Darcy came in himself at half past four, carrying two books rather than one, a folded sheet of notepaper tucked under his thumb and a pencil behind his ear in a way so practical it nearly, but did not quite, spoiled the dignity of the whole arrangement.
Nearly.
He had been outdoors. The cold marked him—not with disorder, for he was too much the gentleman to return from mud and wind in real disarray, but with proofs of weather no brushing had yet quite erased. The hem of his dark coat bore a paler line of meadow clay. His hands, though washed, were reddened at the knuckles and faintly darkened at one finger by ink not fully removed, as though estate business had taken him between field, study, and back again without leisure for ornament. A strand of hair near his temple had escaped whatever severe process tamed the rest.
Elizabeth, who had meant to receive the ledger in sober utility, took in the whole of him too quickly and was sufficiently displeased with herself to begin poorly.
“Mr Darcy. You appear to have been wrestled by the estate and emerged only partially victorious.”
He set the books on the chair by her bed.
“That is a fair description of most stewardship. If one emerges wholly victorious, it generally signifies no real work has been attempted.”
Jane was at the hearth folding dried cloths. Elizabeth sensed, without turning, the instant her sister’s hands slowed.
“It is very kind of you to offer me some distraction.” Elizabeth gestured to the helpless mound under the blankets. “I fear I am a disagreeable patient, so any diversion you offer me will pay dividends to my poor sister’s peace of mind as well.”
“I am glad to hear it, but you are very much mistaken if you think I came for your own amusement,” he said mildly. “I find myself in need of a second pair of eyes, hopefully sharper than my own.”
“And have you brought me the true records,” Elizabeth asked, “or only the portion you can bear to expose to criticism?”
“Both, unfortunately. This one—” he touched the larger volume— “is the meadow account for the last two years, including wages, stone, timber, and winter repairs such as they were. This—” his hand moved to the thinner book— “is the householddisbursement book Mrs Reeves bullied from Norton and the village suppliers after my cousin ceased to keep one intelligibly. I have marked the entries most likely to interest you, though I cannot promise the interest will be cheerful.”
“Cheerful sums are generally false ones,” Elizabeth said.
That drew his eyes to hers with a swiftness she could not account for. There it was again, that private alertness between them—the sense that some words, dropped lightly, struck deeper water than the speaker had signalled.
Jane came forward with the folded cloths and set them in the basket. “Do you want the table by the window or the smaller one at the fire, sir?” she asked.
It was a practical question. Every syllable behaved itself. Elizabeth heard, all the same, the undernote. The table by the window would place him at a proper distance with his papers and his back half turned. The smaller one might be drawn nearer the bed for convenience, though not, she suspected, the sort Jane meant to encourage.
Before Elizabeth could answer, Darcy said, “The table by the window for the loose papers, if you please. Miss Bennet cannot go to it, so the books must come to Miss Bennet.”
Jane’s eyes met his for one instant. Then she moved the walnut table beneath the light and laid the ledgers there.
Darcy selected the largest volume, came back to the bed, and drew up a chair beside her. He returned to the hall and came back carrying a small writing-slope, which he opened across Elizabeth’s lap, keeping one hand beneath the board until he was certain its weight did not hurt her.
Jane said nothing. The arrangement was worse than the window by half. Had he taken his place there, all might have passed in order, with distance enough to make the business seem only business. Instead, he established himself at her side, his shoulder almost level with hers, while the account book lay before her as if this were the most natural method in the world.
“You over-provide for my vanity, sir,” Elizabeth said. “A single chair at the window might have conveyed more confidence in my powers.”
“A single chair at the window would have required me to rise every time you found fault with my cousin’s accounts. I am trying, among other things, to preserve efficiency.”
“How fortunate for us that efficiency is so comfortable a principle.”
Jane gave a small sound at the hearth that might, at another time, have been amusement but which now had something rather of the opposite about it.
Darcy did not notice. He opened the larger volume. “Then you shall have your wish. Here. These are Hadley’s meadow wages for November. These, the stone ordered for the west wall. These, the entries for carriage that appear charged twice under different headings. I have marked them because Ashby swears only one cart ever came.”
Elizabeth bent over the page. She forgot, for ten seconds, the room, the pain, the house, her sister, the bag, the whole elaborate danger of her existence. Figures had always possessed the great advantage of indifference. They did not soften because one suffered. They did not sharpen because one hoped. They sat where they were set and exposed either order or deceit.
“This is not a double charge,” she said at once.
Darcy turned his head. “No?”
“It is an altered charge. See? The first entry is for carriage of stone from Bakewell. The second pretends to be carriage of timber from Matlock, but the sum is too neat by half, and the date falls in mid December of last year. No cart from Matlock would have reached you then. The figure has been copied to cover something else.”
“How do you know the weather?”
