A pause.
He nodded, slowly. “Ah. Yes. Of course.”
She said nothing more, but her eyes lingered on his face a moment too long.
He turned back to the books. She disappeared, mercifully. He picked up a brown volume of sonnets, then changed his mind and went to the counter.
She was already there, placing her volume carefully atop a copy ofPamela.
The shopkeeper looked between them and smiled. “Selecting gifts together?”
“No,” they said in unison.
“Just browsing,” Elizabeth added, too brightly.
“Strangers,” Darcy said under his breath.
The shopkeeper chuckled and wrapped the books, anyway. He handed each a small parcel, tied with the same blue ribbon.
Darcy stepped into the snow again without waiting.
He was halfway down the block when he realized he was not, in fact, carrying Fielding.
He stopped. Turned. She was already behind him, marching after him like a determined governess.
“You have my Cicero,” she said.
“And you have… rather more than you bargained for.”
The snow was falling harder now, softening the world around them, blurring the lamplight and muffling footsteps. Even the sounds of the street had dimmed to a hush, as if London itself were holding its breath.
Darcy extended the book. She took it, her gloved fingers brushing his again—just a graze, just a pulse. He accepted his own parcel in return, fingers tightening reflexively around the twine.
Neither moved to go.
“You still remember it,” she said suddenly.
He blinked. “Remember what?”
“Our little agreement, if you can call it that.”
The word hung between them like frost on glass. He had hoped she had forgot. But she had not. Of course she had not.Some part of him suspected she remembered everything—names, phrases, quiet insults dressed as compliments. And not just remembered. Recorded.Not because she was vain or bored or just too pleased with her own cleverness.Because she needed to, for some reason. And he wasnotinterested in why.
“The one time we ever ‘agreed’ on anything. I forgot all about it.”
“Indeed. What a relief.”
Darcy’s jaw clenched. “It was only a joke.”
“Of course.”
“Meant to be forgot.”
She met his eyes then. Calm. Testing. “How convenient for me that I can hardly recall what I had for breakfast.”
He gave a half-shrug. “Two more years. I have begun to look round.”
Snow gathered on the brim of her bonnet, dusted the shoulders of his coat.
