“She is not—” Not a solution. Not an option. Not… but the words collapsed mid-thought.
“Youwillgo.”
“I cannot—Georgiana—”
“I will keep her with me.”
“Preposterous! You want me to… to traipse across England with no goal, no plan, nothing but a deadline and my hat in my hand?”
“Then have a wife shipped in from Ireland. No? That prospect does not appeal to you, dear boy? Then you are going.”
He opened his mouth.
“You have no argument left,” she said, eyes bright. “And very little time.”
He closed his mouth.
Lady Matlock picked up her fan again. “You leave Thursday.”
Darcy rose, defeated. It was not a battle he had lost—it was one he had never truly tried to win.
“Yes, Grandmother.”
Darcy had already begunto regret coming before the carriage had even reached the gate. Curse the dowager and her strategic chessboard. He had no idea what move thiswas supposed to be, only that he was the piece getting dragged across the board.
The hedgerows were trimmed. The gravel walk swept clean. The house itself was modest but dignified, its façade just symmetrical enough to be smug. Bingley stood on the front steps like a man welcoming the future. Darcy felt like the messenger sent to retrieve it. Empty-handed.
Darcy stepped down and handed off his coat.
“Charles,” he said, as evenly as possible.
“Darcy!” Bingley beamed. “You made it.”
Darcy looked over the landscape. “It is very… green.”
“It is perfect,” Bingley said. “The soil is excellent, the neighbors friendly, and the entire thing cost less than a chandelier in Mayfair.”
“I do hope you are not comparing them directly.”
Bingley laughed and ushered him inside.
The entry hall smelled of new leather and ambition. The furniture had arrived just last week, but Bingley had already thrown two dinners and received calls from most of the neighborhood. He was thriving.
Darcy hated how much he envied it.
“I expect you will want to rest,” Bingley said, leading him toward the study. “But I cannot let you avoid everyone forever. We are attending the Meryton Assembly tomorrow.”
Darcy stopped walking. “I beg your pardon?”
Bingley turned, cheerful and oblivious. “The local gathering. A sort of ball, but with worse music and more cake.”
“I did not come here to dance.”
“You came here to meet people, did you not?”
“I came here to humor my grandmother.”
“And she told you to leave the house.”
