“Quite well, Mr. Darcy. Thank you.” Jane’s composure held, but only just; I could see the effort it cost in the set of her shoulders and the careful steadiness of her voice.
Then he saw me.
His face lost all color. I watched it happen—a man discovering the furniture rearranged by someone with a grudge.
Good.Did you think you could hide behind a curtain, sir? Did you think my sister had no one to defend her?
“Miss Elizabeth.” His voice dropped half a register and acquired the particular stiffness that formal men adopt when the ground beneath them shifts. “I was not aware you were in London.”
“Were you not?” I stood, because sitting while he towered was a concession I refused to make. “How very startling for you. We are full of surprises here in Cheapside.”
“Elizabeth,” Jane murmured.
I adjusted my expression by several degrees toward something Mrs. Gardiner would not feel obliged to address later. “I meant only that my visit was arranged rather recently, and I suppose my uncle had no reason to mention it. You have been in communication with Mr. Gardiner, I understand?”
“I called yesterday on a matter of business, and the question of the tortoise arose quite naturally from the conversation.”
“Quite naturally,” I echoed, and smiled the sort of smile that does not invite comfort.
Mrs. Gardiner curtsied politely. “Mr. Darcy, welcome. I am Mrs. Gardiner, and I am excessively grateful to you. My husband told me of your offer last evening, and I confess the children have spoken of nothing else since breakfast. May I see him?”
She peered into the basket, and whatever Darcy had been bracing for in my direction was momentarily set aside.
“This is Bertram,” he said. “He belonged to my father when he was but a boy. I am afraid he has been rather neglected in mycare. A bachelor’s household in London is no place for a creature accustomed to a garden and children.”
“He is magnificent.” Mrs. Gardiner touched the edge of the shell with one gentle finger. “My husband said you were generous, Mr. Darcy, but I think he understated the matter considerably. Parting with a creature your father loved must cost you a great deal.”
Something passed across his face, too quickly for me to name. “It costs less than keeping him where he is not happy. He deserves a proper home.”
“Then he shall have one.”
The children descended, as children do when promised a miracle: at full speed, in glorious disarray, and loud enough to rattle the windowpanes. Alice led the charge, hair escaping its ribbon, face set with the gravity of the eldest child leading the brigade. Samuel followed, questions already forming. Rose, four and always running, collided with the basket before anyone could stop her.
“Is that him? Is that the tortoise? Can I hold him? Is he alive? Why is he not moving?” Rose demanded while Thomas’s nursemaid carried him to peer into the basket.
“He is shy,” Darcy said, and knelt.
He knelt on my aunt’s carpet, this man of ten thousand a year and all the pride that Derbyshire could furnish, set the basket on the floor, and lifted the tortoise out with both hands, steadying the shell against his waistcoat, and held him where four children could see.
“You must be patient,” he said. “He is very old, and he has come a long distance. If you are gentle and quiet, he will put his head out presently.”
“He is beautiful,” Alice breathed. She extended one careful finger to the dome of the shell. “Look, Samuel. The markings are like a little country of their own.”
“What does he eat?” Samuel asked, crouching beside Darcy with his chin on his knees.
“Strawberry tops are his particular favorite, but he is fond of dandelion leaves and clover. He does not care for lettuce, although I have been offering it to him for five years, which I suspect says more about my stubbornness than his appetite.”
Rose leaned in until she was nose to shell with Bertram. “Hello, Mr. Tortoise. My name is Rose, I am four, and I am going to be your best friend.”
Bertram, with the timing of a creature who has lived long enough to understand an audience, extended his ancient head from his shell and regarded Rose with one dark, steady eye.
Rose shrieked with joy. Thomas, who was two and understood only that something magnificent was happening, sat down with a thump and reached for the tortoise with both hands.
“Gently.” Darcy caught the boy’s small fists with a gentleness that surprised me. He guided Thomas’s hands to the shell. “There. Can you feel how smooth?”
Thomas let out a deep sigh of satisfaction and patted Bertram with the generous enthusiasm of the very young.
I stood by the sofa, watching, and felt the uncomfortable pinch of evidence poking holes in my convictions. The man kneeling on the carpet did not match the man at the window. The gentleman showing a toddler how to pet a tortoise hardly resembled the figure who had glared at my sister as she was turned away from a door. Both could not be real; one had to be an act, and I meant to find out which.
