Pride and Premeditation (Jane Austen Murder Mystery #1)(38)
But Mr. Bennet cut her off. “Lizzie, I appreciate that you want to work for the firm officially, but my reaction would be the same if you were my son. Longbourn and Sons cannot afford the litigation that would come with a libel case. Pemberley would outlast us in court without a dent to their coffers. If you continue down this path, you will surely bankrupt this firm and your family. Do you want that?”
“No, Papa.”
“Right,” he said, and it was as if a curtain had been suddenly drawn and he sagged just a little. Forcefulness did not come naturally to Mr. Bennet. He fought his battles in biting words, delivered mildly.
“Go home,” he said. “Don’t come back here until I have given you express permission to do so.”
“But what about—”
“Please, Lizzie,” he said. “I cannot argue about this anymore today. I need to hire a solicitor I know I can trust to follow instructions, and right now you have broken that trust.”
These words stopped all protest. She had never before caused him to distrust her, or send her away, and the hurt of it was shocking. All she could do was whisper, “Yes, Papa.”
She left him in his office, wishing she could forget the shape of defeat in his posture.
Lizzie tried to keep her feelings in check as she approached the imposing offices of Pemberley & Associates. The gold-plated sign announcing the firm was so shiny she could see her angry reflection in it. She didn’t even need to push open the oak door herself—a clerk was stationed to do the task for her.
The air inside smelled of paper and ink and a manly scent of cologne, tinged with cigar smoke. It was a smell, she realized, she was familiar with. She associated it with Darcy. How embarrassing that she already recognized his scent! She hoped he didn’t smoke cigars. It was a dreadful habit.
“How may I help you, Miss . . . ?” a clerk behind a desk asked.
“I’ve an appointment with Mr. Darcy,” she said, passing him her calling card.
“Mr. Darcy doesn’t take on clients without a referral from a solicitor with whom he is acquainted,” the clerk replied.
Lizzie bristled at his rudeness. Well, if you had a gold-plated sign announcing yourself outside, she supposed you could afford to be impolite. “The younger Mr. Darcy,” she clarified.
“Is he expecting you?”
He would be a fool if he wasn’t. “Of course.”
“I see, Miss Bennet.” The clerk looked up. “If you’ll be so kind as to wait . . .”
“Here?” Lizzie asked, letting her tone tell the clerk just what she thought of that idea. “I’ll thank you to see me to Mr. Darcy’s office at once.”
The clerk hesitated for a moment, and Lizzie could just imagine he was trying to discern what would be less troublesome—bringing a stranger to Darcy’s office or having to deal with Lizzie’s demands. Either she was doing a better job than she thought at channeling her inner Caroline or Darcy was the forgiving type, because the clerk relented. “Follow me.”
He led Lizzie down a short hall and through a large open office space full of orderly desks. Lizzie did her best not to stare. Pemberley & Associates employed three times the number of solicitors and clerks that her father did, and there were at least eight office doors along the perimeter.
Lizzie expected to be led to one of these offices—perhaps a smaller one, tucked away into a corner. But instead, she was presented to a desk in the far corner of the room, next to what appeared to be a records room. Lizzie was about to protest when she spotted a small nameplate on the desk: Mr. F. Darcy.
“Mr. Darcy should be with you shortly,” the clerk said with a sniff, and left her standing.
Lizzie was surprised—the son of the founding barrister of Pemberley & Associates, and he didn’t even have an office? That meant that either Darcy had done something very foolish to deserve this humiliation or he was rather dense. Well, his plan to “defend” Bingley by bleating about his exceptional character was dense. But reporting her to her father wasn’t exactly the action of someone who didn’t know what he was doing. And she was going to tell him just what she thought of his actions . . . as soon as he returned.
After a minute of standing at the head of Darcy’s desk, Lizzie realized that none of the clerks or solicitors who sat nearby were going to offer her a seat. The only available chair was Darcy’s, and it wasn’t even pushed in neatly. In fact, Darcy’s desk was a mess—not quite as bad as Mr. Bennet’s, but no one would call it tidy by any stretch.
If Lizzie was going to be kept waiting, she wouldn’t hover like a timid creature. Looking around at all of the industrious young (and some not-so-young) men who refused to glance in her direction, she shook her head and sat down, right in Darcy’s chair. She justified this action with the knowledge that no visitor, client or not, would stand waiting for anyone at Longbourn & Sons. When no one protested her action—in fact, she rather suspected that no one noticed—Lizzie began to occupy herself by taking in the contents of Darcy’s desk. His blotter was messy with heavy strokes of black ink and partially obscured by correspondence and various notes.
She recognized the documents in Darcy’s hand thanks to the note he’d sent. His handwriting was careful, decidedly masculine but with an elegant slant to the letters that made Lizzie lean in a little closer. As she expected, the majority of the documents were regarding Bingley. She found a list of character references and another of debt collectors that she assumed were after Hurst for money—they were all respectable, not the type to send a goon to kill a man. A figure sheet amounting to nearly two thousand pounds made her eyes widen. She read the sheet twice to confirm her suspicions—it was what Hurst owed his creditors. It was a fortune twice what her father brought home annually. A number like that might not have destroyed Bingley, but if word got out, it would have been a black mark against the entire family’s reputation.