Page 99 of Honor Requires

“London appears to suit you very well, Count Vendicarsi,” she said at last, choosing her words with care.

He looked ahead rather than at her. “Appearances are not always reliable.”

“No,” she said. “So, I have lately discovered.”

A brief silence followed.

“You are settled with your sister?” he asked.

“My sister and her husband are very good to me.”

“I am glad of it.”

“Are you?” she asked before she could stop herself.

He turned then, the look he gave her grave and searching. “Yes.” The answer was simple, but not light.

Elizabeth lowered her gaze. “Forgive me. That was impertinent.”

“No,” he said. “Only honest.”

She swallowed. “Honesty is not always easy.”

“No,” he agreed. “Nor prudence.”

There it was again—that careful edge, that suggestion of meaning beneath the surface of ordinary words.

Elizabeth dared a little further. “You speak as one acquainted with both.”

His expression altered, though not enough for anyone but her to notice. “More acquainted than I once expected to be.”

“And does prudence satisfy you?” she asked. “When honesty does not?”

He was silent for a time. “At present,” he said at last, “satisfaction is less important than necessity.” It was the nearest he had come.

Elizabeth’s heart beat faster. “Then things are not resolved?”

His gaze moved over her face, as though weighing what might safely be said. “Some are not.”

“You may confide in me,” she said, before caution could suppress the words.

He looked away first. “I know,” he said. The reply, so gentle and still so withholding, shook her more than any direct refusal might have done. They walked on.

The conversation shifted then, not because either wished it, but because it could not remain always poised so near confession. He asked after the children. She answered. She asked whether he had found England to his liking. He replied with grave civility that some parts pleased him more than others. They spoke of music, of the fatigue of constant social obligations, of the manner in which London consumed and reproduced gossip with astonishing efficiency.

There was more substance in it than mere banality, but not the intimacy she longed for. They moved close to it, circled it, almost touched it—and turned aside.

Too soon, Matlock House came into view. Elizabeth’s spirits sank at once.

He slowed. Bruno, sensing some alteration in the order of things, turned his great head and looked up at them both.

Darcy stopped at the edge of the pavement. “I will not intrude further.”

Elizabeth wished suddenly and painfully that he would. “Thank you,” she said, though for what precisely she could not have said.

He inclined his head. “Miss Bennet.”

“Sir.”