The butler lowered his eyes. “Sir—”
But Darcy was already moving.
He crossed the hall with long furious strides, Bingley following instinctively behind him. A pair of servants flattenedthemselves hastily against the walls as Darcy passed. One footman nearly dropped an empty bottle in his haste to escape the corridor.
The drawing room doors stood partially open, and Darcy shoved them open wide. Wickham looked up from the sofa in astonishment. For one brief second, genuine shock crossed his face, then it vanished beneath lazy insolence.
“Well,” he drawled, half reclining against velvet cushions with his cravat untied and waistcoat hanging open, “Cambridge finally released you.”
A woman sat beside him wrapped in scarlet silk so low-cut it scarcely qualified as clothing. Jewelry glittered against her throat while several empty wine bottles cluttered the table nearby.
The room itself was destroyed.
Cards littered the carpet. Candle wax dripped across polished furniture. One chair had been overturned entirely.
Darcy took in the scene silently, then he crossed the room and seized Wickham by the collar hard enough to yank him halfway from the sofa.
The woman screamed.
“Get out,” Darcy snarled.
Wickham recovered quickly enough to sneer. “Careful, Darcy. This is still my residence as much as—”
Darcy slammed him bodily into the nearest table hard enough to rattle the bottles.
“No,” he said with terrifying calm, “it is not.”
The prostitute scrambled immediately to her feet, gathering scattered stockings and ribbons with panicked haste.
Wickham shoved Darcy backward angrily. “Your father intended—”
“My father is dead.”
The words cracked through the room like a whip.
Silence followed.
Even Wickham hesitated.
Darcy’s face had gone cold in a way Bingley had never seen before—not emotional, not wild, but utterly controlled.
“You had no authority to conceal his death from me.”
Wickham recovered enough to laugh shortly. “Oh, do stop dramatizing. You would have arrived eventually.”
Darcy stared at him.
Then, very deliberately, he removed his gloves finger by finger.
Bingley wisely stepped backward.
“You gave orders inmyhousehold,” Darcy said quietly. “You entertained prostitutes undermyroof whilemyfather lay scarcely buried. You drank through his cellar and behaved like a prince awaiting coronation.”
Wickham’s expression darkened. “The will has not been read yet. You do not know if this is really yours. Your father promised I would receive an inheritance and be taken care of.”
Darcy gave a sharp humorless laugh.
“Oh, undoubtedly.” He stepped closer again. “My father was a fool where you are concerned. I expect there is money somewhere in the will.”
