Chapter 30
Sleep did not come easily to Darcy that night; he was still awake long after Netherfield had gone quiet.
The house settled around him by degrees: footsteps fading in the passage, doors closing, servants moving below stairs, the last faint murmur of voices retreating into silence.
Georgiana slept, exhausted by fear and the draught Elizabeth had coaxed her to take.
Richard occupied the room across the hall, though Darcy doubted his cousin slept any more than he did.
Bingley had offered every assistance possible, then looked so stricken by his own inability to do more that Darcy had been obliged to thank him twice before the poor man would stop apologizing for Wickham having entered his house.
But Darcy could not rest.
So, he sat alone by the dying fire in his chamber, one elbow upon the arm of the chair, his fingers pressed hard against his brow.
His first instinct remained the same: get Georgiana beyond Wickham’s reach at any cost. Pay him, fight him, send Richard to terrify him, ride to Meryton and drag him from the inn by his collar—one wild, useless impulse after another.
Each one collapsed beneath the same hard fact.
Wickham had prepared.
He would not have brought the only copy of the agreement.
He would not have come without knowing precisely how much fear he might provoke.
If pressed carelessly, he would run to a solicitor, or to the papers, or to every acquaintance willing to hear a tale of a promised heiress stolen from him by proud relations.
Elizabeth had seen it, too. “Is it genuine?” she had asked.
Not how much must be paid. Not how quickly Georgiana could be hidden.
Not whether Wickham could be frightened into leaving.
She had gone first to the root. Before yielding anything, before panicking, before sacrificing fortunes and futures, they must know whether the paper was what Wickham claimed it to be.
He went down to breakfast with less than two hours’ sleep behind him and the beginning of a plan before him. Georgiana did not appear, and no one expected her. The maid reported that Elizabeth had spent the night with his sister, and that gave him great comfort.
Not long after he had filled his plate, others began to trickle into the room.
Bingley looked unusually solemn. Richard looked as though he had slept not at all and resented every person who had prevented him from solving the problem violently.
Elizabeth entered last, her face pale with fatigue but her smile alert.
She came at once to Darcy’s side, not close enough to invite remark, but near enough that he felt the warmth of her presence before she spoke.
“How are you?” she asked quietly. “Did you get much sleep?”
“About as much as you, I imagine,” he said, taking in the light shadows under her eyes. He hesitated, then added, “I have been thinking.”
Richard gave a low sound into his coffee. “That is one word for what happened last night. I heard you pacing through the wall.”
Darcy ignored him. “Before anything else is decided, we must determine whether the document is genuine. Richard and I will ride to London this morning.”
Elizabeth’s face fell. “London?”
“My father’s former solicitor maintained an office there, though he had correspondents in Derbyshire. If any record exists of the agreement, or if there are papers that might help us compare signatures, witnesses, seals, or practices, we will have them.”
Richard set down his cup. “And if the solicitor proves slow, I shall encourage haste.”
“You will do no such thing,” Darcy said.
“I shall smile. Men have been known to move quickly when I smile.”
“Because you look like a highwayman considering repentance.”
“Exactly.”
Elizabeth smiled then, though worry remained in her eyes. “You mean to go and return the same day?”
“If the roads allow it.”
“They will be awful after the rain.”
“Yes.”
“Horseback will be faster.”
Richard winced. “In a saddle to London and back in one day? Miss Elizabeth, what have I done to lose your good opinion so swiftly?”
“It is not your comfort I am chiefly concerned with.”
Darcy looked at her with a tenderness he could not entirely conceal. “We will take care.”
“See that you do.”
There was no time for more. Darcy longed to remain, to sit with Georgiana, to speak privately with Elizabeth, to plan with Mr. Philips, to do anything except leave the people he loved while Wickham remained at the Meryton inn.
Yet action was better than helplessness, and London held answers Hertfordshire could not.
Within the hour, he and Richard were on the road.
It was a hard journey. The rain had left ruts deep and slick, and more than once they were forced to slow where the road had turned treacherous.
Richard bore the discomfort with his usual mixture of complaint and inappropriate humor, but beneath it Darcy felt the same tension that coiled through himself.
Neither of them spoke of Georgiana for long stretches.
It was easier to discuss seals, signatures, solicitors, and whether Wickham could have obtained old paper and ink than to imagine the girl upstairs at Netherfield waking from sleep and remembering his claim.
London was gray, crowded, and damp when they reached it.
Darcy had not visited his father’s former solicitor since the first dreadful months after inheriting, when every appointment had revealed another debt, another imprudent gift, another dishonorable entanglement dressed in legal language.
The office had changed little: the same narrow stair, the same dark paneling, the same clerks who looked as if emotion were an error in bookkeeping.
Mr. Hales, the principal solicitor now that his father’s old man had retired, received Darcy with grave courtesy. His expression sharpened when Darcy explained, in as few words as possible, that a document had surfaced purporting to bind Georgiana in marriage by their father’s agreement.
“No such agreement appears in the papers we hold,” Mr. Hales said after a long search through ledgers and correspondence.
Darcy’s relief came too quickly.
The solicitor raised a hand. “That does not prove it false. Your father did not always conduct business through this office. Particularly in his later years.”
Richard stood near the window, arms folded. “The document bears the name of a Derbyshire solicitor. Mr. Alton, of Lambton.”
Mr. Hales frowned. “Alton. Yes. He died not long ago, I believe.”
“The year after my father,” Darcy said.
“I believe so. His papers may have passed to another office, or to a nephew, if memory serves. I cannot say without inquiry.”
Darcy’s jaw tightened. “Then inquiry must be made.”
“Of course.”
Darcy drew from his coat the list he had prepared.
“I also require copies of my father’s will, any codicils, letters bearing his signature from the year named in the agreement and the year before, and records of any settlements or agreements executed near that date.
Anything with witnesses’ names or seals.
Anything that may assist in comparison.”
Mr. Hales studied him, then nodded. “You shall have what we can provide today. The rest will follow.”
“Today,” Richard said pleasantly, “is important.”
The solicitor glanced at him, took in the smile, and moved with admirable speed.
They left with a packet of documents tied in red tape: copies of the will, two codicils, several letters written by George Darcy, one memorandum regarding Wickham’s Scottish estate, and notes of payments made to him in the years before and after Darcy inherited.
There was no marriage agreement. No mention of Georgiana. No proof of Wickham’s claim.
No proof against it either.
By the time they reached Netherfield again, dusk had settled over the grounds, and Darcy’s body ached from the road. Richard was stiff enough that he did not make a joke when dismounting, which concerned Darcy more than any complaint would have done.
Bingley met them in the hall before the footman had finished taking Darcy’s gloves.
“Well?”
Darcy wished he had better news to give him. The ride had been long, the roads heavy, and London had yielded only fragments where he had needed certainty.
“No record of the agreement in the London office,” Darcy said. “Nothing in my father’s papers there. We have copies of his will, codicils, correspondence bearing his signature, and the records connected to Wickham’s inheritance. But no marriage contract.”
Bingley’s face brightened. “Then Wickham’s paper is false?”
“I wish I could say so. The solicitor named upon it was in Derbyshire and died years ago. If he kept records, they are not in London.”
Richard came in behind Darcy, stiff from the ride and looking as grim as Darcy felt. “Which means we have ridden half the day to learn that the answer we need is five days away.”
Bingley looked from one to the other. “But there must be something to be done.”
“There is,” Darcy said, though the words felt thin. “Express letters. To Pemberley, to Lambton, to anyone who may know where Alton’s papers went after his death. To my uncle as well, in case his reach can accomplish what ours cannot.”
It was a plan. It was even the correct plan.
It also felt miserably insufficient.
Wickham had given them seventy-two hours, and every mile between Hertfordshire and Derbyshire seemed to mock them. Somewhere there might be a ledger, a clerk, a witness, a forgotten box of papers that could prove Wickham a liar.
Somewhere.
But somewhere was not here, and Georgiana was upstairs frightened out of sleep, and Wickham was in Meryton counting down the hours with that hateful smile upon his face.
For the first time since leaving London, the full weight of it pressed upon Darcy.
Then a sound came from the stairs.
He looked up.