She drew one breath, then another, and spoke to the cuff-seam again.
“He laughed with you yesterday on the path. Mrs Reeves heard it through the kitchen window and told me at breakfast. I had not heard him laugh since we came to this house. You should know that.”
Elizabeth did not answer.
“That is all I mean to say to you on this subject. I have said it now. I will not say it again today. I shall be with Georgiana upstairs until noon.”
She rose. She set the cuff and the thimble and the thread into the basket. She carried the basket to the door. At the door she stopped but did not turn.
“I love you,” she said, to the door. “That does not change. I only wish I could be certain at any given hour that you knew it.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Darcywasathisdesk writing a sentence about bales when Hadley came in.
“Sir. A man at the Lantern this morning. Not local. Not trade.”
He set the pen down. He could hear his own pulse in the ear nearer the window.
“Name?”
“Briggs, he said. From Derby, he said, though his boots said London and his coat said somewhere the mud did not match either.”
“What was he asking?”
“Whether the big house above the water was once Wetherthwaite. Whether the gentleman at it was the one lately come down from the south. Whether there were ladies in the household and how many.” His throat went dry. The breath he took next would not fill the top third of his chest.
“Did he get answers?”
“The landlord gave him nothing. He asked the Pemberton girl who had come down for flour. She answered him civilly because she is a well-taught girl.”
“What did she tell him?”
“That the gentleman had been here since autumn and was known to be a good master. That there were his sister and a lady staying. She gave no name for the lady. She did not know one to give.”
No name. One breath of reprieve, and then his hands were cold to the knuckle. Briggs had come to the valley with a name in his pocket. A well-taught girl meant only that he had not had to produce it.
“Where is he now?”
“Gone from the Lantern before noon. Took the Buxton road. I sent Jem after him at a distance. Jem is to report back by evening.”
“He will come back.”
“Aye, sir. A man who asks questions at an inn and then departs for Buxton is a man who means to look like he has left. He will come back this afternoon or tomorrow morning. I should be ready.”
“Yes.” His voice came out level, functioning without him. “The household is to be told nothing. I will speak to Miss Bennet myself. Miss Darcy is not to hear, nor Mrs Marsden. If Mrs Reeves asks why your boys have been at the lower turning, say it is the carrier.”
“Aye.”
“And Hadley?”
“Sir.”
“What of the mere?”
Hadley’s face altered very slightly. It was not an expression one would have called change in another man, but on Hadley it was the same thing as crossing himself.
“I was coming to that, sir.”
