He set the pen down.
She set her book down, too.
“It was one sentence,” he said. “One single, ridiculous sentence.”
“But it was a verygoodsentence,” she guessed.
He did not deny it.
Georgiana crossed her arms. “And is this why you have been walking around the house like a proverb?”
“I have not—”
“You sit in the darkest part of the library. You do not reply to letters. You have corrected my Latin declension twice this week.”
Darcy leaned back in his chair.
“She called me furniture,” he said.
Georgiana made a face. “Oh.She, is it?”
She did not ask which “she.” She did not need to. His grandmother, the dowager, had spoiled that particular secret the way one might spill ink on purpose—slowly, and with excellent aim.
“Polished. Handsome. Rearranged.”
Georgiana burst into laughter. “How odd that you encountered her again in London. Are you not starting to think Providence is laughing at you, Brother?”
He glared.
“Shemeantit as an insult.”
“Or as an observation,” she said. “Youarehandsome.”
“That is not the point.”
“And a bit difficult to move when you have made up your mind.”
“I said that is not the point.”
Georgiana leaned her head against the armrest. “You could write to her.”
Darcy stared at the blank page. “She would only make a joke of it.”
“Then you must write better than she jokes.”
He closed the inkwell. Stood. Moved to the window and watched the rain.
Georgiana did not press him.
After a long silence, she said, “She must be very clever. To write one sentence and still be in your head after three weeks.”
Darcy did not answer.
But his hand drifted to his coat, draped neatly over the arm of the chair. From the inside pocket, he drew out a small, carefullyfolded square of paper—the only piece he had kept. Not her notebook. Just a single scrap that had slipped loose, half-hidden and barely noticed, as though it had been meant for no one—or for him alone.
He unfolded it slowly.
It was not insulting, not precisely. Not like the furniture jab.
