Page 103 of A Debt Inherited

“She remains here.”

“In your custody.”

“Yes.”

“A dangerous trust.”

“To whom?”

Wickham laughed again, but uneasily. “To us all, perhaps. She has eyes enough for two judges and a tongue sharpened by affection.”

“Her tongue is of no consequence behind a barred door.”

Another pause. Elizabeth could picture Wickham adjusting his glove, restoring the negligent grace that had once seemed charming because she had not looked beneath it.

“Take care, Kerr,” he said. “She is her father’s daughter.”

“Is she?”

The reply held no humour, and Wickham did not laugh.

“I shall be back before night,” he said. “If fortune smiles, with Bennet already half dead of terror.”

“Fortune has smiled upon you too often. Do not depend upon her.”

“My dear Kerr, I depend upon other men’s vices. They prove far steadier.”

Boots crossed the yard. The horse gave a short snort; leather pulled; the saddle creaked under his weight. Elizabeth stayed still, every sense drawn to the sounds beyond the door. Wickham spoke once more, farther away.

“Do not let her charm you into mercy.”

“Go.”

The horse moved off at a walk, then quicker over hard ground, then quicker still until the sound thinned beneath trees and vanished.

Elizabeth remained on the floor. Her cheek had gone cold where it touched the plank. Ten thousand pounds. Her father alone. No magistrate, no servant, no neighbour. A name she knew not—Lord Julian.

She sat back slowly and pressed her bound hands together until the cord bit. Her father would think of her.

That was the worst of it.

A shadow crossed the line beneath the door.

Elizabeth rose at once and moved back towards the pallet, but the cord scraped against the boards. The sound, small as it was, filled the room.

The bar lifted. The door opened.

Kerr stood on the threshold with a knife in one hand.

Elizabeth looked from the blade to his face. “If you mean to frighten me, sir, you have chosen an unnecessary instrument.”

“Your wrists,” he said.

She did not move.

“I do not intend to cut you.”

“How reassuringly narrow your intentions are.”