Darcy had paid him off a second time—more quietly, this time, with fewer signatures and no receipts. But the damage lingered, like smoke.
There were letters. He had not seen them himself, but Georgiana had admitted to writing them. At least four.
She would not say what they contained.
He had not dared ask Lady Matlock directly whether she had taken some actions toward Wickham herself, but the signs were there. Her tone had shifted. Her last letter had included the phrase “rest assured, my dear boy, no one need know—unless you give them cause.”
Darcy had read that line three times, then set fire to the page.
He now stood with a fresh sheet before him, pen in hand, trying to decide whether the act of writing his grandmother would be worse than the silence.
Lady Catherine was fulminating still that he had skipped his usual Easter visit this year. He could not go to Rosings. That much was decided.
He could not leave Georgiana.
He could not explain anything to Bingley.
And he could not shake the sense that his reputation—carefully constructed, polished like silver—had begun to crack beneath its own weight.
And somewhere in the back of his thoughts, a quiet clock was ticking.
Nine months.
He dipped the pen again. The tip caught briefly, snagging on the fibers of the paper, and he was struck—absurdly—by the memory of a page torn from a journal. Hers. A stray scrap he had pocketed without thinking, folded so carelessly it still bore the creases.
His smiles are like an eclipse…
He had read it twice before tucking it away again. It was meant as a joke. Of course it was. But for reasons he did not understand, it had stayed with him. Now, weeks later, it made his mouth twitch.
Elizabeth Bennet… A gentleman’s daughter who had once had the temerity to buy him and spend the afternoon divesting him of all his secrets. A woman who had never demanded anything from him but a smile and a bit of good humor.
Perhaps…
But Elizabeth Bennet was not a solution. She was not a possibility.She was simply... a voice in his memory, sharper than most. And these days, his world held too few of those.
He wondered what she would write about him now.
July, 1811
Longbourn
Longbourn was suffocating underthe kind of heat that made tea seem like punishment. The drawing room was stifling, even with both windows thrown open. Mrs. Bennet had insisted on receiving guests “with elegance,” which, in practice, meant too many cushions, too many cakes, and far too much taffeta.
Elizabeth had taken refuge in the far corner, notebook tucked discreetly into the folds of a shawl that was too warm for the day, feigning interest in embroidery while actually jotting down a few particularly florid phrases from Mrs. Goulding, who was in the middle of a long, wheezing tale about her husband’s estate dealings. Again.
She speaks as though her late husband founded the Bank of England rather than purchased shares in a brickworks scandalously adjacent to a piggery.
The moment she formed the last letter, Elizabeth tucked her notebook into her lap, just as her mother passed by with a loud “whisper.”
“Lizzy, dearest, would you pour the tea? You know I always spill when Lady Lucas is looking.”
“Of course, Mama.” Elizabeth rose with the sort of smile one wears to battle and crossed the room. The tea tray sat on the low table between the armchairs, slightly off-balance, already crowded with cups and saucers.
She reached to pour—and as she did, the notebook slipped from the little “pocket” her shawl made and hit the carpet with a soft thud.
Too soft.
“I shall fetch that for you,” said Mrs. Goulding, already leaning forward, her hands outstretched and her expression full of helpful purpose.
