Page 156 of A Debt Inherited

“You have been to St Albans,” he said.

Wickham swung down, landed badly, and caught himself against the saddle. “Darcy has made fools of us.”

Kerr’s hand tightened on his own reins.

“How?”

Wickham’s breath came hard, and not all of it from riding. “That damned letter will not release a shilling.”

Kerr looked past him to the lane.

No one followed.

Yet.

“How do you know?” Kerr asked.

Wickham wiped his mouth with the back of his glove. “Because I found the fellow who carried Darcy’s letter into the counting-room.”

“You followed a bank’s clerk.”

Wickham gave a short laugh. “Rich men are not left waiting, Kerr. Darcy is rich as Croesus. A clerk sees his name and runs as though delay were a sin.”

“And?” Kerr asked, fearing the explanation.

“The man said the letter wanted proper authority.” Wickham’s lip curled. “Proper authority. What the devil does that mean?”

Kerr knew exactly what it meant. Darcy had not refused. He had obeyed in terms no banker would honour. Worse, he had made obedience look like warning.

Wickham’s face darkened. “Then he shall write another.”

Kerr watched him. “And why should he?”

“Because I shall give him cause.”

The horse stamped behind him. Wickham did not turn. His eyes had gone to the cottage door.

Kerr let the silence hold a moment longer.

“Do not break his hand,” he said.

Wickham looked back at him.

Kerr looped his reins over the pump handle. “He must still be able to write.”

* * *

Longbourn, in the last hour before dawn

Fitzwilliam marked two lights ahead.

The riders on his flanks moved at once. The lane narrowed where the garden walls began, the air held pitch smoke and the damp of the hour. As he drew nearer, the flames steadied into form. Flambeaux.

We are expected.

Harris wheeled past the wall, posting his horse outward to the right; to the left, Simms did the same. Fitzwilliam rode between them, Villiers behind him. Perseus’s hooves struck gravel.

Villiers swung down, crossed the space in three strides, and struck the panels with his fist. A latch lifted; the door drew inward. He stepped back, hand on his sword. Fitzwilliam halted Perseus a yard short of the threshold.