Chapter 4 #2
The drawing room doors stood partially open, and Darcy shoved them open wide. Wickham looked up from the sofa in astonishment. For one brief second, genuine shock crossed his face, then it vanished beneath lazy insolence.
“Well,” he drawled, half reclining against velvet cushions with his cravat untied and waistcoat hanging open, “Cambridge finally released you.”
A woman sat beside him wrapped in scarlet silk so low-cut it scarcely qualified as clothing. Jewelry glittered against her throat while several empty wine bottles cluttered the table nearby.
The room itself was destroyed.
Cards littered the carpet. Candle wax dripped across polished furniture. One chair had been overturned entirely.
Darcy took in the scene silently, then he crossed the room and seized Wickham by the collar hard enough to yank him halfway from the sofa.
The woman screamed.
“Get out,” Darcy snarled.
Wickham recovered quickly enough to sneer. “Careful, Darcy. This is still my residence as much as—”
Darcy slammed him bodily into the nearest table hard enough to rattle the bottles.
“No,” he said with terrifying calm, “it is not.”
The prostitute scrambled immediately to her feet, gathering scattered stockings and ribbons with panicked haste.
Wickham shoved Darcy backward angrily. “Your father intended—”
“My father is dead.”
The words cracked through the room like a whip.
Silence followed.
Even Wickham hesitated.
Darcy’s face had gone cold in a way Bingley had never seen before—not emotional, not wild, but utterly controlled.
“You had no authority to conceal his death from me.”
Wickham recovered enough to laugh shortly. “Oh, do stop dramatizing. You would have arrived eventually.”
Darcy stared at him.
Then, very deliberately, he removed his gloves finger by finger.
Bingley wisely stepped backward.
“You gave orders in my household,” Darcy said quietly. “You entertained prostitutes under my roof while my father lay scarcely buried. You drank through his cellar and behaved like a prince awaiting coronation.”
Wickham’s expression darkened. “The will has not been read yet. You do not know if this is really yours. Your father promised I would receive an inheritance and be taken care of.”
Darcy gave a sharp humorless laugh.
“Oh, undoubtedly.” He stepped closer again. “My father was a fool where you are concerned. I expect there is money somewhere in the will.”
Wickham lifted his chin triumphantly.
“But Pemberley and Darcy House?” Darcy’s eyes turned glacial. “No. Whatever else my father may have been, he valued blood and breeding far too highly to leave his estate to someone of low birth.”
For the first time that evening, Wickham looked genuinely enraged. “You arrogant bastard.”
“No, only the legitimately-born master of Pemberley.” Darcy smiled coldly. “Which means you are leaving.”
“I shall be back.”
Darcy’s expression did not change. “Try.”
Then he turned toward the footmen frozen in horror near the doorway. “Remove him.”
The servants needed no encouragement whatsoever. Two footmen descended upon Wickham with almost suspicious enthusiasm. Wickham cursed violently as they dragged him toward the hall while the woman fled past them clutching her shoes in one hand and bodice in the other.
“You cannot do this!” Wickham shouted.
Darcy followed at a measured pace all the way to the front entrance. “Oh, I very much can.”
The front doors burst open. Rain and cold night air swept inward immediately as Wickham was propelled bodily onto the wet front steps with enough force to nearly send him sprawling into the street.
Darcy stood in the doorway looking down at him.
Wickham’s hair hung disordered across his face, fury twisting his expression.
“This is not finished.”
“No,” Darcy agreed calmly. “It has finally begun.”
Then, with immense satisfaction, he shut the doors directly in Wickham’s face and slid the lock firmly into place.
For a moment, silence filled the hall.
Darcy exhaled slowly.
Then, very deliberately, he dusted off his hands.
Behind him, the butler made a suspicious choking sound that might have been suppressed laughter. Mrs. Yates, the housekeeper, had abandoned all attempt whatsoever to hide her satisfaction.
Bingley burst out laughing entirely.
“Well done, old man,” he declared, clapping Darcy hard upon the shoulder. “I believe you have just improved this household considerably.”
At last, some of the tension broke.
Darcy looked around the entrance hall with weary resignation. Even here, disorder lingered everywhere. Empty bottles sat abandoned atop side tables. Mud stained carpets that once would have been immaculate. A woman’s glove rested inexplicably beside a marble bust near the stairs.
Bingley followed his gaze slowly. “…I believe there is rather a lot of work to be done.”
Darcy rubbed one hand across his eyes briefly before lowering it again. “Yes,” he said quietly. “There is.”
Mrs. Yates straightened immediately. “We shall begin at once, sir.”
“The servants have waited only for your return,” the butler added, watching Darcy carefully.
Darcy looked between them. Loyal servants. People who had endured this chaos while waiting for the rightful master to come home. Who sacrificed their own coin to send a servant to fetch him.
Something heavy settled across his shoulders then—not merely grief, but responsibility.
Real responsibility.
At last, he nodded once. “Very well.” His voice was steady. “I shall be in my father’s—”
He stopped. The word caught strangely in his throat. Slowly, he corrected himself.
“My study. I must send word to Georgiana.”
∞∞∞
The next several weeks passed in a blur of ink, exhaustion, and disillusionment.
Darcy scarcely left his father’s study except to sleep a few hours before dawn forced him back behind the enormous mahogany desk once more.
The room itself seemed to embody the state of George Darcy’s affairs.
Papers overflowed from unlocked drawers.
Bills lay mixed amongst invitations, gaming accounts, political correspondence, and unopened letters months old.
Half-empty brandy bottles occupied space where ledgers ought to have been kept.
Dust coated shelves holding records no one had properly organized in years.
The deeper Darcy dug, the worse matters became.
At first, he believed the situation merely untidy.
Then the tradesmen began arriving.
Word of George Darcy’s death spread through London society with astonishing speed, and by the third morning after Wickham’s expulsion, Darcy House might well have been mistaken for a counting-house under siege.
Carriages clogged Grosvenor Square from early morning onward.
Tailors, wine merchants, jewelers, stablemasters, cloth importers, cabinetmakers, decorators, and creditors of every description arrived bearing unpaid invoices accumulated over years.
Some were respectful.
Some frightened.
A few openly angry.
Darcy received them all.
It quickly became apparent that many had continued extending credit solely because the name Darcy still carried immense weight. George Darcy had ordered lavishly and paid irregularly, relying upon charm, reputation, and old connections to smooth over growing disaster.
One jeweler arrived pale with anxiety carrying invoices large enough to ruin his business entirely if left unpaid.
“My lord—Mr. Darcy,” the man corrected hurriedly, “I would never presume to trouble you under such tragic circumstances were matters not so desperate.”
Darcy looked down at the figures.
Diamonds. Pearls. Bracelets purchased for women whose names did not even appear upon the accounts.
The total represented nearly three years’ profit for the jeweler himself.
Darcy closed the ledger quietly. “You shall be paid.”
The man nearly sagged with relief.
Bingley, who happened to be present during that interview, stared after the jeweler once the door shut. “Darcy,” he said carefully, “you are not responsible for every foolish thing your father has done.”
Darcy remained standing beside the desk, one hand resting against the scattered papers. “Yes,” he replied quietly. “I am.”
And he meant it.
Because whatever George Darcy had been in private, the name still carried obligations.
Men had extended trust to the master of Pemberley because gentlemen’s debts were expected to be honored.
A wealthy landowner refusing payment could destroy tradesmen who lacked the protection of ancient estates and inherited fortunes.
Darcy would not become that sort of man.
Even if paying the debts ruined him.
Especially then.
The attorneys proved no comfort whatsoever.
Three separate meetings at the firm in Lincoln’s Inn left Darcy feeling colder each time he emerged back into the crowded London streets.
The senior solicitor—a cautious gray-haired man named Wentworth who had served the family since before Darcy’s birth—spoke with increasing delicacy the further they progressed through the accounts.
“Your father possessed… considerable obligations.”
Darcy sat very still across the polished desk. “How considerable?”
Wentworth hesitated, then he slid the final column of figures across the desk.
Darcy stared at the total in silence.
For several moments, even the noise of carriage wheels outside seemed to vanish entirely.