She felt him nod. “Only for a month. It is right for you to want to see your parents first. And in a fortnight, I will follow you into Hertfordshire. I can send you ahead with?—”
“Hester has hinted that rather than go on to Scarborough, she would escort me home and then return to town.”
Darcy was silent for a moment. “Fitzwilliam must return to his regiment. She hopes to see more of him, in the hopes it could lead to matrimony?” She nodded. “I would be glad of it, for his sake. He will need her encouragement.”
“I would think the disappointed look on her face when she learnt Colonel Fitzwilliam was to be gone all day would help him on.”
“I am leaving soon myself. I only came in to see you?—”
“To kiss me, you mean?”
He gave a quiet laugh before giving her a gentle kiss. “I hoped for both, but I did find you to tell you I am leaving and to ask for your letter to include with mine to your father. I will put it in the post when I am there.”
Something in his voice made her shift in his arms to look at him. “Where are you going?”
“To Bakewell,” he said in a low voice. “I want to know if Utterson or Balfour went to the pawnshop to sell Carew’s ring. Fitzwilliam is going to Buxton and Matlock to check for the same.”
“I have nothing at all to do today; you must let me come with you.”
The worry lines around his eyes and mouth deepened. “The last time we rode alone in an open carriage together, we were in a large party and your sister was with us.”
“Who would dare to say anything against me in Bakewell? Besides,” she said playfully, “I appear so innocent, as if I had never had a wicked thought in my life.”
Darcy’s lips turned into a wry little smile. “And what would those who remember the events of last evening say, or of five minutes ago against that bookcase?”
Elizabeth gave a mock pout, but Darcy only laughed. “Well, if you will not allow my virtue to be compromised in your library, then I shall have to settle for raising a few eyebrows by riding with you to Bakewell. And it will give everyone a hint that I mean more to you than only being the sister-in-law of your friend.”
He still did not look convinced, so she added, “I saw Carew’s ring, and would recognise it if I saw it again.”
“It is not as though I could take it from the broker even if you did. It would be up to the constable and the magistrate. I described it for Fitzwilliam, based on what you said, and I would know it if I saw one near enough like it to justify sending for Mr Birch. I am only gathering information to convince the magistrate to call for a coroner’s inquest.”
“Please, please let me help,” she said, putting her hands on eitherside of his face. “It is a very small thing, but I must feel like I am doing something for Carew.”
A pained look flashed across his face. He took one of her hands from his cheek, turned his head, and pressed a kiss into her palm. He held her hand for a long moment before squeezing it. “Meet me in the stable yard in half an hour.”
He had not wantedto be seen escorting a single woman into a market town—into a pawnshop, no less—but he had seen in Elizabeth’s eyes the same feeling that had settled into his own heart last week. He would do whatever he must to see justice rendered for Carew, and the need to see her killer punished, even if it was one of his friends, built stronger in him with each passing day.
Elizabeth, however much she wanted the same justice, also seemed determined to tease him into good humour before they arrived in Bakewell.
“No, that is not what happened,” he said, trying to suppress a smile as he drove into the inn yard. “You continue to wilfully misunderstand me.”
“You are the one who refused me. Was it a punishment of sorts, for what happened in April?”
“I was only unwilling to let matters progress to their natural conclusionin the library.”
“I can concede that Miss Bennet ought not to be caught being pressed against a bookcase beneath Mr Darcy, but I wonder if Mrs Darcy would be allowed a little more margin.”
She flashed him a bright smile that threatened to send all the blood in his body straight down. He exhaled through his nose and closed his eyes before climbing down from the curricle.
“My dearest,” he said quietly as he came around to hand her down, “if you swear not to say such tempting things in public, I promise that Mrs Darcy can have her way in any room she pleases.”
A satisfied feeling filled his chest when he watched her eyes darken. “I shall be perfectly dull and proper, I swear it.”
They left the curricle and turned onto Bath Street, and she added, “I hope you will not find me dull after we have been married twenty years.” She grew thoughtful, and he wondered if she was thinking about someone’s unhappy marriage. “I hope you shall never grow tired of me.”
“Never.” Darcy took her hand and tucked it under his arm. “Besides, I am certain your play of mind will be the same as it ever was even after you are settled down in conjugal and maternal affections.”
“I have much more to say—and do—regarding those conjugal affections, but I just promised to be dull and proper in public.”
