Page 134 of A Debt Inherited

I shall keep Wickham engaged and offer myself as surety until the money is called for.

Come quickly and bring whom you trust.

D

No one spoke when he finished. Simms looked at Harris. Villiers looked at Fitzwilliam.

“Roark first,” Fitzwilliam said.

Villiers nodded. “Then we had best not knock like gentlemen.”

Chapter 49

Redbourn Heath, that afternoon

Darcy waited. Wickham’s satisfaction sat too openly upon him; Kerr’s stillness gave nothing away.

“You hear him, Kerr? He has brought stones and calls it bargaining.”

Darcy kept his eyes on Kerr. “Miss Bennet.”

“No,” Kerr said.

The word came without heat. Darcy had expected anger, perhaps alarm. Instead, Kerr considered him with the cool attention of a man revising his accounts.

Wickham’s smile thinned. “No?”

Kerr ignored him. “Why have you come, Mr Darcy?”

Darcy did not move. “Show me that Miss Bennet is here.”

“Empty bag,” Wickham said. “But full command.”

Darcy turned his head a fraction. “You mistake noise for wit.”

The colour rose under Wickham’s skin, but Kerr lifted one hand before he could answer.

“Enough.” Kerr’s gaze returned to Darcy. “You may hear her. Nothing more.”

Darcy measured the ground before him. Wickham stood too near his right hand; Kerr held the doorway; Miss Bennet remained somewhere beyond him. Violence would give Wickham permission and Kerr the advantage. Neither would restore her to her father.

He entered.

The interior narrowed at once. A partition cut the old stable into two chambers. One held a rough table, a chair with a split cane seat, two saddles, a coil of rope, and a lantern turned low. The other lay beyond a plank door barred from without. Darcy’s eye went to it before he could school the movement.

Kerr saw it.

“No farther.”

Darcy stopped.

Something shifted beyond the barred door. Not much: a faint scrape, cloth against boards perhaps, then stillness. Darcy’s fingers closed once against his palm.

Wickham noticed. “There. A touching reunion.”

“Miss Bennet,” Darcy said, raising his voice. “I come from your father.”

A sharp movement sounded within. Then Kerr crossed the room in three strides and struck the flat of his hand against the plank.