“I heard it was not just coins,” he said. “Gold. Proper gold. Hidden deep.”
Elizabeth’s breath caught.
Darcy did not turn his head, but he had heard it too.
Rumor was no longer wandering. It was beginning to settle.
As the afternoon wore on, the excitement began to fray. More bronze coins surfaced—no more than a handful. Shards of pottery accumulated on a cloth laid out for inspection. Someone uncovered a corroded brooch that disintegrated when touched.
Whispers grew louder.
“Surely the gold lies deeper.”
“Perhaps nearer the boundary stone.”
“Or nearer the house.”
That last suggestion traveled faster than the others.
Darcy’s gaze sharpened.
By late afternoon, Bingley’s enthusiasm had begun to falter. It was easy to see from Darcy’s vantage point. He laughed less, paced more. Each new discovery that failed to gleam with gold seemed to tighten something within him.
At one point, he stopped beside a cluster of men and said, too sharply, “You are digging too shallow.” His tone carried farther than it ought, drawing glances not of amusement but of irritation.
The men exchanged glances.
“Deeper,” Bingley insisted. “If there is anything of value, it will not lie so near the surface.”
A few obeyed.
Others did not.
And for the first time, something like resistance entered the air.
A few bronze coins. Broken pottery—nothing that justified the frenzy. But the damage had been done. Feverish searches for Roman gold would continue for who knew how long.
At least until the populous grew bored—or until something more dangerous took hold.
Darcy could only hope that some other diversion might soon seize the attention of the locals.
But hope, he suspected, would not be sufficient.
Darcy found himself walking beside Elizabeth later that afternoon.
The others had drifted ahead in small clusters, their conversation carrying easily on the mild air, but he was aware only of Elizabeth at his side—the unhurried cadence of her step, the lightness with which she moved over uneven ground.
“You have said very little this afternoon,” she observed, glancing at him.
“I have been listening.”
“To my sister?” she asked, with a hint of teasing.
“To you.”
The answer seemed to give her pause. She looked ahead again, though not before he caught the faintest shift in her expression—something quieter than amusement.
“I cannot think I have said anything of consequence.”
