Page 147 of A Debt Inherited

“And Wickham, sir?” Villiers asked.

“Greed,” Fitzwilliam said. “And the pleasure of making Darcy pay.”

“Bring the papers.” He put on his hat. “It is time I met Mr Bennet of Longbourn.”

Chapter 52

Redbourn Heath, the following morning

Morning entered by degrees, not as comfort, but as proof that the night had failed to end their captivity.

Elizabeth sat with her shoulder to the wall and listened.

For some time there had been no sound from the other side. Then the boards shifted, and Mr Darcy’s voice came low through the plaster.

“Miss Bennet.”

She turned her cheek to the wall. “I am here.”

“Are you hurt?”

“No more than I was last night.”

A pause. “That is not the comfort you may suppose it.”

“I had not supposed it would comfort either of us.”

A moment passed.

“You might ask whether I am well,” she said. “It would spare your imagination a most unnecessary ramble.”

Something very like a laugh touched the other side of the wall. “Are you well?”

“No,” she said, shifting her position. “But I am answering.”

“Take heart, Miss Bennet. This cannot last as they intend.”

“That is a handsome assurance. Upon what is it founded?”

“Upon my cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam.”

Elizabeth stilled. “The Colonel Fitzwilliam?”

“Yes.”

That name had crossed more than county borders. It belonged to dispatches, broadsheets, and anxious drawing-room talk of Spain.

Yet a name, however celebrated, did not open a bolt.

“A relation is not always a rescue.”

“This one is.”

She let that answer settle. “How is my father?”

“Deeply anxious and determined not to appear so.”

“Oh,” she said. “Very much himself.”