Bingley caught him just beyond the drawing-room door, quick enough to suggest he had been watching for him. “I was beginning to think you had slipped back to London.”
“I have not,” Darcy said, slowing despite himself. “Only stepped away.”
“Ah.” Bingley smiled. “That is what you always say just before vanishing for hours at a time.” He glanced back toward the drawing room. “Caroline wishes to know whether you intend to sit by the fire or the window. She is convinced it matters.”
“You may tell her that I am equally ill-suited to both.”
Bingley laughed, then fell into step beside him as Darcy turned toward the hall. “You are being evasive.”
“I am being practical.”
“Since when has practicality required this much pacing?” Bingley asked. “You have crossed or circled the outside of this house more times today than the servants combined.”
Darcy paused at the threshold, one hand resting briefly on the doorframe, as if considering how much explanation was owed. “I find I am unable to sit just now.”
Bingley studied him—not intrusively, but with the easy concern of long habit. “Is this about Miss Elizabeth?”
Darcy’s gaze flicked to him. “It is not about—” He stopped, exhaled. “Not directly.”
“That is not an answer. But I will accept it for the moment. Only do not let my sisters imagine you have taken fright at their hospitality. Or, God forbid, an interest in our guest upstairs.”
“I have taken neither fright nor interest. I only require a little air. And perhaps a book.”
Bingley’s brows rose. “A dangerous combination. I have seen you brooding at your very stormiest, and I daresay my library is not up to the task. Very well.” He stepped aside with a half-bow. “I shall distract Caroline as long as I am able. But if you return with county maps or a ledger, I reserve the right to mock you.”
Maps… Darcy inclined his head, the corner of his mouth lifting at last. “I should expect nothing less.”
He reached the small morning room adjoining the library—a space rarely used except for sorting correspondence—and shut the door behind him. The quiet inside was immediate and complete.
Good.
He crossed to the sideboard and drew open the shallow drawer where Bingley kept odds and ends of estate interest: a ruler, a length of twine, sealing wax, and—after a moment’s searching—a rolled survey map bound with a faded ribbon. Darcy loosened it and spread the paper across the table.
The map was serviceable rather than elegant. Hedgerows carefully marked. Elevations noted in an indifferent hand. Boundaries drawn and redrawn as property had changed hands. Darcy leaned over it, bracing one palm against the table’s edge, scanning for a particular stretch of land.
There. The eastern rise.
He studied it longer than the rest. The notation was old—his grandfather’s era, perhaps earlier. Boundary stone indicated. Thorn hedge recorded only as “existing growth,” with no symbol to suggest enclosure or special consideration.
Nothing unusual. That was the point.
A knock sounded at the door, brisk and unceremonious. “Darcy?”
Bingley did not wait for an answer. He came in, then stopped short when he saw what covered the table. “Ah. So that’s where you went.”
Darcy’s attention remained on the map beneath his hand. “I said I would be a moment.”
“You did,” Bingley agreed. “I did not believe you.”
He leaned in, scanning the spread of papers. “County surveys? You know, I was joking about the maps.”
“And drainage records,” Darcy said. “Where they exist.”
Bingley gave a low hum. “That sounds… absorbing. Also, faintly alarming.”
“It is neither. Yet.”
Bingley glanced at him sideways. “This would not happen to have anything to do with why you vanished mid-conversation.”
