Page 121 of A Debt Inherited

“Colonel, is there trouble?”

Fitzwilliam looked at him.

The young man’s colour changed.

“There is always trouble,” Fitzwilliam said. “It has merely become punctual.”

* * *

Fitzwilliam stopped counting the number of people frightened out of Perseus’s path before he reached the Strand.

By then, counting had become ungentlemanly and useless. A gentleman in a ridiculous beaver cursed him near the Adelphi; a flower girl snatched her basket from under the horse’s forefeet; two young men in coats too bright for wisdom leapt apart with all the dignity their tailoring allowed.

Perseus took the noise, lamps, wheels, and shouting as a personal compliment and lengthened his stride.

Fitzwilliam let him.

Darcy’s note lay inside his glove, sharp against his palm with every pull of the reins.

A debt of honour calls me to Hertfordshire.

Darcy did not write in haste. This time he had. No crest, no explanation, no politeness wasted upon padding. That alone had been worth a gallop through half of London.

By the time Darcy House came into view, Perseus had foam at the bit and a temper worthy of his name. Fitzwilliam drew him up hard before the steps and threw the reins to the first groom who dared approach.

“Walk him till he cools. Then keep him saddled.”

The groom took one look at the rider, one at the horse, and swallowed his questions.

Fitzwilliam went up the steps without waiting for the door to open. It opened anyway. Hudson stood within, grave as judgement.

“Mr Darcy is above, Colonel.”

“Still here?”

“For the moment, sir.”

That was answer enough. Fitzwilliam crossed the hall, took the stairs two at a time, and reached Darcy’s dressing room without waiting to be announced.

He found Darcy standing before the glass with his arms held slightly out from his sides while Barty brushed imaginary dust from his shoulders. A dark travelling coat hung open upon him; his cravat had been tied in a simple knot and condemned by Barty’s expression.

Darcy met Fitzwilliam’s eyes in the glass.

“You caught me.”

“Of course I did.” Fitzwilliam shut the door behind him. “Explain.”

Darcy gave it without ornament: the express from Hertfordshire, the tenant’s son sent without livery, Mr Bennet of Longbourn, Edmund Darcy’s old letter, Wray’s prohibition, and the demand for aid with no particulars attached. He named what he knew and stopped where knowledge ended.

Fitzwilliam absorbed it all.

An old debt, a careful country gentleman, and a summons urgent enough to send a farmer’s son from Hertfordshire to London and onward to Pemberley if need demanded it.

That was not enough to understand. But it was enough to prepare.

He crossed to the chair where Darcy’s gloves lay beside the two letters. “You go to Longbourn.”

“Yes.”