His stomach sank.This could ruin him. This could ruin everything.
Bingley’s enthusiasm was genuine, but dangerously naïve. Darcy could already picture the consequences. Bingley stretching his purse to meet estate debts, Miss Bingley insisting on expensive redecorations, Mrs. Hurst demanding improvements to the grounds, tenants requesting repairs, unexpected expenses draining what remained of Bingley’sliquidity… And Bingley, panicked and ashamed, trying to mask his error with bravado.
Worst of all, Darcy knew Bingley would refuse to admit he had erred. The young man had too much pride in his good intentions and too little experience to understand their limitations.
Darcy’s voice softened despite himself. “Bingley,” he said gently, “purchasing an estate is no small undertaking. You must be prudent now. Very prudent.”
Bingley only smiled, bright and hopeful as ever. “When have I ever led us astray, Darcy? This is a beginning—mybeginning. And I am glad of it.”
Darcy pressed his lips together. He feared it was the beginning of trouble.
Ever worried for his friend and the choices he had made, Darcy rode to Hertfordshire two days following his conversation with Bingley. He had directions to the estate and wished to view it for himself. With nothing else to occupy his time, he packed his saddlebags and set off before the sun had fully risen above the trees.
It was not a visit he anticipated with pleasure.
His horse’s hooves struck rhythmically against the cobblestones of Mayfair until he reached the northern road, where the city thinned, cottages gave way to open country, and the damp scent of the fields replaced the closeness of London air. Darcy urged his mount to a brisk pace, the rhythm of the ride soothing his mind even as it turned relentlessly toward the same troubling thought:
Bingley had bought an estate. Not leased, not trialed, not inspected with due diligence—bought itoutrightfor a sum no rational man would have paid.
Darcy clenched his jaw as he rode. Bingley was good-hearted, generous, uncommonly amiable…but he possessed no training, no instinct for business, and no tolerance for confrontation. If a seller told him an estate’s roof was solid, he believed it; if a land agent praised the yield of tenant farms, he accepted it without question.
And Bingley, eager to cement his place among the landed gentry, had been precisely the kind of buyer unscrupulous sellers prayed for.
The countryside rolled past in a patchwork of browns and greens, freshly harvested fields lying bare beneath the September sun. Darcy rode on, pushing his horse harder than usual, as though the increasing speed could ease the tightness forming under his ribs. The air was brisk, and the cold stung his cheeks. His mood was moderately tolerable, despite constant worry for his sister, and now the growing anxiety over Bingley’s possibly ruinous decision.
Yesterday, Bingley had presented the signed bill of sale. He had indeed overpaid for the estate. The amount, a staggering sixty thousand pounds, told Darcy all he needed to know about his friend’s readiness to handle a decision of this magnitude.
One can only hope this does not ruin him completely.Darcy shook his head at the thought. If Bingley was careful—if he stood his ground and prevented lavish spending for the next several years, he could regain a measure of security.
Never one to admit his errors, Bingley would refuse to sell. Even if he did, no sane buyer would give himsixty thousand pounds.It was an astronomical amount!
Determined to think on other things, Darcy pondered what action he should take concerning Georgiana. Lady Matlock hadencouraged him to continue corresponding, even if his sister offered no reply. And Hertfordshire was not so far from London. If Georgie needed him, he could be on his way in an instant and by her side before the day’s end. Yes, the arrangement would be perfect in that regard.
On the other hand, staying with Bingley meant constant attention from his unmarried sister. Miss Caroline Bingley was four-and-twenty, two years older than her brother. She had a forceful personality and the ability to bend her brother to her will. A wicked thought came to him: had Miss Bingley managed to convince her brother to precipitously purchase an estate in hopes that it would make her more attractive to suitors?
The Bingley fortune came from trade. Ownership of the estate would lessen the distaste associated with new money, but not eliminate it entirely. If she thought it would make her more attractive tohim,she was sadly mistaken.
It did not escape Darcy’s notice that Miss Bingley wished to be the next mistress of Pemberley. She was not the first to attempt to attract his attention, nor would she be the last. He was fairly certain the lady had no affection for him beyond the desire to be the mistress of a grand estate and move in the first circles. Darcy had no interest in a marriage of convenience. His position meant most expected him to marry an heiress of considerable fortune or the daughter of a peer. Unless there was also genuine affection, such a match was not to be.
He had witnessed the difference between a marriage of affection and that of convenience and wished for the former. His mother and father had doted upon each other, and their love had encompassed their children while they were living. In contrast, Darcy had seen how miserable his aunt had been in her marriage. Lady Catherine had chosen to marry a baronet, Sir Lewis de Bourgh, a man of considerable wealth and property, and had discovered too late how cruel and unfeeling he could be.It had been a great relief to the rest of the Fitzwilliams when the man had died suddenly ten years ago.
Terrified that her daughter would suffer as she had, Lady Catherine had approached the Darcys in hopes of brokering a marriage between their son and her only child. The Darcys had politely declined, stating their hope that their son would find love in his own time. Not to be deterred, Lady Catherine next approached her brother, the Earl of Matlock. He had old-fashioned ideas about keeping wealth within the family and agreed to betroth his youngest son immediately.
Darcy sighed. His cousin, Andrew, was a third son and did not protest the arrangement. He insisted instead that Anne reach her majority first. She had done so last summer, and the wedding would be next spring. During the interim, he had made a career in the church.
Viscount Bramley, the eldest son and heir, had joined his brother, Richard, in teasing their younger brother for being the first to marry. Colonel Fitzwilliam, the Earl’s second son, had made a career in the military and was now a decorated war hero. He was in the process of resigning his commission.
By midmorning, Darcy approached his destination. The village here appeared neat, modest, its little lanes swept clean, the hedgerows thick and well-managed. The land was fertile—good land—but not exceptional. It was hardly the sort of place that commanded an exorbitant price, and yet Bingley had paid it. Darcy blinked and shook his head. The time had seemingly flown as he neared his destination. He nudged his horse into a trot and watched for the wrought-iron gate that indicated Netherfield’s drive.
Darcy reached the entrance of Netherfield Park just before noon, the late-afternoon sun struggling to light the pale sky. The estate appeared still—unnervingly so. No groom waited at thegate, and no smoke rose from the chimneys. No servant hurried down the steps to greet a gentleman traveler.
Bingley had said he would not take possession until the end of the month, but Darcy had not fully grasped what that meant until now.
Netherfield stood utterly deserted.
He dismounted in the silent courtyard, the clipped hooves of his horse echoing against the stone walls. The windows stared back blankly, reflecting the pale sky like cold, unblinking eyes. Darcy pulled from his pocket the key Bingley had enclosed with his enthusiastic letter—“Do tell me what you think of the place, Darcy! I am certain it will delight you.”
Delight was not the sensation rising within him.
