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“The difficulty lies in having time enough to spend on it. I have read the same page three times.”

His short laugh lit up his face. Elizabeth blinked. She had always acknowledged that the man was handsome, but she had never seen him anything but severe. When he laughed, he appeared altogether . . . different.

But then she remembered Mr. Wickham, who was also handsome and possessed a pleasant laugh. A gentleman who had reduced his father’s godson to poverty because the bequest was oddly worded did not become a different man because her reading habits amused him.

She reached for her tea and discovered that she had already finished it.

Beside them, Mr. Bingley had progressed from Hyde Park to Covent Garden without pausing for breath. Aunt Gardiner mentioned that they had tickets for a performance after Twelfth Night.

Mr. Darcy nodded towards the book. “Perhaps you will manage another page tomorrow.”

“That depends upon how the day proceeds.”

After tea, Mr. Bingley paused long enough to acknowledge the lateness of the hour. The gentlemen rose and made their farewells.

“Until tomorrow,” Mr. Bingley told Jane.

Mr. Darcy bowed to Elizabeth. “Until tomorrow, Miss Elizabeth.”

The front door had scarcely closed behind them when Miss Bingley’s bell rang. Elizabeth sighed and then made her way down the passage.

Miss Bingley had her head turned away, which was unusual. “The letter,” she said.

Elizabeth saw that there was a note on the table which had not been there before. It must have been the one Mr. Bingley brought with him.

“You may burn it,” Miss Bingley said.

CHAPTER 8

Darcy had nearly won.

This was no small achievement, considering the number of distractions in the room.

Master Edward was frowning fiercely at the chessboard across the table from Darcy. Master Henry had long ago abandoned his brother and crawled beneath the table, where he was conducting a private campaign involving two wooden soldiers and the legs of Darcy’s chair. At another table near the window, Miss Margaret was addressing cards in a careful hand while Miss Eleanor cut lengths of ribbon and disputed nearly every instruction her elder sister gave her.

Near the fire, Bingley and Miss Bennet had a book open between them, though they appeared to have forgotten it completely. Mrs. Gardiner sat at her escritoire with a collection of letters and household lists before her. Mr. Gardiner had not yet returned from his place of business.

Miss Bingley occupied the chaise.

Her presence in the drawing room was treated as an event of some consequence. Mr. Hinshaw had permitted her to remain in company for one hour, provided she did not overexert herself and was properly supported. She had therefore been arranged near the fire amid enough cushions to suggest a far more complicated injury than Darcy understood her to have sustained.

Nothing else about her suggested she was an invalid. Her hair was dressed simply but with its usual fashionable precision—the Gardiners’ maid must have helped her—and her gown was well-cut and expensive. Only the care with which she sat betrayed her.

Darcy had been quick to accept Master Edward’s invitation to play a game of chess. This was not because the board was on a table near where Miss Elizabeth sat with her sewing. It was only because a man engaged in a game with a child could not be expected to join a conversation with those sitting near the hearth, and thus he would be spared from idle talk.

Bingley had not noticed, and Darcy was pleased with the very sound arrangement.

Once Miss Bingley was settled, Miss Elizabeth had taken a chair near the chess table, a stocking in one hand and her needle in the other. From what Darcy observed, she had spent the past five days or so tending to Miss Bingley and assisting Mrs. Gardiner with the thousand small inconveniences created by an unexpected guest who required special care. Darcy had already seen her start to rise twice that afternoon when the maid came in.

Both times Mrs. Gardiner had shaken her head, and both times Miss Elizabeth had reluctantly returned to her chair.

Darcy approved. She ought not make herself ill with work. He evaluated the board, and said, “Your bishop.”

The boy frowned. “What about him?”

“He is in danger.”

Master Edward bent until his nose was only a few inches above the pieces. “From what?”