His thoughts were occupied instead with the image of Elizabeth Bennet shifting almost imperceptibly to her left as he approached, making room for him on that side with the ease of someone who had performed the action so often that it had ceased to require thought. He had noticed it. He had marked it without comment and said nothing. Their conversation had proceeded as though nothing of consequence had occurred.
Yet something of consequence had occurred.
For a fortnight he had turned the matter over in his mind, telling himself he might be mistaken, that he had seen only what he expected to see rather than what was truly there. He could no longer persuade himself of it.
The movement had been too natural, too practised, too entirely unconscious to signify anything else.
And now that he considered it, it was not the first time he had observed it.
At Lucas Lodge, when he had approached her near the refreshment table, she had shifted in precisely the same manner, placing him to her left with a movement so subtle he had not thought much of it at the time. Indeed, upon reflection, he could scarcely recall an occasion during the previous fortnight when he had seen Miss Elizabeth in conversation and not found the person to whom she spoke occupying that position. Whether speaking with Charlotte Lucas, her sisters, or any other member of the company, she invariably arranged herself in the same fashion.
She heard better from her left side. That was the only reasonable argument.
His mother had done precisely the same before her better side had yielded to silence as well.
He dismounted at the Netherfield stables and surrendered his horse to a waiting groom without a word. The house remained quiet. Taking the back stairs, he removed his coat and gloves before proceeding to his room.
His valet had prepared a bath.
Darcy lowered himself into the water and stared at the ceiling, considering what he now knew with something approaching certainty.
Miss Elizabeth Bennet was hard of hearing.
She had concealed it so successfully, and for so many years, that no one beyond her immediate circle appeared to possess the slightest awareness of it. At least, he presumed those within that circle must know. It was difficult to imagine otherwise. She moved through the world with a confidence and composure his mother had required years to acquire, and she had done so without guidance, without the assistance of anyone who truly understood the challenge before her, entirely alone and entirely without embarrassment.
His thoughts turned to Georgiana.
To the fears Wickham had planted and left to flourish. To the questions she had asked repeatedly since Ramsgate, whether any gentleman would ever truly value her, whether her future had already been diminished, whether a defect of health, should she ever suffer one, might place happiness beyond her reach.
He thought of the answer he had been seeking and had not known where to find.
He had found it that morning, upon a hilltop shortly after sunrise.
Emerging from the bath, he dressed with his valet aid and took his place at his private breakfast table with quiet satisfaction.
He would speak with Georgiana.
He would find some means of bringing her more frequently into Miss Elizabeth's company, and Miss Elizabeth's example might accomplish what his own reassurances had thus far failed to achieve.
It was a sensible plan.
It was the correct plan.
He reached for his coffee.
Then, entirely without invitation, he found himself thinking of Elizabeth Bennet eyes.
Dark, direct, and entirely unimpressed by him, which was, he was discovering, a quality to which he was wholly unaccustomed and about which he could not seem to stop thinking. She had looked at him upon that hilltop with the same frank and unhurried attention she appeared to bestow upon everything, and he had looked back. For one brief moment, the theory, the plan, Georgiana, and every other consideration had fallen away, leaving only those eyes, the cold morning air, and the valley below wrapped in mist.
He set down his coffee.
Getting closer to Miss Elizabeth Bennet was for Georgiana, he reminded himself.
That was the purpose.
The only purpose.
He would do well to remember it.
