Page 114 of A Debt Inherited

“You use courage as if it were a blade.”

Silence followed. Outside, the tethered horse stamped once. A fly moved against the shutter and trapped itself in the narrow line of light.

Kerr set the cloth down. “Your father knows the name now.”

Elizabeth kept her face still. “Lord Julian.”

His eyes narrowed.

“Yes,” she said. “I heard a dead man’s name and a demand for ten thousand pounds. That is monstrous.”

“Monstrous things rarely begin where women are permitted to see them.”

“How fortunate that men conceal them so nobly.”

He took one step towards her. She did not retreat.

“You think this began yesterday in a lane,” he said.

“I know my part in it began there.”

“Your part began before you drew breath.”

Cold moved through her, the sense that yesterday’s horror had only been the outer door. Her father. Cambridge. Mr Kerr’s voice on the previous day: Your father walked away from Stamford and left my family’s name in the dirt.

“What do you accuse him of?” she asked.

“Silence.”

“That is not a crime.”

His mouth tightened.

“You have taken his daughter because you cannot face my father.”

The words left her before prudence could catch them. Kerr went still. In another man, stillness might have promised violence. In him, it promised calculation, and that frightened her more.

At last he said, “You know nothing of what your father did.”

“No. I know what he is.”

“Not enough to excuse this.”

Kerr turned towards the door. For one moment she thought he would leave. Instead, he stopped with his hand upon the latch.

“Wickham thinks only of money,” he said. “Remember that.”

“I had not credited him with any larger talent.”

“If he speaks gently, do not believe him. If he offers rescue, do not believe him. If he tells you I am the greater danger, do not believe him without first asking what he gains by your fear.”

Elizabeth’s breath caught. “And what do you gain by warning me?”

He looked back. “Time.”

“For what?”

“For your father to answer.”