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“She is not forward.” The words came out sharper than Darcy intended. “She is merely⁠—”

“Merely what? Do tell us. You have spent more time in her company than any of us. What is she, precisely, that has the great Mr. Darcy riding through mud to attend the reading of her uncle’s will?”

“She has much to consider, and her sisters are in a state of uproar at being overlooked; I suspect that contributed to their mother’s collapse.” Darcy finished his brandy. “If you will excuse me, I have correspondence awaiting my attention.”

“Now look here, Darcy.” Mr. Hurst rose from his chair and retrieved the almost empty brandy decanter. “With eighty thousand pounds coming your way, surely you will commit to a share in Weston’s hunting box.”

“Not this year,” Darcy said, edging toward the door. “I have too many obligations to make use of the box.”

“You mean a new wife,” Mrs. Hurst said. “Surely she will allow you time to hunt like other gentlemen. Unless Miss Eliza intends to keep you on a very short lead.”

“I paid last season and scarcely found the time. Circumstances are altered.”

“How so?” Hurst squinted at him with the glassy focus of a man who had not yet drunk enough to miss the implications. “Weston won’t like having to ask somebody else. He takes a refusal badly when he knows a man can afford it. Unless—” He paused, weighing the decanter as though calculating its value. “Unless your circumstances have changed rather more dramatically than a mere engagement would explain?”

“I no longer prefer to hunt,” Darcy said. “Pemberley requires more attention than my steward can manage.”

“What is the point of being a gentleman when you get no leisure?” Hurst finished the brandy and jiggled the decanter at Bingley, who rang for a servant to refill it. “Hire a more capable steward. Marry the smuggler heiress and let her run Pemberley. Our club will be most disappointed with your absence from the hounds.”

“You may tell Weston I have no intention of paying for his disappointment.” Darcy forced his voice level. “He will find another subscriber. If he cannot, that is his concern, not mine.”

“Very well, very well. No need to bite my head off.” Hurst resumed his seat as the footman replenished his glass. “I merely thought, with eighty thousand pounds poised to fall into your lap, you might be disposed to generosity. But I see fortune has not yet mellowed your temper.”

The drawing room door opened, and Bingley’s butler announced, “Sir William Lucas. He says it is a matter of some urgency.”

“Urgency!” Louisa pulled a wrap around her and sank into the sofa to appear suitably ill. “What could the magistrate of Hertfordshire possibly want with you, Darcy?”

“Could it be failure to catch Mrs. Bennet and causing a mortal wound?” Caroline hooted as if she were the last soprano in an opera.

Sir William, however, bustled into the room, breathless, his whiskers bristling and his complexion flushed with exertion.

“Mr. Darcy! Mr. Bingley! I came as soon as Charlotte told me. What extraordinary circumstances! I could scarcely credit it when I heard, but Charlotte was there, you know, directly after the solicitor departed, comforting the family after that dreadful business with Mrs. Bennet.”

“How is Mrs. Bennet?” Bingley asked. “Darcy said there was blood.”

“A great deal of blood, I am told, though the wound itself was not deep. Head wounds, you know—they bleed spectacularly but heal quickly. She will be well, I am assured, though the household was in considerable disarray when Charlotte arrived.”

“Disarray?” Caroline’s voice carried a sharp edge of anticipation. “Surely not. Mrs. Bennet must be in transports of joy. Her second daughter engaged to ten thousand a year—what more could a mother of five unmarried girls possibly desire?”

Sir William’s expression flickered with a wrinkled brow that might have been confusion. “Engaged? I do not think—that is, Charlotte did not mention⁠—”

“Mr. Darcy has not yet proposed,” Louisa said smoothly. “But surely it is only a matter of time. The will is quite clear, is it not? Miss Eliza inherits eighty thousand pounds upon her marriage to Mr. Darcy. They have but to set a date and engage the rector.”

“Ah, but there is a clause.” Sir William’s index finger wagged as he realized he knew something the rest of the room did not. “Charlotte had every particular of it from Mrs. Bennet and has thought it through most carefully. I shall always credit my dear wife for hiring the governess. The Bennet girls, you are aware, have never had a governess, but my Charlotte… so sensible and well-learned.”

“What is the clause?” Mr. Hurst, who had never seemed to notice any other drawing-room conversation, seemed uniquely piqued by the will. “Is there another condition?”

“Yes, and the particulars are the very cause of Mrs. Bennet’s lamentable mishap. The Bennet household is in greater disarray than a torn beehive. Charlotte could scarcely make herself heard. Elizabeth was nearly as agitated as her mother, bewailing the impropriety of a forced marriage; Lydia inquired whether she might change her name from Lydia to Elizabeth, and Mary—dear Mary—recited proverbs on the perils of wealth and the difficulty of passing through the eye of a needle.”

“And Jane—Miss Bennet?” Bingley bleated, all sheepeyed and doleful. “Is Miss Jane Bennet well?”

“As well as any Bennet could be,” Sir William reported, rubbing his hands with relish. “She is applying lemon water and smelling salts to her mother. Such a dear girl—so patient and kind, that one—while her mother bemoans that Mr. Bennet’s brother—oh, she blames Mr. Bennet for not counseling his brother on the will, but how could he? I heard the brothers were not on speaking terms.”

“Sir William!” Caroline shouted, jutting her chin and ostrich feather at the man who had been knighted for a speech at St. James. “What are the complications? What happens if Darcy does not marry Miss Elizabeth? Who is the next heir?”

Darcy sincerely wished he had not coveted that first swallow of brandy. Why had he even approached the drawing room, believing it unoccupied? It was an ambush, plain and clear, and thus he marched to Hurst, pried the decanter from him again, and poured himself another full glass.

“Why, you’re looking at him.” Sir William said, though all three gentlemen were within his view. “If Elizabeth Bennet does not marry Fitzwilliam Darcy, then the entire fortune goes to⁠—”