The drawing-room came alive as la Croix and her cheerful chippies wasted no time taking full advantage of Darcy's hospitality. With no degree of shyness let alone shame, they filled their glasses and plates while chatting amongst themselves and their beloved "Thorny," who played the better host to them in earnest than Darcy could in pretense. Propping himself against one piece of furniture or another, his infirmity was otherwise forgotten as he took absolute delight in their company, making them feel welcome, even special, rather like peeresses at a ball than Incognitas on holiday from their parlors and paramours, there to take refuge from a storm that began to rage almost as soon as the doors were closed behind them.

"Let them eat," Darcy muttered when Fred approached, knowing precisely what the man was thinking and not up for hearing a word of it. Fred did no more than sigh and walk away to his own corner, presumably settled on waiting for however long it took for Darcy to think things through.

Darcy had placed himself in a spot for optimum assessment, allowing not one in the room to escape his notice, and forbidding himself to socialize amongst either the dissolute or the respectable. His figure remained stiff, his face expressionless, and deliberately so; for staying neutral was the only option to avoid, as best he could, the perception of encouragement. As the rogue noble mixed effortlessly with Haymarket ware in non-designated quarters, Darcy struggled inwardly to endure this embodiment of London's seediest boroughs reveling under his own roof. He could feel Fred's judgement of him and Richard's concern for him while the pair bore each other, as old boyhood foes still harboring old grudges, with a cool detachment. Though Richard, as an officer and a gentleman, as a wounded veteran of the war, and as a second born who had drifted for much of his life between the upper and middle class, found the situation nowhere near as discomfiting as either Darcy or Blackwell, intuited that the former was roiling in conflict beneath his usual façade. He therefore knew his part for the evening: as his cousin watched over everything else, so would Richard watch over him, as always at Darcy's service should he be in need of it.

Thornhaugh, meanwhile, could not take his eyes off the voluptuous Violet and jaunty June, nor could they him in their performance of an act lost on no one, even its target, who simply did not mind. While not overtly shocking in terms of conduct, the seasoned strumpets nonetheless exhibited their occupational talent for seduction, especially where their old favorite was concerned. As it was clear which of the room's gentlemen occupants was least immune to their charms, so were they drawn as if by planetary force to the weak prey, leaving three sturdier men in sturdier marriages happily, mercifully ignored.

A few minutes into the captivatingly perverse soiree, Thornhaugh took Darcy aside to discuss the weather of all things, and how it showed no sign of improving at any hour before midnight. His banality shifted into a smoothly articulated claim that there was no particular hurry to begin the next round of play; and with pleading eyes locked on supple woman flesh, he then came to his purpose; namely, to make a case for a half-hour's "recreation" before its commencement.

Darcy clenched his teeth. "You would have the gall to—"

"Not that! Oh God, Darcy…" Thornhaugh hid his embarrassment behind a laugh, then whispered, "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Why I have not risen to the occasion since…well, not for a couple of years at least." Darcy puzzled in silence. He continued: "A new medicine, they called it. This was in New York. Or was it Boston? I cannot recall the head physician's name, for it had as many syllables as his tonic had side effects." He smiled at his own cringe-inducing joke, and then shrugged. "Not my best gamble. Now where were we? Would you be willing to permit petting?"

With that vulgar aside, Darcy's compassion paled as a puff of smoke. "Petting!"

"Above the neck, of course."

"Certainly not."

"What about dancing? Three dances, one apiece." He gazed longingly at the pair so plainly up for just about anything their host would allow. "Waltzes."

"No."

"Darcy!"

"Discipline!"

"Replenishment."

"Is that what you call it?" Darcy felt himself growing more indignant by the moment. "I'm terribly sorry, Thorny, but you will just have to have patience. On the way to London, you may engage in much more than dancing, in fact shall have every freedom to indulge to your heart's content." With purpose he added, "Is that not ideal? Is that not all you have ever desired in life?"

If this point registered at all, Thornhaugh did not show it. "I cannot dance in a carriage," he softly argued.

"You cannot dance full stop. You can barely stand."

"I'll not fall. They will hold me steady."

"Then let them be your pillars from here on," Darcy bit out, "and spare my home further degradation. Behind my back you lined this course; your care is no longer my concern." He nodded towards Matlock. "He is in charge of you now."

Thornhaugh was quick to reaffirm that no one was in charge of him. "I am nowhere I do not wish to be, and go nowhere I do not wish to go."

"Then go!" Darcy snapped, and then colored when heads swiveled in their direction.

"When the weather clears, and when Blackwell concedes, I shall do just that. You need endure me but a little while longer."

It was his injured tone that stifled Darcy's urge to proclaim that he had been endured long enough, that he was beyond the point of caring where he went or what he did, so long as it was far away from him, his family, and his home. But the fury that would have generally provoked such a reply faded faster this time. Of course he cared, very much; but he had to accept that the battle for this man's soul was lost, and with that the war. It no longer matters, Darcy realized. Nothing more to do with him mattered. And with that feeling of resignation he asked, "What more would you have me endure, Malcolm?"

Thornhaugh smiled. "Thank you, Fitzwilliam. First I shall dance with la Croix, thus freeing the remainder of her time for the talking of business." He motioned toward the entering footman who was passing a portmanteau into the madam's hand.

Darcy's breath caught. "By God, you did it. You really did it."

"To the best of my ability. Now, do not expect every piece to be accounted for. Your silver, I am afraid, had to be sacrificed as payment for the recovery of your jewelry. I hope you agree that this was a good, fair bargain. Silver is replaceable, I should think more than…well, it hardly matters now."

"The luggage…it belongs to la Croix?"

"No. And it must be returned soon, very soon. Take your time searching its contents. Pick out what belongs to you; leave anything that does not. They know you can be trusted."

"They hardly know me."

"They know me, and my word is enough." Thornhaugh winked. "That is how friendship is done, ol' man." His breathing sounded heavier, likely from so much talking. "I know you have more questions, but…save them for la Croix. Now about those dances—"

Darcy growled out a curse. "Why here, for God's sake?"

"Because this room is so lovely. I don't imagine I'll see its equal from now till…then." He coughed into his handkerchief, and upon subsequent glance into the bunched cloth his tone turned desperate. "Darcy, please. It has been so long."

Darcy snatched a look at the tissue, confirming the cause of his alarm while careful to conceal his own. In silence he contemplated, not merely his request but the madness that would have him entertaining such a notion, or such a party. "You. Are. Insufferable."

"Forgive me." Thornhaugh's eyes were now closed, hands clasped as if in prayer. Never had Darcy seen him so genuinely, artlessly humble. It was a bad sign, a foreboding sign that made his spine crawl.

Darcy glanced about that section of the room not occupied by bachelor fare, meeting first the attentive countenance of his cousin, then the merciless glare of his neighbor. Though either of their opinions on this mattered less to him than his own, what Darcy found most difficult to ignore was the grumbling voice in his own head, that of his father now rolling in his grave.

"Half an hour. Three dances, no more," Darcy found himself whispering, rather in response to that figurative voice than the literal one. "And you will kindly keep each hand just where it belongs."

"Agreed. And the girls may sit at my side while I play?" Thornhaugh pressed, but his tone was submissive. "My best—our best behavior, I promise. Your house, your rules."

When Darcy finally, grudgingly conceded, the man's smile could have lighted his halls. He bowed reverently, black eyes glittering with an expression of the deepest gratitude. No more words were spoken, nor were they necessary. And for half the interval he savored every gifted moment with a fresh burst of vigor that indeed replenished his color, breath, strength—by God his health, Darcy mused. He held court as it seemed he was born to do, diverting his sparkling, perfumed, kittenish circle with a spirited narration of past exploits, ostensibly imagining himself back in that sorely missed underworld of violent retribution, forbidden pleasures, ill-gotten gains, and ruinous losses.

Fred finally excused himself to go upstairs, stating gruffly that he favored a visit with his wife to watching a wicked noble so gleefully disgrace a decent home. He was correct, from a gentleman's standpoint, certainly from one so fervently, politically devoted to keeping the classes separate. But as Darcy watched him storm off, he felt that twinge of shame in his own cultivation, the one which had molded Fred, himself, his father, and countless others. As he had when coming to terms with his love for a country nobody, Darcy was compelled to reappraise the class he now understood to be rife with those who never owned their own faults and weaknesses, those in which the abhorrent defect of hypocrisy was, if applicable, entirely forgivable by mere virtue of family, fortune, and connections.

His eyes went back to the man who had rejected all of it, and Darcy found his comfort level rising but slowly as he watched him dance his first waltz with la Croix. He went to the sideboard, and Matlock came to join him for a drink. "I remember," said he, "all the Christmas Eves spent in this room, when Uncle Darcy would sit before the fire and read The Parables with us children surrounding his chair. I believe you were the only one who actually listened to the lessons, while the rest of us had little on our minds but presents, plum pudding, and Father Christmas."

"In those days," replied Darcy, "Papa was Father Christmas, at least in my eyes."

Their collective gaze remained on the dance as Richard returned with, "What changed?"

The question caught Darcy by surprise. He felt a tightness in his chest. "What makes you think this has anything to do with—"

"I know you too well, Cousin; now tell me."

Silence.

"Very well. Someone else is sure to oblige me. I have not called on Summerhill in a while."

"He kept a mistress," Darcy blurted, not bothering to conceal his resentment.

Richard stared blankly, as if the very notion were impossible. "When? For how long?"

Darcy drained his glass of sherry. "For the last five years of Mother's life."

In Richard's face (and the shake of his head) he saw the same denial he himself had suffered. "Not Uncle Darcy. He was too—"

"Wonderful? Excellent? Well, neither trump weakness, apparently. Nor fear, nor cowardice." Darcy eyed the beverage trolley with a powerful urge to pour another drink. The glance did not go unnoticed. "On one of his London trips, he found a young woman starving and begging in the streets. He was struck by the resemblance, enough to…take particular pity on her. She was brought to Lambton, and there had money, food, clothing, housing, whatever was needed. As he phrased it, 'she was cared for and lived well.' He never knew her name. Never wished to know."

"I…suppose a man suffering that much grief—"

"Don't."

The word was uttered with such venom that Richard moved on immediately. "You have only just discovered this," he half stated, half inquired.

Darcy dully described one particularly snowy day two winters ago, when his restless, inquisitive wife had sought to alleviate her boredom and confinement by rummaging through old trunks. "A memoir was found, buried beneath a mound of material remnants of my mother. He detailed all of it, from the beginning of the affair to its bittersweet end, the day he buried his beloved." The last word dripped with sarcasm. "His confession failed to move me in the manner he would have liked."

"I see that. And Georgiana, does she know?"

"She knows the memoir exists," Darcy answered, "but on my notice of its darker disclosures prefers not to read it. She has chosen to remember our father fondly." He added sternly, "And that decision will be honored."

"And this is your way of punishing him?"

"You asked what changed and there is your answer. Believe what you wish, but I will say no more."

With that subject closed, their attention returned to the dance. Thornhaugh had moved on to his golden-haired partner, who served well in keeping him upright as they swept across the floor with, in his own mind, smoothness and grace. In absence of music, he hummed the bars of a soft, dreamy melody, losing himself in the rhythm and breaking the rules slightly with the burying of his nose into his partner's mass of blonde curls. Darcy allowed it, and then allowed it again when he danced with June.

Thornhaugh took the second half of the interval taking refreshment. Abstaining as usual from spirits, he opted for water to wash down bites of fruit fed to him by his two doting Aphrodites, fully immersing himself in their affected adoration. It was a farewell gift Darcy could never have envisioned himself endowing to another; yet he felt no regret, nor would he ever.

On Blackwell's return, Thornhaugh jovially offered to pour him a glass of port, which was curtly refused. He laughed off the man's incivility, enjoying himself as much as Fred was not, even as he powered through the excruciating temptation his companions encouraged with their batting eyes and constant cooing. He behaved reasonably well for a love-starved man unaccustomed and disinclined to restraint, though the prolonged abstention from the intimacy practiced freely in la Croix's establishment was indeed beginning to show in his pained, pale visage.

Blackwell joined Darcy and Matlock at the sideboard, his eyes fixed with contempt on the merry party. "My, but word spreads quickly. Priscilla knows already. Your missus too, Darcy."

Darcy nodded, not at all surprised and half expecting Lizzy to appear at any moment to personally confirm the servants' report. "And are the ladies enraged or merely dismayed?"

"Neither. Mrs. Darcy says she is saving her wrath for you, Matlock."

Richard groaned. "I should rather take on the French all over again."

"My Cilla was far more understanding than I could have guessed, with help from Mrs. Darcy." Fred hesitantly added, "She is a fine lady, your wife."

Darcy was stunned by the compliment. Fred continued: "Not that she condones this vulgar show any more than I do, but she trusts you have it all in hand. Cilla has sworn her secrecy. And I will not tell a soul."

"How good of you," Darcy mumbled, somehow not caring in his present world-weary state. For some moments, the three men listened in silence to the overlapping blend of banter, laughter, and increasingly forceful rainfall. Moments later Darcy asked, "Just where would you have seen fit to house them under the circumstances?"

"The stables."

Matlock chuckled. Darcy winced. Both knew the man was serious.

Darcy reached for the nearest decanter, deciding he would have that drink after all. "Your wife would choose differently. She has a good heart, Fred." He raised his glass. "May you someday, above everything else, come to cherish that."

"For it is better than you deserve," Richard added tersely.

"Well, it is evident whom you favor, Matlock," said Blackwell. "How extraordinary. Did he not once threaten your elder brother's life over a debt? at the most exclusive club in Town, no less? 'A tremendous scene,' I recall reading."

"Papers exaggerate."

"Darcy, you were reported to have been there. Did he or did he not put a blade to Stephen Fitzwilliam's neck?"

"Chin," Darcy clarified, recalling vividly that incredibly tense moment in White's cardroom, when his spoiled, arrogant cousin drunkenly proclaimed he had no intention of paying the thirteen-hundred-pound debt that would have placed him in deep disfavor with his father the earl. Thornhaugh's whiplike reflexes, skill with a blade, and spat out promise to spill his blood, had Stephen scared witless and the debt paid promptly.

He needed the lesson, Thornhaugh had later said. None of my cohorts would have been so forgiving, I assure you.

"Darcy!" Fred exclaimed, seeing the smirk on his face. "Your own cousin!"

"My own cousin, God rest him, acted a damn fool. Keep that in mind, Blackwell, else you will get a hard lesson of your own."

"I look forward to it. What have you to say, Matlock? Your own brother!"

"Whom I loved," replied he, "but this has since been resolved between ol' Thorny and I. His aim was to frighten him, and that he did."

"To death, I dare conjecture. Stephen did pass on but a few weeks later, did he not?"

"Of a nonrelated malady." Richard downed another sherry and set down the glass with a hard knock. "I suggest you save your goading for the card game. And good luck, Blackwell. It is said Lord Vernon went from riches to rags in one evening against your man."

"A menacing prospect indeed, were the man a fraction of what he once was, or had anything remotely of value to wager." Blackwell cast a hungry glare at his jolly opponent. "Let us move along, shall we?"

Darcy checked the clock. For once, his resident counter of seconds took no notice of the time, which had run out two minutes ago. Darcy announced as much, and then instructed the nearest footman to ready the card table. Though Thornhaugh was unhappy that the respite was over, he recovered in the moments it took to seat himself. Having dressed down to his shirtsleeves, he proceeded to roll each one to the elbow. Fred watched this action, then began to mimic it, only for Thornhaugh to laugh and say, "Do not trouble yourself, Blackwell. I have no suspicions of any sleight-of-hand skills on your end of the table." His two girls tittered in response, each taking a chair on each side of him.

Darcy watched Fred bristle with anger at the same moment la Croix announced that she was ready whenever he was to talk business. He felt pulled in two directions, one towards a madam and her portmanteau at the farthest end of the room, the other towards a scene that stood to grow decidedly hostile and…potentially murderous?

He suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder. "Tend to la Croix, Darce. I'll guard the two beef heads."

Of course! Richard is here. Thank God! Darcy exhaled, "Bless you, Cousin," and then left him to join the seated madam, who was already rifling through the bag. When her hand emerged clutching a string of pearls – Lizzy's pearls – Darcy stopped breathing.

La Croix smiled at his recognition. "Perhaps your missus ought to be here, sir."

"No need." Darcy reached out, and la Croix laid the pearls over his open palm over which he ran his thumb, inwardly reliving the moment he clasped them about his bride's neck on their wedding night. He deeply desired to know what the recovery of this item among all the others had necessitated, but at the same time…

La Croix nibbled casually from her plate while he searched through the bag and removed one piece after another, each sparking a beloved memory from years past. Birthday…Christmas…anniversary…Twelfth Night…Piccadilly…Paris…

Darcy paused upon removal of an emerald bracelet. "Not hers," he said quietly, placing it back into the case. He suddenly felt unwell. "Mrs. la Croix?"

"Keep looking, sir. I'm sure there is more, much more. There must be."

"This does not…feel right."

"Feel right? But these are your wife's, sir, are they not? Has there been a mistake? I was assured—"

"By whom?"

La Croix looked at him as if he were a child, and then vaguely replied that the outcome was a blend of half effort, half luck. "Thorny didn't expected much if anything to come of it, sir, or reckoned he'd be dead first. He just knew you would ask the particulars, but hoped you wouldn't. Says you're better off not knowin'."

"Better off? How?"

"Thorny says it would only coarsen you."

Darcy frowned. "That is what Thorny says, is it?"

"I'd show you his letters, sir, had I not burned them all. Or you can ask him yourself and get no better answer. But why bother? Besides, gents like you don't want the whole story, not really." Her eyes wandered from one ornate furnishing to the next. "You wake every morning to a clean, polished, perfect world but know so little about the dirt what makes it spin."

"You have no conception of what I know."

La Croix shrunk beneath his hardened gaze. "I meant no offense, sir. Forgive me."

"You are forgiven, as I also know you speak as much for your own experience as his. He would be arrogant enough to presume my only view of evil has been through his eyes, but I assure you he is mistaken. Please tell him so on the way to London. And he needs not know the particulars, either."

"Yes, sir."

Darcy returned to the bag, sifting through several more treasures, some recognized, some not, before he was finished. By whatever dubious, illicit methods, Thornhaugh had managed to recover a little more than half the jewelry and nearly all of his wife's most cherished pieces. Darcy bundled the collection in a handkerchief and passed them to a footman with a whispered order he made sure the madam could not hear. His thoughts then traveled to those responsible for the crime, from absolute scum like Sam Cullen to misguided young lackeys like the two maids. "Just tell me if there was violence done, Mrs. la Croix."

"Not to the chambermaids, sir. They promised that much."

They.

"I thank you," said Darcy, "for supplying all the understanding I need, that after two years back in his home country, after Reddy's murder, after finding a brother who is little more to him than a stranger, after no luck finding a father he would sooner kill than embrace, they are the friends ol' Thorny has left to rely upon. Those who perform the sort of work that I would never have solicited, at a cost I would not have paid, for the recouping of a loss I can well afford."

La Croix chuckled. "And thank you, Mr. Darcy, for my new understanding!"

"And what that might be?"

"Well, sir, Thorny used to talk about you all the time. Or laugh about you, I should say. I always found it odd, how often he mentioned you just to mock you. He never did that with no one else, not even his worst enemies. But now I don't find it so odd! After all these years, I finally know his true opinion of you. And speaking of afford…"

La Croix trailed off, with a nervous aspect, forcing Darcy to push her speech to the back of his mind. "Yes?"

"Well, we have missed ol' Thorny terribly. That is God's truth, sir. June and Violet were happy to lend themselves out for the journey. But, well, you see…"

"Your funding is insufficient?"

"Not to say the earl ain't been generous, sir. A good, kind gentleman, he is! It's just we have days yet to travel and not much left of what…"

Darcy did not believe a word, but it hardly mattered. "How much do you require?"

La Croix expressed her relief that he was not affronted before naming a substantial (but hardly surprising) sum. Darcy replied, with a glance at Thornhaugh, "For that many pounds, madam, I expect that man to die believing those women not only adore him, but worship him."

"With every fiber, sir," she pledged, and then Darcy pledged she would be paid before the evening was over.

He peered across the room, where Thornhaugh was enthralling his small audience with a show of his shuffling techniques. He made an effortless transition from a sideways shuffle to the basic overhand before ending with a most impressive one-handed trick that included the splitting of the deck. "Now let us talk stakes," he said, and then appeared his gold band.

Darcy shot from his seat. "Thornhaugh!"

"Yes, Mr. Darcy?" chimed he.

Cheeky prat! With his purpose behind the wager null and void, Darcy would make one final attempt to reclaim the treasure he had so foolishly gambled away. "I will spare your lungs the telling of the story of how that ring was acquired. Allow me."

"But it is my story to tell," Thornhaugh insisted. "As winner I own the privilege."

Darcy approached the table. "And I suggest you agreeably hand over that privilege, else I may be inclined to remove one or…perhaps two or three of yours." His eyes flickered over shining satin to denote exactly what, or rather whom he meant.

"Very well, Darcy. Tell the story."

And so he did, quickly and stiltedly, with neither rhythm nor flourish, gaining only a tepid response from the two gentlemen his resident raconteur had meant to impress. "Deplorably stupid of me," Darcy ended, thereby taking the last gust of wind out of his sails, "but I thankfully have my dear wife's forgiveness. And her love, of course. Every bit of it." He clapped him on the back. "Might you reconsider selling it back to me?" Darcy made yet another offer for the band, that being triple its worth.

"Go to hell." His face darkened but for an instant. "What about you, Blackwell?" he asked graciously while spinning the ring, taunting Darcy again with his across-the-hand gryphon roll. "Imagine this fine piece in your trophy room, a symbol of the truest, purest love I dare say any living person has ever experienced or observed. And this from a world traveler."

The black-haired harlot snorted. "La, Thorny! Stuff an' nonsense!"

"Quiet, June. Sir Frederick knows better, don't you sir? Have I your interest? I shall even offer a discount." Fred studied the rolling band with a hawk's eye. "It has an inscription, too."

"How much?"

"Fred!"

"Quiet, Darcy. How much, Thorny?"

"Mmm…twenty?"

"Done."

"Oh you bastards! Both of you!"

"Serves you right, Darce," said Richard in a voice to match Fred's look of disgust. "Were your wife a little less dear to me, I'd have paid your sum and then tossed the ring into your trout pond." He shook his fist. "After planting you a facer!"

Darcy imagined doing just that to Thornhaugh. "At least I am that much closer to being rid of you," he snarled. "Twenty will not last you an hour."

"I shall turn it into a hundred in two hours," he said confidently. "And a thousand in four."

"I'll wager that!" cried Richard. "A hundred for every hundred."

"I accept! Put it in writing, Matlock." After the coin and ring exchanged hands, Thornhaugh smiled wide and said, "This is going almost too well. By God, I've not felt this good in years! I can scarce remain still, I need…Who has a cigar?"

"Here you are, Thorny love," cooed Violet, removing one from her reticule. "Your favorite blend."

Thornhaugh smiled with the look of one whose puzzle was now complete with the snapping of that final piece. Four hours, countless card games and much imbibing later, Fred was lying sprawled upon his back before the fireplace, staring into the flames. Richard was passed out in a chair, and all three tarts were catnapping on the large sofa. Thornhaugh was still at the table, stone cold sober and fully awake, adding the latest pot to the rest of the neatly stacked chips. He was on his third cigar, puffing it down but not inhaling (his one attempt had cost him dearly). Though his pallid face dripped with sweat, he had scarcely coughed and rarely spoken, for each breath was too precious.

Darcy, having taken another turn about the room, paused at the table to read the paper in which all debt was recorded. Thornhaugh was up by more than one-thousand, seven-hundred pounds, and one gold ring.

A crack of thunder jolted Darcy. He peered out the window. The rain had stopped, but the winds were fierce.