Page 1 of Mr Darcy’s Quizzing Glass

PROLOGUE

1794

George Darcy was a man who understood his place—within his family and society, amongst his friends, and even amongst his enemies. Of the latter, he had very few, the fact of which he credited to an unremarkable object: the quizzing glass he carried round his neck.

To be sure, it was a fine specimen, ornate and bejewelled. The glass’s true value, however, was in the insight it gave to him, and to his father and grandfathers before him. Was a new acquaintance clothed in the refinements of a gentleman, but a gull in the cardroom? Could he trust that a man bringing him an investment scheme did not possess nefarious motives? What of those prone to sudden extravagance or rapid penury? Had they built their fortunes on lies? The glass revealed all.

It was not ‘magical’ per se; it did not pronounce judgment or whisper secrets. However, it sharpened the perceptions of those peering through it to expose the ‘rougher edges’ of whoever was caught within its sight. It was not flawless, of course; a good man might have faulty ideas or a blemished past, which Darcy must use his own intelligence to discover. But it bestowed just enough discernment to instil resolution and spirit, to provide evidence of one’s perceptions, to recommend to the world a man with a steel edge of confidence. Thus George Darcy’s reputation for good judgment, for good sense, for goodness in general, was unmatched by anyone. He held a great deal of pride in his impeccable standing, yet he did not fear his Maker; his sole aim was to bring honour to the Darcy name, as had his father before him.

Nevertheless, his temper, long schooled to perfect composure, stirred beneath the surface as he looked across the crowded drawing room at his wife, deep in conversation with an elegant gentleman.

The fellow stood too close to Anne, and even from a dozen yards away, he clearly was too easy in his address, too keen in his smile, and far too familiar for a husband’s liking. Darcy had hardly known Hugh Vaughan when they were at school together; the heir to a baronetcy in Lancashire, he was a sharp wit and uninterested scholar, and even then, had been rumoured to keep at least one mistress.

Anne smiled, and Darcy could see the amusement in her usually cool countenance. She was enjoying Vaughan’s glib flattery! Beyond the affectionate smiles she gave to him and young Fitzwilliam, she had not looked so delighted in years. Was she taken in by Vaughan’s shallow wit and smooth looks? Was she so easily swayed from the constancy of their attachment?

Fury, biting and cold, unfurled in his chest. How dare she enjoy the company of this worthless lackwit! Needing to know with certainty whether Vaughan was the scoundrel he suspected, ideas of what could be done to ruin his opportunities to manipulate any other lady of the ton seizing his mind, Darcy reached towards his waistcoat and withdrew his quizzing glass, its gold rim glinting faintly in the candlelight. With deliberate calm, he raised it as though to inspect the precision of the brushstrokes in a painting hanging nearby.

But when he brought the lens to his eye, he did not see Vaughan. He gazed at another face entirely—his own, mirrored back from a looking glass behind the offender. Swirling within and around his reflection was a pale grey shadow.

For an instant, the air surrounding him seemed to still; the sounds of conversation dimmed. Through that small, circular lens, Darcy saw not Vaughan’s faults but his own failings of pride and jealousy laid bare. This cannot be! I am not a man of malicious intent or amorality!

Darcy lowered the glass, blood rising to his temples as he glimpsed his shocked expression in the mirror. After closing his eyes briefly to regain his sensibilities, he saw that across the room, the objects of his ire had separated, seemingly unaware of his scrutiny. Vaughan was speaking with another gentleman and Anne was occupied with her aunt. She looked over to him and smiled warmly, eyebrow raised, as though welcoming his company.

Shaken, he stared at the quizzing glass he had relied upon so willingly and so often these past years, using it to easily place others into neat little categories of good and bad, right and wrong. With trembling hands, he slipped it into his pocket, a warning echoing unbidden in his mind, the weight of it like a blade against his heart.

Has it enabled the darkness I fear in others to grow without restraint in me?

ONE

1806

Fitzwilliam Darcy sighed as he pored over the ledgers his father had so assiduously maintained over his thirty-four years as Master of Pemberley. The organisation of his papers was in direct contrast to the chaotic manner of his death. It had come suddenly on a beautiful April morning; he had clutched his chest and fallen to the ground, gone before he could be carried to his bed.

Now, scarcely a month into assuming the mantle, Darcy was more than a little overwhelmed. Nothing felt as it should—not his father’s chair nor his title, and certainly not the master’s chambers into which his things had been moved.

Pemberley was excruciatingly quiet since his aunts, uncles, and cousins, cloaked in grey and black, had returned to their own estates. Allowing Lady Matlock to take Georgiana with them felt like a mistake when he sat alone staring at a meal he had no appetite for, but his young sister would do better within the lively Fitzwilliam household.

George Wickham had mourned for a day or two, but once he determined Darcy would no longer join his friends in Italy, thus losing the main source of funds for his own travels, he had gone off to London. His farewell would be brief, he said, avowing he would return within a month or two to ‘aid my brother and discuss my inheritance’.

Inheritance? Darcy had his own to contend with, trying to establish both ease and command with those who clearly thought him still a boy.

Thus, here it was, not yet six o’clock in the morning, and he was pacing in his father’s study—his study—pondering the dilemma of a tenant more than twice his age who was suspected of poaching deer in Pemberley’s wood. He dreaded confronting the man with the accusations brought to him by his groundskeeper. Poaching was a grievous crime, subject to serious punishment. He did not wish to entangle himself in the case, but now he must.

Darcy had never supposed he would step into the office at such a young age. Beyond missing his father’s sage advice, Pemberley lacked an experienced steward, what with old Mr Wickham ailing and a new estate manager installed only months ago.

Instead, I have these, he thought, staring at the neat rows of ledgers and journals, their entries filled in by his father, grandfather, and the generations that preceded them over the past three centuries.

Rubbing his eyes, Darcy looked back down at the current ledger, delivered to him a day earlier. Perhaps it was his fatigue, but the handwriting was indecipherable. Dismissing the notion of returning to his bed, he rose and lifted his candle’s flame to another on a table; the lighting improved only slightly, despite his squinting. Recalling the magnifying glass in Pemberley’s library, he wondered whether his father had kept one here in his study. Opening the desk drawer, he found only quills and a knife. Turning to the mahogany cabinet behind his chair, he opened a drawer yielding a bound bundle of letters; the drawer below it was locked. Thinking a moment, he reached underneath the desk, where he recalled the existence of a small, recessed shelf. Sure enough, his fingers felt a key. Turning back to the cabinet, he unlocked the drawer, finding it housed papers and a slim box covered in a dark brocade.

Struck by a memory, Darcy set the box on the desk, opened it, and lifted a silk pouch from within the velvet-lined case. His pulse quickened as he removed a gold quizzing glass from the pouch; tracing the ornate edges of the glass and the jewelled handle, he found that despite its adornment, the device was surprisingly light. His father had been generous in handing his son his pocket watch when he had needed to amuse him, but never had he allowed Darcy to hold the quizzing glass that upon rare occasions had hung round his neck on a black silk ribbon. What had he said? ‘It is too fine a thing, of a heavy import, for a child to grasp.’

When Darcy had been fifteen and thinking himself a man, he and Wickham had come upon the glass sitting on a table in the study at Darcy House. Eager as Darcy was to examine the object, it was Wickham who had seized it. In the struggle that had ensued, the quizzing glass had been knocked to the carpet just as his father appeared. Harsh words had followed, and afterwards inured to reaching for possessions once denied, Darcy had pretended disinterest in the thing. After all, unlike the peacocks who strutted round London and Cambridge, he had no desire for the affectation of a monocle, quizzing glass, or elaborate neckcloth.

But now, seven years later, he wondered whether a quizzing glass might help him read these damnable ledgers. As he considered the notion, he spied a piece of paper peeking from the silken pouch. It was in his father’s distinctive writing.

Remember the dangers of the darkness if you fail.

Darcy shook his head in confusion. Was this advice to himself? Was his father so concerned of failure he relied on the quizzing glass?