“We have an audience, it would seem.” Dy matched Darcy’s advance but made no motion to offer the attack. “I had not anticipated such interest. Unfortunate, that!”

“You know Genuardi?” Darcy flexed his wrist, causing the tip of his foil to trace out tight circles in the air between them.

“Everyone knows Genuardi.”

Oh, how he hated it when Dy played his obtuse games with him! The irritation decided him. Springing to the attack, he took first priority, pressing Dy back several steps before being blocked and parried. Brougham’s riposte was effective but unremarkable, exactly what Darcy had expected from a good swordsman who had been away from the sport for several years. He blocked Dy’s thrust, parried, and pressed his attack back upon him, but this time he did not force him back as far before being blocked. Brougham’s parry was nicely done, and the first part of his attack was a move they had learned and practiced together in their university days. He deflected it easily but was met with it again, this time accompanied by a new twist of Dy’s wrist and body that greatly increased its effectiveness. He avoided it by a hairsbreadth and fell back one, then two steps.

“Touché!” the fencing master declared. “To His Lordship!”

Brougham drew back from his victory immediately and saluted him. “You are underestimating me, Fitz! I expect it from others, but not from you. I should not have gotten that one.”

“You will not get it again, I promise you,” Darcy bit out and returned to position.

“En garde!” Genuardi called them back together. This time, Darcy waited, intent upon observing everything possible about Dy’s stance and style, but his opponent offered no clues, merely smiling and holding his foil up before him in a desultory fashion. Darcy grimaced back, then lunged into first with a ferocity that swept them both into a display of arm that elicited shouts of admiration from the onlookers as they swiftly traded right-of-way, lunge, and parry.

“Touché! To Signore Darcy!” The blood was singing through his veins as he gave Dy back his salute. They were excellently matched, and it felt…good!

“Up to your weight that time?” Dy threw at him before returning to position.

“More what I expected of you, yes. Quite good.” His smile remained as ever, but as Dy turned away, Darcy had the sudden, uncomfortable feeling that more than his swordsmanship was being measured. It was a deuced curious sensation that he had felt more than once in the two years since their friendship had been resumed. He turned at position and looked back into Dy’s face, only to meet eyes that were focused upon him with a piercing intensity. Darcy brought up his foil.

“En garde!” Their third bout was like the previous one: swift, powerful, elegant. Darcy found that his friend answered him stroke for stroke, and the allotted time was almost gone before the tip of Dy’s foil caught him just under his heart. “Touché! To His Lordship!” The entire school and club were gathered at the sidelines now, and the response was deafening.

As they exchanged salutes, Darcy leaned toward his friend. “And where have you been training and not breathing a word of it? If that had been swords and serious —”

“You would still be whole and hale,” Brougham interrupted, the smile gone. His eyes bore into Darcy’s. “A man must have a heart to be slain by that stroke.”

“What?” Darcy’s brows shot up in surprise, but the fire he had seen in his friend’s eyes had already been replaced with his habitual nonchalance.

“You must forgive me, my friend, but I can spare you only one more bout. A pressing prior engagement, you understand. This little tête-à-tête” — he sighed — “was not on my calendar for today.” He offered him a small bow and sauntered back to position, leaving Darcy to stare after him in dawning comprehension. Dy was angry with him! He returned to his mark in some confusion, his mind casting about for an explanation. Why? And what was this about having no heart? Turning back to face him, Darcy went into position immediately. The noise of the onlookers quieted now that it could be seen that both of them were ready. He took a deep breath. No manners, no conscience, and, now no heart! See what you have begun, Miss Elizabeth Bennet? He snorted bitterly. All that remains now is a Greek chorus!

“En garde!” Signore Genuardi’s command cracked through the now silent hall. This time, Dy did not wait for Darcy to decide whether to take first opportunity but came at him directly with force and speed. Not only he but those gathered to watch as well could see that Brougham’s sword work was in earnest, and Darcy had never felt so hammered. If that was the way of it, then so be it! he resolved as he parried Dy’s lunge, taking the right-of-way from him and setting to. He put every move, every feint, every twist of body or wrist that was at his command into his attack and had the satisfaction of driving Dy back almost to his mark. The exhilarating sense of his body as a finely tuned and responsive instrument returned, along with an exquisite timing that seemed to send every thrust exactly where he wished it to go. Although Dy had successfully avoided the tip of his foil thus far, he knew that he was forcing from him the employment of every shred of knowledge and skill he possessed. Back and forth they worked, and the onlookers could contain their appreciation no longer. Shouts of encouragement mixed with those of astonishment as the time ticked forward with neither man scoring a hit amid the dazzling display. But Darcy, wholly focused on his goal, neither saw nor heard the uproar. Suddenly, there was an opening.

“Touché!” Genuardi could barely be heard, but those around him took up the cry. “To Signore Darcy!” The hall seemed in chaos, but the two men on whom the excitement had centered stood apart from it, their breaths coming in gasping unison as, with an awkward caution, they eyed each other. Slowly, a reluctant smile spread across Dy’s features, and he brought his foil up in salute. “Well done, old sod! You might make a swordsman yet!”

“Ha!” Darcy laughed, returning the gesture. “And I might say the same of you! Two to each of us — not a decisive outcome!” Then he turned a sober regard upon his friend. “Are you going to tell me what this was all about?”

Dy looked away. Which one will it be who answers the friend or the fool? Darcy wondered.

Darcy wondered, “I stopped in at Erewile House this morning to see whether you had recovered from your jaunt in Kent,” the friend replied, turning to look him full in the face, “only to find Miss Darcy alone and in very low spirits.” He paused and took a deep breath. “Whatever it was happened in Kent, Fitz, I beg you will not give Miss Darcy the grief of it! She is all concern for you, while you behave with her in a shabby, patronizing manner nursing your Kentish grievances.”

“Brougham!” Darcy growled. Who was he to —

Ignoring his interruption, Dy continued, his voice low but exceedingly clear. “She will say nothing against you, nor would she even if she felt herself misused, she respects you so well.” He shook his head slightly. “But I am under no such compunction and take leave to tell you that, as much as you are my friend, there is more swordplay where this display came from should you continue to behave toward Miss Darcy in a manner so careless of her feelings!”

“You take much upon yourself!” Darcy drew himself back. “You step beyond the bounds, Brougham, and are quite out of your —”

“Am I, Fitz?” Brougham looked searchingly into his face. “Then knowing me as you do, p’rhaps you ought to ask yourself why I have taken such an uncharacteristically fatiguing step on your behalf!” With that, Dy threw the foil to a waiting servant and left the hall.

“The fox crying sour grapes, Darcy?” Monmouth appeared, stepping ahead of the crowd coming to congratulate the swordsmen, and cocked his head toward Brougham’s retreating figure.

“No,” Darcy replied absently, staring after his friend. “More like a Greek chorus.”


In a pique of equal parts irritation and curiosity, Darcy followed after Brougham a quarter hour later when he had acknowledged those who had taken his part in the contest and retrieved his clothing. Dy had left the hall immediately, it appeared, without stopping to freshen or resume his usual impeccably garbed state. Where would he have taken himself? Hurriedly buttoning his coat after tying his neckcloth into something presentable, Darcy left the fencing hall and hailed a cab.

“Boodle’s,” he called up to the driver as he leapt into the vehicle. If the story of a prior engagement had been merely the tale he suspected it to be, it was likely that Brougham would have withdrawn to their club, expecting that Darcy would follow. If not, well, he had no intention of chasing after his friend all over London. He would take his leisure among the gentlemen of his club and wait for a more opportune time to corner Dy. More to the point, he admitted to himself, he was still in nowise ready to return home.

The ride to the address was not a long one, hardly providing him time enough to consider the meaning behind his friend’s provocative words. It was clear that Brougham did not approve of the manner in which he was keeping himself from Georgiana, causing her distress over his behavior and concern for his health and the well-being, he supposed, of his soul. But what the Devil business was it of his! Dy’s actions were suspiciously like those of a lover! Darcy shifted uneasily, dismayed that the thought should arise once more. Had Dy not taken his hand and sworn that he was no danger to his friend’s sister? And then there was the matter of the differences in their ages and temperaments…“No, it could not be!” he assured himself aloud. There had to be another reason. It must be that Dy had come to regard Georgiana as the sister he never had while he had the charge of her. His friend was warning Darcy that his behavior toward her was not what Brougham, in his severely limited experience, considered “brotherly.” Darcy leaned back into the cushions. Yes, that must be it!

Free now to turn his attention from the messenger to the message, he could only concede that Brougham was right; and he had known that immediately. He should have more care for Georgiana’s tender feelings — had he not always done so? — but at present, he found himself reluctant to act on the admission. That unwillingness, as so many other thoughts and emotions he had experienced this week, struck him as curiously unlike himself. Smothering the thought quickly, Darcy looked out on the exclusive shops and clubs of fashionable London. Things would come about…in time, and when he had gotten himself to rights again and Miss Elizabeth Bennet was a distant memory, they could all return to the way it had been, to the life he had planned before he had lost his senses in the parlor at Hunsford’s parsonage.

Once inside Boodle’s hallowed halls, he crossed the black-and-white marble-tiled entrance and hurried up one of the broad staircases to the clubrooms beyond. A quick survey revealed that Brougham was not among their denizens, although others of Darcy’s acquaintance were there, and he was hailed with enthusiasm by more than one gentleman as he made his way through the rooms.

“Darcy.” Sir Hugh Goforth nodded to him as he passed through one of the billiard rooms. “That friend of yours was looking for you.”

“Sir Hugh.” Darcy stopped and bowed. “Brougham, was it?”

“No, no — have not seen Brougham for an age. Bingley, I think the name was. Said he was taking his sister over to see your sister, or something like. Was hoping you would be about, I gather.”

Darcy almost flushed with the ire that seized him as he thanked Sir Hugh for the information. Bingley — whose headlong flight into love had started the whole miserable affair and whose chestnuts he had drawn out of the fire only to be thoroughly burnt himself! Darcy let out a heavy breath. Well and so, it appeared that Bingley and his sister had returned from their annual trip to Yorkshire and were once again in Town. If he had bothered to look at the stack of calling cards Hinchcliffe always laid so precisely upon his desk, he might already have been in possession of the knowledge and sent round a note forestalling any thoughts Charles might have entertained of an imminent visit. As it was…

“I say, Darcy!” Sir Hugh called from the other side of the billiard table. “Devereaux’s horse is running, and he must as well. Care for a game?”