“Nothing else whatsoever! Except, perhaps, to plague you!” Lord Brougham stretched out his hand and gripped Darcy’s in a hearty shake. “Where have you been this last month? I came to Town to find your knocker down, and all Witcher would tell me was that ‘Mr. Darcy is visiting in the country.’ I offered him a pony if he would say where, but Mr. Witcher here” — Lord Brougham tossed his chin toward the butler — “would mumble not a word.”
“Let that teach you not to try to bribe loyal family servants,” Darcy shot back at him with a laugh.
“Well, all those years at University didn’t teach me anything, so I doubt me this will. Hopeless case, don’t you know!” Brougham dropped carelessly into one of the hearthside chairs and looked around him. “I’ve caught you at the books, have I, Fitz?”
“No, in point of fact, we just finished; and I was expecting tea —”
“Tea! Now there’s an idea!” He sat up with a bound. “Let’s you and I toddle over to the club. I daresay you haven’t looked in at Boodle’s since you returned from…Now just where were you?”
“Hertfordshire.”
“Lord, you don’t say! Hertfordshire!” Brougham mused distractedly. “Whatever for, Fitz?”
“I’ll tell you when we get to the club.” Darcy turned to his butler, who well acquainted with Lord Brougham’s high spirits, was smiling discreetly behind his hand. “My things, Witcher, if you please. It appears I will be taking tea at Boodle’s.”
The two men clattered down the front steps of Erewile House and into Lord Brougham’s curricle, which in minutes conveyed them, under his expert whip, to the hushed hallowedness of Boodle’s. The club’s imperious doorman ushered them inside, where various footmen rushed quietly to relieve them of their greatcoats, hats, and gloves.
Facing his friend across the black-and-white mosaic floor of Italian marble, Darcy cocked a brow. “Where to, Dy?”
“Someplace where we can talk privately and not scandalize the older members. Corner of the dining room, I should think.” Brougham winked in response to the veil of reserve with which Darcy immediately cloaked his face. “Oh, nothing so very bad as that, Fitz! Unless you’ve been kicking your heels up in — where was that? Herefordshire?”
“Hertfordshire, as you well know,” he replied dampeningly.
“Oho! We do have some ground to cover, I see.” Brougham started toward one of the gleaming wooden passageways that arched over stairs leading from the entry hall to the club’s upper floors.
Perhaps this was not wise. Darcy’s eyes narrowed on his friend’s back as he followed him up to the dining room. He knew very well that Dy’s dilettante façade hid a keen mind, which despite his protestations, was as capable of designing a bridge as of composing a sonnet. They had vigorously competed with each other at University, and Darcy remembered, if his friend did not, the multitude of prizes Dy had won at Cambridge. All the while, he recalled uneasily, giving their tutors fits.
In the intervening seven years, Dy had managed, with a studied elegance and frivolous manner, to make Society forget about them as well and account him no more than a charming fribble. Darcy had often wondered why the charade, but Dy had smoothly deflected all his attempts at satisfying himself on the question. How or why his friend had determined to conduct his life in such a fashion remained an untouched subject between them, but as it did not corrupt the firmness of their long friendship, Darcy had chosen early on to leave the question unanswered. But his forbearance in pressing Dy upon his idle existence was, he had found, not always reciprocated. If I am not extremely careful, he cautioned himself, Dy will discover from my own lips what I wish most to conceal.
They entered the spacious dining room, and Brougham immediately commandeered the coziest table. “Here, just the ticket, Fitz.” He pulled out a chair for Darcy and then sat down at the one that offered the best view of the entire room. “Let us get our tea ordered, and then you can tell me all about your expedition to the country.” As the waiters discharged dish upon dish of what Boodle’s considered a suitable tea for its gentleman members, Darcy and Dy entertained each other with the commonplaces and ribbings that long friendship allowed. When they were finally left to themselves, Dy sobered somewhat and grew more candid as he caught his friend up on the economic rumors and political speculations that truly mattered to men in Darcy’s position.
“What an amazing fount of information you are,” Darcy commented dryly as Brougham finally paused for a long draw on his tea. “One could almost suppose it a passion.”
“Oh, nothing so fatiguing! One hears things, you know. Assemblies, routs, hunts, gaming hells…all the same, nothing but chatter. I just happen to have a devilishly retentive mind.” He cast Darcy a soulful look and sighed. “Merely one more curse I must bear.”
“And what are the others, pray?” Darcy laughed outright at Dy’s bid for sympathy. “A very considerable fortune, a fine person, and —”
“Please, desist! You are embarrassing me! Which is particularly annoying as it was I who intended to embarrass you. Now, tell me about Hertfordshire,” Brougham demanded.
“Are you sure you do not mean Herefordshire?” Darcy threw back at him while scrambling for his dropped guard.
“No, I am sure you said Hertfordshire. Come, come; tell Papa what you did. Confession, you know…good for the soul and all that.” Brougham looked at him intently.
Darcy found himself twisting the napkin in his lap. Dy’s face was all sincerity, touched with a wry humor that warmly invited his confidence. The idea of enlisting his old friend’s help seemed, at first, entirely incredible. But as they sat in silence, sipping at their tea, it slowly took on the appearance of reason. He would not tell him all, of course. Nothing about…well, nothing but what Dy needed to know to help him with Bingley.
“You know my friend Charles Bingley?”
Brougham nodded his head. “Young chap from up north with more ready than sense. You have done him more than a few good turns from the look of him lately.”
“He took a year’s lease on a small property in Hertfordshire and got himself entangled with a young woman from a most unsuitable family.” Darcy wove his tale, careful to leave unmentioned his own fall into a tender fascination. “So,” he concluded, “as the man has turned quite intractable on the subject and will not listen to reason, I am engaged in a game of subterfuge. Planting doubts, that sort of thing. I find it is exceedingly uncomfortable.”
“I would imagine so! Not your game at all, Fitz. Do you think he suspects anything?”
“No, I do not believe so. At least, I doubt it. He trusts me implicitly, you see.” Darcy flushed and fell to examining his ruby-crowned ring.
“Likely you are right that he does not suspect. ‘The heart that is conscious of its own integrity is ever slow to credit another’s treachery.’ Ah, sorry, Fitz!” Brougham apologized at Darcy’s pained expression. “Did not mean it the way it sounded. Well, you do have a serpent by the tail! What is your next move?”
“We are to attend Lady Melbourne’s soiree tonight.”
“The divine Catalani! Fitz, you are in luck. I myself have sent my acceptance to this soiree. How can I assist with the enchanted Mr. Bingley?”
“Help introduce him to new enchantments. You know how awkward I am at these things, Dy. But wait,” Darcy responded quickly to the knowing look on Brougham’s face, “by that I mean proper young ladies. If you introduce him to any of Lady Caroline’s intimates, I’ll call you out, just see if I don’t!”
Brougham threw up his hands in mock horror. “Heaven forbid, Fitz. But just where, at a soiree hosted by Lady M, do you propose I find these ‘proper young ladies’?”