“Mr. Darcy, might I occupy a few minutes of your time?” She did not meet his eyes, and there was something about her expression that was odd.
The housekeeper wiped her hands on her dress when Darcy directed her to sit across from him. She frowned when she sat, wringing her hands repeatedly.
“Is it something about Mrs. Darcy?”
“What? Oh no… no. Or in a way.”
Relief turned to a jump of worry in his stomach.
Mrs. Reynolds did not look at him. She drew circles with her finger on the knee of her dress. He’d known the woman since he was a young child, and Darcy was reasonably certain that he had never seen her behave in such a way.
“I beg you, deliver your news, you make me anxious.”
“I have a confession to make.” Mrs. Reynolds met his eye briefly, and then looked away.
“A confession? What could you have to confess to? Have we lost all our jam preserves?”
“No, sir.” She did not smile. “The preserves are as they ever have been. Do you recall that portrait?”
“Which portrait?”
She looked at him in a frowning way. Then Darcy knew. “The miniature of Mr. Wickham from my father’s sitting room?”
She nodded, and Darcy’s blood ran cold.
“I… Miss Darcy begged me to permit her to keep it, and Mrs. Darcy agreed that I ought. And… at the time it seemed wrong to me. Wrong to destroy that picture of Wickham’s boy. Mr. Wickham deserved better than to have his son’s portrait burned. But—”
“Mrs. Darcy asked you to not damage the portrait?” Darcy asked again.
“She did. But she said that if I disagreed, I ought to take the matter to you again. You should not think ill of her over this.”
He’d seen Mr. Wickham look at Elizabeth. He’d dared to look at Darcy’swifeon the open street. Though they were not married then. He was still at that time determined to have nothing to do with her. ButGeorge Wickhamhad still kissed Elizabeth’s hand, smiled and simpered at her, andtold her stories.
She’d believed him.
An image, one that he had no reason to believe was a true image, and many reasons to believe that it was false, flashed into mind. Wickham kissing his wife, taking his arms around her, pulling her body against him.
“I heard,” Mrs. Reynolds added when it was clear to her that Darcy was not saying anything else, “from one of Lord Matlock’s servants, a man lately employed by Colonel Fitzwilliam, that young Wickham had tried to do damage to the family. Lord Matlock’s man… did not say what had occurred, but I gathered from how he spoke that Mr. Wickham may have tried to opportune Georgiana during the summer and—”
“Did you not think that I might have had a good reason to insist on destroying that portrait?” Darcy asked with icy sharpness. “Did you not everthink?”
He saw himself as though from the outside. He was angrier than he had ever been in the presence of Mrs. Reynolds. Perhaps the only other times he had ever been this angry had also revolved around Mr. Wickham.
He forced himself to appear calm. Swallowed the anger.
Act as Father would expect. You are a gentleman. A gentleman is always even tempered, no matter the situation.
“My apologies, Mrs. Reynolds. So Miss Darcy requested the portrait, and you gave it to her.” Darcy’s voice was light, fey. That rage though was in his chest. Powerful and red, there even though it did not come out into his voice.
Was his sister still under that man’s spell? He’d thought that she had at least enough sense to be past the matter. “And what exactly did Elizabeth have to do with this? — did she also beg that Wickham’s portrait be saved?”
“No.” Mrs. Reynolds looked unsettled.
Darcy was surprised, he thought he sounded completely calm. “What precisely did Mrs. Darcy have to do with thematter?”
“As I said, she just said that Miss Darcy should have the portrait I… it was a slip of judgement. I should never have let her convince me in this way.”
Darcy stared at her. “Elizabeth can be persuasive.”
