Page 53 of Mr Darcy Bets on Love

"Theodosia Rowe," he said at last.

Darcy did not answer.

"You have not said it," said Richard. "Not once, in all that. You have walked round it like a dog round a hedgehog. But that is where everything points, Darcy. The lady who wrote to Caroline. The lady very near my mother. The lady who was in the green room. The one who made friends with your wife the week she came to town." He drank. "I have known Theo since she was six. She used to follow you about at Matlock like a spaniel. You never noticed. You never noticed anybody."

"Everyone keeps telling me that."

"Because it is true. She wanted you, old fellow. My mother wanted it for her. Theo has twelve hundred a year and a title that is only a courtesy, and she has been out six seasons, and she is twenty-four. You were her best chance and she knew it. And then you went into Hertfordshire for six weeks and came back with a parson's-daughter sort of girl from nowhere, and married her before anyone had time to blink."

"Elizabeth is not a parson's daughter."

"No. Worse. She is a girl you love." Richard set down his glass. "But I do not know it was Theo. Nor do you. And my mother will not hear a word against her without proof. Not from you, not from me, not from Lady Catherine. She would go to her grave defending her. That is the trouble with Theo. She makes people love her."

They sat in silence. The fire hissed.

"The Bow Street man came this afternoon," said Darcy. "He has found the printer of The Tattler's Glass. A man named Coker, in Salisbury Court, off Fleet Street. Coker prints whatever he is paid to print, and asks no questions. The paragraphs come to him by hand, from a boy who works in the shop. The boy gets them from somebody in the street, every Monday evening, at the Bell in Salisbury Court, and brings them in with the money."

Richard's eyes came up.

"Every Monday," he said.

"Every Monday. The Glass comes out on Tuesday mornings."

"And today is Sunday." Richard stood up. He was steaming gently in front of the fire, like a horse. "Then tomorrow evening, Cousin, you and I are going to drink some very bad ale at the Bell in Salisbury Court, and watch the door."

"I had thought of that."

"Of course you had. You simply wanted me to say it, so that when your wife asks, you can tell her it was my idea." Richard grinned, and for a moment looked about fifteen. "Does she know?"

"She knows," said Darcy. "There are no secrets in this house. We have agreed. She wanted to come."

Richard laughed aloud. "To the Bell in Salisbury Court? Good God. What did you say?"

"I said no. She said that was very tyrannical of me. And then she said that if I did not come home by two o'clock she would send Lady Catherine after me in the barouche." Darcy found he was smiling despite everything. "I believe she would."

"I like her more every time I hear of her," said Richard. He finished his brandy, and yawned, enormously. "Now show me a bed, before I fall asleep on your hearthrug like one of your dogs. And tomorrow, find me a coat that makes me look like a clerk. I left my disguises in Salamanca."

#

The Bell, Salisbury Court. Monday, 6th April

The Bell was low and brown and full of smoke, and the ale was every bit as bad as Richard had promised. Darcy sat in a corner by the window in a borrowed coat of Pearce's that was too short in the sleeves, with a tankard he had not touched in front of him, and watched the door.

Richard, across the table, looked entirely at home. He had rumpled his hair and loosened his neckcloth and put his boots up on the bench, and he was eating a pork pie with every sign of enjoyment and talking cheerfully to the potboy about the price of oats. Darcy, who had never in his life been inside a tavern like this, felt as conspicuous as a peacock in a henhouse.

"Stop looking at the door," said Richard, through the pie.

"I am supposed to be watching it."

"Watch it without looking at it. Look at me. Look at your ale. Look bored. You are a clerk from the Temple whose master has docked his wages, and you are drowning your sorrows." He swallowed. "And for God's sake drink something. Nobody comes to the Bell to sit."

Darcy drank. It was worse than he had imagined.

At a quarter to eight a boy came in. He was perhaps twelve, thin and quick, with inky fingers and a printer's paper cap, and he went straight to the settle by the fire and sat down on it and waited, swinging his legs. Richard's eyes flicked to him once and away.

At eight o'clock the door opened again, and Wickham came in.

Darcy had known it would be him. He had known it since White's. It made no difference. The sight of that easy figure in the doorway, the careless smile, the fair hair curling over the collar of a coat Darcy was fairly sure he had paid for, turned his stomach over like a blow. He felt his hand close on the handle of the tankard and made it open.