Page 40 of The Lost Prophecy

“Your father complained about everything.”

“He learned from long association with you, sir.”

Hurst dropped into the chair next to Bingley and stretched his legs. “Did he truly take the recipe to his grave?”

“He passed it to me shortly before entering it.” Fletcher smoothed the salve on Darcy’s cheek. “The arrangement was considered more practical.”

“What is in it?”

“The necessary ingredients.”

Hurst’s eyes narrowed. “Which are?”

“Necessary.”

“I employ a perfectly capable valet, Fletcher.”

“Then ask him to prevent you from combusting.”

“He does not know how.”

Fletcher replaced the lid on the jar. “A fortunate circumstance for the continued security of my position.”

Darcy allowed him to help with his riding coat, then moved aside so that Bingley could submit to the same indignity. Bingley positioned his head obediently while Fletcher coated his face, ears, and the exposed portion of his throat. His preoccupation with Miss Bennet was so complete that Fletcher might have applied boot blacking without attracting notice.

Hurst watched him. “You have been smiling since yesterday.”

Bingley’s smile widened. “Have I?”

“You smiled in the carriage home. You smiled through dinner. You smiled when Caroline threatened to abandon Hertfordshire.”

“She did not threaten. She expressed a preference for London.”

“She expressed it for forty minutes,” Hurst noted.

Fletcher turned Bingley’s face slightly to the right and examined his work. “That will suffice under the present sun. If it rains, you must seek shelter at once. Water will remove the protection.”

Bingley glanced at the window. “There is hardly any sun.”

“There was hardly any sun when Mr Hurst burned his left ear.”

Hurst sat upright. “That occurred in August.”

“It was still an ear,” Fletcher countered.

“The light was unusually strong.”

“It was summer, sir.”

“I had reapplied the salve myself because you were not available, Fletcher.”

Fletcher approached him with the jar. “You applied it to the right ear.”

Hurst touched the left one, which had healed without visible damage but was a matter of household history. “The jars ought to bear instructions.”

“The ears are positioned symmetrically. I believed you would infer the rest.”

Darcy turned his back to conceal his amusement. The punch bowl held its place on the table, although its rim had tilted as though listening.