Page 131 of Homeless

Elizabeth’s stomach turned. Sick… she was going to be sick, there in Copeland’s office, with her aunt weeping beside her.

She had been a fool! Insisting on visiting her uncle in the gaol, after he had gone to such lengths to hide her. Refusing to heed Darcy’s reluctance, his advice that chasing after her uncle did not serve him. Not only had they been unable to help him, but they had taught his captors what he was worth. Every coin the demand had risen, they had put there themselves with their inquiries. She might have made Darcy an inconvenient captive by putting him in a church register and making sure it was known that he was there on business with the royal treasury. But that had not entirely put him out of the realm of interest. He had walked into the gaol a rich man willing to part with coins to see Mr Gardiner, and that, in all likelihood, had been sufficient.

“I see,” she said softly. “Thank you, Mr Copeland, for giving it to us plainly.”

“There is reason to hope still, Miss Bennet. Truly, there is. The house has done all we can do. The ransom paid, the proper quarter at the Foreign Office petitioned to see to his removal from Ibarra’s hands. We have men at the coast, the correspondent is diligent. What wants doing is being done.”

“But it is slow.”

“It is slow,” he admitted. “Money buys the man, ma'am, but money does not carry him over the mountains, nor put a ship under him, nor get a sick man safe through a country still half at war. That wants…” he glanced at Mrs Gardiner and cleared his throat. “That wants weight. Official weight, the kind a merchant's house cannot summon of itself. We have asked for it. Whether it comes quickly, and from a hand high enough to matter, is not in our giving. We do what we can, and we wait, and we hope.”

Elizabeth sat back in her chair, her eyes glassy and blank as she stared at Copeland’s desk. “You will keep us apprised of any further news?”

“Of course, Miss Bennet.” Copeland rose and buttoned his coat. “And may I say again what a relief it is to have you, at least, safely returned home. I am sure you are a very great comfort to Mrs Gardiner just now.”

“Thank you,” she said again, and rose. “Come, Aunt. It will be well, truly. You shall see.”

“Darcy! By God, sir, you are a welcome sight — welcome and a sorry one both, if you will forgive me saying it. You look as though Spain chewed you and thought better of swallowing.” Marchwood had Darcy's hand in both of his, and his eyes travelled from the freshly trimmed beard to the hands which had yet to entirely give up their callouses. “Sit, sit. You must take something. I have a Madeira that will do more for you than a week of beefsteak. Sit down and tell me you are not so used-up as you look.”

“You need not alarm yourself on my account,” Darcy said, and accepted the Madeira. “I am very well, my lord, considering.”

“Considering?” Marchwood settled back into his own chair. “I should think there must be a great deal in that word. I have been anxious on your account, Darcy. I thought you would be a fortnight in reaching Madrid from Santander, a fortnight there at the most, and not much longer in returning to the coast. When the months went by and there was no word, I confess I began to fear the worst. I daresay you have returned just in time, my good fellow.”

Darcy took a sip of the fine Madeira. “You are very good to have concerned yourself.”

“Not at all, not at all. We had an understanding, you and I, of a kind — an interest in common. It would be a strange sort of man who did not concern himself. But you must have news, after so long away. Tell me, how does the matter stand? I had feared, frankly, that the whole business had come to nothing — that you had gone all that way and through God knows what, and come home empty.”

There it was — the first pass of the blade, offered so gently it might have been a courtesy. Darcy set his glass down.

“It has not come to nothing,” he said. “Better than I had any right to hope, in the end. I went expecting to chase a commissioner's signature up half of Spain, and I did chase it as far as Vitoria, without ever finding the commissioner or gaining his signature.”

Marchwood’s face fell grave. “There is a sorry bit of news.”

“Not so, for I came away with something worth a great deal more than a signature, or even a record in a ledger, which I had sought as an expediency against the commissioner’s approval. I — we, rather, my… ah, my translator and I — we found the record itself. The junta's own certified acknowledgment of the debt, stamped and sealed, the original. Not a copy of a copy. The thing itself, verified at its source.”

Marchwood's face flickered, and he set his own glass aside. “The certified record? The very thing itself? How the devil did you manage that? I heard the French had made a plunder of much of those documents.”

“So they had, but they were not all burned. Only lost, and if one is determined enough, found again.”

Marchwood huffed, then raised his glass again. “Stamped and sealed, indeed! And where is it now?”

“Forwarded through official channels, from Vitoria — lodged into the proper hands and on its way home, if it is not home already. Even if they had been willing to let a mere civilian carry such a document away, I would not dare risk thing so precious across a the country and a sea in my own coat, to be lost with me if I were lost. It is beyond my reach now, and beyond anyone's to lose or mislay. It should have been with the Foreign Office some weeks ago, my lord, which is, I am given to understand, precisely where it ought to be.”

“Just so. Just so.” Marchwood was quiet a moment, turning his glass on the desk. “You have done remarkably, Darcy. Remarkably. I had not looked for half so much.” He gazed at his glass for a moment, then looked up warmly, spreading one hand.

“Well! This alters things considerably for the better, does it not? A verified claim, properly lodged — that is a very different creature from the doubtful, half-documented business we spoke of in the winter. I tell you, Darcy, not one in a hundred claims brought after the war will have such footing. This can be pressed. This can be made to move! And I am, as it happens, tolerably well placed to see that it is not neglected. These matters are apt to sit, you know — a sound claim can gather dust as easily as a bad one, for want of a hand to move it up the pile. I shall make it known in the right quarter that the thing is sound and that I take an interest. That will do more than you might suppose.”

It was handsomely said, and it was exactly, precisely, what Darcy had come hoping to hear. “You are most kind, my lord.”

“You need not thank me at all,” said Marchwood, and rose. The audience was, apparently, drawing to its close — but not, it seemed, quite yet, for the earl did not move towards the door, but rather, towards the bell. “There is time enough for thanks when the thing is done. Come, you shall not run off the moment your business is discharged. That would be very poor of you after five months away. Honoria was asking after you only this week, and she will never forgive me if I let you out of the house without a word to her.”

Darcy forced his face to remain neutral. “I am hardly presentable —”

“Presentable, nonsense! I know that for a Weston coat that has hardly seen a brush yet, so say nothing to me of your appearance, unless it is to tell me your valet forgot how to shave you.” He laughed heartily. “She is in the music room. Go up and pay your respects, and let her see for herself that Spain did not quite finish you.” He rang the bell. “Thomas will show you up. Go on, Darcy. She will be glad of you, and gladder still that I do not follow.”

And there it was — the invitation that was not an invitation. A courtesy with an earl's expectation behind it. Go up and greet my daughter. Remember what was understood between us. Take up where you left off.

Darcy set down his glass and rose. “I should be glad to greet Lady Honoria. Good day, my lord.”