Footsteps sounded again. Marlowe approached with his usual dignity, gloves tucked neatly beneath his arm. His smile was faint, respectful, and devoid of pulse.
“Forgive me, Miss Bennet. A minor question of charts. I hope I did not keep you long.”
“Not at all,” she replied, with a smile so dry it could powder a wig.
He turned to Jane and Bingley, offered greetings with all the warmth of a man reading stage directions, and then—again—excused himself. “There is something else I must say to Harcourt. I shan’t be a moment.”
Elizabeth watched him go with the weary patience of someone observing a very polite tumbleweed.
“He seems… attentive,” Bingley offered.
“That is the common opinion,” Elizabeth said.
“Not mine,” he said quickly. “Only—he returned for but a moment, and then… walked away again. Odd.”
Elizabeth laughed, short and bright. “Oh, he is merely showing off the naval version of courtship. Advance. Retreat. Repeat until morale improves.”
Bingley looked briefly startled, then amused. Jane touched his arm, and the moment passed.
“I will look forward to tea,” he said. “Your aunt’s table is always less… drafty.”
Elizabeth inclined her head. “And full of fewer uniforms.”
He bowed and vanished into the crowd.
Marlowe returned. Again.
“Shall we walk?” he asked.
She took his arm.
And as they descended the steps, her fingers barely touching his sleeve, Elizabeth looked to the sky above—grey, dull, and unimaginably vast.
Not unlike the future.
And frankly, she had seen more compelling prospects at the bottom of her aunt’s sewing basket.
The door to thestudy clicked shut behind Mr. Dyer, the sound nearly drowned by the wind scratching at the windowpanes. Darcy did not rise.
“You are late,” he said.
Dyer removed his gloves with deliberate care. “It is Sunday, sir.”
“It is the nineteenth,” Darcy replied, his gaze fixed on the fire. “And I marry in two days. I require action on this matter.”
That silenced the man, if only for a moment. Dyer approached the hearth and cleared his throat. “I came as soon as I could. Your note conveyed urgency but lacked detail.”
Darcy turned, his posture sharp and controlled, though his voice betrayed the pressure coiling beneath. “The gossip continues. Quietly now, but it spreads like smoke. I want it stopped.”
Dyer sighed and opened his ledger, though they both knew it was a hollow gesture. “You know very well there is no statute against idle talk. What would you have me do? Arrest every footman in London?”
“I want Wickham named,” Darcy said, his voice already fraying. His hands were clenched behind his back—but barely. The restraint cost him.
“Formally. Let it be known that the rumors stem from his theft—his breach of trust. Let the scandal attach to his name.”
Dyer blinked. “You paid him. You secured his silence. And now you want to unmake the deal?” Dyer asked, incredulous. “You gave him gold and safe passage. What would you give next—your reputation?”
“I secured possession of the letters. That is not the same. He has poisoned my sister’s name. And Ilethim,” Darcy snapped. “I thought I could pay him off and bury it. But it festers. It spreads. He stained my house—mine—and you ask me to let it pass? You ask me to stand in the street and smile while they whisper in doorways?. And he will do it again if he is allowed to vanish into comfort. I will not have him sailing south with his pockets full and his name intact.”
