Page 139 of A Debt Inherited

Mr Wickham voice sharpened. “I am messenger again?”

“You brought him. You may carry what follows.” Kerr’s voice shifted. “And you, Mr Darcy, may remain here.”

Elizabeth sat back upon her heels.

Mr Darcy.

The name gave her nothing, but his presence had given her one thing: Mr Kerr and Mr Wickham had ceased, for a moment, to move together.

Chapter 50

Redbourn Heath, that evening

The voices came low and tangled, as if spoken into a scarf. A scrape; a sharp breath. Then a blow—wood against flesh—and a man’s groan broke off ragged. Silence settled, thick as the dark. She counted her heart until it slowed again. A minute, perhaps more. The wall at her spine trembled. Something heavy shoved against the other side. The push lifted her a little where she sat; she knocked the back of her head and set her teeth.

Elizabeth kept still.

Her hands lay free in her lap, but freedom of hands did little for a barred door.

A man’s voice came through the plaster, faint but shaped. “Miss Bennet.”

Her mouth dried. She turned her cheek until the cool roughness of the wall met it. The lime smelt faintly of damp and old smoke.

“I beg you will not be alarmed,” the voice said, softer. “You are not alone.”

“Who speaks?”

A pause, then a slow breath. “My name is Darcy—Fitzwilliam Darcy.”

The name meant nothing. “Are you with them?”

“No. Their guest, not their ally.”

“That is a convenient distinction.”

“I would think the same, were our positions reversed.”

She drew her knees close. “Then give me a reason not to think it now.”

“I came to Longbourn,” he said. “To your father.”

She shook her head. “Any man may say that.”

“Yes.”

The answer gave her pause. A liar would have improved the claim.

“Your father sent for me after Mr Wickham brought the demand. Hill was present. Your father made Mr Wickham read the letter aloud.”

Elizabeth shut her eyes. “What else?”

“He had a map upon the desk, weighted at one corner by a book. Cowper.”

“Cowper,” she said.

“Yes.”

Anyone admitted to the study might have seen as much. A room proved only a room.