Chapter Twenty-Four #3
Hargrave was shown into the smaller drawing room shortly after noon, at an hour when the light lay broad across the carpet and touched the crystal decanters upon the sideboard with a pale, deceptive brilliance.
Darcy had chosen the room deliberately. It was not his grandest apartment, nor the one in which he most often received visitors of consequence, but it possessed an intimacy suited to conversations that required careful management.
The proportions were elegant without being overly formal, the furnishings rich enough to reassure and subdued enough not to distract.
A coal fire burned in the grate, though the day was not severe, and the order of the room stood in marked contrast to the agitation Darcy had carried within himself all morning.
He rose as Hargrave entered.
“Mr. Hargrave.”
“Count Vendicarsi.” Hargrave bowed with the smooth assurance of a man who had lately seen his expectations rewarded.
There was a satisfaction in him today, not loudly displayed, but impossible to miss.
It sharpened his eyes and lent a greater ease to the set of his mouth.
“You are kind to receive me with so little notice.”
“You implied your errand was of some importance.”
“It is,” Hargrave said, smiling as he accepted the chair Darcy indicated. “And of the most gratifying sort.”
Darcy resumed his own seat with deliberate calm. “Then I am pleased to hear it.”
Wine was offered and declined. Hargrave did not appear in need of external encouragement. Whatever news he brought had already intoxicated him sufficiently.
“I have come,” he said, settling one hand against his knee, “to thank you for your advice.”
Darcy lifted his brows with polite interest. “My advice?”
“To call upon Gardiner.” Hargrave leaned back, clearly savoring the effect of his own words. “You were right. The man is useful. Cautious, yes, but practical where practicality is required. Things are working out very well indeed.”
Darcy inclined his head, though inwardly his thoughts moved at once toward Richard.
So, the matter had advanced. Gardiner’s participation had been secured, or so Hargrave believed.
Fitzwilliam, then, had moved quickly after their meeting and had done so without betraying the least outward sign of interference.
Darcy felt a pulse of approval, swift and sharp, at the knowledge.
“I am gratified to have been of service,” he said.
Hargrave’s satisfaction deepened.
“Theships have been given their orders. They sailed this very day.”
He paused briefly, clearly anticipating the significance of his declaration.
“There were delays, to be sure. Tiresome ones. All obstacles have now been removed.”
Darcy folded one hand over the other, keeping his expression entirely composed. “A fortunate development.”
“Very much so.” He spoke like a man already counting profits not in hand.
Darcy watched him with a steadiness born less of patience than necessity.
There had been a time when the mere sight of Hargrave might have provoked in him an anger too visible to conceal.
Now, at least outwardly, he managed ease.
The years had taught him many things. Among them was the value of stillness.
“I confess,” Darcy said after a moment, “I always find it satisfying when matters settle themselves according to their proper course.”
Hargrave smiled. “As do I.”
“Especially in trade,” Darcy said, his tone thoughtful, almost conversational. “There is so much disorder in the world already. One likes to see the rightful profit of a venture come to the man who has worked hardest to secure it.”
Hargrave regarded him with a gleam of agreement. “Just so.”
Darcy allowed the faintest pause before adding, “Though I suppose there are those who would object to such success. Men with romantic notions about land and legacy, perhaps. They prefer soil untouched, iron left sleeping beneath the ground, wealth preserved in sentiment rather than employed for gain.”
It was negligible, but Darcy saw it. A tightening about Hargrave’s mouth. Not alarm. Not yet. Only discomfort, the involuntary reaction of a man pricked where he had not expected it.
“Sentiment,” Hargrave said lightly, “has ruined more fortunes than vice.”
“So I have heard.” Darcy’s gaze did not leave him. “It must be frustrating, when one sees value clearly and others do not.”
Hargrave let out a short breath that might almost have been a laugh. “You describe an old difficulty.”
“Old difficulties,” Darcy said, “are often the most instructive.”
The other man shifted in his chair, the movement subtle enough that no indifferent observer would have marked it.
Darcy was not indifferent. He had learned to study men at their moments of ease and their moments of strain.
Hargrave remained smooth, exhibiting confidence and satisfaction.
However, a certain aspect of his character was averse to this line of discourse, though he found it difficult to object without divulging more than he intended.
“Fortunately,” Hargrave said after a beat, “the world is not governed entirely by sentiment.”
“No,” Darcy replied. “It is governed rather more often by appetite.”
Hargrave smiled again, though less fully now. “And ambition.”
“And ambition,” Darcy agreed.
A servant entered silently to stir the fire and withdrew once more, leaving behind only the faintest movement in the room’s careful stillness.
Hargrave, perhaps sensing that he had obtained what he came for and that little more might profit him, rose after another few minutes of conversation that touched upon nothing of consequence. Darcy stood as well.
“You have my thanks, Count Vendicarsi,” Hargrave said. “It is no small thing to receive useful guidance at the proper moment.”
“I am glad matters are proceeding as they should.”
Hargrave inclined his head. “As am I. Perhaps in the future, your aid might be more…monetary in nature.”
Darcy inclined his head as he walked his guest to the door of the room, though not beyond it.
He watched the man depart with the air of one who had been satisfied in business and expected shortly to be satisfied in every other respect.
It took a considerable act of will not to let his contempt show.
Once Hargrave had gone and the door had shut behind him, the stillness of the room changed.
It no longer held the compressed strain of performance, but keener and more immediate.
Darcy remained where he was for an instant, one hand resting upon the back of the chair he had not resumed.
Then he crossed to the mantel and looked at the clock.
Calling hours had begun. The knowledge moved through him with unexpected force.
He had meant to go to Matlock House. The intention had been with him all morning, though he had scarcely admitted how much anticipation attended it.
Now that Hargrave had come and gone, now that the next step in that darker business was already in motion, the pull of another purpose asserted itself with startling clarity.
Elizabeth.
His thoughts, for so long narrowed to the dimensions of retribution and strategy, widened suddenly at the mere prospect of seeing her.
Not in a ballroom, where every word was calculated and every glance observed.
Not in the park, where chance and habit disguised what they were to one another.
But in the more ordinary grace of a call, where conversation might be more intimate, where her voice might be heard without interruption, where he might look upon her and, for a brief hour at least, forget the machinery of vengeance waiting just beyond the edge of his life.
He had not intended it to matter so much. He ought, perhaps, to have resisted it. Instead, he found himself reaching for the bell pull.
The door opened before he had fully turned, and Lucien entered with the ease of one long accustomed to finding him in just such moments of decision. He took in the room at a glance—the disturbed air of recent conversation, the absence of Hargrave, the look upon Darcy’s face—and smiled faintly.
“So,” he said, “our industrious friend has been and gone.”
Darcy nodded. “He thanked me for Gardiner.”
Lucien’s brows lifted. “How civil of him.”
“His shipment will arrive, so he believes. The ships have already sailed.”
Lucien’s expression sharpened with interest. “Then the colonel has indeed moved quickly.”
“Yes.” There was a brief silence, though it was not empty. Lucien saw more than most men, and where Darcy might have wished to conceal his thoughts, concealment was of little use here.
“You are going out,” Lucien said.
Darcy looked once more at the clock. “I am.”
“To Matlock House?”
“Yes.”
Lucien came nearer and, with a simplicity that might once have embarrassed them both, laid a hand upon Darcy’s shoulder. The gesture was not theatrical. It carried no solemnity beyond what affection and long trial had already given it. “Then go.”
Darcy met his gaze.
Lucien’s expression softened. “Love heals all wounds, my friend. Or if it does not heal them entirely, it teaches a man he is still worth mending.” He gave the slightest pressure to Darcy’s shoulder before letting his hand fall away.
“Go seek your happiness.” The words, spoken without ornament and without irony, struck more deeply than many finer phrases might have done.
Darcy did not trust himself to answer at once.
For years—through imprisonment, through darkness, through the long and bitter labor of becoming someone the world would not question—he had carried within him a single fixed star.
Justice. Reclamation. The righting of what had been wrongfully taken.
Every action had moved beneath its influence.
Every choice had bent toward it. Even his return to England, his name, his house, his very face had been shaped in service to that end.