Page 165 of Faceless

“You wish me to fight him on that ground?”

“No, I wish you to construct the ground we shall fight him on. I cannot put you into Mayfair. You are the worst candidate to be paraded in Berkeley Square, for reasons of which we are all aware and which I shall not insult you by reciting. You are, by some accident of providence, very nearly the best candidate to be received in the City. Your uncle Gardiner is a merchant of standing. He has recently taken a larger flat near his warehouses in Coleman Street, which is, I am told, an improvement on his former situation and which puts him in the precise neighbourhood from which our jury will be drawn. His acquaintance is the acquaintance whose talk fills the coffeehouses around the Exchange. His wife, your aunt, has been quietly informed by your sister that you are in town. She is, I gather, more puzzled than offended by your not having yet called, and I would wish you to call on her tomorrow.”

“I have not been permitted to leave the house, my lord, save to visit the Tower under the colonel’s guard.”

“You shall be permitted now. I shall send you in my own carriage, which will do no harm to your standing at the Coleman Street end. You shall sit with your aunt long enough to satisfy her that you are in good health and on good terms with Darcy’s family. You shall convey, with such delicacy as you possess in considerable measure, what we shall require of her and of her husband in the next six weeks. And you shall arrange to attend her at home on the third Tuesday of this month, which is, I believe, ten days hence, when she receives. I would wish the City to find Mrs Darcy at her aunt’s table on that Tuesday.”

“I am sure my aunt would be pleased that her table can be of service.”

“Good. Once you have been seen at Mrs Gardiner’s, the rest follows. You will be invited to dine with the families your aunt introduces to you, and you will, if I have read you correctly, leave each of those dinners with the woman of the house better disposed towards Mr Darcy than she was when you arrived. You will attend a church the Gardiners attend. If your aunt has a charitable subscription she would care to have the Darcy name attached to, you will attach it, with a contribution from my house if your own is not yet equal to it. You will be visible. You will visit your husband openly. You will be reported on, with our cooperation, in such papers as Pemberton can reach, and the reports will be truthful and unembellished, because the truth in this case is sufficient. You shall be the answer in the City to whatever Sterling puts in the gossip-sheets in Mayfair.”

He paused.

“You will also be exhausted. I will not pretend otherwise. Particularly for a woman in… an interesting condition… what is being asked of you will be demanding. You have a month — perhaps six weeks — to construct in the City a settled view of yourself and Darcy as your husband. After that, the case will be heard, and the view will be the view we have given them.”

Elizabeth nodded. “I understand.”

The earl’s face softened. “You are not faint of heart, Mrs Darcy, but the scope of the thing may yet be beyond your measure. Lady Matlock will give what assistance is in her power, though that assistance, as you may have observed, runs more usefully in chambers than in drawing rooms. Your uncle Gardiner has been kept informed, and your sister shall come to you as often as can be arranged. You shall not be alone in any of it.”

Her hands had been clenched on the chair beside her. She made them ease and let herself blink. “Thank you, my lord.”

“Do not thank me. I have just laid a six-week campaign of social labour on a woman who is nearly three months gone and visiting the Tower of London on a weekly basis. I shall thank you in six weeks, if the man we are working for is sitting at dinner with you in Derbyshire by then. Until then, we have no time for sentiment of any kind.”

He blotted the last line of what he had been writing. He sanded it. He shook the excess into the tray.

“There is one more thing, Mrs Darcy. Sterling will attempt, with every drawing room he can reach, to take the shape of your marriage out of your hands and hand it back to you as a thing of shame. I should prefer you to remember the distinction. The marriage may have been irregular. It may have been contracted under conditions that would give any uncle in Christendom apoplexy. It was not dishonourable on your side. I should prefer you to remember the distinction.”

She rose.

“I shall remember it, my lord.”

LX

From Your Lady

That evening, she went to the library because it was the only room in Matlock House where being alone did not feel like being dismissed.

Georgiana found her there an hour later with the petition open before her, not because she needed to read it but because the eye sometimes requires an object while the mind arranges itself for endurance.

Georgiana came in, closed the door, and crossed to the sofa opposite.

“I have heard,” she said.

Elizabeth looked up. “From whom?”

“Richard, which means my uncle, but in fewer words.” Georgiana’s gaze dropped to the paper. “Is it very bad?”

“It is very clever.”

“That was not what I asked.”

The corners of her mouth pulled despite herself.

“Then yes,” she said. “It is bad enough to be inconvenient and not, I think, bad enough to prevail. Which is almost more vexing.”

Georgiana considered that. “Because it wastes strength. Divides your efforts.”

“Exactly.”