“Forgive me for staring,” Wickham said, with easy cordiality, “but I believe I glimpsed your sister’s name.”
Darcy did not answer. The clerk took the coin he offered, stamped the paper, and moved the letter aside with the rest. Only when it was done did Darcy step back from the counter.
Wickham’s expression remained open, almost companionable. “You must be writing to dear Georgiana. I do hope nothing is amiss.”
“Nothing urgent,” Darcy said. “I asked her to locate a particular volume of verse among my father’s effects and have it sent on to the London house. It is one I recall with some fondness.”
Wickham smiled, as though the explanation had confirmed something agreeable rather than deflected suspicion. “Ah. Poetry. That is reassuring. I had half-feared you were assembling more academic authorities.”
Darcy glanced at him. “On what subject?”
“Oh—anything that inspires people to speak with confidence when none is warranted.” Wickham adjusted his grip on his hat and turned back toward the door. “What luck to find you here, for I came on the same errand, as it happens. Just posted a letter of my own.”
They stepped out together into the street. Wickham fell easily into stride beside Darcy, matching his pace without effort.
“Speaking of letters,” Wickham went on, “I should think that you will have heard from your aunt Lady Catherine by now.”
Darcy’s expression did not change. “On what grounds?”
Wickham’s brows lifted, mild amusement returning. “On the grounds that Mr Collins has found himself in possession of an audience. A dangerous condition for any man inclined to explanation.”
“He explains what he does not understand,” Darcy said. “And he does so loudly.”
Wickham’s smile thinned—not unkindly. “Then Lady Catherine will already be in receipt of a very complete account.”
“There appears to be little I can do on the matter.”
“Oh, but you know how she is,” Wickham added. “Once a notion reaches her, it rarely improves with repetition.”
Darcy only grunted.
“You have my sympathy, Darcy. Truly. It is no small thing to have one’s movements weighed and measured by people who mistake expectation for entitlement.”
“That is not my concern.”
“No? Then you are fortunate. Most men I know would find it exhausting.”
Darcy stopped at the corner where his horse was tied. Hopefully, this was where their paths would part. “I do not concern myself with my aunt’s speculations. Nor with the inventions of those who repeat them.”
Wickham smiled faintly. “A sensible resolution.” He hesitated a moment, then went on, as though recalling something long dismissed. “Though—if one were inclined to indulge the nonsense for a moment—I once heard your uncle say to your father that such matters, if they were ever to be finished at all, were best finished on the ground that gave rise to them. Not discussed from afar. Settled, as it were, by standing where the talk began. My memory on the matter might be faint, but I recall something… I believe it began with a ‘C,’ did it not?”
Darcy sighed in exasperation. “Ambiguous nonsense. I have heard it a thousand times, and never with any confidence in its veracity.”
“Ambiguous it may be, but I doubt it is nonsense. Is that not why you came to Hertfordshire just now?”
Darcy’s eyes narrowed. “I am here because Mr Bingley invited me.”
“Come, Darcy, even you cannot be so obtuse! You were a fair Classic when we were in school. Dredged up odd little old things our beaks never even cared to learn about, did you not?”
Darcy looped the rein over his horse’s neck. “I fail to see how my academic interests ten years ago have any bearing on the present.”
“Well, if evenIrecall it, then surely your memory is a fair sight more exact. One must look away from the Roman road. The places that were never quite claimed by one authority or another. Hertfordshire has been pointed to often enough in that context—close to the lands of the ancient Celts, close to old Londinium, but never properly either.”
Darcy’s expression cooled. “That is geography made to serve superstition.”
“Or gossip,” Wickham returned easily. “Plenty of that these days, particularly with the unseasonably warm autumn—unique, I daresay, to Hertfordshire this year.”
Darcy ground his teeth. This was all becoming rather tiresome. “Ifit ever meant anything at all, which is doubtful, it could have referred to any point between Northumberland and Kent.”
