Elizabeth tried not to smile.
“You cannot pretend you have not noticed before,” Charlotte accused.
Elizabeth sighed. “Really, I thought we had settled the matter. Mr. Darcy can be as dour as he pleases. What do I care?”
“Because people are starting to talk, and your name has come up. He is not subtle about it,” Charlotte added. “Almost methodical. Anyone who might be available and suitably bred gets at least fifteen minutes of frowning. And everyone remembers how he knew you at the Assembly before you were introduced.”
“I am not concerned,” Elizabeth said too easily. “I find it comforting, in a way. Mr. Darcy is clearly determined to be disappointed by someone more appropriate than me.”
Charlotte tilted her head. “That almost sounded like a compliment.”
“Accidental,” Elizabeth said. “Do not encourage me.”
He had not meantto stop in town.
But Bingley had run out of sealing wax, and Darcy was pacing, restless and entirely useless. So now he stood in Meryton’s bookseller, surrounded by trite titles—The Devoted Friend,Essays for the Melancholy Soul—all of them taunting him with their pretense of wisdom.
He had just turned to leave when the bell over the door rang.
Wickham.
Darcy went still.
The sound of boots, the self-satisfied cadence—he knew it before the man even spoke.
“Ah, Darcy,” Wickham said, smiling like he owned the street. “Twice in one week. This must be a record.”
Darcy did not return the smile. He did not move at all. “You will forgive me if I do not mark the occasion.”
“Always gracious.” Wickham meandered toward the shelves, glancing at titles with the casual interest of someone who had no intention of buying anything. “Are you shopping for yourself, or someone more… insightful?”
Darcy’s fingers clenched the spine of a book without registering the title.
“I need no advice from you, if that is what you are asking.”
“No,” Wickham said lightly. “But I imagine you need something from someone. Or rather, about someone.”
The skin between Darcy’s shoulders itched. He did not look up.
Wickham leaned against the shelf like he had never destroyed a life. “Been thinking,” he went on. “Really quite a bother—dashed nuisance, honestly. I wish I could remember what happened to those letters.”
Darcy’s hand stilled.
His voice, when it came, was quiet enough to cut bone. “You told me you destroyed them.”
“I said they were no longer in my possession. That is not quite the same thing.”
The bookseller returned from the back room, humming.
Darcy took his parcel in silence. It was that or risk bloodshed.
Outside, Wickham followed.
“I understand your concern,” he said as they stepped into the street. “A sister’s reputation is a fragile thing. One poorly chosen word, one intimate phrase—disaster.”
Darcy stopped.
“If you speak her name—”
