Page 51

“Agreed.” She removed her hand from his arm before its warmth could become embarrassing. “I shall endeavor to be ruthlessly practical.”

“That,” Darcy said, rising from the bench and offering her his hand, “I should very much like to see. And Elizabeth, once we have recovered from this… debt ordeal, I would like to hunt down a folio of colorful prints by Count de Buffon, Planches Enluminées, for you and our library.”

“A folio of colorful prints,” Elizabeth repeated. “You are already planning our library’s rehabilitation, and we have not yet sorted whether the roof leaks.”

“The roof does not leak. The west wing walls need attention, but it is structurally sound.” His voice had taken on that earnest quality she had once mistaken for pedantry. “And a man may plan for beauty while addressing practicality. The two are not mutually exclusive.”

She turned to look at him properly then—this husband she had married under protest and was slowly, alarmingly, beginning to understand. The morning light caught the planes of his face, the strong line of his jaw, and those eyes. She had once thought them harsh, piercing, and judgmental, measuring her deficiencies. But here in the pavilion where he had sat with his mother, she saw what the harshness had concealed: uncertainty, hope held carefully in check, and something deeper still—a tenderness he seemed almost afraid to show.

He was watching her watch him, and for a breath neither of them spoke.

“I should like that very much,” she said finally, and her voice came out softer than she meant it to. “The Buffon. When circumstances allow.”

When they rose to leave, Darcy paused beside a patch of primroses growing in the shelter of the pavilion steps. He bent and plucked one, then straightened to offer it to her with an almost shy expression.

“You are killing it,” she said, though her protest held no real force.

“I am presenting it to you.”

“You are presenting its corpse. It was perfectly happy growing in that wall. Now it will wilt within the hour, and I shall have botanical murder on my conscience.”

“Then we shall both be guilty.” He had not withdrawn the flower. It sat in his outstretched palm, small and yellow and absurdly hopeful, and Elizabeth felt an old, heavy latch lift in her chest—a door opening she hadn’t known was closed.

She took the primrose and his hand, her gloved fingers curling around his, and when she looked up with a smile she meant to be teasing, she found his gaze had dropped to her mouth.

“You have a beautiful smile,” he said. “I have thought so since the first time I saw it directed at someone who was not me.”

“And now it is directed at you.”

“Yes.” His eyes lifted to meet hers, dark, warm, and unexpectedly unguarded. “Now it is.”

They stood there a beat too long, the primrose between them, the spring air soft on their faces and the distant call of a song thrush breaking the silence. Elizabeth suspected her cheeks had gone pink.

“Then I shall endeavor to trade primroses for your smile every morning.”

“That would be excessive. Simply refrain from further violence against the spring flowers.” She tucked the primrose behind her ear, where it would certainly wilt and look ridiculous within the hour, and found that she did not care. “Come. I believe Hannah is developing a chill, and Mrs. Reynolds will have my head if I return her with a case of the sniffles.”

They walked back toward the house together, and if Darcy’s hand brushed hers more than necessary for balance on the uneven path, neither of them remarked on it. The tightness in her chest had loosened. This was easy, somehow. Easier than it should have been.

“My uncle would have liked the Bewick engravings. Or the Buffon book. He traveled a lot. To the Continent before all of the troubles. Sailed through the Straits of Gibraltar to the Italian coast. Brought back small gifts and tall tales.”

“You were fond of him.”

“I was.” She touched the primrose behind her ear. “I have been reading his letters again. Since coming here. Looking for—” She stopped. What could she say? Clues about why he arranged their marriage or some sign he knew what he was doing? How had he known Darcy would be too honorable to wait for the expiration date and take the fortune himself? Most men would have. Even Mr. Byron Lefevre might have been tempted to take the fortune without the maiden.

“Looking for what?” Darcy asked.

“I am not certain. Some sense of who he was, perhaps. Most of the letters came from Bristol, lately, but when he was younger, he stayed in London. He often invited my father, and my mother pressed for trips to London for us, especially Jane, but it never happened.”

“Because your father did not prefer London?”

Elizabeth thought about it. “My uncle did not have his own house. He stayed with friends, Bexley House, not quite in Mayfair. I wonder what his life was like there. What he did, and who he knew.”

Darcy’s expression didn’t change, but something flickered in his eyes. “Bexley House?”

“Yes. Do you know it?”

“It is in St. James on Pall Mall. A private establishment, I believe, for gentlemen engaged in business.” He paused. “Your uncle was in trade?”