A knock at the door brought his head around, and Trafalgar’s came up as the door opened to reveal Witcher’s smiling mien. “Excuse me, Mr. Darcy; Lord Brougham is here to see you, sir.”

Darcy looked past his butler but saw no sign of his supposed visitor. “Lord Brougham, Witcher? And where might he be?” A sound of footsteps signaled the approach of his erstwhile dinner guest, who appeared a trifle breathless at his study door. “Ah, yes. You are correct; it is Brougham. A bit early for dinner, are you not? Or is it late for tea?”

“You were to give me a few moments, Witcher!” Brougham cast the servant a look of exasperation. “It was meant figuratively, man! Never expected you would be precise to a pin!” He turned back to Darcy as the unrepentant butler bowed and closed the door. “The man is inestimable, Fitz, but remarkably obtuse at the most significant moments.”

“Meaning that you have yet to discover a way around him.” Darcy’s laugh was tempered by an acute unease at the arrival of his friend. After a day’s reflection on his foolish actions and sodden confessions, how might Dy regard him now? “Inestimable, indeed! But you are rather early. We did not expect you for another hour.”

“I could wait no longer to satisfy myself as to the condition of your head, old man! Or the rest of you, for that matter. I have no doubt that it has been quite some time since last you had that much to drink.”

Declining to answer, Darcy instead offered him a tight smile and sketched a bow. “Here you see me! Judge for yourself.”

Taking his invitation with irksome literalness, Brougham circled him round in precise imitation of the examination Brummell had given him the night of Lady Melbourne’s soiree. “Rather the worse for wear, my friend,” he concluded, shaking his head. “Dare I ask how you feel?”

“Not as bad as I might thanks to Fletcher’s vile potion, but bad enough to entertain the thought of going Methodist.”

Brougham looked at him sharply. “What do you mean?”

“Only that I believe I shall abstain from drink for a time.” He returned his friend’s regard cautiously. “What should you think I meant by it?”

In his typical fashion, Brougham ignored the question in favor of another of his own. “You have explained last night to Miss Darcy?” he asked, strolling over to the bookshelf.

“Yes, yes, I did.” Darcy watched as Dy’s fingers lazily caressed the ranked, leather-clad volumes.

“In detail?” Brougham asked as he perused the titles.

“No, of course not!” he replied. “Georgiana knows only that I fell in with some questionable company and you helped me to see how impolitic it was to remain.” He paused before adding, “I told her about Hertfordshire and then…and then about Kent.”

“Ah.” Brougham pulled out one of the company upon the shelf and gingerly opened it. “She knows about the lady, then, and the rest.” His gaze traveled steadily to and fro across the pages, nor did he lift it to ask, “How did she respond?”

“She forgave me,” Darcy replied simply.

“Well, she would have to now, would she not?” Dy looked up at him briefly and then fell to a study of the book once more. “Religious as she is.”

Darcy stiffened at his tone. What did he mean to imply? “I believe she truly forgave me,” he replied in hauteur, “and from her heart.”

“I see.” Dy looked over at him, his eyebrow crooked in that infuriating way Darcy had known since university, indicating that he saw no such thing, or that the speaker’s words were a pile of rubbish. “Very comforting, that — choosing your truth. Makes life quite tolerable when lived on such terms, does it not? Well, at least for a bit.” He shrugged. “Until one brushes up against another’s truth whose fur does not lie in the same direction.”

“A fine one you are to be lecturing on the nature of truth,” Darcy retorted, stung by his friend’s carelessly leveled skepticism.

“I did read philosophy, old man!” Brougham protested mildly as he turned another page.

“As did I.” Frustration gave way to anger. “But that is not my meaning, and well you know it! This charade of yours, this concealing of a first-rate mind behind the mask of a cork-brained rattle with more hair than wit, has grown exceedingly tiresome! What is the truth there, my fine friend?” Dy looked up from the page at his sharp tone, but his appreciative grin for his friend’s verbal thrust only angered Darcy further. “And last night at Monmouth’s! Posing as a servant, for God’s sake! Closing for innkeepers! And my door.” He suddenly remembered. “The lock! I may have been drunk, but I remember the lock!”

“I had hoped you would have forgotten that.” Brougham shook his head. “Pity you did not!” He set the book aside and regarded him meditatively. “But I did promise you an explanation, and an explanation, of sorts, you shall have.” He held up a hand to forestall the expression of dissatisfaction that sprang to Darcy’s lips. “I owe it to you for more reasons than one, and for the sake of our friendship and future relations, I will tell you all that I am able.” He sighed, his face creasing in rueful lines. “It is a rather complicated affair, though, I warn you.”

“I would not expect otherwise!” Darcy folded his arms and leaned against the edge of his desk. “You have been seven years at this game, man!” The thin line that was Brougham’s mouth plainly spoke his discomfort, causing Darcy to prompt, “By all means, proceed!”

“It began in the middle of our last term at university.” Brougham turned away and strolled to the window to peer down into the street below. “We were competing for the Mathematics Prize; do you remember?”

“Yes,” Darcy recalled. “I did not see you for days at a time during the preparation of our papers for the committee.”

“Yes, well…I was not at work on my paper; not the entire time. I was not even in Cambridge but here in London.”

“In London!”

His friend nodded but continued to stare out the window. “One evening while I was at work on my thesis, some men appeared in my rooms and whisked me off to a very private meeting, one which I was not permitted to refuse. My work in the relation of mathematics to linguistics had gained the notice, it seemed, of certain officials in the government who wished me to apply it to ciphers being passed here in England. Being young and impressionable, I agreed at once!” He stopped and looked back at Darcy. “No, that is not the absolute truth. I agreed because it was, at last, an opportunity to exorcise a personal demon. I have never told you of my father, Darcy. Have you never been curious as to why?”

“Naturally, I was.” Darcy straightened, surprised at the turn of Dy’s explanation but intrigued with its direction. “That you do not go by your title, Westmarch, but prefer Brougham was always curious. But early on you had made it clear that anything to do with your family was a private matter.”

“My family!” Brougham snorted. “Yes, I suppose you could call it that! My father, the Earl of Westmarch, was said to be a brilliant man; and perhaps at one time, he was. I have no notion of his intellect save in the inventive ways he studied to persecute my mother and humiliate me. He also had the Devil’s own temper, was a quick hand with his riding crop, and had a passion for gaming. The fortune my mother brought to the marriage was quickly dissipated, and after my birth, he had no more use for her, preferring, as he did, to graze in fields elsewhere.”

“Good God, Dy!”

Brougham shrugged his shoulders. “It is a common enough tale among our class, Fitz. You understand why I practically begged to spend that summer after our first year with your family at Pemberley? Even though the earl was dead and I had nothing to fear going home, I hungered to experience what a real family was. Your father was such a revelation! I am honored to have known him and confess that he has always been my ideal of what a husband and father should be.”

Darcy nodded, acknowledging the tribute. Both of them swallowed hard and looked away.

“Pardon my digression.” Brougham broke their silence. “My own father’s need for money became desperate after my mother’s death, for her income from her family’s holdings now devolved upon me, and my uncles had made certain that he could not lay his hands upon it. It was then that he turned to intrigue.”

“Intrigue?” Darcy frowned. “With whom?”

“Anyone!” Brougham threw up his hands. “Anyone with coin: French, Irish, Prussian, the Barbary pirates for all I know! Westmarch Castle became a tollhouse for anything or anyone that wished to elude the notice of the government.”

“A traitor!” The condemnation burst from him.

“Yes, a traitor.” Dy’s face hardened. “And not even for a cause, a belief, but merely for money. When he was finally caught by the authorities, he put a bullet through his brain before they could take him. Since his suicide had saved the Home Office the cost of a scandal, it was all hushed up. An accident while cleaning his pistol, or some such tale. But I knew, Fitz, I knew!” He turned away, his head and shoulders stiff. “So, you can see that I viewed this offer as a means of redeeming my name. Translating ciphers was also a fascinating challenge. The pitting of one’s mind and imagination against that of an unknown enemy was exhilarating. I finished out our last year at University dividing my time between my thesis and my work for the Home Office.”

“And still managed to win several prizes!” Darcy shook his head in chagrin.

Smirking, Brougham faced him. “You have not quite forgiven me that, I believe!”

“No!” Darcy answered. “But I can hardly begrudge you them after this. Go on.” He brought his old friend back to his subject. “For I do not see how this explains these last seven years or these mysterious pranks of yours.”