“Yes, sir,” Fletcher answered, a sigh all but audible in his voice. The heat of August had not quite rendered the journey from London unbearable, but the addition of Mr. Hurst’s new valet to the servant’s carriage had set all of Darcy’s people, particularly Fletcher, on edge. “A sneaksby and a mushroom!” Fletcher had pronounced Hurst’s man as he attended Darcy their first night out of Town, and his reports worsened at each stop along their way. Darcy was not without sympathy for his valet’s complaints, for the company of Miss Bingley also grew increasingly tedious in direct proportion to the hours spent confined with her in the coach. Her brother’s conversation offered some respite, as did Georgiana’s attempts to interest her in a book or the scenery, but Darcy could only thank Heaven when, upon arriving at the last coaching inn before Derbyshire, he had found waiting for him an urgent note from Sherrill, his steward, requesting his immediate presence at Pemberley. The call of duty could hardly have been sweeter, its siren tone reaching Fletcher’s ear as well, but it was impossible that Darcy’s valet should accompany him. Nor did he desire any company. These last miles before home he wished to spend alone, with only his thoughts for companions, before he entered into the incessant demands of master and host of his great ancestral estate.
A knock at his door brought Darcy around to see his sister poised at the threshold, a somewhat strained look upon her face. “Sweetling,” he sighed as he strode to her, “I am sorry to leave you so!”
“Not so very sorry.” She sent him a rueful but understanding smile. “I wish we were near enough that I might ride ahead as well.”
He bent and bussed her forehead. “When you get to Pemberley —”
“It will be better, I know,” she finished. “We will not be in each other’s pockets, especially when Aunt and Uncle Matlock arrive with D’Arcy and his new fiancée and family. I hope —” She stopped then and bit her lower lip.
“What, dearest?” He looked down tenderly into her wistful eyes.
“That I shall find a friend among these new relations D’Arcy brings us.” She rested her head upon his shoulder. “My own friend.”
“As do I.” He embraced her and then, gently setting her from him, chucked her under her chin. “I must go, but I promise you, we shall look into this business. Perhaps Aunt Matlock may have some suggestions.”
Pulling on his gloves and gathering his hat, saddlebag, and crop, Darcy saluted his sister and made for the door, his stride becoming a run down the steps when he heard a door behind him open to the sound of women’s voices. Turning the corner at the base of the stairs, he quickly passed through the public rooms and out into the sunlight of what promised to be a warm Derbyshire day.
“Darcy!” Bingley’s cry from behind him brought him to a halt. He turned and, smiling at the figure of his friend, waited for him to catch up. The last three months had not only brought Darcy peace from his crushing rejection at Rosings Park but had wrought significant changes in the manner of his friendship with Bingley, but also, Darcy was convinced, in Bingley himself. The man striding purposefully toward him was not the same Bingley of a year or even three months ago. There was more confidence in his carriage and assurance in his lineaments.
“Bingley!” He grinned at the look of reproach his friend freely cast him. “Your pardon for leaving without saying farewell, but I truly must be off if I am to reach Pemberley in good time.”
“Say no more.” Bingley grasped his hand and, falling into step with him, accompanied Darcy to the mounting block and his waiting horse. “I did not expect it; I just wish I could accompany you.” He peered down the road and, with a frown, turned back and addressed him. “Is it wise to go alone?”
“I expect to catch up with the baggage coaches in an hour and will have them release Trafalgar. The two of us should pass relatively unnoticed through the backcountry of Derbyshire.” Darcy patted the pistol in his saddlebag. “If not, we are not without resources should we be ascosted.”
“Well then, I shan’t detain you except to wish you Godspeed and to promise to deliver Miss Darcy and all my relations upon your doorstep tomorrow.” Bingley grinned and shook Darcy’s hand once more but solemnly. “Take care, Darcy.”
“And you, my friend,” Darcy replied and swung up into the saddle. “Until tomorrow!”
The mount beneath him was not Nelson but rather a less unpredictable cousin dutifully sent forward from Pemberley by Darcy’s steward. Nevertheless, the animal’s bloodlines ran true, and the ground between the inn and the coaches was eaten up in less time than Darcy had thought. Even so, Trafalgar’s affronted bark, alternating with a beseeching whine, reached him before he had even sighted the coaches. Upon being released and restored to his master’s side, the hound first trembled from nose to tail with undisguised joy, then with equal enthusiasm, rolled in the dust of the road, ran around Darcy’s horse in circles, attempted to leap up, and pawed ecstatically at his boot.
“Down, Monster!” Darcy thundered, then winced at the deep scratch that now transected his right boot. Fletcher would not be pleased. The hound sat dutifully, but his twitching tail beat out the quickly passing moments that might have been expected to contain such strenuous obedience. Nodding to Trafalgar’s keeper, Darcy urged his horse on, issuing a curt “Come!” to his erstwhile devotee. With an explosion of compliance, Trafalgar raced ahead, circled back, repeated the maneuver, and finally fell into a trot beside him, his happiness so complete that Darcy could only laugh and marvel at how very good it felt to be exactly where he was.
Now that the Monster accompanied him, Darcy slowed his pace to a steady, comfortable one, which he judged would bring them home to Pemberley by late morning. Pemberley! On the one hand, he was impatient to be there, to sluice away the pervasive dust of summer travel and breathe in all the familiar tranquillities of his beloved home. There was even a pleasant anticipation, he found, in setting into motion his solutions to those alarms forwarded by his steward and in meeting the routine seasonal obligations of his lands. On the other hand lay a profound sense that these hours by himself without duty or obligation to distract him, this time to reflect and consider, was essential to his well-being and future. Here, on this road through Derbyshire, before God and any man who might pass him by, he was nothing more than a man alone with his horse and his hound and his conscience.
After the terrible days following the assassination of the Prime Minister, caution had urged Darcy that he ought personally to escort Georgiana out of the city and to the safety of Pemberley. Rumor at first ran amuck, suggesting that the entire country was on the verge of rebellion. The unknown temper of the countryside militated against chancing their safety on the road; therefore, they had stayed in Grosvenor Square behind closed doors until some reliable report was to be had. When it had become apparent that the Government still stood, London had settled down to going about its business in the usual fashion in shockingly short order. With the certainty that the plot had been centered in the person of John Bellingham, the entire population seemed to throw the incident over its shoulder and pick up the Season where it had left off, and a removal no longer appeared necessary. Lady Monmouth had disappeared, her abandoned lord knowing not where; and although it had been almost three months, they had still no word from Lord Brougham. Darcy suspected that his friend had pursued the Somewhat-Less-Honorable Beverly Trenholme to America. If so, it would be some time before Dy reappeared in London.
In a few weeks Darcy’s life was returned to its normal rhythms but not, he had discovered, to his habitual courses. Something had changed in that terrible time since Hunsford, had changed profoundly. He was not the same man he had been. Looking back at that arrogant suitor of last spring, he wondered at himself as he would a stranger. It all seemed so very long ago. What a figure he had cut, striding with such exalted confidence down the steps of Rosings Hall and along the path to the village! From a three-month perspective, he considered that impeccably dressed man as he made his way to Hunsford parsonage, so self-assured, so certain of his reception and answer. For a moment, he felt again the pangs of the humiliation that lay before him. In a very short space, that stranger’s world would be turned on its head, changed forever.