“Lizzy.” She leaned forward, and her voice dropped. “I know you are concerned about me, and I will not rehash the argument. You may keep Mr. Darcy as the villain of your own private novel if it suits you. I am going to Burlington House, and I should like you beside me, not because I need a chaperone but because I need my sister.”
A pang jabbed me between the ribs. Jane still needed me, and I could hardly let her brave such peril without my barbed wit at the ready.
“I shall be beside you,” I said. “And I shall be civil.”
“That is all I ask.”
“I reserve the right to be civil in my own particular fashion.”
“I would expect nothing less.” The ghost of a smile. The first real one I had seen from her in days, and it cost me, because Jane’s smiles had always been freely given and rarely directed at me with this tender, knowing quality, as though she were the elder sister and I the one who needed minding.
And no, I shall not revise this, as I stomped my way up the stairs to dress in my most matronly and unattractive day dress—a moss green.
Mr. Darcy’s carriage arrived at half past one, the sort that announced itself just by existing on Gracechurch Street. Dark, well-sprung, drawn by matched bays, crest on the door, coachmen in matching livery.
Jane wore her cream muslin and the blue spencer and looked, as Jane always looked, as though she had been painted by someone who understood that beauty need not announce itself. I wore the green for no other reason than to have clothes on my back.
Mr. Darcy waited by the carriage in a dark blue, perfectly tailored coat. He looked exactly as he always did: composed, reserved, and irritatingly tall. He bowed to Jane first, as was proper and entirely expected. Why question the order? I was merely the acceptable companion.
His hand was warm as he helped me into the carriage, his grip firm and as brief as propriety demanded. I settled in and absolutely did not think about his hand.
He took the backward-facing seat, as a gentleman should, while Jane and I sat side by side. He avoided me, the nearly invisible accessory, and spoke to Jane about the collection, Lord Elgin’s years in Athens, his methods, and, of course, the controversy. Courteous, attentive, entirely proper—and he did not look at me once, which should not have irritated me, but did.
I stared out the window, relieved that for once, I was not under his scrutiny and found wanting. I was already below his notice, as a disposable companion should be. Perhaps I should have donned a grey governess dress. I doubt he would have noticed.
Burlington House was grand in the way that buildings constructed by people of considerable wealth tend to be: imposing without being warm. The Marbles had been arranged in a gallery on the ground floor, and when we entered, the scale of them stopped me mid-step.
I had read about the Parthenon friezes. I had seen engravings. Nothing prepared me for the presence of them: the weight of stone carved two thousand years ago by hands that understood something about the human body that no one since had quite recaptured. The horses were in motion. The riders leaned into the gallop with a freedom that seemed impossible for marble. The drapery on the female figures fell in folds so fluid that I had to remind myself it was stone and not silk.
Jane stood before a panel of the processional frieze, her face soft with wonder. Darcy stood beside her, and I watched him watch my sister, and what I saw on his face was not what I had been looking for. It was almost like the look he gave Bingley when he fretted about Jane and her high fever, whether to call the doctor. Something careful and restrained, like my sister was a piece of gossamer silk or a fragile, almost transparent teacup.
No, I should not stare and wonder if that was the face of a man in love, measuring every crease in his forehead, everycleared throat. Not because I was indifferent, but because his handsomeness was frankly an affront.
So I followed them from frieze to frieze, image to image, watching because it was my chaperone’s duty to catch every nuance.
At one point, he leaned his head too close to Jane’s, a hairbreadth away, and so I sidled up silently to forestall any impropriety, inadvertently catching his words.
“Miss Bennet, I hope you will forgive me for speaking directly. I mentioned to your uncle that I wished to discuss a matter relating to Mr. Bingley.”
My nerves iced over as I pressed behind a marble column and edged closer, unseen.
“Uncle mentioned it to me privately,” Jane admitted, to my chagrin. Why had she not reassured me Darcy’s purpose was Bingley? My fingers clenched my reticule as I held my breath for what came next.
“Bingley is in London. He has been at his club since the new year, and he has not been his usual self. He is not staying with his sisters, and I do not believe he is aware that you are in town.”
“He does not know?”
“His sisters have not seen fit to inform him.”
“And you?” Jane’s gasp echoed off the frieze beside her, depicting a procession of young women, their faces serene, their steps measured. “You are telling me this because you mean to tell him.”
“I believe you deserve to know. And yes, I mean to speak to him. This week, if possible, unless you would prefer otherwise.”
“I… thank you, Mr. Darcy. Do as you please,” Jane replied, causing me to roll my eyes and huff. If she wished for Bingley to know, she must exert herself instead of hiding behind what was proper and correct. Yes, a lady did not importune herself andurge a gentleman to speak on her behalf, but neither should she defer the decision to Darcy.
“Miss Bennet, I believe we are holding up the procession.” He darted his gaze in my direction, catching my exasperation before I pretended to fidget with my reticule, grumbling about a missing shilling. Jane did not seem to notice, her attention on the gallery, her smile as serene as it was the day Bingley’s carriage departed from Netherfield.
I walked away from them. The Marbles drew me, and the conversation was too private for a chaperone who was coming apart at the seams. I drifted along the gallery, past the metopes with their tangled centaurs and Lapiths, past fragments of pediment sculpture, until I stopped before a piece set apart from the others: horse heads emerging from a broken base, their necks straining forward, their mouths open, their eyes wild with effort. They were Selene’s horses, I knew from my reading, the team that had pulled the moon across the sky all night, and they were magnificent and exhausted and still, after two thousand years, in motion.
