"I arrived," he said, "as soon as I was able. I had three commitments this week that no longer exist."
"I understand that."
"Then I'm not sure what you're asking of me, Elizabeth."
It was the first time he'd used her name. It landed, as it always did, somewhere between an acknowledgment and a challenge — not quite warm, not quite cold, occupying the particular territory that Darcy had always seemed most comfortable in, which was the territory where you couldn't quite pin him down.
"I'm not asking anything of you," she said. "I'm telling you something. There is a girl in this apartment who just lost both of her parents, and she has been holding herself together with a composure that would impress most adults, and what I am telling you is that this is not a schedule to be cleared. This is where you are now. This is what comes first."
Something moved behind his expression — not anger, he was too controlled for anger to arrive cleanly — but something older and more complicated, the expression of a man who has been told a true thing in a way that still manages to be unfair, and who is deciding, in real time, whether to say so.
"I know that," he said.
"Then act like it."
The silence that followed was so complete you could almost hear it. The refrigerator hummed. From the kitchen came the soft sound of the oven door opening.
"Her room is the same," Elizabeth said, when it became clear he wasn't going to respond to that. "I've left her parents' room closed. She should be able to go in when she's ready, on her own terms, in her own time. I haven't moved anything." She paused. "You're in the room at the end of the hall. I'm in the guest room on the right. I'm certain you can find your way around."
She turned and walked into the kitchen without looking back, because looking back had never once helped anything.
FOUR
THE BATHROOM FELT LIKE PEACE.
Darcy leaned against the counter and looked at nothing in particular. It had been a long day. The drive from Manhattan, the bags, moving into Richard and Charlotte's home, Mia's face when she opened the door. And Elizabeth.
Yes, Elizabeth and her fine careful eyes that made a room feel smaller without moving an inch in it.
She had said something at dinner. Something small and pointed, delivered in the tone she reserved for observations she considered self-evident and did not feel the need to cushion. He had not responded. He had learned, a long time ago, that responding was rarely the thing Elizabeth Bennet was actually inviting you to do.
It had still landed.
But now he was in the bathroom, removed for a moment from responsibility, from grief, from Elizabeth and her sharp eyes and sharper words. It felt like peace.
He had been in there for seven minutes when his phone rang.
Darcy glanced toward the marble sink where he had left it.
Bingley. Of course it was Bingley.
He answered it anyway.
"Day one," Bingley said, without preamble. "How bad is it?"
Darcy looked at himself in the mirror. He had the expression of a man who had eaten dinner in careful silence across a table from someone he had complicated feelings about while a fifteen-year-old watched both of them with great interest and said very little.
"It is fine," he said.
"You are standing in a bathroom," Bingley said. "I can tell by the acoustics."
Darcy said nothing.
"Will."
"I needed a moment."
"Right." A pause followed. "How is Mia?"
