Page 119 of A Debt Inherited

Darcy looked towards the hall. “Then he cannot be sent back alone.”

Barty’s brows lifted. “Begging pardon, sir, but he may be of more use atop the carriage. He bore the express; Mr Bennet will know him.”

Darcy considered it only a moment. “Very well. Feed him first. Then put him beside the coachman.”

“Aye, sir.”

Darcy folded Mr Bennet’s letter and placed it inside his coat.

“Have the carriage ready to within the hour. Quietly.”

Barty bowed and left.

Darcy looked down at his uncle’s letter. Twenty-seven years had not discharged the debt. They had only delivered it to another man.

A debt inherited.

Chapter 44

Vauxhall Gardens, the same evening

Colonel Fitzwilliam had endured worse evenings, though few had required less courage.

The supper box held six officers, two bottles too many, and enough borrowed consequence to furnish a small court. Captain Harrow had been telling the same hunting story for twenty minutes, improving the horse, the hedge, and his own seat at every repetition. Lieutenant Brice, who had never seen battle and spoke of it often, leant back with one boot too far into the aisle. Across from him, Storton adjusted his cuffs whenever a lady passed, as if linen might accomplish what conversation could not.

Fitzwilliam watched them with the patience of a man who had once seen a battery lose half its crew before breakfast.

Peacocks, every one of them.

They strutted, laughed too loudly, turned profile for admiration, and spoke of honour as if it were a colour newly fashionable in waistcoats. Harrow made some remark about French cavalry and drew a laugh from Brice. Then his eye moved, caught Fitzwilliam’s, and the laugh ended.

Sense returned to the table in degrees. Brice drew in his boot. Storton lowered his voice. Harrow remembered his glass and applied himself to it.

Fitzwilliam did not smile. That would have made instruction of it, and he had no wish to improve them. Fools had their uses. They made silence agreeable.

Beyond the supper box, Vauxhall moved in light and noise: lamps strung among the trees, music carrying over the walks, gowns bright beneath the glow, laughter rising and breaking like water against stone. A singer’s voice reached them from the orchestra, sweet enough to make sentiment cheap. Somewhere a party applauded before the song had ended.

Fitzwilliam looked at the crowd and thought of Spain.

That was the trouble with peace. It dressed itself prettily and expected a man to admire the fabric.

“Colonel,” Harrow said, with renewed caution, “you were at Badajoz, I think?”

Fitzwilliam set down his glass. “I was.”

A silence followed. It was not a reverent silence. Reverence had little stamina. It was the silence of men who had reached for a subject and found it had teeth.

Brice cleared his throat. “A hard business, by all accounts.”

“Yes.”

Storton looked away first.

Fitzwilliam might have let them suffer another moment had a footman not appeared at the edge of the box, plain-coated and breathing hard enough to have earned the sweat upon his brow. He did not look at the table. He looked at Fitzwilliam.

“Colonel Fitzwilliam, sir.”

Fitzwilliam knew him at once. James, from Darcy House. Barty trusted him with errands that did not bear repeating.