Page 131 of A Debt Inherited

“No. I suspect Mr Wickham is employed by his own hunger and no better master.”

Kerr lifted the pail. “You speak very freely for a woman in your circumstances.”

“My circumstances have not improved by silence.”

He turned towards the door. Elizabeth moved one step, enough to see the passage beyond him: bare boards, a pale strip of light near the outer room, no hat upon the peg where Wickham’s had hung yesterday, no second coat thrown over the chair beyond. Only Kerr.

“He has gone to my father,” she said.

Kerr stopped.

It was nothing. Less than a flinch. But she had lived since yesterday on less.

“Has he?”

“You would have denied it more quickly if he had not.”

His jaw set. “You build castles from dust.”

“I am in a poor room. Dust must serve.”

“Your father was given terms.”

“By Mr Wickham?” she asked.

“By those who hold you.”

“That answer limps, Mr Kerr.”

His colour rose. “Take care.”

“Of what? My good opinion of my captors?”

He looked at her then, and for the first time she saw fatigue under the calculation. He had the look of a man who had set machinery in motion and only now heard the teeth catch.

“You think him untrustworthy,” she said.

“I think Mr Wickham predictable.”

“That is not the same thing.”

“No.”

Kerr’s expression closed at once. He stepped into the passage with the pail.

“You wished it removed,” he said. “Be content.”

“I am rarely content with half a service.”

He looked back. “Then accustom yourself to disappointment.”

The door shut. The bolt fell.

Chapter 48

The gravel shifted beneath Darcy’s boot as he mounted. Behind him, Longbourn’s door remained open, Bennet standing within it, one hand upon his cane. Wickham watched the canvas bag in Darcy’s hand and smiled as though coin already rang beneath the cloth.

Dust rose beneath the horses’ hooves and settled upon the hedges. Wickham rode half a length ahead, loose in the saddle, his old insolence restored with distance from Longbourn.