Lodging. A tailor who insisted I had ordered a waistcoat I had never seen. When I confronted him, he laughed and said I had profited often enough from confusion and ought not resent the world for returning the favor.”

Darcy’s stomach clenched.

“The bill from Ramsgate.”

“Yes. That is why it troubled me. I did not know the inn, but the manner of it had the same smell. Precise enough to alarm, absurd enough to deny. A false debt is easy to dismiss if no one cares. A false debt connected to a scandal becomes evidence.”

“What is his name?”

Wickham’s gaze fixed on the road ahead. “He went by Wycombe. W-y-c-o-m-b-e.”

Darcy pulled his horse to a halt.

“Wycombe?” he repeated after Wickham spelled it out.

“Yes.”