She tugged once at her cuff. “No one, really. Just—people.”
That was not an answer. He stood.
Her spine straightened—a reflex, years old and still reliable. His hands had not moved, but she looked braced anyway.
“Whois reading it?” he asked.
She blinked. “I… everyone? It is passed about in drawing rooms. I have seen it at the Portmans’—Clara Portman had a copy tucked inside her embroidery book—and at the Fairchilds’ before supper. Louisa Fairchild said her sister reads it aloud when they have callers, if the conversation is dull.”
Darcy felt something cold settle behind his ribs. “They read italoud?”
“Sometimes.”
He blinked. “Do they laugh?”
She swallowed, then nodded. “Lady Marcus was laughing over it quite heartily, and Susan Andrews said it was sure to be the ruin of several people.
He stepped closer—not looming, not imposing, but narrowing the space between them by half a pace.
“Do they speak of who wrote it?”
Her throat worked. “Only in vague speculation.”
Not vague enough.“And what do they say? About the author?”
Georgiana hesitated again. “They say it is a lady. Because of the phrasing. And the focus. There are too many details about ribbon color and seating charts.”
Darcy did not blink. “Do they name her?”
Her voice dropped to a whisper. “No. But they say she knows everything.”
Everything.
He let the silence fall—not because it was dramatic, but because he did not trust what might come out if he spoke too quickly.
Georgiana swallowed and seemed to shake herself—no doubt in hopes that he would cease questioning her. “Shall I tell Mrs. Griffin the arrangements for Lady Catherine stand?”
He let the air out of his chest and nodded once.
She turned, quickly this time, and pulled the door closed as though she were desperately making her escape before he could ask more.
He stared at it for a long moment after it shut. Then he looked down at the pamphlet again. It lay open on his desk like a letter he had never meant to send, but had somehow already signed.
Elizabeth would never publish something so reckless.
She might mock a fortune hunter over dinner. She might skewer a fool in private. But to publish it? To make a show of it and risk discovery?
Evenshewas notthatreckless. Not that shortsighted..
And yet—the phrasing. The cadence. The very shape of the wit.
Itsoundedlike her.
Too much like her.
Had she run low on funds? Some desperate scheme to drum up a quick dowry for herself and escape Hertfordshire for good? That could be why she had raced him to London.
But he had no proof. No explanation. No answers from Georgiana, and no path to the truth through Elizabeth, because she would out-twist any questions he could possibly put to her.
