Page 78 of A Debt Inherited

“Not as half the room did.”

Kerr turned his head.

Wickham smiled. “A father may forgive a slight to himself. He seldom forgives one to the daughter who has his heart.”

Kerr looked back towards the empty road. “You are very quick to discover hearts.”

“I am quicker with weaknesses.” Wickham adjusted his glove. “The trick is knowing which name opens which door.”

Kerr said nothing.

“You heard the mother,” Wickham went on. “A civil word travels far with her. A compliment farther. The eldest daughter has beauty enough to make every fool in the county honest for half an hour. The younger—” He paused, amused. “The younger has teeth.”

Kerr’s gaze sharpened. “And Bennet?”

“Bennet watched you.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It is the only one worth having.” Wickham’s smile thinned. “You came to Hertfordshire for a living man. Now he has seen you.”

Kerr looked back towards the dark road, the lamps gone beyond the turn.

Wickham clapped his gloves together. “Come, my friend. Enough ghosts for one night. There is brandy waiting, and I would rather think of the living.”

Kerr did not move. “Go on,” he said. “I shall follow presently.”

Wickham shrugged, turned up his collar, and walked whistling into the dark.

Kerr waited till the sound was gone. The street was nearly empty now—only the guttering lamps and the faint hiss of frost upon the cobbles. He walked slowly, the night pressing close about him. Each step struck with the dull rhythm of thought—measured, relentless.

The windows above were shuttered; laughter drifted faintly from some upper chamber, muffled, careless, already forgetting the evening. Kerr passed beneath it without looking up.

He reached the bootmaker’s door and climbed the narrow stair. Within, the candle had guttered low. The folded note lay where he had left it, face-down beside the washstand.

He removed his gloves, set them beside it, and turned the paper over.

Roark will have his due.

“So will I,” he said quietly.

Chapter 30

Longbourn, April 1812

“Half a year gone,” Kitty said, twisting her threadbare ribbon round her finger. “And not one proper assembly to speak of.”

“We have seen Charlotte and Maria Lucas twice this week,” Jane reminded her gently. “They bring all the news one could wish.”

“Between them, Meryton wants for nothing,” Elizabeth murmured. “Charlotte brings sense. Maria begins and ends with militia officers.”

Lydia sighed with theatrical despair. “Because they are the only creatures worth looking at! If Mama would but invite them again—”

Mrs Ecclestone cleared her throat. Lydia straightened at once, hands folded.

Mrs Bennet’s fan stirred faintly. “I understand your exuberance, my dear. It is natural in youth. Yet,” she added, glancing at her husband, “we shall continue as we are. Your father is resolved, and I am not inclined to quarrel with prudence.”

Mr Bennet looked up from the small volume in his hand and inclined his head. “A rare alliance indeed, madam.”