Page 122 of A Debt Inherited

“Take the boy.”

“Barty suggested it.”

“Barty has sense. Take another rider and a fresh horse—a man who can carry word back to me the instant you know what this is.”

“You will be here?” Darcy asked.

“Until dawn, if required.”

Fitzwilliam continued. “If it is money, you can settle it. If it is scandal, you may contain it. If it is violence, or anything that smells of old family business, I want word before dawn has time to announce itself.”

Darcy turned from the glass. “Old family business?”

“Our families have enemies and grudges against us. How this Mr Bennet is part of it we do not know.”

He picked up one glove and tossed it to Darcy.

“Yet.”

Chapter 45

Longbourn, the following morning

The lamps swung across shuttered windows as the coach rolled through Meryton’s sleeping square. Signs creaked above darkened shopfronts, and the echo of hooves rang sharp against the cobbles. Then the last cottage fell away, the road turned to gravel, and the hedgerows closed in—wet with dew, glimmering under the lamps.

Opposite him, Barty’s hat rested on his thigh. The man’s eyes were half-closed, but not in sleep. He knew the sound of the horses, counted their stride, and marked each rise in the road by the flick of the lamp. The pace had held steady since Barnet.

From above came the sharper note of the boy’s whistle. John Perkins clung to the box rail, cap pulled low, his small shape black against the lamp-glow. James sat between him and the driver. Goliath was tied to the rear bar.

They passed beneath a stand of ash and the horizon opened. Beyond the fields lay a faint grey wash where morning gathered itself. The smell of hay drifted in as the coach window rattled. He drew a breath and steadied it.

The lane narrowed between high hedges, dew on every thorn. A fox slipped from the ditch and was gone. Ahead, the wrought-iron trellis of the Longbourn gate came into view—its bars wet with mist, the crest above it faintly silvered by the rising light. John Perkins swung down, unlatched the catch, and the hinges gave a low groan as the gates parted.

The coach passed through at a measured pace. Beyond the gate, the drive curved through elms that stood like sentries, their trunks black against the paling sky. In the distance, the house showed itself by degrees: low, regular, and still. The fields behind were touched with the first dull gold of dawn, and the gravel under the horses’ hooves gave a sound too loud for the hour.

The coach-lanterns threw its shadow long against the gatepost as they turned in.

Darcy stepped down and looked once at the sky—paler now, touched with rose along the ridge of the fields—and then at the house.

The drive curved wide before it, bordered by low elms and a sweep of gravel newly rolled. The façade stood plain and square, its brick clean, its sash windows shuttered in even line. The roof slates glimmered faintly with dew, and the portico, modest in height, bore the look of care rather than fashion. A gentleman’s house, self-contained, of means steady and still sufficient.

For a moment, he stood still. James dropped from the box and went to Goliath, Darcy’s favourite stallion, taking the reins in hand.

A light passed by the window to the left of the door. The door bolts slid back.

The house had been awake before the bell.

The door opened upon a servant of even height and steady carriage; his countenance gave nothing away. “You are expected, sir.”

Darcy stepped inside. The hall smelt faintly of wax, woodsmoke, and a house too long awake. Hill closed the door behind him, shutting out the grey dawn, the horses, and the waiting road.

A gentleman stood several paces from the stair, one hand upon a cane. He looked not old, precisely, but worn past sleep. His eyes moved over Darcy’s face with a steadiness that made courtesy feel insufficient.

“I am Thomas Bennet,” he said. “Where is Edmund Darcy?”

Darcy stilled. “Sir?”

“I wrote to Mr Edmund Darcy of Pemberley. You are not he.”