She arched a brow. “Why?”
“Because,” he said, “he would be entirely unsuited to you.”
And before she could reply—before she could smile that knowing smile that made his thoughts scatter—he turned and started for the window so he might climb back out onto the lawn, with no one—least of all, Collins—the wiser.
“Do tell your cousin to keep his wits about him,” she said, stopping him. “If anyone is going to be captured following a decoy, I should prefer it not be someone I do not dislike.”
Darcy inclined his head. “He will be thrilled to know you care.”
“I do not. But you will be insufferable if anything happens to him, and I dislike you less when you smile on occasion.”
She was already halfway to the door leading out into the hall when she tossed it over her shoulder, casual as anything.
Darcy watched her go, heart clenching in that maddening, inevitable way it always did now.
Chapter Twenty-One
May 28, 1812
Thecandleonhisdesk had long since guttered to a stub. A second one burned low beside it, throwing distorted shadows against the far wall of the study at Netherfield. Darcy sat with his back to the fire, boots polished, coat ready, and his plans drawn out with a precision bordering on desperation.
At first light, he would ride for London.
He did not like it. He had left her once before, and in the space of a single morning she had found her life threatened and her trust shaken. But this could not wait—not with the Prince expecting an account, and not with the ghost of a man he once chased beginning to take shape again.
Three years ago, a man named Hugh Maddox had vanished amid whispers of a disgrace too sensitive for the courts. Darcy had been dispatched—quietly, without written orders—by the King himself to investigate the death no one dared confirm.
Maddox had once been a silent hand of the Crown, a fixer who operated in shadow and left no trace. The King never admitted it, not openly, but Darcy had pieced together enough to see the truth—and His Majesty, in a rare flicker of lucidity, had let slip a phrase that confirmed what Darcy already knew.
“Officially,” Maddox was dead. Disavowed. Buried. But off the books… well, there was no proof of anything.
The only likeness Darcy ever saw had been a miniature, painted when Maddox was scarcely out of boyhood—useless now, against the man in Elizabeth’s sketch. But the ring on that man’s hand—the hippocampus seal of a now-disbanded regiment—Maddox would have worn one. And years before, he had shared political sympathies with Sir William Cunningham, back when opposing Perceval’s reforms was fashionable treason.
If Maddox still lived, and if he was working for Cunningham now, then the rot stretched deeper than anyone feared. And Darcy could not unmask a ghost from Meryton.
He closed the leather folio with a snap and turned as Bingley stepped in, hair still rumpled from sleep.
“Good heavens, Porter was right. You’re up and dressed at this ungodly hour,” Bingley said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Which is either a good sign or a terrible one. Judging by your expression, I will assume terrible.”
“I ride to London at dawn.”
That woke him fully. “Alone?”
“Yes. I will hire as many horses as I need, ride quickly and stop only when necessary. I can be there and back in a day.”
Bingley folded his arms and leaned against the doorframe. “And what am I meant to do while you are galloping off toward glory?”
Darcy exhaled. “Stay at Longbourn.”
Bingley blinked, rubbed his eyes, and blinked again. “You cannot be serious. How long?”
He looked up. “All day. From the moment Mr. Bennet lumbers down the stairs to sneak into his study until the moment the housekeeper shoos you out the door because she has run out of her day’s allotment of candles for the drawing room. I do not care if you are seated beside Lydia Bennet while she recounts the entire lineage of the dragoons. I need a familiar presence in the house.”
“Darcy—”
“She is not safe.” The words came sharper than intended.
He stood, crossing to where Bingley waited. “We are being watched. I need to leave—briefly—but I will not do so unless I know someone is in that house who will notice if she vanishes.”
