Page 110 of Honor Requires

Darcy did not raise his own glass.

“Is she?” he asked.

Wickham smirked faintly. “You would argue otherwise?”

“I might argue,” Darcy said evenly, “that fortune is less fickle than men suppose—and that what appears as chance is often the result of choices not fully understood.”

Wickham gave a short laugh. “Ah. A philosopher.”

“Hardly.” Darcy swirled his glass, watching the liquid spin.

“Then a man who has not lost enough to learn better.”

Darcy regarded him steadily. “Or one who has lost enough to consider the matter more closely.”

The words seemed to strike somewhere deeper than Wickham expected. For a moment, his expression altered—not entirely, but enough to suggest that something beneath the surface had been touched. Then he shrugged it off.

“Perhaps,” he said. “Though I confess I find it easier not to consider such things too deeply.”

“And still you do.”

Wickham glanced at him, amused. “Do I?”

“Your tone suggests it.”

Wickham leaned back, studying him with renewed interest. “You are an unusual man, Count Vendicarsi.”

“So, I am told.”

Wickham swirled the contents of his glass, watching the liquid catch the dim light. “My good fortune,” he said after a moment, almost idly, “came at a steep price.”

Darcy did not respond at once. There it is. “And do you find the exchange worth it?” he asked.

Wickham’s smile returned, though it lacked its former ease. “Worth is a curious measure,” he said. “One seldom knows it at the time. Only afterward—when the cost is already paid.”

“And what is to be done then?”

Wickham laughed again, though there was little humor in it. “Done? Nothing, I imagine. I drink. I play. One carries on as though nothing has altered.”

Darcy’s gaze did not waver. “Or one seeks to make amends.”

Wickham’s expression sharpened. “For what purpose?”

“For justice,” Darcy said. “Because it is right.”

Wickham’s eyes flickered. “Justice,” he repeated. “You imply it is something readily obtained.”

“It is not,” Darcy said. “But that does not make it less necessary.”

Wickham held his gaze for a long moment, then he looked away. “Some things,” he said, his voice lower now, “are too final.”

Darcy did not press him further.

Not yet.

The second occasion came some days later, in a more private setting.

Darcy had encountered Wickham not at the gaming tables, but at a lesser-known establishment—a place where gentlemen gathered not solely for gambling, but for conversation, drink, and the temporary illusion of ease.