When they had gone, Darcy took a deep breath and tried to control his own temper. “Tell me about your wife.”
Theophilus rubbed his chin and stared out the window. “My wife was told she had a disease, one that would eventually take her from me. I sold my practice to take her to Bath, then to the seashore. I used the money to pay for doctors who never knew what to do for her. She was in a great deal of pain.”
Darcy attempted to put himself in the man’s place. What would he do if he lost Elizabeth? The very thought made him ill. “You have my condolences. However, if your practice was a large one, you could hardly have spent it all on such measures.”
Theophilus looked away. “I was mourning my wife, not in my right mind to be conducting business, and I allowed myself to be convinced to invest in what appeared to be a thriving enterprise.”
The man’s emphasis on “appeared” made clear what had transpired. “More scheme than investment, I take it.”
The man’s expression was grim, sour. “All scheme and no investment. A barrister all my life, fleeced by the poorest excuse for a swindler that ever existed. I was humiliated.”
“Why are you telling me this when you could not approach your own brother?”
“I now have nothing left to lose but my life.” He stood and wandered to the shelves, touching a few of the books. “Horatio was a better man than me in every way. He lost his wife and child when he was still a young man, buthedid not devolve into mindless grieving. No, Horatio mourned, but never turned his back onhisresponsibilities. He was never caught off his guard. I could not tell him I had been so undone as to lose everything I had spent my life building. He never did discover it.”
Darcy shook his head. “Yet in attempting to hide this incident from him, you indulged in behaviours that drove him away regardless. You kept asking him for money to cover your debts until he feared he could no longer depend upon you to be Pemberley’s caretaker.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“He mentioned it in his journals.”
Theophilus’s eyes widened. “You read his private papers?”
“I was searching for information about you. Do you wish to know what I discovered? You may read it in your brother’s own words, if breaching his privacy does not touch yourhonour.” He moved to his desk and withdrew the journal he had found in his chambers. “Your brother would have changed the will back to favour you, had you come to him and tried to learn.”
The man snatched the book from Darcy’s hand.
“I have marked the entry,” Darcy said.
Theophilus looked at the pages before him. When he finished reading, he closed his eyes, and Darcy perceived that the man had at last felt some sort of shame.
“Horatio wanted me to come to Pemberley,” Theophilus said quietly. “I could not. He would have known something was amiss and interrogated me until he knew all.”
“He had certainly mastered the art,” Darcy admitted, thinking of Horatio Darcy’s cool, amused questioning of two young boys who denied being involved in mischief. “What did you do instead of accepting your brother’s invitation to Pemberley?”
“I went to London. There I began to play cards and made a good deal of money.” He smiled. “Until recently I have been flush. I am very good at cards.”
“Yet you are here, requesting funds.”
Theophilus shrugged. “Other men were better.”
“Who is chasing you?” Darcy asked.
“Who is not chasing me?” Theophilus said. “It might be easier to list them.”
“How much?”
His great-uncle was ready with his answer. “A little over two thousand pounds.”
Darcy could not hide his surprise. “That is a substantial sum.”
“I am aware,” his great-uncle said wryly. “Nonetheless, I must pay it, or they will kill me.”
“Why should I save the man who wished me dead?” Darcy asked, genuinely curious.
“Horatio would not have wanted me to die this way.”
“He would have wished less to have me die at your hands. Evans did not care who else died so long as I did. My cousin, my friend, my friend’s daughters—they were all in mortal danger because of you.”