Page 13 of Colour My World (The Bennet Sister Variations #3)

The study’s oak door swung open without a sound. Brandy. Tobacco. Aged parchment. The scents of power and permanence.

Darcy stepped inside. His father sat behind Pemberley’s great mahogany desk. His too-thin face revealed nothing.

He gestured for Darcy to sit. “You have become an advocate of Iron Gavel?”

Sir Alistair D’Arcy’s portrait no longer loomed from the corridor. Now it presided above the hearth, severe and still, painted eyes narrowed in disdain. He looked down his nose; a magistrate passing sentence. He had watched long enough. Now, he judged.

“You must marry.”

Darcy released a pent-up breath. So, it begins. He lowered himself into the chair and crossed his legs. His fingers curled over the armrest. “And I suppose you have already chosen my bride?”

His father’s brows lifted. “I am not Lady Catherine. If I were, Anne would already be mistress of Pemberley.”

A warning shot, not a demand. Not yet.

Darcy counted to five. “Then why the urgency?”

“Pemberley requires an heir. And a spare, mind you.” His father set down his glass. “I am not long for this world. You must secure the line.”

Silence stretched. Darcy’s gaze flickered to the chessboard on the side table–a game they had yet to finish. A relic of another life where his father had been merely stern, not frail. When duty had not yet become a prison.

“You know my feelings. Marriage is not a hasty business. I have Georgiana to think of.”

“Pemberley requires more of you than she does!” His father slapped the desktop. He gasped, stood, and doubled over.

What manner of father are you? Darcy waited.

His father straightened, dabbed at his lips with a linen cloth, and paused, frowning at the faint smear. Darcy saw it too: what he thought might be blood.

“Then choose an acceptable mate from the first circle. If you do not, I shall see you married to your cousin.”

“You have never considered Lady Catherine’s scheme.”

“That was when you were a child.” He lifted his glass and drank deeply. “You are no longer in leading strings.”

Darcy let out a humourless laugh. “Thank you for the confirmation.” He bared his teeth in a shape far from a smile.

His father sighed. “Your mother would have expected you to marry well.”

A well-aimed strike. Darcy’s throat tightened. More than any threat, the mention of his mother unsettled him. His father knew this.

“A gentleman’s first duty is to those he loves.”

His father smiled. “Good. You agree with me for once.”

“Did I?”

“What are you implying, boy?”

Darcy rose. “Mother wished me to marry as you did.”

His father’s knuckles whitened around his glass. “Your mother is no longer here.”

“Georgiana is.” He turned towards the door. “I will do as you ask, but I shall never marry my cousin.”

His father lifted his glass once more. “We shall see.”

* * *

Darcy stepped onto the stage, the wooden boards rough beneath his boots.

The air was thick with sawdust, sweat, and stale ale.

He rolled his shoulders, drew a long breath, and released it.

Precision. Endurance. Power. He had learned those well enough with a blade.

Now, he would master them with his fists.

Henry Pearce—the Game Chicken to every tavern and club in London—watched him with the lazy disdain of a man already bored with the outcome. Beside him, his gaze impassive, Gentleman Jackson stood with his arms crossed.

“He’s lasted longer than I expected,” Pearce said loudly. He shook the sweat from his hair. “Shall I knock him down or let him dance a bit more?”

“I didn’t bring you to break him.”

Pearce turned to Jackson. “When has I ever done you wrong?”

“Mind your place.”

Darcy set his stance. Pearce raised his guard. The first punch jarred through Darcy’s bones and drove him back two steps. The second landed square against his ribs. Breath fled his lungs. His legs buckled. The floor slammed into him.

He pressed his knuckles into the sawdust-covered boards and choked down bile. Get up. Get up.

Pearce rolled his shoulders, waiting.

Darcy forced himself upright. He wiped blood from his lip and raised his guard once more. Again.

This time, he moved differently. Chin tucked. Vanity set aside. Pearce swung—and Darcy rolled with the punch instead of meeting it square. He took the hit, but he stayed on his feet.

Again. He watched the weight shift, the pull of a shoulder, the tension in an arm. He watched for the tell that told of an attack.

Pain taught him what pride had not. Muscles burned. Skin scraped raw. His ribs ached with every breath. But he endured.

And then he struck first. Pearce grunted as Darcy’s punch landed hard in his ribs.

A heartbeat of silence. Then, the Game Chicken nodded. “There he is.”

Darcy swallowed the taste of copper thick on his tongue. A punch slammed into his temple. Darkness.

When the world righted itself, he lay flat on his back.

“Now he looks like a man of the bottom,” Pearce said.

“A man proves his mettle with his fists,” Jackson replied. “Douse him with a bucket. Who’s next?”

* * *

Darcy sputtered as the coldness of the water shocked him back to consciousness. He raised his fists. Shook his head and realised he lay flat on the ground.

Barty threw a towel over his face and rubbed his hair with vigour. “You may wish to remain horizontal, sir. You’ve taken a blow to the noblest part of your station.”

“My jaw?”

“Your pride.”

Darcy bared his teeth. Barty lifted him by the shoulders into a sitting position.

“He’ll keep. Needs polishing, but the shape’s there.” Jackson extended an open hand. A bloody needle and thread.

Barty sniffed. “We shall minister to ourselves, thank you.”

Darcy allowed Barty to dress him and assist him outside. Once inside the carriage, Barty laid winter rugs across the seats before settling him. “The first duty of a gentleman is not to bleed over the silk.”

Darcy blinked. “What did you say?”

Barty stared out the window, the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth, but Darcy had no strength to press him. Then, the carriage lurched forward.