Bingley put down his coffee, his eyes widening. "You stumbled into her room?"
"The door was ajar. I was going to close it. Then I saw the state of it and I —"
"You went in."
"I went in," Darcy nodded. "And I said something about the clothes on the bed. There were clothes everywhere, Charles. On the headboard, the pillow, everywhere. And I simply pointed out that —"
"Will."
"What?"
"You stumbled into her room," Bingley said, with great care, "and your first instinct was to comment on her clothes."
"It was objectively untidy."
"She is a grown woman in her own bedroom."
"Our shared house."
"Her bedroom," Bingley said. "Her private space. That she did not invite you into." He picked up his coffee again. "And you went in and told her it was untidy."
Darcy heaved a sigh, realising it did not sound as straightforward as he had intended. His thoughts had been elsewhere all morning—on a half-finished sentence, not on something as simple as speaking to her about the privacy of her room.
"When you put it that way —"
"How would you put it?"
Darcy said nothing.
Bingley was quiet for a moment. Then, with a teasing smile, he said, “You sound like a man in love.”
Darcy looked at him. "I beg your pardon?"
"A man who walks into a woman's room at six in the morning and immediately concerns himself with the state of her wardrobe." Bingley gestured vaguely. "Like a nagging husband who cannot help himself."
"That is not —" Darcy stopped. "I am not in love with Elizabeth."
Bingley said nothing. He drank his coffee.
"I am not."
"All right."
"We have a complicated history and we are living in close proximity and it has been an emotional few weeks. That is all it is."
"Of course."
"Stop agreeing with me in that tone."
"What tone?"
"The tone that means you do not agree with me at all." Darcy pushed back slightly from the desk. "You have been using that tone since university and it has never once meant what it sounds like it means."
Bingley smiled and set down his cup. "You never got over her. Did you."
The office was very quiet.
"Not really," Darcy said, rubbing his eyes.
