"I should be very pleased to make Miss Darcy's better acquaintance."
He inclined his head.
"You are very kind."
Crossing the room, he offered Georgiana his arm and quietly explained that Miss Bennet had agreed to sit with her.
When they returned, Elizabeth's expression softened in a manner Darcy had not yet seen directed towards himself.
"Miss Bennet," Georgiana said, curtseying.
"Miss Darcy."
Elizabeth returned the courtesy with a smile.
It was an entirely different smile from any she had bestowed upon him. Genuine, immediate, and directed wholly towards a young lady rather than a gentleman she had no particular wish to encourage.
Georgiana smiled in return. It was a small thing, perhaps, but Darcy had not seen a smile reach her eyes in many months.
Darcy stepped back and allowed them the space the moment required.
He watched as Georgiana began speaking, hesitantly at first, to a woman who listened with her whole attention, who turned towards her completely, and who possessed the rare ability of making another person feel entirely seen.
Within only a few moments, Georgiana appeared more at ease than she had since their arrival in Hertfordshire.
He had come that evening hoping to confirm a theory.
He had not yet obtained the answer he sought.
Yet he had found someone in whose company Georgiana seemed immediately comfortable.
For the present, that was enough.
FOUR
30thOctober 1811
Oakham Mount.
Elizabeth
Nothing composed Elizabeth's mind so effectually as an early morning walk, when the lanes were empty and the chance of encountering anyone was as slight as Hertfordshire permitted. The Bennets had returned home late the previous evening, and the events at Lucas Lodge had left her with very little sleep.
It was not Georgiana Darcy who occupied her thoughts. The young lady had been perfectly agreeable, shy, sincere, and considerably easier company than her brother. Elizabeth had enjoyed their conversation and found herself genuinely pleased to have renewed the acquaintance.
It was the brother who had refused to leave her in peace.
She had lain awake turning over his words with the same methodical attention she devoted to anything that unsettled her, examining them from every perspective until she was satisfied she had overlooked nothing.
…the noise, the movement, the number of conversations happening at once. Some people find it fatiguing. Others manage it with considerable skill.
She had acquitted herself well. She always did. She had answered him lightly, diverted the conversation, and revealed nothing. Yet the words themselves, the particular shape of them,the care with which they had been chosen, lingered in her mind in a manner she could not dismiss. It was not what he had said. It was what he had nearly said. The slight pause before the wordskill. The manner in which he had watched her receive it.
He had been testing something. Of that she was almost certain.
Which made no sense.
There was no possible way he could know. Her family did not speak of it. Jane would sooner hold her tongue forever than mention such a thing to Mr. Bingley, and her father and Mary made it a principle never to discuss the matter. Her mother referred to it when it suited her purpose, but she was hardly in a position to confide in Mr. Darcy. As for Kitty and Lydia, though they possessed neither discretion nor good sense in abundance, Elizabeth could not imagine either of them discussing the subject within the hearing of anyone connected to him.
