“You are speaking of travel. Distance. Has someone gone somewhere?”
Still, he said nothing. But his silence spoke plainly enough.
She studied him then. Not sharply—curiously, as one studies an unfinished tapestry. “I suppose it is too much to hope this sudden unrest is about your cousin. Pray tell me you havenotdeveloped a sudden passion for Anne.”
His jaw shifted.
The dowager tapped one finger against the arm of her chair. “You mentioned… family. Offhandedly. But not yours, I presume.”
Darcy looked up sharply.
Her eyes narrowed in satisfaction. “Ah. So that thread holds.”
He did not confirm it. He did not need to.
“You said Gardiner, did you not?”
Darcy’s shoulders remained rigid, his eyes fixed on the coals.
Her tone sharpened. “That is the name of the aunt and uncle. The ones who chaperoned her in Town.”
Still, he gave no answer.
She leaned slightly on her cane. “I remember. You nearly tripped over yourself explaining their virtues when that pamphlet hit the breakfast tables.”
His jaw moved, barely.
She narrowed her eyes. “And now you pace the carpet like a man ready to ride halfway across England, muttering about Derbyshire and connections and timing.”
A pause.
Darcy turned his head, just enough.
The dowager let out a low breath, almost a scoff. “Ah. Soshedid not marry, after all.”
The words seemed to settle over the room like dust. “How did you guess that?”
She gave him one more look—shrewd, knowing, not unkind.
“I am not blind, Fitzwilliam,” she continued. “There has always been something between you and that girl from the auction. I did not require a pamphlet to see it.”
He flinched. Just slightly. But she noticed.
Her eyes narrowed. “What is it you are not saying?”
Darcy lifted his gaze. “She is no longer engaged.”
The dowager’s brows rose slowly. “Is that so?”
A coil of something unfurled behind Darcy’s ribs—too familiar to be hope, too dangerous to be named. He crushed it down. “There was no wedding,” he said. “No farewell. Only—absence. And silence.”
She regarded him for a long moment. “And you believe she has fled to Derbyshire.”
He nodded once. Not trusting his voice.
The dowager tapped her cane once against the floorboards. “Then why are you still standing here?”
His throat tightened.
