“I believed it,” Darcy said. “Or persuaded myself to. I regret it deeply.” Silence fell between them, heavy and fraught.
“But Miss Burrows,” Bingley said at last, as though grasping at something solid. “Millicent cares for me. She is…very open with her feelings.”
Darcy hesitated. “Affection may be loud or quiet. Neither guarantees constancy.”
Bingley frowned. “You disapprove?”
Darcy shook his head at once. “I question. I do not condemn. But I could not remain silent.”
“And Jane—Miss Bennet—never spoke. She never—”
“Miss Bennet behaved,” Darcy said, voice tinged with guilt, “as women ought to do.”
Before Bingley could reply, the door moved.
Neither man noticed it at first.
Then Miss Bingley’s voice cut in—sharp, breathless.
“She is atCarlton House?”
Darcy turned.
She stood just inside the doorway, pale and rigid, one gloved hand braced against the frame as though she required it to remain upright.
“You said—” she continued, staring at Darcy. “You said Lady Hertford?”
Darcy did not retreat. “Yes.”
Miss Bingley’s composure shattered. “That is not possible. They are of no particular importance! Even I doubted what I saw at Madame Dubois’s shop. Louisa said I was imagining things.”
Bingley rose. “Caroline—how long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough,” she said distractedly. Her gaze darted between them. “Elizabethde Bourgh—Miss Eliza Bennet as we knew her—is under royal protection?”
“Yes,” Darcy replied evenly.
Miss Bingley laughed—a thin, panicked sound. “No. No, this is—this is absurd.”
“It is fact,” Darcy said.
Her hands clenched at her sides. “And Miss Bennet? Is she—”
“She is with her cousin,” Darcy said. “As family.”
Miss Bingley turned on her brother suddenly. “You must win her back.”
Bingley recoiled. “What?”
“You must,” she insisted, her voice urgent now, stripped of polish. “Do you have any idea what this means?”
“I—Caroline, you told me—”
“I did notknow,” she snapped. “I did not know this.”
Darcy watched her carefully. This was not wounded pride—it was a recalculation.
“You told me Jane did not love me,” Bingley said slowly.
