Page 161 of A Debt Inherited

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The sack ripped free as his shoulders struck, coarse fabric scraping his jaw. Light cut through the gloom. Darcy blinked against it.

Kerr lay a few paces away, coat torn, hair fallen loose. Beyond him, the door stood open. Wickham had gone.

Kerr seized the broken leg of the stool and came to his feet.

“You ruined me, Darcy. Do you even know it?”

Darcy steadied his breath. “You ruined yourself. Ramsgate was your own doing.”

Kerr’s laugh came rough and thin. “Ramsgate? You think this began at Ramsgate?”

“And you trusted Wickham? Of all men?”

Kerr’s teeth flashed. “He was useful.”

“Useful men rarely serve clean causes.”

“Clean?” Kerr tightened his grip upon the broken wood. “I should have been an earl’s nephew. Like you.”

Darcy moved as Kerr swung. The chair leg struck his shoulder. He staggered, grunting, then straightened again.

“Your father gave you his name,” Kerr said. “Mine was taken before I was out of leading strings.”

“Miss Bennet bore no part of that.”

“Her father did.”

Kerr lunged, swinging the wood. It glanced off Darcy’s arm, the jagged wood tearing his sleeve and skin beneath. He hissed through his teeth.

A shadow crossed the window. Darcy knew the profile before it vanished.

The window burst inward.

Darcy dropped, rolling before thought could form.

Kerr jerked back. “What—”

Steel hissed through the room. Kerr’s body jerked.

Warm blood struck Darcy’s cheek.

Chapter 56

Darcy sat upon a wooden stool, his shoulder throbbing. “Where is Miss Bennet?”

Fitzwilliam stood before him. Beyond the doorway, Harris and Simms sat with their backs against trees, both men bent over their blades. The soft drag of steel upon leather marked the quiet in a steady, almost pleasant rhythm. A darkened cloth lay open between them, and the smell of oiled steel, wet leaves, and embrocation thickened the morning air.

“Villiers has taken her back to her father.”

“Was she harmed?”

“She was walking when Villiers found her.”

Darcy drew breath through his teeth and glanced across the floor. Kerr lay where he had fallen, half-turned, his coat soaked through and the boards about him dark with blood.

“Do not lose sleep over that reprobate,” Fitzwilliam said.