One
London
Darcy
"Mr. Darcy. I thank you for coming so promptly." Grey gestured him to the chair opposite and waited until he was seated before resuming his own, his hands folding upon the desk in the manner Darcy had learned, over five long years, to dread above almost any other sight in London.
"You alarm me, Mr. Grey, and I think you mean to.
" Darcy kept his voice even, though the words cost him rather more composure than he wished to grant them.
"Pray tell me plainly. I have grown tolerably accustomed to bad news these past years, and I would rather hear it direct than have it softened for my comfort. "
"The Meridian is lost." Grey did not soften it, as Darcy had asked, though his eyes carried an apology his words did not trouble to make.
"Word reached the underwriters a week ago by way of a fishing vessel out of Falmouth.
She was taken within three days of clearing the Thames, somewhere in the Bay of Biscay, her cargo seized entire, and the crew set ashore near Falmouth with nothing but the clothes upon their backs, and I thought it a matter you would rather hear from my own lips than by any letter that might pass through other hands before it reached yours. "
Darcy said nothing for a long moment. He turned instead to the narrow window and the grey press of the street below, though he saw none of it.
A familiar heaviness settled upon him, as though each fresh disappointment found the same place to rest until the whole of it had become a burden he scarcely remembered carrying.
The Meridian had been his own undertaking, one of the ventures entered upon wholly by his own judgment rather than beneath the shelter of his father's experience.
Four thousand pounds' worth of fine cloth and Spanish wool had been entrusted to her, bound for Lisbon, where the scarcity brought on by the war promised returns handsome enough to justify the risk.
He had studied every account himself before committing the investment.
For the first time since succeeding to Pemberley, he had believed himself equal to the responsibilities that had descended upon him.
Now the cargo lay at the bottom of the sea, or in another man's hold. His hand tightened upon his knee until the leather of his glove creaked.
"Taken by whom?" he asked at last, though he suspected the answer before the words had left his mouth.
"Pirates, by the master's account, flying no colours he could name before she struck.
" Grey's tone carried the particular carefulness of a man laying down facts he did not himself believe told the whole of the matter.
"It is not uncommon, in these waters, in these times.
A dozen ships might meet the same fortune this month alone, and no man the wiser as to cause. "
"But you do not believe this was chance." Darcy said it plainly, for he had learned, this past year, that Grey's carefulness of tone was itself a kind of answer, more honest than anything the man permitted himself to state outright.
"The Meridian sailed a route known to perhaps seven men in London," Grey said quietly.
"Myself among them. Her master altered course twice upon my recommendation within a fortnight of her departure, each alteration intended to keep her well clear of waters where privateers or pirates were known to cruise. "
Grey rose and came round the desk. He stopped beside the window, his gaze resting upon the restless stream of carts and drays below.
"Yet she was taken in precisely the same manner her master had gone to such pains to avoid.
" He was silent for a moment. "I could not prove what I am about to say in any court in England.
But neither can I persuade myself that a pirate simply happened upon her.
Whatever vessel found the Meridian knew where to look. "
"That is the fifth, is it not." Darcy said it quietly.
"The fifth instance of deliberate interference I can account for, sir, and I do not doubt there are others beyond my knowledge." Grey's mouth settled into a thin, unhappy line.
It was the nearest Darcy had ever seen the man come to anger on a client's behalf. Grey studied him for a long moment before continuing, as though deciding how much of the truth Darcy was prepared to hear.
"I have served your family these thirty years.
I served your father until his death, and I tell you now what I would never have presumed to tell him while he lived.
" Grey removed his spectacles and polished them with deliberate care, though they scarcely required it.
When he spoke again, his voice was quieter.
"I no longer believe that what has befallen your affairs these past five years owes anything whatever to chance. "
"Say it plainly, then, since you have gone so far already." Darcy held Grey's gaze. He found he wanted the words spoken by another man's voice, wanted the burden of them to belong, if only for a moment, to someone else. "You believe me unfortunate?"
"I believe five losses in four years, each one explicable alone and each one collectively beyond belief, wants a better name than misfortune.
" Grey held his gaze steadily, and something of the anger he had not permitted his voice showed plainly enough in his eyes.
"Men of that sort do not commonly know a merchantman's private course before her own captain has well settled upon it.
Someone told that pirate ship about your cargo, Mr. Darcy. "
Darcy rose and crossed the narrow office before turning back again. Sitting still had become impossible. His mind did what it had done a hundred times before, searching every acquaintance, every business connection, every slight remembered or imagined, for a man capable of such patient malice.
A rival merchant might seek advantage in a single bargain.
A disappointed investor might spread an unkind rumour.
Neither explanation accounted for the several failures that had reached from his father's final year into his own inheritance, touching almost each undertaking separately, every loss convincing enough to pass for chance.
"There is more," Grey said, once Darcy had resumed his seat, and something in his tone made it plain the worse news had been saved, out of what mercy the man could offer, until last. "I have heard, this fortnight past, a phrase repeated to me by more than one acquaintance in trade, offered half in jest and half, I think, in genuine caution.
They speak of the misfortune of dealing with you, sir.
They say it lightly, as men say such things over their wine, but I have heard it now from several separate quarters, three by my own count, and that is not chance either. "
Darcy felt the words land somewhere beneath his composure, striking a wound he had not known remained so raw.
He had suspected the whispers. He had seen them in a couple small discourtesies these past months: a hostess's welcome just a shade less warm than it had once been, a promised invitation that never arrived, a conversation that ended as he approached.
He had borne each one separately because each admitted of some innocent explanation.
To hear the thing given a name, and a currency among men who had never met him, was another matter entirely.
"The misfortune of dealing with a Darcy," he repeated slowly, as though turning the words over in search of some flaw that might render them less than they appeared. A faint, humourless smile touched his mouth. "I had not imagined myself so interesting a subject for London's gossip."
"You are not, sir, ordinarily, and that is precisely what troubles me.
" Grey's gaze was steady, and kind, and entirely without the comfort Darcy might once have wished from it.
"A gentleman of your consequence and your character does not become the subject of such talk by accident, nor by any fault of his own that I have ever observed in you.
Someone has taken considerable trouble to make you so, and I would not do my duty by your father's memory if I did not tell you plainly that I believe it. "
Darcy resumed his seat but did not immediately speak.
Five business losses. Other misfortunes besides, none of which Grey had any cause to know.
And now a phrase had attached itself to his name, passed from one gentleman to another until it had become common enough to reach Grey's ears before it reached his own.
He turned the thought over and found no place in it where reason might comfortably rest.
"Is there any hope of recovering the cargo?"
Grey shook his head.
"Very little, I fear. Had His Majesty's Navy intercepted the Pirates ship before she reached a friendly port, there might have been some prospect of recovery. As matters stand, she is almost certainly gone."
Darcy lowered his eyes to the papers upon the desk. He had known the answer before he asked the question. There was something peculiarly human, nevertheless, in seeking hope from another man's lips when one had already abandoned it in one's own mind.
"If you wished it pursued further..." Grey hesitated, as though debating whether to say more.
"Your cousin, the Colonel, may have acquaintances within the Admiralty who could learn whether the vessel has since been sighted, or whether any intelligence has been gathered concerning her movements.
I cannot promise it would avail us much, but it is perhaps the only course remaining. "
Darcy inclined his head thoughtfully. Grey's chambers had been his first destination upon reaching London. His cousin's house would be his next.
"You have done all that could reasonably be done, Mr. Grey, and more besides." He rose, offering his hand which the older man shook. "There is nothing further to be gained by lamenting what cannot now be undone."
"I wish I might tell you otherwise, sir." Grey walked with him to the door, his hand lingering upon the latch as though reluctant to let him go without some further reassurance he could not honestly give. "Take care of yourself, Mr. Darcy. Whatever this is, it has shown no sign of tiring."
Darcy thanked him and stepped out into the ordinary bustle of the street, where clerks and merchants went about their business with no notion of the particular burden he carried among them. He found himself envying their ignorance more than he had ever envied any man his fortune.
His carriage still waited where he had left it. He paused with one hand upon the door before climbing inside, the August air doing little to quiet a mind grown too accustomed to bearing such news alone.
As the carriage turned toward his cousin's house, he allowed himself, for the length of a single unguarded breath, to wonder whether a man might be undone so slowly that no single blow ever seemed enough to account for it.