When Mr. Vest had not been occupied with Signore Bartolli on this day, he had spent the great part of his time perusing the map of the Holy Roman Empire, and he had come fortified with an arsenal of geographical facts. He had been not at all surprised to discover—for if there were any people more incomprehensible than the Italians, it must be the Prussians—that German city names were generally unpronounceable to civilized tongues. Oh, not Berlin, of course, but what should the Germans do when it came to a perfectly good name like Cologne but to pronounce it—
At this juncture, Helen rose and begged to excuse herself, pleading the headache. “I have been feeling it coming on for some time,” she explained, “but it was not until this very moment that it has made me feel quite weak.”
Mr. Darcy shot her a dark look. “My dear,” he said solicitously, “allow me to assist you.”
“You need not, my dear,” she said sweetly. “Stay, and bear Mr. Vest company.”
Mr. Darcy insisted, firmly but gently.
Mr. Vest nodded wisely and understood that after so much excitement, Mrs. Darcy must be feeling the effects. With uncharacteristic tact, he took himself off with not more than a few remarks about foreigners in general and Italians with mixed blood in particular.
“It is the most amazing thing,” Helen said after Mr. Vest had gone, “but I find that my headache is already cured! I wonder how that can be?”
Mr. Darcy showed a callous lack of interest in Helen’s recent affliction and her happy, rapid recovery. “You are giving me a very pretty notion of your character, my dear,” he said. “Felt you no compunction in leaving me unprotected to the full force of a geography lesson?”
A laugh quivered at the corners of her mouth. “I think you would have been able to protect yourself very well, sir,” she said, and added, “In life-threatening situations, I have always subscribed to the motto Every Man for Himself!”
“It is an unfeeling person who lives by such a motto,” Mr. Darcy said virtuously.
“I am sure that you have every fellow feeling in the world,” she retorted swiftly, “except at the gambling table! But we must be serious and decide what to do, for I imagine that Vincenzo is already on his way back here.”
“Yes,” Mr. Darcy said, “but I would say that it won’t be for a while yet. Perhaps not until the evening, if Mr. Vest drove him as far as Hartstead.”
Following Vincenzo’s entrance the night before, all during Mr. Darcy’s crushing defeat of Mr. Vest at cards, and for the better part of this day, Helen’s thoughts had been occupied with one question. She decided to risk asking it. “You need not tell me, you know,” she began, lifting her eyes to his, “but I think that I would be very much more helpful to you if I knew what you are looking for in the portmanteau. If you do not choose to tell me outright, you might just give me a hint. I could have a good idea of where to look for it.” Helen paused, trying to gauge Mr. Darcy’s reaction. “You need not say anything, of course, if it goes against the grain!”
Mr. Darcy hesitated. The gaze he bent on Helen was closed and speculative. Then his face softened into something resembling an ironic smile. He said, “I believed at first that I was looking for a diary, but now I am not sure.”
“A diary?” Helen echoed, thoroughly surprised. “Well, of all things!” She laughed. “But why I should be surprised at this point is a mystery to me, for this is hardly more extraordinary than the rest!”
Mr. Darcy made no reply.
“But I see the difficulty,” she continued. “Nothing of that thickness appears to be hidden in the portmanteau. You would have discovered it by now if it were.”
Mr. Darcy agreed. “That is what leads me to believe that I have been looking for the wrong thing. That, and Vincenzo’s determination to get whatever it is back. There must be something far more valuable in there than I had first thought. Letters, perhaps, or possibly even documents of some sort.”
Helen was burning to ask him what he thought might be the contents of those letters or documents, but strongly resisted probing further. “I should imagine that letters could be stuffed almost anywhere. And you say you searched the lining of the portmanteau? That seems to me to be the most likely place.”
Mr. Darcy affirmed that he had and that his search had turned up nothing.
“I shall have to give this some thought,” she said, “but it is obvious that something must be there for Vincenzo to spend so much energy to recover it. Yet, it seems odd to me that you could know that Vincenzo is carrying something valuable in his portmanteau and that it concerns you somehow, yet still not know what it is.”
Mr. Darcy apparently thought Helen was owed some sort of explanation. “Yes,” he said, “it must seem strange to you. But the circumstances are not so strange as extremely fortunate! A month or more ago, I was in Venice and a… friend of mine mentioned, quite by chance, some interesting information concerning a Venetian gentleman whose name…meant something to me. I heard that he had recently died. That much, of course, was public knowledge. What was not public was his relationship to a certain commediante, namely our Vincenzo.”
Helen had been struggling to piece together the fragments that Mr. Darcy had given her. “It was the Venetian gentleman who stole something from you, and you suspect that he bequeathed it to Vincenzo? Could Vincenzo be his son or some such thing?” she asked.
Mr. Darcy’s face was unreadable. “I do not think that Vincenzo is the gentleman’s son.”
“Well, I suppose the particulars of the relationship are of no moment,” Helen said reasonably. “It is enough that Vincenzo has something of value to you. Yet I don’t understand what Vincenzo is doing in England!”
“That, of course, is the crux of the matter. Sh … this friend… did not know what Vincenzo had, only that Vincenzo was overheard to boast that he was on his way to England to meet an unnamed though wealthy and well-known man, and that what he was carrying in his portmanteau would buy him a lifetime of luxury. It was very stupid of Vincenzo to have been so loquacious.” He stopped. “That is the story. It is a little more complicated than that, but you have the idea.”
“It sounds like blackmail to me,” Helen said, not mincing words, satisfied for the moment with this partial explanation. “And if your information comes from one of the trusting young women whom you ruined while upon Italian soil, I prefer not to be informed of the complexities!”
“Vixen!” he said appreciatively. “It did! Although I think she was ruined before I came upon Italian soil.”
“I am quite as shocked as Mr. Vest,” she replied, her eyes modestly downcast.
“Coming it rather too strong, my dear?” Mr. Darcy quizzed her. “It won’t fadge. Not after your performance last night! Never have I seen a more unmaidenly display of insensibility!”
“To quote you, sir, that is coming it rather too strong! Are you never serious?” she added, unable to curb a provocative smile.
“Always!” he replied, and gave her shoulders a playful shake.
At that moment, Mrs. Coats chanced by the door, which had not been shut after Mr. Vest’s exit, and she saw Mr. Darcy’s affectionate gesture. She stopped, laid her hands upon her stomach, and smiled upon them maternally and benevolently. She might as well have said she was pleased that they had made up.
When Mrs. Coats moved on, Mr. Darcy crossed the room and closed the door. “Now, what is this all about?” he demanded, coming back towards Helen.
She took an instinctive step away from him. “Why, nothing! What should there be, after all?”
“That is what I should like to know, and your face indicates that you do know what it is all about,” he said calmly.
“There is nothing to it!” she protested.
“Come!” Mr. Darcy said with his winning smile. “I shan’t eat you! But I do prefer plain dealing. Let us lay our cards on the table.”
Helen realized that to continue in this fashion would only render her more foolish in his eyes. “It is just the silliest thing!”<
br />
“Hairpins?” he suggested helpfully.
“No!” she said, flushing. “It’s just that … well, yesterday I was … irked about the clothing.”
“Ah!”
Her tongue ran on, a little nervously. “You see, I happened to see Mrs. Coats in my room shortly after I left you yesterday afternoon, and she saw that I was … vexed about something and guessed at once that it had to do with the boxes from Mrs. Hemmings in my room.”
“And what scheme did you and Mrs. Coats contrive for my undoing?”
“No scheme!” she said, but added, under his compelling gaze, “Mrs. Coats said that you were a most generous man!”
“I am glad to hear it. And your opinion was—?” he prodded.
Helen had developed a compelling interest in the top button of Mr. Darcy’s coat. As she regarded this absorbing object, she said, “Too generous! I know that we have put the subject of payment behind us, but you have still put me in an awkward position about all the extra clothing you purchased for me. I’d like to send it back to Mrs. Hemmings!”
“Foolish beyond permission, my girl!” he said.
Helen looked quickly up at him to see if the new note she heard in his voice was reflected in his eyes. It seemed to her that the hardness that lurked in their depths had momentarily vanished. Mr. Darcy took her small hand in his strong one. “I should hope that—” he began.
Feeling breathless, she never discovered what it was that Mr. Darcy hoped, for just then a clamour was heard in the hall outside their door. Mr. Darcy dropped her hand—Helen dared to think he did so reluctantly—and moved away from her.
“Is that Mrs. Coats with the tea?” she asked. Although her voice wobbled a little, she was pleased with its normal tone.
“It would be most welcome,” Mr. Darcy said smoothly.
When the door opened, however, the comforting form of Mrs. Coats did not darken the doorway, but that of a tall, loose-limbed gentleman, who looked to be of an age with Mr. Darcy and who was dressed in the first stare of elegance. He wore a driving coat with no less than sixteen capes and large mother-of-pearl buttons, flaunted a spotted Belcher neck cloth and striped waistcoat, fancied a buttonhole in the form of a nosegay, and did not despise the white tops that fashion dictated for his boots, which were polished until he could see his own reflection in the leather.
This natty gentleman checked his stride on the threshold and blinked, incredulous, at what he saw.
“Do my eyes deceive me?” he said involuntarily, blanching a little, as if seeing a ghost. Much as a disbelieving child would do, he dashed his hand across his eyes. “No, by God! Ricky?” he cried, coming forward. “Ricky!” With an air of long-standing familiarity, he crossed the room in several long strides and clapped Mr. Darcy to his breast. “Ricky, in flesh and blood! It is you!”
“It is I,” Mr. Darcy said, returning the embrace with every semblance of pleasure. “And I am just as surprised to see you here, Bev.”
“Surprised to see me—! By the saints, that’s rich!” the gentleman ejaculated, letting his hands drop from Mr. Darcy’s shoulders. “I—we—thought you were—”
“Out of the country?” Mr. Darcy supplied smoothly.
The tall newcomer’s eyes slid for the first time to Helen. She felt two spots of colour flame in her cheeks. He cleared his throat audibly, swallowed once very hard, tried to regain his composure, and said with an unconvincing nonchalance, “Yes! Out of the country! That’s it! Glad to see you’re… back. Yes, damned glad! Can’t tell you how glad I am! When did you get back, old boy? You must tell me what you have been doing this past age. How many years has it been?”
Mr. Darcy averted any further outpouring of joy by holding up his hand. “Bev, you must allow me to present you to Miss Denville’s notice,” he said. “Miss Denville, I am honoured to present you to a particular friend of mine, Beverly Ashton, Lord Honeycutt. As you have no doubt gathered, we have not seen one another for quite some time.”
Lord Honeycutt made Helen an elegant leg, which she acknowledged by dropping a slight curtsy.
“Miss Denville and I have chanced to meet here at the George,” Mr. Darcy continued. “It has, of course, been a source of relief and pleasure to both of us to have found another individual with whom to converse.”
Lord Honeycutt cocked a knowing eye. “Yes, of course! It’s always a relief to run into conversable people when one is travelling. I always find it so,” he said, readily seconding Mr. Darcy’s explanation. “Do you not find it so, Miss Denville?”
“Oh, yes!” Helen agreed. At this point she was remembering that she had warned Mr. Darcy of the possibility that they would meet someone he knew. She experienced no satisfaction in having been proven right.
“Where the devil are we, anyway?” Lord Honeycutt demanded.
“Igglesthorpe, I believe,” Mr. Darcy informed him.
“Upon Inkleford,” Helen supplied.
“Never heard of it,” his lordship said with an indifference that would have dashed Mr. Vest’s fondest hopes.
“And what brings you here, Bev?” Mr. Darcy asked.
“Might ask you the same thing, Ricky,” Lord Honeycutt returned, and withdrew an enamelled box from his coat pocket. He opened it with a practised flick of the thumb and offered his friend some snuff.
Mr. Darcy declined. “I shall certainly oblige you with an answer to your question, Bev, when you have answered mine.”
“Ever the same Ricky!” Lord Honeycutt laughed, having mastered his initial shock at seeing his friend. “Fact of the matter is, broke an axle on my racing curricle not above an hour ago a few miles down the road. Not quite sure how it happened, but passed a farmer one minute and landed in the ditch the next! Got a ride in with the farmer on his cob,” he explained with every expression of distaste. Then he added reflectively, “Not but it wasn’t a capital thing for him to do after I, ah, aired my opinions of his driving.”
“What are you doing with your racing curricle in these parts, Bev? Has the Four Horse Club finally sent you to grass for your cow-handed handling of the ribbons?”
Lord Honeycutt stiffened in defence of his driving. “No such thing! A bet, dear boy. With FitzHugh. Well, you know what he is!”
“Still kicking up larks, Bev?” Mr. Darcy said affectionately.
“Couldn’t refuse this one! FitzHugh laid me a monkey I couldn’t beat him to Bath, and he gave me a half-day’s head start! Thought I had this one in the bag! Knew a short cut! But I’m all to pieces now!”
“Perhaps I can help you, and you haven’t lost that much time yet,” Mr. Darcy offered. “We can take my chaise to find the nearest wainwright, if there is not one in Igglesthorpe, and get you on your way.”
“Travelling by chaise?” Lord Honeycutt digested this. “Whose? But I thought—”
Mr. Darcy intervened calmly. “It belonged to one Geoffrey Pomeroy.”
“Driving Pomeroy’s chaise?” his lordship asked in puzzlement. “Don’t understand you, my boy!”
“I won it,” Mr. Darcy explained.
“Won it?”
“Just a turn of the cards. Nothing to signify.”
“You did right, dear old boy.” Lord Honeycutt nodded in approval. “Old Pomeroy’s a perfect—” he glanced briefly at Helen “—gudgeon. No doubt deserved to lose it.”
“That is what I thought, too,” Mr. Darcy said. “How do you come to know Pomeroy? I did not think that one met him in the usual places.”
Lord Honeycutt coughed delicately into his fist. “He’s related by marriage to one of m’mother’s sisters,” he said. “Not my fault!”
“No need to apologize, Bev! We all have some queer nabs sprouting off the family tree. Don’t give it another thought!”
“I prefer not to!” the tall gentleman returned. A thought struck him. “But how can you go around the country in Pomeroy’s chaise? The crests, dear boy!”
Mr. Darcy mentioned that he had had the crests removed.
“Very w
ise!” his lordship said. “Wouldn’t want to be seen with Pomeroy’s crest. Come to think of it, I don’t know why Pomeroy would want to be seen with it, either. An ugly thing, that. It’s a hedgehog, you know!”
“So I noticed,” Mr. Darcy replied.
“Can’t think how the hedgehog came to represent the family, but so it is! Ridiculous, I call it.”
Helen pointed out, as her contribution to the discussion, that one was not always in a position to control what one’s ancestors did.
“Just so!” his lordship replied, acknowledging the truth of this. “Still, all the same, he should apply to Prinny to have the thing altered! Horrible!”
Mr. Darcy diverted Lord Honeycutt’s mind from falling into dismal reflection on the poor taste of Pomeroys past by suggesting that they learn whether Igglesthorpe boasted a wainwright. Much to Helen’s relief, Lord Honeycutt was also thereby diverted from enquiring further into the coincidence that had brought Mr. Darcy and Miss Denville together at the George.
“Quite right, Ricky!” his lordship said. “You always were one for action. Must be off! Can’t let FitzHugh walk away with the honours. No, by God! Doesn’t deserve it! Your servant, Miss Denville.”
The two old friends left the room and soon discovered, by the simple expedient of asking Mr. Coats, that the local wainwright was laid up with a broken arm. There was an excellent one to be found, however, in Queen’s Porsley.
“Let us look for Keithley, then, without delay,” Mr. Darcy suggested as they emerged into the yard.
“Is Keithley still with you? Glad to hear it,” his friend said. “But I can’t believe it is you. Never expected to see you here. Never expected to see you anywhere!”
“But here I am, against all your expectations.”
“Yet I thought, we all thought—”
“I am aware of what you thought.”
“Then what’s your lay?”
“I have a desire to be a free man, to be myself again,” Mr. Darcy said cryptically.
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