She kissed Lady Sophia’s cheek, scratched Nettle behind her torn ear—the terrier’s tail wagged with more conviction than it had an hour ago—and departed with the easy stride of a woman who belonged in this world and moved through it without effort.
The drawing room settled into quiet, and Nettle dropped her leather ball at Elizabeth’s feet.
Elizabeth picked it up. The leather was warm, cracked, and familiar, the one object in this house that had come with her from Hertfordshire and required nothing but to be thrown.
She threw it down the corridor, and Nettle streaked after it, the sound of small paws filling the house like a heartbeat.
Soon enough, Darcy would be back, all ledgers and low, precise voice, sitting across from her with that maddening composure. She would pretend not to notice the strength in his hands, or the way he had looked in the garden, or that half-smile—unexpected, unscripted, and still echoing in her mind. But she doubted she could keep the pretense for long, not if he continued his dutiful trustee offensive.
CHAPTER NINE
A MOST BELOVED SISTER
The budget could have waiteduntil Thursday. Any man with a scrap of composure would have left it to languish on the mahogany desk, untouched until the proper hour.
But Darcy was already halfway across the garden, household expenditure folded in his breast pocket. Trustees had their prerogatives. Letting a shopping expedition of this scale proceed without a signed authorization? Unthinkable. Irresponsible. Practically criminal for a responsibility he held most diligently.
Besides, his sister had asked about the excursion twice at breakfast, and once more upon the stairs, her eyes bright with a social hunger he had not seen in years. If Miss Mary Bennet had seen fit to extend an invitation through the garden gate, and if Miss Courtenay were involved, then the question of chaperonage became a matter of state. He could hardly send his sixteen-year-old sister into the bustle of Bond Street without first conferring with the mistress of the neighboring house.
These were legitimate grounds. Unassailable, really. He had reviewed them over coffee with the same scrutiny he gave a tenant’s lease, and if the logic felt a bit threadbare, well, he would not tug at the seams. No one could fault a man for being thorough.
“Brother, you are walking very fast,” Georgiana said, half-trotting to keep pace on the gravel.
He slowed, a flush of heat rising to his collar. “Forgive me. I was merely… considering the accounts.”
“Are you nervous?
“About a duty? Never.”
“You adjusted your cravat in the hall mirror. Twice. And you are checking your pocket now to see if the papers are still there, though you put them there not three minutes ago.”
“The knot was uneven,” he muttered, though he forced his hand away from his coat pocket.
Georgiana caught his arm, giving it that small, conspiratorial squeeze she had deployed since childhood. It was her way of letting him know she had seen straight through his defenses and was rather enjoying the spectacle.
“I am glad we are going over,” she said, her voice light with a newfound confidence. “Miss Mary and I have been working on a Clementi duet that requires two pianofortes, and Miss Courtenay has offered to turn pages. I believe Miss Elizabeth means to walk Nettle in the square before luncheon, and?—”
“You appear to have a comprehensive itinerary.”
“I have friends,” Georgiana said, with a wonder that caught him off guard, because the wordfriendsin his sister’s mouth still carried the bruise of a girl who had not had any for a long time and was learning to trust again. “It is rather a lot of friends at once. I am not used to it.”
He patted her hand and said nothing, because the moment was too large and tender for the short walk between Number 34 and Number 33. They reached the gate in thirty steps. The sound of women’s voices drifted over the rose beds—a bright, choral buzz that made the morning feel full in a way his own silent halls never managed.
Mrs. Alford admitted them into a drawing room alive with four young women preparing for an expedition: bonnets in various states of selection, a pair of gloves being debated. Jane Bennet sat amidst the swirl with a grace that suggested she had been ready for an hour and was too well-bred to mention it. Miss Mary Bennet sorted sheet music with the focus of a young woman who prioritized sonatas over shopping. But where was Elizabeth?
The woman his godmother had favored for him, Miss Allegra Courtenay, stood at the window, adjusting the ribbon on her bonnet. She had known him since he was thirteen and awkward, and she never held the awkwardness against him.
“Mr. Darcy. What a pleasant surprise. You have brought Georgiana—how lovely.” Allegra crossed to his sister and took both her hands. “Mary and I have been plotting the Clementi. We shall need you at the second pianoforte by four o’clock, or we shall be forced to transpose for one instrument, which would be a crime against Muzio Clementi.”
Georgiana’s face opened with that bright, uncertain joy he was beginning to treasure. “I have been practicing thesecondoall week.”
“I know. I could hear it through the wall,” Allegra teased, though her eyes were kind.
Darcy wondered what else drifted through the wall, but he was too busy noticing Elizabeth’s absence. He cast in his mind her likely location—either the study or the library, or had he missed her and Nettle in the garden?
“Miss Elizabeth is reviewing accounts,” Jane offered, having observed the direction of his glance. “She was quite determined to finish the household vouchers before the carriage was prepared.”
Darcy felt the sudden, cooling relief of a man who had found his bearings in a storm.
