“Miss Bennet, if you are asking whether I regret the manner in which the arrangement came about?—”
“I am asking why you chose a woman with a sharp tongue for your sister’s improvement, when a woman with a soft one would have been far less trouble.”
Ahead of us, Bingley’s voice floated back. “And you simply eat wild garlic? Raw? Straight from the earth?”
“It is best cooked,” Georgiana said. “Miss Bennet says it makes an excellent sauce for mutton.”
Darcy watched his sister—the plait, the basket, the animation in her voice as she lectured Bingley on garlic—and when he turned back, something in his expression had rearranged.
“Georgiana does not need soft,” he said. “She has been surrounded by softness all her life. Simpering tutors and companions. Friends who see her position as a Darcy and whisper to her—compliments and assurances that she is accomplished and admired. She doesn’t know if they are true or…”
“Or sincere.” I placed my gloved hand over my mouth as I hadn’t meant to interrupt.
“There is a lack of honesty and sincerity in our circles, and my sister, who was orphaned too young, had not yet learned to trust her instincts.”
“I see, so you thought I might challenge her.”
“Yes. She finds it easier to agree with everyone on everything. Caroline declares a bonnet charming, and Georgiana declares it charming. Mrs. Hurst pronounces a sonata tedious, and Georgiana sets it aside. Her agreement is so constant it has become meaningless.” He glanced ahead to where Georgiana was nodding and smiling at some observation of Bingley’s. “She is doing it now.”
“She is being polite, Mr. Darcy.”
“She is being invisible.”
The word landed oddly—too precise for a man who had not, until this moment, demonstrated any insight into his sister’s interior life. I looked at him, and his expression told me he had surprised himself.
But he was right. I had seen it—the way Georgiana could empty herself of all expression when a conversation turned dangerous, as though she had practiced vanishing while remaining in the room. She had done it at the pianoforte when Caroline mentioned seaside towns. Not a flinch or a glance at her brother for rescue. Just—nothing. I recognized the technique because I had worn the same blank composure at the assembly while Darcy pronounced my intelligence merely serviceable.
“So you engaged me to argue with her, and your programme of improvement, which includes the traditional pianoforte, Italian, French, needlework, watercolors, and deportment, requires, as its final ingredient, a companion who will vex her.”
“I did not say that, Miss Bennet.” A corner of his mouth moved in a way that was not quite a smile but in the same neighborhood. I noted it with the attention of a woman who was compiling anunauthorized inventory of a man’s expressions and was running out of excuses for why.
“But you meant it just the same.” I allowed myself a full smile. “And so, she threw flour at me and raced me across the field. Did you know she impishly bumped Caroline’s hip into the sheep dung while making a show of shaking out her riding habit?”
At that, Darcy let out a dry chuckle, quickly suppressed into a fit of coughs, startling Cinnamon, who flicked her tail at me, as if I had disturbed her palanquin, which I suppose I had.
We resumed walking while I kicked acorns along the path, satisfied in a way I could not describe. I had meant to vex Mr. Darcy, and his unexpected amusement was quite disconcerting.
“I see that I have chosen wisely.” He said it with the dryness of a man who could have meant it as triumph or self-mockery, and whose face gave nothing away—except that he kicked another acorn, and it sailed past mine by a good ten feet, which rather undermined the ambiguity.
“Mr. Darcy, that is either the finest compliment I have ever received or the most backhanded. I genuinely cannot determine which.”
“Consider it both.” His eyes caught the late amber light as he turned, and I was struck—quite without preparation—by the fact that they were not merely dark, but the brown shade of autumn chestnuts, warm beneath the severity of his brow, and that when they carried this unfamiliar glint of amusement, they changed his entire face from forbidding to something I had no safe word for.
I was staring. He knew I was staring. And I had no bonnet ribbon to fiddle with, no sprig of rosemary to retrieve, and no excuse whatsoever for the heat climbing my neck.
“Your sister is clever,” I said, shifting ground before we strayed into territory that required a chaperone more effective than a horse. “She is observant and reads music the way some people read faces. She hears what is underneath the notes, but she does not trust any of it. She defers to the nearest voice ofauthority and borrows its opinions without making her own decisions.”
“She is still too young to make decisions,” Darcy stated.
“And yet, Mr. Darcy, should she be allowed to make small decisions, like whether to climb a tree or preserve her dignity? I’ll have you know she did not climb the tree, but she did choose to jump over the stile. She also decided to visit me at Longbourn, crossing the boundary stream over the stepping stones.”
Darcy was quiet long enough that I worried I had gone too far, and I was surprised when he started speaking, almost to himself.
“She trusted someone once, using her own judgment. The consequences were…” He searched for the word. “Significant.”
Significant. Not disappointing or embarrassing. The weight of this revelation sat between us like a locked room.
“I am not asking,” I said.
