Miss Bingley cleared her throat. “Mr Darcy, I should dearly like to know your opinion—truly, do you think a third course—”
“I have no opinion on the matter,” he said, evenly.
She laughed. “You always say that, and yet you always do. Mrs Nicholls insists the supper must follow the dancing without delay, or the room will lose its air. I told her you would know best.”
“I care little for the matter.”
Miss Bingley watched him a moment longer, then sighed. “Very well. I shall tell them you are being inscrutable again.” She turned toward the door, then paused. “You will join us shortly?”
“In time.”
She left, but not until she had hovered in the still-open door, as if waiting for him to call her back. Darcy did not look up until the door closed and her footsteps faded outside.
He looked down at the letter.
The page bore his sister’s name, the opening civility, and then a confusion of crossed lines and half-erased intentions. What remained read like the work of a man attempting to approach a subject without admitting it existed.
He added one final line, smaller than the rest.
And tell me, if you would, how the grounds fare. Whether the lower walk has altered at all since Michaelmas, or if the old markers near the beech stand as they always have.
That, at least, was harmless.
He folded the paper once. Twice.
Then unfolded it again.
The questions, laid bare, looked worse than foolish. They looked suggestible. He imagined Georgiana reading them, her brow knitting, her voice cautious as she sought to answer without understanding what he had failed to explain.
Darcy tore the sheet cleanly in half. Then again.
He gathered the pieces and dropped them into the fire, watching until the edges curled and the words vanished entirely. He would have to write a clean draught.
Brutus shifted at his feet, as if dissatisfied with the conclusion.
“Yes,” Darcy said quietly. “I thought so too.”
He rose, pushing back his chair, and left the library without looking again at the desk.
Darcy left the libraryby the side passage, taking the stairs two at a time more from irritation than haste. The upper corridor lay quiet, the afternoon light stretching long across the carpet. He had gone no farther than the turn toward his chamber when he nearly collided with a footman ascending with a small stack of letters balanced upon a salver.
“Mr Darcy, my apologies.” The man halted at once. “I was just coming up with the post. This arrived for you.”
Darcy stopped. “Thank you.”
The footman offered the salver. Darcy’s eye passed over the familiar hands and seals without interest until it reached the last.
Rosings.
The crest was unmistakable. The wax had been impressed with decisive force, as though hesitation itself were a fault to be corrected.
He took the letter. “Please lay the others on the writing desk in the drawing room. I will attend to them later. That will be all.”
“Very good, sir.” The servant withdrew.
Darcy did not open it at once. He turned the letter over once in his hand, then again, as though the seal itself might yield something before he was obliged to break it. The corridorfelt suddenly exposed. Too open. He folded the paper against his palm and continued on toward his chamber, shutting the door behind him before he allowed himself to pause.
Only then did he look at it properly—the familiar crest, the decisive press of wax, the unmistakable weight of expectation it carried.
