Page 151 of A Debt Inherited

“That is not a promise.”

“No.”

She lowered herself, placing her back to the wall. “You are a very difficult man to comfort.”

“I had not supposed I was the object of comfort.”

“You are mistaken. We have been reduced to a wall, Mr Darcy. We must make what use of it we can.”

Silence answered her, but it was not empty. She had begun to know the difference.

Beyond the shutter, a bird gave a short, indifferent call. Morning had fully entered now, laying a pale strip across the boards and showing every stain the night had hidden. Elizabeth looked at it and then away.

“Miss Bennet,” he said at last. “What has Mr Kerr told you of your father?”

“Very little plainly.”

“Then only what he has said.”

She drew her knees closer and looked at the bar upon the door. “He speaks of my father as if he were an entry left unsettled in a ledger.”

Mr Darcy did not answer at once.

“He has not named a crime,” she said.

Your father walked away from Stamford and left my family’s name in the dirt.

“He has named a debt. He says it as though there can be no difference.”

She turned towards the wall.

“Mr Wickham speaks of money. Mr Kerr speaks of punishment.”

Chapter 53

Darcy kept his silence because every answer within reach belonged first to Mr Bennet. The rope cut across his wrists. Wickham had tied it with more malice than skill; given time, Darcy might make use of that. For the moment, time mattered more than comfort.

On the other side of the wall, Miss Bennet waited.

Kerr had given her grievance, not proof.

He turned his head until his cheek nearly touched the plaster.

“Miss Bennet,” he said, “I do not know what Mr Kerr believes your father owes him.”

That was true. Not sufficient, but true.

“But you know something,” she said.

Darcy closed his eyes. Her understanding spared him explanation and denied him evasion.

“I know much of Wickham,” he said.

“Then begin there,” she said.

Darcy shifted his wrist against the rope and stopped when the chair gave the smallest sound.

“He was raised under my father’s protection.”