Chapter 1
ONE
Fitzwilliam Darcy sighed as he pored over the ledgers his father had so assiduously maintained over his thirty-four years as Master of Pemberley.
The organisation of his papers was in direct contrast to the chaotic manner of his death.
It had come suddenly on a beautiful April morning; he had clutched his chest and fallen to the ground, gone before he could be carried to his bed.
Now, scarcely a month into assuming the mantle, Darcy was more than a little overwhelmed. Nothing felt as it should—not his father’s chair nor his title, and certainly not the master’s chambers into which his things had been moved.
Pemberley was excruciatingly quiet since his aunts, uncles, and cousins, cloaked in grey and black, had returned to their own estates.
Allowing Lady Matlock to take Georgiana with them felt like a mistake when he sat alone staring at a meal he had no appetite for, but his young sister would do better within the lively Fitzwilliam household.
George Wickham had mourned for a day or two, but once he determined Darcy would no longer join his friends in Italy, thus losing the main source of funds for his own travels, he had gone off to London.
His farewell would be brief, he said, avowing he would return within a month or two to ‘aid my brother and discuss my inheritance’.
Inheritance? Darcy had his own to contend with, trying to establish both ease and command with those who clearly thought him still a boy.
Thus, here it was, not yet six o’clock in the morning, and he was pacing in his father’s study—his study—pondering the dilemma of a tenant more than twice his age who was suspected of poaching deer in Pemberley’s wood.
He dreaded confronting the man with the accusations brought to him by his groundskeeper.
Poaching was a grievous crime, subject to serious punishment.
He did not wish to entangle himself in the case, but now he must.
Darcy had never supposed he would step into the office at such a young age. Beyond missing his father’s sage advice, Pemberley lacked an experienced steward, what with old Mr Wickham ailing and a new estate manager installed only months ago.
Instead, I have these, he thought, staring at the neat rows of ledgers and journals, their entries filled in by his father, grandfather, and the generations that preceded them over the past three centuries.
Rubbing his eyes, Darcy looked back down at the current ledger, delivered to him a day earlier.
Perhaps it was his fatigue, but the handwriting was indecipherable.
Dismissing the notion of returning to his bed, he rose and lifted his candle’s flame to another on a table; the lighting improved only slightly, despite his squinting.
Recalling the magnifying glass in Pemberley’s library, he wondered whether his father had kept one here in his study.
Opening the desk drawer, he found only quills and a knife.
Turning to the mahogany cabinet behind his chair, he opened a drawer yielding a bound bundle of letters; the drawer below it was locked.
Thinking a moment, he reached underneath the desk, where he recalled the existence of a small, recessed shelf.
Sure enough, his fingers felt a key. Turning back to the cabinet, he unlocked the drawer, finding it housed papers and a slim box covered in a dark brocade.
Struck by a memory, Darcy set the box on the desk, opened it, and lifted a silk pouch from within the velvet-lined case.
His pulse quickened as he removed a gold quizzing glass from the pouch; tracing the ornate edges of the glass and the jewelled handle, he found that despite its adornment, the device was surprisingly light.
His father had been generous in handing his son his pocket watch when he had needed to amuse him, but never had he allowed Darcy to hold the quizzing glass that upon rare occasions had hung round his neck on a black silk ribbon.
What had he said? ‘It is too fine a thing, of a heavy import, for a child to grasp.’
When Darcy had been fifteen and thinking himself a man, he and Wickham had come upon the glass sitting on a table in the study at Darcy House.
Eager as Darcy was to examine the object, it was Wickham who had seized it.
In the struggle that had ensued, the quizzing glass had been knocked to the carpet just as his father appeared.
Harsh words had followed, and afterwards inured to reaching for possessions once denied, Darcy had pretended disinterest in the thing.
After all, unlike the peacocks who strutted round London and Cambridge, he had no desire for the affectation of a monocle, quizzing glass, or elaborate neckcloth.
But now, seven years later, he wondered whether a quizzing glass might help him read these damnable ledgers. As he considered the notion, he spied a piece of paper peeking from the silken pouch. It was in his father’s distinctive writing.
Remember the dangers of the darkness if you fail.
Darcy shook his head in confusion. Was this advice to himself? Was his father so concerned of failure he relied on the quizzing glass?
Lifting it to his eye, he glanced down at the ledger.
The effect was immediate: the words crisper, the lettering clearer.
He pulled it away and once again, the writing was muddied.
More than a little concerned for the strength of his eyesight, Darcy walked over to the side table where he had left open a volume of Wordsworth.
He could easily read its lines without help from the lens.
Relieved, he returned to the desk, pocketed his father’s note, and leant over the ledger with the quizzing glass.
I shall use it here, rely on it for assistance as I pore through Pemberley’s records. But only when needed, he assured himself, wondering whether his father had believed that dependence on it would weaken the eye. That was a danger indeed.
And so he proceeded for the next hour, glancing up from his work only when the door opened and a housemaid entered. She held the tinderbox in one hand, but paused, looking about the room rather than stooping to light the fire.
“A fire is not needed. It promises to be a warm day.”
Startled, the girl dropped the tinderbox. She stared at Darcy, eyes wide, her hand to her chest. “Pardon, sir! I didn’t know you be in here.”
He stared through the glass as she gathered her things. Why, he wondered, is she covered in soot? “Have you fallen? Was there an accident with the coal?”
She shook her head as if confused. “No, sir. Please, sir, excuse me.” A moment later, she disappeared through the door, closing it firmly behind her.
Setting down the glass, Darcy rubbed his eyes tiredly before turning back to the ledger.
One last page before I call for coffee. Or perhaps abandon this in favour of a ride.
He lifted the quizzing glass to his eye, and only a moment later there came a sharp rap on the door, and the voice of the butler was heard. “Sir?”
“Come.”
“Pardon, sir, the household thought you were abed. Did you not wish the fires lit?”
Darcy looked up, glass still to his eye, alarmed to see an odd glow about the man.
“Buxton!”
“Sir?”
Darcy lowered the quizzing glass to find nothing unusual beyond a puzzled expression on the weary face of his very proper butler.
“Sir, the housemaid says you did not wish for the fire to be lit?”
“Um, no. I shall be going to my chambers shortly. Please have coffee sent up.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Buxton, are the maids to be mucking about in the hearths now, or was there an accident with an ash bucket in one of the rooms?”
Another curious look came his way. “No, sir. Not to my knowledge.”
“You saw the maid? Was she not covered in soot?”
Buxton shook his head. “Hannah looked as ever she does when I met her in the corridor. Red-cheeked with some embarrassment, but no more.”
“I see.” Or I do not. Darcy stood, rubbing his eyes. The girl should have knocked first, but I have embarrassed her, and myself, enough.
“Sir? Is there anything else?”
“No,” he replied. “Thank you.”
As soon as the butler closed the door behind him, Darcy exhaled deeply.
Too little sleep, too much reading, possibly too much reliance upon a quizzing glass.
He would strike a balance, he vowed. Breakfast and a long ride, and if he did grow tired or feel idle in the afternoons, he would not turn to a book or a ledger.
He would rest his eyes. Sliding the glass back into its pouch, he reached for the box.
It slipped from his grasp, its edge hitting the desk before tumbling to the carpet at his feet.
Reaching for it, he saw the box’s age-old velvet bed had loosened and a thrice-folded age-darkened slip of paper had fallen out.
Unfolding it carefully, Darcy found words written in a hand he recognised from ledgers of a hundred years past.
Its gaze may pierce the veils of men, yet use it sparingly and with a heart most steadfast. Let it pass not into faithless hands, lest its power be turned to ruin.
The whole of it was dashed odd.
Darcy read the words again before folding the paper and returning it and the quizzing glass to their secure place. He locked the drawer, and staring down at the key in his palm, chuckled uneasily.