Richard cocked his head. "Agreement?"
Darcy realized, too late, the slip he had made.
Richard’s eyes sharpened with interest. "An agreement with the lady herself?"
Darcy folded his arms and glared at the fire.
It would have been easier to deny it all outright, to lie and be done with it.
But the words stuck.
"Of a sort," he muttered.
Richard laughed again, softer this time. "Well, well. That is more than I expected out of you. Let me guess. Her father disapproves of you, so you chose to move the battle to neutral ground?"
“Nothing of the sort. We have no intention of pursuing one another at all.”
Richard’s laugh died in his throat, but his mouth still dropped open. “You… what?” He shook his head. “Is this not the samewoman you have been dashing up against like the tide on the rocks for five years or better? The same woman who once got you to laugh on a picnic blanket while eating strawberries? Come, man, what is the matter with you? I thought you were desperate.”
“I do not intend—”
“Oh, poppycock! Darcy, I know you have never done this before, but it takes time to get up a decent wedding to avoid scandal. My sister Julia’s wedding was two months, and you have scarcely that now. You have a perfectly living woman there—all her teeth, if I recall, adequate limbs and digits, even a somewhat fetching figure, if you like the wispy, elfin sort with over-large eyes and a perpetual look of mischief about her—and you will not move to settle matters where you can?”
“Miss Bennet and I do not suit. There is the end of it.”
The colonel sighed and rubbed a hand over his eyes. “I see. Well, back to the battle map, eh? I suppose Saturday…”
Darcy set his glass down with more force than courtesy dictated. "It is intolerable," he muttered.
"Which part?"
"All of it," Darcy said shortly. He turned from the hearth, pacing the length of the room with grim agitation. "To parade oneself at every rout and assembly like a merchant displaying wares—"
"Yes, yes," Richard said, waving a hand. "Utterly beneath you. But needs must, cousin."
Darcy turned to the window, scowling, and turned back again. “I suppose you have it all worked out.”
Richard watched him flounder with all the patience of a man observing a large, stubborn animal contemplating a very small gate. "Come to the Harringtons' musical evening for a start."
She might be there. By chance. By fate. He could not help but wonder—
Darcy stopped pacing. "Very well. I shall attend."
Richard beamed. "Excellent. I shall arrange a card for you."
"And if you match me with a harpist," Darcy added grimly, "I shall take it very ill."
"I would expect nothing less," Richard said. He pushed himself to his feet and clapped Darcy on the shoulder as if congratulating him on some great personal triumph.
Darcy bore it with grim endurance.
4 December
It was astonishing howlittle havoc a missing journal could cause when no one else knew it was missing.
Six days in London, with little—nothing, really—to show for them. Elizabeth sat stiffly by the window, stitching a length of hem she had already mended twice, while Jane and Mrs. Gardiner discussed the week's social prospects with a quiet optimism that grated, however unjustly, against Elizabeth’s nerves.
"The Harringtons' musical evening tomorrow," Mrs. Gardiner was saying, consulting a neat stack of correspondence at her elbow. "Though I understand it may be rather grander than our usual company."
