“What else would it be?”
“I was raised in a house where a tortoise was a member of the family. Bertram knew my father since childhood. He knew me from infancy. Parting with him was not a transaction; it was…” I stopped, because the word I wanted was too honest for the room, and the woman opposite me was not in a disposition to receive honesty without converting it into ammunition. “It was significant.”
“Of course. Forgive me. I did not mean to suggest the attachment was not genuine.”
“But you did mean to suggest that it had reached its natural conclusion.”
“Mr. Darcy,” Jane said, dispelling the tension. “Will you be long in London? We have not had the pleasure of much society since arriving, and I confess the season’s offerings have rather passed us by.”
It was a question of perfect innocence and considerable courage. Miss Elizabeth’s head turned sharply toward her sister, and I saw the look that passed between them: Elizabeth’s warning, quick and fierce, and Jane’s calm, steady refusal to accept it. Jane Bennet was not asking on Elizabeth’s behalf. She was asking for herself.
“I am in London through the spring, Miss Bennet. I have business that will keep me.”
“Then you know what is worth seeing. We have been rather confined to the house since Christmas, and my aunt has been promising us an outing, but none of us quite knows where to begin.”
“Jane,” Elizabeth said, in the tone of a woman who has just watched her carefully constructed fortification breached from the inside.
“There is no shortage of choices,” I said. “The booksellers in Paternoster Row would suit your sister, I think, and there are exhibitions enough to fill a season. The British Museum at Montagu House rewards a whole day, if the children have the stamina for it, and the menagerie at Exeter Exchange will exhaust them entirely, which their mother may count as a mercy. Mr. Gardiner will know best which of them suits the household.”
“Thank you, Mr. Darcy,” Jane said—and she said it while holding Elizabeth’s gaze rather than mine. Only then did I see what I had missed at Netherfield: Jane Bennet was no one’sshadow. There was steel in the way she met her sister’s stare, and I had been more wrong about her than I cared to admit.
“How sensible.” Mrs. Gardiner’s warmth suggested she had heard the thing I had not said quite as clearly as the things I had. “We shall consult my husband. Now, Mr. Darcy, I have often wished to show the children Pemberley. I remember growing up and admiring the great house on the hill. Does your housekeeper perhaps give tours?”
“Mrs. Reynolds does accept tours, although mostly in the summer during grouse season,” I replied, biting into the tea cake and aware of Elizabeth’s pointed gaze. “We also make our trout stream available for particularly welcome guests. Does your husband enjoy fishing?”
“Does he ever,” Mrs. Gardiner exclaimed. “I remember the streams and the walking paths, that old church with the crooked steeple.”
“It has become a landmark.” I felt my cheeks relax. “The locals have taken to placing bets on the year the steeple will fall. So far, no winners.”
Elizabeth sat quietly, cake untouched, tea cooling. Listening. Then her eyes found my face, steady and unnerving.
“You must miss it,” she said. “When you are in London.”
It was, surprisingly, the first thing she said that was not a barb.
“I do,” I said. “London is necessary, but Pemberley is home.”
“Home is a powerful word, Mr. Darcy.”
“It is the only word that applies.”
She looked at me a moment longer than courtesy allowed, then looked away. I had no idea what had just happened, only that the room felt different, like the air had rearranged itself.
And then, the garden door flung open, and the children appeared.
“Cousin Jane, come see what Samuel did,” Rose called while Alice reported, “He is trying to bury Sir Bertram with his shovel.”
“Sir Bertram needs a burrow.” Samuel waved his shovel, and Mrs. Gardiner followed Jane out to investigate.
I had not been addressed, and did not know if it was my place to intervene, as Bertram now belonged to the Gardiners, and so, I found myself momentarily alone with Elizabeth, along with our cold tea.
“You do not trust me,” I said, when the silence grew thin.
She looked up sharply. “I beg your pardon?”
“You suspect my motives, and until you discern them, you intend to keep me at arm’s length. Am I wrong?”
Her eyes narrowed into slits, studying me with more thoroughness than someone attempting to shoot at me.
