Truffles did not settle. She remained in Elizabeth's arms, her body tense, her eyes fixed on the road behind them as if watching for something. She did not relax until they were through the gate at Longbourn and the door was closed behind them.
Elizabeth set the pig down. Truffles went immediately to the hearth and pressed herself against the warm stones. Her ears were still flat.
It was strange. It was very strange. The pig who loved Darcy, who followed him through houses and sat on his boots and slept outside his door, was terrified of this man, this charming, wronged, perfectly pleasant man.
Elizabeth looked at the pig. The pig looked at the fire.
She chose to believe the charming man. She chose his story, his wounded eyes, his easy warmth, over the trembling pig and the memory of Darcy's hands, gentle and sure, lifting Truffles at the ball.
She told herself she was being rational. She told herself the pig was an animal, with an animal's instincts, and that animals were not oracles. Truffles loved Darcy because he had saved her once and smelled of horse leather. She feared Wickham for some reason that had nothing to do with character and everything to do with scent or sound or some unknowable animal logic that Elizabeth could not decipher.
A quieter thought followed, one she did not welcome. The pig had been right about everyone else. Truffles adored Jane,which was only sensible. She tolerated Mr. Collins with the resigned patience of a creature who knew he was not worth the effort of avoidance. She had chosen Darcy from a roomful of strangers and been proven right about his character underneath the stiffness. Her judgment, absurd as it was to call it that, had been faultless.
Except about Wickham. Or except about Darcy. One of them. It could not be both.
Elizabeth folded the thought up and put it away. Because if the pig was right about Wickham, then the pig was right about Darcy, and Elizabeth was not yet ready to be wrong about Darcy.
But that night, when Elizabeth climbed into bed and Truffles curled at her feet on the folded blanket, the pig did not settle into her usual easy sleep. She lay with her head up, her ears pricked, listening to something Elizabeth could not hear. Her dark eyes gleamed in the candlelight.
"It is nothing," Elizabeth told her. "Go to sleep."
Truffles did not go to sleep. She watched the door until Elizabeth blew out the candle, and even then, in the dark, Elizabeth could feel the pig's alertness, a small tense body at the foot of the bed, standing guard against something Elizabeth had chosen not to see.
CHAPTER 13
Mr. Darcy
November had settled over Hertfordshire like a damp grey cloth. Darcy saw them together at Mrs. Phillips's card party. The room went cold.
Mrs. Phillips's house was small and overfurnished. The card tables had been arranged in the front parlour, which smelled of tallow candles and the sugared almonds piled on the sideboard. The fire was too large for the room, the wine was too sweet for the company, and there were at least nine people more than the space could comfortably hold. Darcy had been here for twenty minutes and had already been pressed into an introduction with a Mrs. Long, who had asked him about Pemberley, and a Mr. Robinson, who had asked him about game birds, and the solicitor Mr. Phillips himself, who had asked him nothing at all but stood uncomfortably close and breathed through his mouth.
Darcy had retreated to the wall near the bookcase. It was the only position in the room that did not require him to stand in someone's conversation.
Then he saw them.
Elizabeth was by the fireplace with Wickham. She was laughing at something he had said. Her head was tilted. Her eyes were bright with the bright sharpness that meant she was enjoying herself, the look she gave to people who could keep up with her. She was giving Wickham her full attention, and Wickham was basking in it with the practiced ease of a man who had been collecting people's attention his entire life.
Wickham. Of all the people in England. Of all the regiments in the army. George Wickham was here, in Hertfordshire, wearing a red coat and a charming smile and standing close enough to Elizabeth Bennet to touch her sleeve, and Darcy could not say a word about it without exposing Georgiana.
He gripped his wine glass. He had been holding it for fifteen minutes and had not taken a single sip. The sweet smell of it turned his stomach.
He knew what Wickham was doing. He had watched Wickham do it before, at Cambridge, at Ramsgate, at house parties and assemblies and anywhere there was a woman with something Wickham wanted. The formula was always the same. The warmth. The confidences. The wounded story, delivered with just enough reluctance to seem authentic. Then the lean, the close attention, the gaze held just past the point of propriety. Wickham's charm was not spontaneous. It was a performance, rehearsed until the seams vanished. Every smile did the work of a buttress.
And Elizabeth, clever Elizabeth, sharp-eyed Elizabeth, was falling for it. Because Wickham was offering her everything Darcy could not: easy conversation, open warmth, the feeling of being seen without having to fight for it.
Darcy watched Wickham touch Elizabeth's arm. A brief contact, barely a brush of fingers. She did not pull away.
His jaw tightened. He looked at the bookcase. The titles blurred.
He thought about telling her. He could cross the room. He could pull Elizabeth aside and say,This man attempted to elope with my fifteen-year-old sister for her fortune. He is a liar and a predator and his charm is the bait on a hook.He could say it and it would be the truth and it would save Elizabeth from whatever story Wickham was currently spinning.
And it would destroy Georgiana. The whispers would start within a week. Georgiana Darcy, nearly ruined at Ramsgate. The girl who almost eloped with her brother's steward's son. It would follow her for years. It would follow her forever.
He could not do it. He would not trade his sister's reputation for his own.
So he stood against the wall with his too-sweet wine and watched.
Wickham caught his eye across the room. Their gazes met over Elizabeth's head, and Wickham smiled. It was a particular smile, one Darcy had seen before. At Cambridge, when Wickham had borrowed money he would never return. At Pemberley, when the old Mr. Darcy had praised his charm. It was the smile of a man who understood exactly what he was taking and from whom.
