“Derbyshire has withstood worse,” he said, then almost winced at himself.Less estate, more human being, Darcy. “More coffee?” He gestured at the cafetière on a tray Georgiana had carried in, the plunger still raised like a hand waiting to be called on.
“Always.” Elizabeth came over, sleeves pushed to her elbows, hair caught in a slightly lopsided knot that made his hands inexplicably useless for a second. He busied them with mugs and sugar and made sure not to look at her mouth.
“You were good with Maggie,” he said, somehow meaning,You are good with this house, with my sister, with the oddness of my life.“She can be particular.”
“‘Particular’ is the right word,” Elizabeth said, drinking. “She reminds me a bit of my headmistress. I’d have confided my darkest secrets to that woman and then apologised for my punctuation.”
He smiled, stood with her by the windows, drank his own coffee, watched the pale winter sun pick out dull sparks in the garden gravel. “When I was small,” he said, not knowing why he was saying this, “my favourite present was a toboggan.”
She looked up at him with immediate attention. “Was it?”
“A shiny red metal and wooden one,” Darcy said. “My father bought it. Well, Mother likely did the practical choosing, he did the dramatic unveiling. There’d been a proper snowfall. They took me out to the south slope, and I think this will shock you, we were all utterly irresponsible. No helmets, no regard for speed. We just . . . went.” He glanced at her. “It’s the rush I recall—the ground flying past and my mother telling us not to aim for the hedge.”
“That’s lovely,” Elizabeth said, and it was. He swallowed.
“It was also a hazardous assault on the principles of safety,” he added, to ward off the treacle. “We wound up with snow packed down our collars and my father declaring each run ‘the champion of all runs.’ When I tried that line on Georgiana later, she was furious because it was a mathematical impossibility for all of them to win.”
“How old was she then? When you tried it on her?”
“Thirteen.”
There was a softness in her face he had begun to recognise, the one he wanted to believe was for him. “Now what about you?” he asked. “Favourite present?”
She considered, mug cradled in both hands. “My father had my first manuscript turned into a book for me.”
He blinked. “Your first mystery?” he asked.
“No.” Elizabeth’s laugh was unguarded. “I was nine.”
“Nine,” he repeated, feeling a foolish delight at the picture of a nine-year-old Elizabeth setting crimes in motion. “What was it?The Five Find-Outerssort of caper?”
“Worse,” she said. “A pony story. With illustrations. Every pony had an unnaturally complex interior life and a dislike of side reins. My father took the battered stack of pages to a local print shop and returned at Christmas with this . . . this little book. He had someone draw a picture for the cover. It was laminated, because of course. I was unbearable for weeks.”
“I wish I had known you then,” he said, too quickly, and watched something flicker across her expression like a shadow passing behind glass.
It wasn’t a withdrawal so much as a caution. She smiled politely and sipped her coffee. The room ticked and settled.
He reviewed the last thirty seconds the way he reviewed legal drafts, line by anxious line.I wish I had known you then.Did that presume? Did it press? Had he stepped on a floorboard with dry rot?
“You were unbearable?” he offered, trying to coax her back. “I refuse to believe it.”
“Oh, I was,” she said, bright again, but a touch more than natural. “I quoted my own work. I assigned readings.”
“I’d have attended every seminar,” he said. It was true. He put down his mug, glanced outside. The sun had strengthened enough to turn the frost into glittering specks. He didn’t want to sit in a room waiting for whateverthis was to pass. “Would you . . . Shall we walk? It seems criminal not to take advantage when Derbyshire has deigned to be picturesque.”
She turned to look out the window. “Yes,” she said, after that small pause that, from anyone else, would have meant nothing. “I’d like that.”
He found their coats in the hall, and negotiated Waffles, who had been lurking with a posture of exaggerated innocence. Athena dignifiedly joined them because it would, of course, be improper for her people to go out unchaperoned.
“Mind the step,” he said on the way out.
“Yes, Mr. Darcy,” she replied archly.
The air had that crisp, apple-snap freshness that made one’s lungs expand. After a few moments of companionable silence, he tried again. “Your father sounds like an excellent man.”
“He is,” Elizabeth said, and there was love there, unambiguous. Then the brightness again, paper-thin over something else. “He’s . . . he was very encouraging.”
Past tense? No. He bit back the question. Not an interrogation. Not today. “I owe him my thanks for the pony literature. It clearly led to the good stuff.”
