Chapter 29
Darcy had read the paper three times and hated it more with each reading.
It lay upon Bingley’s study desk beneath the full light of two candles, its creases still marked from Wickham’s coat pocket, its edges slightly worn as though handled often enough to imply familiarity, but not so often as to prove age.
The ink had browned. The language was formal. The terms were monstrous.
Georgiana Darcy, upon attaining the age of sixteen, was to be given in marriage to George Wickham.
His father’s signature rested at the bottom with its familiar arrogance.
Darcy stared at it until the letters seemed to shift before his eyes.
Across from him, Richard leaned over the desk, one hand braced upon the polished surface, his face hard in a way Darcy had rarely seen outside a battlefield report.
Mr. Philips sat beside them with spectacles low upon his nose, reading with a solicitor’s care that seemed almost indecently calm beside the violence in Darcy’s chest. Bingley had retired from the room for propriety’s sake, so that those involved could speak freely.
Richard straightened first.
“I say we throw it into the fire.”
Darcy did not look up. “No.”
“It would take ten seconds.”
“No.”
Richard’s mouth tightened. “It would give me a great deal of satisfaction.”
“And Wickham has certainly prepared for that very possibility. He would not bring the only copy into a room where he expected opposition. If this paper disappears, another will surface. Then we are not only defending Georgiana against this claim, but explaining why we destroyed evidence.”
Richard’s eyes gleamed with a dangerous humor. “There are other ways to take care of the situation.”
Mr. Philips lifted his head. “If we are beginning a discussion of crime, Colonel, I must ask one of you for a penny. That way I may claim professional privilege before anyone says something that obliges me to become a witness.”
Richard gave him a sharp, startled look, then laughed once.
Darcy did not. “No.”
“No what?” Richard asked. “No penny, no crime, or no murder? Be precise, Darcy. A solicitor is present.”
“No crime. No murder. No convenient disappearance of Wickham, however much he deserves it.”
Richard’s expression darkened again. “You were a soldier not so long ago. You know better than most that some men are a danger every hour they continue breathing.”
“I was militia,” Darcy said.
“Ah, yes. A gentler species of martial glory. Inspections, uniforms, and terrifying the local chickens.”
Darcy looked up then, not offended but grave. “Yes. It was gentler. I was not exposed to the horrors you were. I know that.”
Richard’s teasing faded.
For a moment, the only sound in the room was the faint crackle of the fire and the distant murmur of servants somewhere below stairs. Richard looked away, his jaw working once before he spoke.
“I would keep it that way,” he said quietly.
“Your heart is too soft, cousin, though you do an admirable imitation of a marble pillar when strangers are present. I would rather you keep that soft and honorable heart than carry what comes of seeing the worst men can do and learning how easily one may answer them in kind.”
Darcy held his cousin’s gaze.
There was more in those words than Richard usually allowed anyone to hear. Weariness. Pain. Perhaps warning. Darcy had read enough in his letters from the Peninsula to know that his cousin’s jokes were often bandages wrapped over wounds he had no wish to display.
“I am sorry,” Darcy said.
Richard waved it away at once, as if sincerity had become an intruder. “Do not be. It was an excellent speech, and I dislike ruining my own effect by receiving sympathy.”
Mr. Philips cleared his throat gently. “As moving as this is, gentlemen, the paper remains.”
“So it does.” Richard clapped his hands once and rubbed them together, his manner deliberately brisk. “Well then. If Darcy will not allow Wickham to be murdered, and he will not allow us to commit fraud by burning the paper, we are left with the dreariest possible solution.”
Mr. Philips looked over his spectacles. “The law?”
“Worse. Outwitting him.”
Darcy looked again at the document. “That is not the only option.”
Richard’s posture sharpened. “What do you mean?”
Darcy forced the words out, though they tasted like defeat. “We can pay him.”
“No.”
“Georgiana’s dowry as forfeit, or part of it. If he seeks money rather than marriage, perhaps—”
“Are you mad?” Richard said.
Mr. Philips’s expression did not change, but his eyes moved quickly from Darcy to Richard.
Richard stepped closer to the desk, fury rising again. “You cannot be serious. You would hand him Georgiana’s dowry?”
“If it keeps her from him, yes.”
“And what then? You think the matter ends quietly? Wickham walks away richer than he deserves, and the world never hears a whisper? He will have a story ready before the ink dries. A betrothal broken, a poor gentleman denied his promised bride, an heiress bought out of an engagement. Georgiana’s name will be dragged through every drawing room he can reach. ”
Darcy’s hands curled around the back of the chair before him. “I will not allow him to take her.”
“Nor will I,” Richard snapped. “But stripping her of her dowry and leaving scandal behind is not rescue. It is sentencing her to another kind of prison. Do you imagine anyone will court her after that? A girl publicly claimed by George Wickham, her fortune gone, her name tied to breach of contract? You would condemn her to life as an old maid.”
Darcy’s reply came at once, hard and low. “Better a life as a spinster than as Mrs. Wickham.”
Silence fell.
Richard opened his mouth, then shut it again.
Mr. Philips removed his spectacles and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“Mr. Darcy, I understand the instinct. Truly, I do. But Colonel Fitzwilliam is not wrong about the dangers. Payment may not purchase silence. Indeed, with a man like Mr. Wickham, payment may merely teach him that greater threats bring greater rewards.”
“I know that,” Darcy said, though the admission cost him. “But if the document is valid—”
“It may not be,” Mr. Philips said.
“And if it is?”
“Then we examine whether a father may bind a minor daughter in such terms, whether the agreement lacks necessary parties, whether it is void for uncertainty, fraud, improper consideration, or any number of defects. We do not begin by handing the villain everything he asks.”
Richard made a sound of grim approval. “There. You see? The law does occasionally have uses beyond preventing me from doing satisfying things.”
Darcy looked down at the signature again.
George Rupert Darcy.
Even dead, his father had found a way to reach into his children’s lives and harm them.
Georgiana had been a child when this was dated.
A child. Darcy remembered her at that age: solemn, shy, still small enough to fall asleep against his shoulder when he sat beside the nursery fire.
His father had looked upon that child and, if this paper was genuine, promised her to Wickham.
Rage returned, colder now. Cleaner.
“I should have searched everything,” Darcy said. “Every desk, every strongbox, every file—”
“You were nineteen,” Richard said.
“I was responsible.”
“You were nineteen,” Richard repeated, more sharply. “Your father left chaos behind him and a child in your care. Do not rewrite history in order to make yourself guilty for his sins.”
Darcy closed his eyes briefly.
He knew Richard was right. Knowing did not help.
The door opened.
Darcy turned at once.
Elizabeth stood in the doorway.
She had removed her gloves, and there was a tear-stained crease in her gown where Georgiana must have clung to it.
Her face was pale, her eyes tired, but there was nothing uncertain in the way she entered the room.
She looked first to Darcy, then to Richard, then to Mr. Philips, and finally to the paper on the desk.
“Elizabeth,” Darcy said, already moving toward her. “Is Georgiana—”
“Asleep,” Elizabeth said. “Uneasily, but asleep. Her maid is with her, and I asked that I be sent for if she wakes.”
The relief was sharp enough to hurt. “Thank you.”
Her gaze softened for only a moment before returning to the paper. “Have you learned anything?”
Richard gestured toward the desk. “Only that murder has been disallowed, arson of evidence has been disallowed, and paying Wickham a fortune has been proposed and violently criticized.”
Elizabeth looked at Darcy. “You think it is genuine, then?” she asked, stepping fully into the study and sitting down in the chair next to him.
Darcy’s gaze dropped to the signature at the bottom of the page. For a moment, the anger faded, and something older and wearier replaced it. “I wish I could say with certainty that my father would never have betrothed his daughter to a man like Wickham.”
She reached over and put her hand over his.
Darcy stared down at her delicate fingers on his larger ones.
“The sad truth is that he might have done precisely that. If it amused him. If Wickham flattered him. If he wished to injure me. If he was deep enough in drink or spite or folly to think Georgiana’s future another possession he had the right to dispose of. ”
Richard’s jaw tightened. “George Darcy was capable of many things.”
“And Wickham knew it,” Darcy said. “He knew my father’s weaknesses better than anyone.”
Elizabeth looked at the document again, and Darcy could practically see the gears in her mind turning over the information.
“Why now?” she asked.
Richard looked at her. “Now?”
“Yes. If Mr. Wickham possessed such a paper, why not produce it at the reading of the will? Why wait until now? Or why not wait until Miss Darcy is eighteen, when she is nearer an age at which marriage might be less easily questioned?”
“Money,” Darcy and Richard said together.
Elizabeth drew a slow breath.
Darcy’s mouth hardened. “Wickham is most likely out of funds.”