Chapter 23
Kerr sat at the same table, hunched over the same drink, staring at the door. He blew out his breath when Griggs entered, then felt his eyebrows lift when his friend stopped to speak with the proprietor. The man pointed towards the stairs; Griggs beckoned Kerr after him.
Kerr took up his drink and followed Griggs into a small room under the stairs.
“Privacy, Kerr. It pays to be cautious.”
Griggs closed the door behind them and dropped into a chair. “You set me a task, Kerr. Three names, all tangled in one another, and none easy to chase. But I’ve done my bit.”
Kerr sat in a straight-backed chair. Griggs settled in and rubbed the side of his nose.
“Fitzwilliam first,” Griggs said. “David Fitzwilliam. Matlock’s second son. Army. India. Dead by ’84 and buried like a saint. Whatever he knew went into the ground with honours.”
Kerr’s mouth tightened. “Not the colonel.”
“No. An earlier son. Dead before your scarlet friend earned whatever reputation follows him.”
“Darcy?” Kerr asked.
“Edmund Darcy. Pemberley connexion, as expected. Younger son though.” Griggs tapped his pipe against his boot. “He is dead too, if that is the one you mean. Ice, fever, accident—depends who tells it. Either way, no one seems eager to tell it twice.”
“Pemberley,” Kerr said.
Griggs looked at him. “You know it?”
“I know a man who speaks of it as if it owes him money.”
“Then he is either very brave or very stupid.”
“Perhaps both.”
Griggs studied him a moment. “The present Mr Darcy is not your Edmund Darcy. Fitzwilliam Darcy, that one. Young, rich, proud, and connected enough to make curiosity expensive.”
Kerr crossed his arms. “And Bennet?”
Griggs drew a breath, the kind taken before treading on delicate ground.
“Thomas Robert Bennet. Hertfordshire family, country gentry—oldish stock but little to their name. He was the one expelled from Cambridge after that elopement business—your own uncle’s affair, if I’ve the facts straight.
But he didn’t vanish. He did what disgraced younger sons do when they have sense and no prospects—he took the King’s coat.
Barbados, by what I found. Wounded. Honoured, if my man has it right. ”
“Distinguished?” Kerr said.
“Aye.” Griggs leant back, the chair creaking under him. “Fallen, risen, and quiet in the countryside.”
Kerr looked up. “Men do not rise so cleanly from mere disgrace.”
“That, I cannot speak to,” Griggs said. “But Bennet lives.”
“Where?”
Griggs’s pipe had gone out. He tapped it against the side of the table, ash falling to the floor. “Hertfordshire. Near a market town, if my note is sound, though I would not trust the note farther than that.”
He looked up. “The house is called Longbourn.”
* * *
Upper Gower Street, September 1811
The nib caught at the paper. Ink had dried; it left only scratches. The candle guttered, light bending with every draught. Coins sat in small, uneven stacks—proofs of arithmetic that meant less each time he counted.
Something creaked above—timber, perhaps, or a step. He looked up, stilled, and listened. Only the clock. He dipped the pen again, and wrote the same sum twice. Neither was correct. The air smelt of smoke that was not his own fire.
He rose, crossed to the window, and lifted the curtain an inch. The street lay empty, lamplight slick on the stones, yet he felt the gaze linger. Roark’s words from the Forge played back in the stillness—flat, cold, exact: You’ve been useful, Kerr. Do not become inconvenient.
He heard them as though the man stood behind him, breathing through the glass. He let the curtain fall. The silence pressed close; even the clock seemed to wait.
The latch clicked. Mr Price’s discreet cough followed.
“Mr Wickham to see you, sir.”
Kerr set the pen down. “Show him in.”
Wickham entered smiling, rain glossing the shoulders of his coat. Behind him came another man—fair-haired, shorter, the sort who grinned by habit. His waistcoat strained at the buttons; his cravat had been tied twice and badly.
“This is Denny,” Wickham said. “A future officer. If his tailor and his purse can agree upon the same ambition.”
Kerr rose. “You’re travelling?”
Wickham helped himself to the decanter on the sideboard. “Derbyshire Militia. Denny here has the happy notion that one may purchase honour by the yard.” He turned to him. “Enlighten my friend, if you please.”
Denny shifted his hat from one hand to the other. “Simple enough, sir. A regiment always has vacancies if a man knows whom to ask. A little ready money, a little manner, and one may wear a coat that makes creditors bow before they curse.”
“Or a counting room,” Wickham added.
Kerr’s eyes went to the door. Mrs Price hovered there a moment, anxious. He nodded; she withdrew.
“You’ll excuse the hour,” Wickham said, pouring two glasses. “But dawn waits for us. The provinces call, Kerr—ladies with bright eyes, squire’s dinners, clean debts.”
Kerr did not touch his drink. “Clean?”
Wickham’s grin thinned. “Cleaner than London.”
Denny laughed, uncertain, looking from one to the other. “It’s good service, sir. Honest work.”
Kerr’s gaze held on Wickham. “Honest men pay what they owe.”
For a moment Wickham said nothing. Then, loudly, “Ever the monk, I see. Nothing in the glass, no company but your sums. You’ll rot of respectability, Kerr.”
“I doubt it,” Kerr said.
Wickham smiled over the rim of his glass. “Our friend here forgets the true advantage of country life. Fewer creditors, slower gossip, and people who still mistake a red coat for character.”
The candle flared, catching the colour in his eyes. Denny laughed, a fraction late.
Kerr reached for his glass but did not drink. “You’ll run from one debt to another.”
“Better running than rotting.” Wickham set his empty glass down, precise, deliberate. “You should come. A fortnight in the provinces—clean air, simple folk, and no one to remind you whose ink you write with.”
Kerr’s hand tightened on the stem. “Roark remembers for both of us.”
The grin faltered. “You’ve grown dull, Kerr.”
Kerr looked at him.
Wickham’s voice softened. “London has a long memory. The country has none worth respecting.”
Denny shifted, glancing between them. “We’ve a coach at dawn. If you change your mind, there’s room.”
Kerr said nothing. The rain ticked against the shutters.
Wickham set his hat on, the brim still wet. “You’ll miss the march, and you’ll regret it.”
When the door shut, the room seemed smaller. The clock resumed its ticking, slower than before. Roark’s voice rose again, calm as ever: You’ve been useful, Kerr. Do not become inconvenient.
He sat again, drew the coins nearer, and counted.
Twice, thrice, until the numbers blurred.
Six guineas, four crowns, and a scattering of shillings.
The house was his by inheritance, yet each month it demanded more—coal, candles, servants’ wages, and the endless toll of London itself.
Repairs waited, tradesmen grumbled, and the roof leaked where he could not afford to mend it.
Wealth, once imagined perpetual, had worn to the bone.
The Forge might be distant, but want was not.
The candle sputtered low. He pressed thumb and forefinger to his eyes until stars burned there. The ledger beside him held nothing but fear set down in figures. When the flame died, he did not strike another.
* * *
Morning broke colourless, the light thin as water. Mrs Price had been whispering in the passage since eight, and Kerr had counted each whisper as if it were a creditor at the door.
A discreet tap came, followed by Mr Price’s voice.
“A card, sir.”
Kerr looked up. “Another tradesman?”
“No, sir.” The man crossed the room, holding out a silver tray upon which lay a single visiting-card. The name—neatly engraved—caught the light: Sir Montgomery Price.
Kerr’s brows rose. “Is this some jest of yours?”
“No jest, sir. The gentleman waits below.”
Kerr studied the card, its edges immaculate. “Show him up.”
Price bowed and withdrew. A moment later, measured steps came along the passage.
The visitor entered, announced and composed.
Sir Montgomery Price—no relation, as courtesy soon obliged him to explain—carried himself with the quiet assurance of a man accustomed to being received.
His greatcoat, powdered from the road, gave off lavender, damp wool, and cool air.
He was of middling height and slight build, fair-haired, pale-eyed, and regular in feature.
His face offered no defect by which memory might hold him.
He smiled as he entered, but the expression altered when his glance touched the threadbare rug, the half-spent fire, and the papers spread across Kerr’s desk.
Kerr saw the calculation before Price hid it.
“Mr Kerr,” he said with measured courtesy, “I fear I intrude upon business.”
“You find me between occupations,” Kerr replied.
“Then I arrive at an opportune hour.” Price removed his gloves and held them. “You kept careful accounts once, I am told. Our mutual acquaintance admired your work.”
Kerr’s eyes lifted at the phrase. “Admired? Is there something I have missed?”
A faint smile. “That is a question I cannot answer.”
The tone—easy, assured—belonged to one speaking within the circle, not of it. Kerr felt the first turn of unease.
Price went on. “Available men of our ilk are rare. You may recall he likes the breed.”
“I remember,” Kerr said quietly. “Does he?”
“I believe so,” said Price. “Though consistency is as rare a quality as judgement.”
Kerr studied him, the calm voice, the polished restraint. Something in the phrasing struck a familiar rhythm—the same speech he had once used upon lesser men when collecting debts for the Forge. The resemblance was too precise to mistake.
“You speak as one who knows the trade,” Kerr said.
Price inclined his head. “In a modest way. I find it profitable to tidy what others leave untidy. It suits my temperament.”
No one spoke for several beats.
“I had not heard the Forge took on new clerks,” Kerr said.
“Not clerks,” Price corrected softly. “Associates. The work continues, though the names change. It is the nature of things to—evolve.”
“Evolution can be fatal.”
“Only to those who resist it.”
Kerr felt the room draw smaller—the air thick with the scent of damp wool and lavender.
“You speak as though my usefulness were concluded.”
“Our friend dislikes uncertain obligations.”
The veiled sentence turned courtesy to warning.
Price’s tone softened, almost confiding. “In ordinary circumstances,” he said, “a gentleman who finds himself in arrears may expect a civil interval—time enough to set matters right. But when a matter lingers too long, patience begins to look like neglect.”
“I take your meaning,” Kerr said.
“I hoped you might.” Price rose, drawing on his gloves with measured care. “It spares unpleasantness on all sides.”
Kerr watched him, cold clarity settling in. Three days, perhaps. Enough time to fail with dignity, not enough to survive with it.
Price inclined his head slightly. “I shall report that we understand one another.”
“I daresay you will,” Kerr said.
“Then I wish you a most orderly day.”
The latch clicked; the faint scent of lavender lingered where he had stood.
Kerr remained still until the air thinned. He took up Sir Montgomery Price’s card. The engraved name sat black and neat beneath his thumb. Not a gentleman calling upon a gentleman. A notice served by hand.
He set it down beside the ledger.
Wickham had spoken of a coach at dawn. Country air. A red coat. Distance from London.
Kerr looked towards the bell cord and left it untouched. Servants asked questions by not asking them. Mrs Price would have the whole of it in Sykes’s ear before the door closed.
He arranged the papers, journal, and letters upon his desk, then took a worn leather satchel from atop the bookcase. The journal went in first. The letters followed.
He secured the straps himself.
By dawn, the satchel would go where he went.
And Bennet lived in Hertfordshire.