“You knew it was private.”
“Andyouknew it was true.” Her gaze flicked between the two men. “Thatis what troubles you.”
“You exploited her trust!” Darcy thundered. “You embarrassed her. You endangered her reputation and that of her sisters! Four innocent women!”
Miss Bingley made a snort of derision in her throat at that remark, but Bingley spoke before she could answer. “And you have embarrassedme. My household. You used my drawing room to plan your little scandal.”
Miss Bingley’s jaw set. “You think Imeantto cause harm?”
“I think you meant to raise yourself,” Darcy said.
The silence that followed was brittle. Miss Bingley reached for the bellpull for a quick tug. Then, she glanced at Darcy, something sharp flickering in her eye. “Well,” she said, “if we are to air secrets, perhaps I ought to share one of yours.”
Darcy did not blink.
Miss Bingley turned to the door when a servant came. “Bring the packet,” she told the maid. “From my writing desk.”
Bingley’s face went slack with confusion, but Darcy already felt it—his blood thickening.
“I thought you might ask eventually,” Miss Bingley said, drifting back toward the hearth like a hostess unveiling the final course. “Of course, it is not the entire collection. The person who lent these to me still has several—he was always sentimental—but he allowed me to borrow a pair.”
She lifted her hand, palm relaxed, fingers poised like a performer readying her trick. The maid approached silently, placing a folded packet in her grasp.
“Recognize the hand?” she asked Darcy, all silken triumph.
He did not reach for it.
He did not need to.
That curve of ink. The careful, even pressure of each letter.Georgiana.
The world narrowed. The rug beneath his feet. The fire behind her eyes. The slow, insidious realization blooming behind his ribs.
Wickham.
Of course. Miss Bingley had needed a scalpel. He had offered a blade.
The breath left Darcy in a single, long exhale—measured, because anything less would have shattered him.
Miss Bingley stepped closer. “I showed them to the Earl of Matlock last week. He was… intrigued.”
Darcy’s head snapped toward her. “You showed my uncle—” His words stopped short, the air around them drawn tight as wire. “Youwere the one who brought him into this?”
He did not shout. Did not raise a hand or even step forward. But the fury was there, leashed and low, coiled beneath every syllable. “You took forged rumors, twisted writings, and now my sister’s private correspondence—dragged it before the one man in England most likely to turn it into ammunition!”
Miss Bingley’s smile was almost tender. “Well. I needed someone who understood the gravity.”
Bingley turned to her, blinking. “Moreover, youspreadrumors about Darcy's father's will? Tonight—with my guests—”
“Your guests were my guests,” she said, a flick of steel under the silk. “Until you made a point of embarrassing me tonight.”
“Enough,” Darcy said.
But Miss Bingley only smiled again. “Careful, Mr. Darcy. Secrets have such sharp edges.”
“You mean to blackmail me,” Darcy said. His voice was flat, devoid of heat.
“I mean to bargain,” Miss Bingley replied, placing the letters on the edge of the writing desk. “I am not unreasonable.”
