“I should mind very much if you did not,” he replied.
She glanced at him, amused, then grew thoughtful. “What do you think of Miss Bingley being restored to the household?”
His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. He did not answer at once.
“I confess,” he said finally, “that I have reservations.”
“That is precisely what I feared,” Elizabeth said. “I am hoping it will not be too difficult. You know her far better than I do.”
“Yes,” he said slowly. “And that knowledge is what gives me pause.”
They turned a corner, the path narrowing, hedges brushing close on either side. Sunlight filtered through the leaves in broken patterns.
“It is curious,” Elizabeth continued, “how one may be so very certain of a person one moment, and uncertain the next. Mr. Bingley last evening was not the man I believed him to be.”
Darcy exhaled. “Nor was he the man I believed him to be.”
She stopped again, turning to face him. “Then you noticed it too.”
“I did,” he said. “In all the years of our friendship, I have never seen him so resolved. So immovable.”
“Which do you think is the true Mr. Bingley?” she asked. “The agreeable gentleman who shrinks from conflict, or the man who spoke with such authority when it mattered?”
Darcy considered this as they resumed walking. “I believe,” he said at last, “that both are true. The question is which will prevail when the two are set against one another.”
Elizabeth nodded slowly. “That is what troubles me.”
“It troubles me as well,” he admitted.
Elizabeth had just begun to reply when the uneven path betrayed her. Her foot caught on a root half-hidden beneath the ivy, and she stumbled, only slightly—but enough.
Darcy’s arm came out at once, steady and sure, his hand closing around her forearm before she could recover herself. He did not pull her sharply, nor did he release her too quickly. Instead, he adjusted his hold, his arm settling naturally so that hers rested against it, and they continued on together as though nothing remarkable had occurred.
Elizabeth, however, was keenly aware that something had.
The warmth of his arm, the quiet solidity of him beside her, sent a strange flutter through her chest. It was not embarrassment, exactly, nor alarm—but an awareness so sharp she nearly forgot her surroundings. She had never noticed such a thing before, not even when dancing. This was different. This was… disconcerting.
To cover the sudden confusion of her thoughts, she spoke quickly.
“We should speak of happier things,” she said. “Tell me about your family. Your estate. What was it like growing up in Derbyshire? I have heard of its beauty from my aunt, who was raised in Lambton.”
Darcy welcomed the change at once, though his arm did not withdraw.
“Derbyshire is quieter than Hertfordshire,” he said. “Wilder, perhaps. There is a kind of grandeur to it that does not announce itself. Pemberley sits above the river, and as a boy I thought there was no finer place in the world.”
She listened intently as they walked, the path widening now, the hedges thinning.
“I was not raised alone,” he continued. “My cousin George Wickham lived nearby, and we were companions from early childhood. His father was my mother’s younger brother, who worked at Pemberley as the steward. He was clever and charming, and for many years I believed him my equal in all things.”
Elizabeth glanced up at him. “And then?”
“And then,” Darcy said carefully, “we went to university. I was treated as the heir I was, and he was not. The difference changed him. Or perhaps it only revealed what had always been there.”
“Is he your only family?”
“To an extent, yes. My mother’s family is descended from the Fitzwilliam line—her mother was an earl’s daughter who eloped with a footman and was disowned for her actions. Her elder brother sired my stepmother, Lady Anne. So, my mother and stepmother are first cousins, though they never met.”
“That sounds quite complicated.”
