Chapter 29
Fitzwilliam entered without ceremony. He did not look around.
The Waltons stood near the hearth; their laughter cracked like glass.
“Walton.”
They turned. The elder’s smile stalled.
“You insulted my sisters.”
Colour climbed the younger’s throat. “A jest, sir—no harm—”
“You insulted,” Fitzwilliam said again, evenly, “my sisters.”
A new voice came from behind the chairs.
“Mr Fitzwilliam.”
Mr Walton stepped forward, walking stick in hand, face drawn tight between apology and pride.
“Mr Walton,” Fitzwilliam said. He inclined his head. “Your sons have been indiscreet.”
“They may have spoken out of turn. They are young,” he said. “As are you.”
Fitzwilliam stared at him.
The air began to fill—murmurings, fingers tapping wood, a throat cleared.
“Name the field.”
The elder Walton drew breath as if to argue, then thought better. The younger made a noise between a laugh and a protest.
“Surely, we can settle this in a more gentlemanly fashion. Might we call upon Lord Matlock?”
“No.”
Mr Walton blinked. “Pardon me?”
Fitzwilliam stepped forward. “Name. The. Field.”
Mr Walton’s fingers tightened on the head of his cane.
Around them, the low murmur swelled—cards forgotten, brandy left untouched.
Someone near the betting book whispered. Names. Numbers.
Fitzwilliam waited, the silence lengthening until the elder Walton dropped his gaze.
“As you wish,” the man said at last. He straightened. “You would not begrudge a gentleman an accommodation, would you?”
Fitzwilliam nodded.
“Your focus worries me. As does your youth.”
He looked around. “I cannot join my sons.”
Fitzwilliam waited.
“Allow another as my proxy.”
The brothers coughed into their hands.
Fitzwilliam drew in a breath. The smell of the Graz pit filled his nose.
He smiled, teeth pressed together.
Mr Walton stepped back, eyes wide.
“This is not the trial,” Fitzwilliam said. “That you think it is.”
Mr Walton’s mouth moved, but the sound was lost to the stir spreading through the room.
Fitzwilliam turned away. Behind him the murmur thickened—stakes carried to the clerk at the betting book, wagers whispered like prayer.
He crossed the threshold without haste. The cold met him clean and without mercy.
He pulled on his gloves.
* * *
Fitzwilliam was up before the household.
He stood at the window, staring into the grim London air—ash, soot, the damp breath of the city.
A knock broke his reverie. Villiers.
“The earl requests your presence, sir.”
“When?”
“At once, sir.”
He nodded, already moving.
Behind him, Villiers’s measured tread faded toward the servants’ hall.
The rest of the house would not stir for another hour.
He crossed the corridor in silence. Lamps still burned low, the smell of last night’s wax heavy in the air. Voices murmured behind a door—Darcy’s quiet baritone, Burton’s steadier note, and his father’s sharper tone holding them both. He knocked once.
The sound was enough. The latch turned.
The study looked as it always had—order pretending to be calm.
The fire was too carefully banked, the desk cleared as if authority could be polished into being.
Darcy stood by the window; Burton waited near the hearth.
His father remained behind the desk until Fitzwilliam entered, then rose with the stiffness of a man torn between anger and restraint.
“Richard.”
No greeting, only his Christian name.
“You sent for me.”
“I did.” His father’s voice was flat, measured, brittle. “You have involved this family in a spectacle. Do you mean to fight—to trade blows like a footpad?”
Fitzwilliam looked once at Darcy, then back. “You spoke to the Prussian.”
“I did,” the earl replied, voice rising. “He claims you are invincible.”
“Hardly.”
A sharp laugh escaped his father—too short, too near despair. “Yet you appear unconcerned.”
“Should I not be?”
The room held. Burton shifted; Darcy’s eyes flicked down.
His father turned from the desk, lowering himself into the chair by the fire. The gesture might have been conciliatory.
“How,” the earl asked, “do you propose to mitigate this scandal?”
Fitzwilliam said nothing. Darcy answered instead. “It is only a scandal if Richard does not execute, Uncle.”
The word hit like iron. The earl flinched. “Execute? Execute what?”
“You are angry.”
“I am your father.”
“They chose their stage.”
“They chose,” the earl shot back, “to make my daughters a spectacle. And you chose to answer it with violence.”
“It began when they spoke.”
“That is evasion.”
“No,” Fitzwilliam said evenly. “That is the point.”
He lifted his hand—a small motion, precise.
“He asks whether you have satisfied yourself,” Darcy said quietly.
The earl’s breath quickened. “Satisfied? With what? With Markov’s assurances?”
Fitzwilliam signed again. Non est dubium.
“Doubt not,” Darcy translated.
Burton cleared his throat. “My lord, I am in complete agreement with the young gentlemen.”
Fitzwilliam watched the earl’s face change—the struggle between pride and the slow dawning of inevitability. The earl would have to yield.
“And what of your mother?” His father’s voice faltered. “What shall I tell her?”
Fitzwilliam raised a hand, palm outward. “I will speak to her.”
“You do not stride into your mother’s drawing-room and make free with the word duel.”
“I. Will. Speak. To. Her.”
His father relaxed back. He grimaced. “Then you are settled on this course?”
Fitzwilliam inclined his head.
“If you go,” his father said, “you go under my roof’s authority.”
“Then grant it.”
The earl’s voice dropped. “And this cursed spectacle—”
“Will be concluded.”
Fitzwilliam stood. The sound of his chair on the carpet was soft, final. He gestured once to Darcy and turned for the door.
Once past the threshold, he stopped and listened. His father’s voice rose high and loudly.
“What have you to say for yourself, nephew?”
A moment passed. Fitzwilliam imagined Darcy lifting his chin. “Had Richard not issued the challenge, I should have done it myself.”
Fitzwilliam smiled. Darcy the gentleman.
“You,” the earl’s voice rang out, “are not your cousin.”
Fitzwilliam stepped away.
No, Father. He is not.