Page 118 of A Debt Inherited

“Edmund uses it in sensitive correspondence,” his father had said. “A family may have enemies enough without admitting them into its letters.”

Darcy had remembered the warning. He had never expected to need it.

The letter was Edmund Darcy’s.

He turned the remaining papers until Solicitor Wray’s hand appeared, dry and severe, forbidding all further correspondence with T R Bennet upon a matter “closed in law and prudence.”

The date stood plain: August 1785.

Darcy looked from the solicitor’s letter to his uncle’s.

The lawyer had forbidden. His uncle had written.

The law had closed the door. Honour had opened it again.

Darcy set Edmund Darcy’s letter aside, then returned the folio to the cabinet.

His uncle had not written like a man indulging sentiment. The lines ran close together, as if haste had crowded restraint from the page.

Whatever this debt had been, Edmund Darcy had meant it to survive him.

He looked again at Mr Bennet’s letter.

Come to Longbourn with all possible haste.

Mr Bennet had named neither illness nor scandal, neither money nor law. He had sent an old pledge, a tenant’s son, and silence.

To a dead man.

Darcy pulled a sheet from the drawer and wrote three lines. He added his initials, then sealed it without crest.

He rose to pull the bell cord.

A moment later, Hudson knocked once and entered. “Sir?”

“The young man. Did anyone follow him to the door?”

“Not that I saw, sir. He came alone and near stumbled upon the steps.”

“Keep the household quiet. No one is to speak of Hertfordshire beyond this room and the servants’ hall.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Send Barty to me.”

Hudson bowed and withdrew.

Barty entered a minute later. “Sir?”

“Colonel Fitzwilliam is expected at Vauxhall Gardens this evening.” He extended the message. “Send James,” Darcy said. “Plain coat. Fast horse.”

“He is to receive the note into his own hand. No servant, no companion, no host.”

“At once, sir.”

“Mr Perkins is able to travel?”

“To ride hard again, no. The boy been on the road half the day, and his horse is blown.”