Here at Albuera, Darcy had come closer. The battle had been hard-fought and exceedingly bloody. Darcy ended the day with a hole in his hat and a second in his coat. The first had never touched him, but the second had been fired from rather close range. He had twisted away to avoid it, but the musket ball had creased his side and the resulting fall was hard enough to injure two of his ribs. Fitzwilliam had poured nearly an entire bottle of his good port over Darcy’s wound before allowing the surgeon to sew it closed and bind it. It had hurt like the blazes—still did. Nothing he could not suffer through, but the pain kept him from resting properly.
“I am well.” He untied the ribbon holding his letters together.
Fitzwilliam frowned but said nothing.
Darcy noted the seals. Several letters from his sister and great-uncle, and one from his Uncle Matlock, which had been franked. That was odd. The earl typically corresponded with Fitzwilliam, who passed along any family news worth hearing.
“Your father has written to me.”
“Why?” Fitzwilliam asked, only half attending.
“I do not know.” Curious, Darcy broke the seal on the earl’s letter first.
The date was relatively recent, and the salutation began with the use of his Christian name, which the earl had not used since the first time Darcy returned from school as a boy. He leaned forward, a shock of pain lancing his side. He grunted.
5 May 1811
Fitzwilliam, I am charged with relating some news to you. Your Great-Uncle Darcy has not been well these past years owing to the usual ailments of age, which no doubt you have either known or have suspected. I offer you my condolences, for he breathed his last a week past.
Darcy sighed. He lifted a hand to run it through his hair, but another sharp pain in his ribs made him gasp. He lowered his arm slowly to his side.
“You arenotwell,” Fitzwilliam said, his voice low. “Take the laudanum and allow me to give the general your regrets.”
“It is not that,” Darcy replied, ignoring the request. He would not take laudanum if he could avoid it. “My Great-Uncle Darcy has died.”
“Oh,” Fitzwilliam said. Darcy glanced at his cousin, whose brow was lined with a genuine regret. “He was quite old, as I recall, but I rather expected he would outlive us all.”
“Seventy-five, and he very nearly did,” Darcy said with a grim sort of humour. “I shall miss him.”
“I shall miss you reading his letters out to me,” Fitzwilliam agreed. “He had a brilliant mind.”
Darcy nodded. “Your father wrote to send his condolences.”
“How does Georgie fare?”
“I do not know. Perhaps your father will say.” Darcy returned his attention to the letter in his hand. “Here it is.” He read the next part aloud.
Georgiana is saddened, but your great-uncle had not the relationship with her that he did with you. He told me once that she was well cared for with us and that you were the one for whom he was anxious. She wears a black ribbon in her bonnet and has been to church to pray for his soul. I attended the funeral with Fane and gentlemen came from all around. Many knew him from his tenure as a judge, but more knew him as the master of Pemberley, a magistrate, and a fine man. You would have been very proud to see how well he was regarded.
“I do wish I had been able to see him these past years,” Darcy murmured. “I had not met him since immediately before we arrived in Portugal.”
“He understood you had your duties, Darcy,” Fitzwilliam said.
Darcy nodded. “True. I wish it anyway.” He continued to read, silently now.
I was asked to sit in on the reading of the will, which I thought odd. The solicitor said that he merely required a proxy for you and a trustee for your sister, and that the judge had requested it be me. I agreed, of course, supposing the man had left you both something to ease your way. I was pleased that he had remembered you.
If you are not sitting down, my boy, let me urge you to do so before you read what comes next.
Darcy was already seated, but he wondered why his uncle Matlock would insist upon it. It was kind of his great-uncle to remember him and his sister, but he could not imagine it would be a great deal of money. He continued reading.
Nephew, your great-uncle has not, as I had supposed, left you a small bequest that you can put in the four percents to add a little extra to your income.
He has left you everything, or very near it.
Most of the fortune. The townhouse in London. Pemberley itself. They are yours.
There was a ringing in Darcy’s ears as loud as though he had been standing next to a cannon when it was fired. The hand that held the letter shook slightly.