Chapter 44
Vauxhall Gardens, the same evening
Colonel Fitzwilliam had endured worse evenings, though few had required less courage.
The supper box held six officers, two bottles too many, and enough borrowed consequence to furnish a small court.
Captain Harrow had been telling the same hunting story for twenty minutes, improving the horse, the hedge, and his own seat at every repetition.
Lieutenant Brice, who had never seen battle and spoke of it often, leant back with one boot too far into the aisle.
Across from him, Storton adjusted his cuffs whenever a lady passed, as if linen might accomplish what conversation could not.
Fitzwilliam watched them with the patience of a man who had once seen a battery lose half its crew before breakfast.
Peacocks, every one of them.
They strutted, laughed too loudly, turned profile for admiration, and spoke of honour as if it were a colour newly fashionable in waistcoats. Harrow made some remark about French cavalry and drew a laugh from Brice. Then his eye moved, caught Fitzwilliam’s, and the laugh ended.
Sense returned to the table in degrees. Brice drew in his boot. Storton lowered his voice. Harrow remembered his glass and applied himself to it.
Fitzwilliam did not smile. That would have made instruction of it, and he had no wish to improve them. Fools had their uses. They made silence agreeable.
Beyond the supper box, Vauxhall moved in light and noise: lamps strung among the trees, music carrying over the walks, gowns bright beneath the glow, laughter rising and breaking like water against stone.
A singer’s voice reached them from the orchestra, sweet enough to make sentiment cheap.
Somewhere a party applauded before the song had ended.
Fitzwilliam looked at the crowd and thought of Spain.
That was the trouble with peace. It dressed itself prettily and expected a man to admire the fabric.
“Colonel,” Harrow said, with renewed caution, “you were at Badajoz, I think?”
Fitzwilliam set down his glass. “I was.”
A silence followed. It was not a reverent silence. Reverence had little stamina. It was the silence of men who had reached for a subject and found it had teeth.
Brice cleared his throat. “A hard business, by all accounts.”
“Yes.”
Storton looked away first.
Fitzwilliam might have let them suffer another moment had a footman not appeared at the edge of the box, plain-coated and breathing hard enough to have earned the sweat upon his brow. He did not look at the table. He looked at Fitzwilliam.
“Colonel Fitzwilliam, sir.”
Fitzwilliam knew him at once. James, from Darcy House. Barty trusted him with errands that did not bear repeating.
The amusement left him.
“Come here.”
James stepped closer and held out a folded note. “From Mr Darcy, sir. Into your own hand.”
Fitzwilliam took it. No crest. Darcy had sealed it plain.
That was answer enough to several questions.
He broke the wax and read.
R,
A debt of honour calls me to Hertfordshire. I go to Mr Bennet of Longbourn at once. Come if you can catch me, and be ready if you cannot.
D
The table had gone still. Harrow pretended not to watch. Brice failed entirely.
Fitzwilliam read the note once, then folded it into his glove.
“When did you leave Darcy House?”
“Near twenty minutes past nine, sir.”
“Had he gone when you left?”
“No, sir. The carriage was being brought round.”
Fitzwilliam stood.
Brice rose halfway out of habit, then thought better of it. Harrow looked from James to Fitzwilliam and found no invitation to speak.
“Can I catch him?”
James swallowed. “If you are quick, sir. He said within the hour, but Barty was feeding the Hertfordshire lad before putting him atop the carriage. That may cost a few minutes.”
Fitzwilliam pushed back his chair.
“Find my horse.”
James blinked. “Sir?”
“Not you.” Fitzwilliam spotted his groom near the walk and gestured sharply. “Perseus. Now.”
The man started as if struck and hurried off. Two officers in the next box turned their heads, saw Fitzwilliam’s face, and discovered urgent interest in their plates.
Fitzwilliam looked at James. “You rode here?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then ride back and tell Barty I follow. If my cousin has not left, he is to wait ten minutes and no more.”
“Yes, sir.”
James bowed and went at once.
Fitzwilliam took up his hat. Harrow found his voice too late.
“Colonel, is there trouble?”
Fitzwilliam looked at him.
The young man’s colour changed.
“There is always trouble,” Fitzwilliam said. “It has merely become punctual.”
* * *
Fitzwilliam stopped counting the number of people frightened out of Perseus’s path before he reached the Strand.
By then, counting had become ungentlemanly and useless. A gentleman in a ridiculous beaver cursed him near the Adelphi; a flower girl snatched her basket from under the horse’s forefeet; two young men in coats too bright for wisdom leapt apart with all the dignity their tailoring allowed.
Perseus took the noise, lamps, wheels, and shouting as a personal compliment and lengthened his stride.
Fitzwilliam let him.
Darcy’s note lay inside his glove, sharp against his palm with every pull of the reins.
A debt of honour calls me to Hertfordshire.
Darcy did not write in haste. This time he had. No crest, no explanation, no politeness wasted upon padding. That alone had been worth a gallop through half of London.
By the time Darcy House came into view, Perseus had foam at the bit and a temper worthy of his name. Fitzwilliam drew him up hard before the steps and threw the reins to the first groom who dared approach.
“Walk him till he cools. Then keep him saddled.”
The groom took one look at the rider, one at the horse, and swallowed his questions.
Fitzwilliam went up the steps without waiting for the door to open. It opened anyway. Hudson stood within, grave as judgement.
“Mr Darcy is above, Colonel.”
“Still here?”
“For the moment, sir.”
That was answer enough. Fitzwilliam crossed the hall, took the stairs two at a time, and reached Darcy’s dressing room without waiting to be announced.
He found Darcy standing before the glass with his arms held slightly out from his sides while Barty brushed imaginary dust from his shoulders. A dark travelling coat hung open upon him; his cravat had been tied in a simple knot and condemned by Barty’s expression.
Darcy met Fitzwilliam’s eyes in the glass.
“You caught me.”
“Of course I did.” Fitzwilliam shut the door behind him. “Explain.”
Darcy gave it without ornament: the express from Hertfordshire, the tenant’s son sent without livery, Mr Bennet of Longbourn, Edmund Darcy’s old letter, Wray’s prohibition, and the demand for aid with no particulars attached. He named what he knew and stopped where knowledge ended.
Fitzwilliam absorbed it all.
An old debt, a careful country gentleman, and a summons urgent enough to send a farmer’s son from Hertfordshire to London and onward to Pemberley if need demanded it.
That was not enough to understand. But it was enough to prepare.
He crossed to the chair where Darcy’s gloves lay beside the two letters. “You go to Longbourn.”
“Yes.”
“Take the boy.”
“Barty suggested it.”
“Barty has sense. Take another rider and a fresh horse—a man who can carry word back to me the instant you know what this is.”
“You will be here?” Darcy asked.
“Until dawn, if required.”
Fitzwilliam continued. “If it is money, you can settle it. If it is scandal, you may contain it. If it is violence, or anything that smells of old family business, I want word before dawn has time to announce itself.”
Darcy turned from the glass. “Old family business?”
“Our families have enemies and grudges against us. How this Mr Bennet is part of it we do not know.”
He picked up one glove and tossed it to Darcy.
“Yet.”