“Done? Why, I have provided five hundred pounds more for your dowries and a vast deal of amusement for myself.” He dipped his pen again. “I hear that Lady Catherine will be ‘displeased.’ So much the better. What good are competing buyers if one is not snubbed in the end?”
I rocked forward and braced my knuckles on his desk. “Towhomdid you sell it?”
“Well, he outranks a baronet’s widow,” Papa chuckled.
I closed my eyes. It wouldn’t do any good to pray this wasn’t happening. “Tell me it was not some earl.”
“Oh, an earl brokered the transaction, to be sure. As a matter of fact, even the Earl of Matlock acted through an agent—someone called Darcy. I suppose that tells us where we rank in the food chain, doesn’t it? There must be at least two steps of separation between us and our future king.”
My knees buckled.
“Lizzy!” Papa shot up from his chair to peer at me over his desk. “Did you get too much sun on your outing?”
I pushed myself up from the floor, still shaking and dizzy, and I felt cautiously for the front of his desk to pull myself upright. “Papa, you did not say what I think you just said. You are not selling that thing to the Prince Regent! Tell me I misheard!”
“Why, no, I believe you heard me aright. A handsome price he paid, too—or will pay, once he is satisfied with it. I’m to receive payment after it is delivered, and such a payment it is! But there, he is royalty, and I warrant he is always obliged to pay more than double whenever he purchases something. Shall I have Hill bring you something?”
“No! Oh, Papa, you cannot sell that toanyone, least of all royalty! Only think what will be made of it if he learns what it is—or, rather, what it isnot.Prince or no prince, you simply must call off the sale!”
Papa chuckled. “It is too late for that, my dear. His Highness already sent his men to collect it. Why do you think I made certain to send everyone to town?”
“You…” I twirled around, and indeed, the statue was no longer on the pedestal in the corner of his study. I stared at the empty surface, willing it to reappear. “It’s gone,” was all I could manage.
“Indeed, and now I have some correspondence to attend with Gardiner and Philips. If you would be so kind, Elizabeth, I mean to finish my letter before the ink dries in my pot.”
I just blinked, still staring. “It’s gone. You sold it to the p… the pr…” My breath was coming in short, unhelpful strangles, and I couldn’t see clearly.
“Now, Elizabeth, I must beg you not to tell your mother that bit of information. What peace would I have then? Heavens! She will want to know when we are invited to the palace for a royal ball. Do kindly let me finish my letter in peace.” He put his hand on my shoulder and guided me to the door, then closed it behind me.
What to do? Papa had signed his own warrant! He knew better than I that the Eros statue was not one of Elgin’s, and it was only a matter of time before someone noticed. How could he think he could keep up the deception? The Prince Regent and his art scholars simply must not be allowed to see it! But how?
An idea tickled the back of my mind. A stupid idea, but in desperate times, it is never the brilliant ideas that present themselves. I needed help, and there was only one person I could turn to.
I didn’t know how to find him. I didn’t even know where to start, save that he was not sitting in Longbourn’s drawing room beside Collins. I pulled on my pelisse, jerked my bonnet knot tight under my chin, and burst through the door outside.
Directly into his arms.
Darcy
“Youdohavesucha way of coming up on me. Do you ever walk mildly into a room, or is it always this crash and thunder with you?”
Elizabeth Bennet stiffened and pushed away—much to my regret—shoving against my chest with one hand and righting her skewed bonnet with the other. “To be more precise, I am not comingintoa room just now but leaving one.”
“And in a fearful rush, too. Dare I ask who has offended you this time?”
Her lips tightened, and her eyes flashed. “Steal any more spoons lately?”
“What?”
“You heard me. How does your new greatcoat suit you?”
I shook my head. “You are speaking in riddles, Miss Bennet. I am afraid I have no time for such games.”
She was grinding her teeth, her nostrils fluttering in contempt—for what, I knew not—but she drank in a deep breath, and her shoulders dropped. “Neither do I. You are a terrible person, but it seems I am in need of a terrible person just now.”
I removed my hat. “For you, Miss Bennet, I believe I could even be a horrible person. Perhaps even an appalling one. What is the trouble?”
She glanced over her shoulder at the house. “Not here.”
