Page 9 of Shadows Of Rosings Park: Part 2

Bingley descended first, affable, eager, transparently delighted to be back in Hertfordshire. The man wore his heart like a cravat pin. It was his greatest charm, and Darcy felt an old, familiar affection sharpen into something less comfortable: the awareness that he was about to use it.

"Darcy! What a pleasure! Though I confess your letter quite astonished me."

"Charles." Darcy clasped his hand. Bingley's grip was warm and genuine, and Darcy felt the familiar twinge of something that was not quite guilt but occupied the same neighbourhood. He was using his closest friend as a means to an end. He had done it before, separating Bingley from Jane Bennet last autumn to protect him from a disadvantageous match. Now he was reuniting them for the opposite reason: the courtship would provide cover, create natural proximity between families, and give Elizabeth opportunities to play her part. Bingley's happiness was a welcome consequence. Darcy would take it.

Miss Bingley emerged from the carriage with the expression of a woman arriving at a party she considered beneath her. She looked at Darcy, then at Netherfield, and her purpose might as well have been written on her face.

"Mr. Darcy. What an unexpected pleasure." She extended her hand. He bowed without taking it. "And with such... extraordinary news."

"Miss Bingley. Mrs. Hurst. I trust your journey was comfortable?"

"Tolerable." The word was a needle. Caroline was good at needles. "Though I confess myself curious about this sudden attachment to Miss Elizabeth Bennet. I hadn't observed any particular regard during our previous acquaintance."

"I cultivate discretion in all matters of importance."

He had used this line at Lucas Lodge. The repetition was deliberate: establishing a consistent narrative was essential, and Darcy had learned that most people stopped questioning a story once they had heard it told the same way twice.

Caroline's eyes sharpened. She saw through him. He had expected nothing less. What mattered was that she lacked the evidence and social standing to challenge him directly. She would settle for spite, delivered in the small, precise doses that were her speciality. He had anticipated that much. Caroline Bingley was a nuisance, not a threat.

Unless she became one. He would watch.

"The servants have prepared your rooms. We dine at Longbourn this evening."

Bingley lit up. The mention of Longbourn, meaning Jane, produced in him a visible brightening. It was endearing, the word arrived before Darcy could replace it with something more useful, and also exactly as predicted.

In his chambers, Darcy reread Elizabeth's letter a third time. He held it to the light. He studied the angle of her script, the spacing between lines, how her hand had pressed harder on certain words, compliance, arrangement, obey, the pressure of the nib a substitute for the protest her words were not permitted to contain.

She was learning to encode her resistance. He found this fascinating. Also dangerous.

He crossed to the window. Longbourn lay somewhere beyond the fields, too far to see, but he looked in its direction anyway. She was there. Three miles away. Writing a letter she did not sign, dressing bruises she had not earned, preparing to smile at a man she had not chosen. The thought of Elizabeth Bennet moving through her day with his name hanging over her like a sentence tightened something behind his sternum. He no longer tried to name it.

He wanted her. That was simple. The complications sent him to the brandy, which he poured and left untouched, before he checked his watch and read her letter a fourth time.

The carriage ride to Longbourn passed in Bingley's cheerful monologue about hedgerows and hunting. Caroline stared out the window. The set of her mouth promised difficulty.

Mrs. Bennet's welcome hit them at the door like a storm. Darcy had endured her since Hertfordshire and could now stand inside her enthusiasm without visibly flinching. The skill would serve him in the years ahead, a thought he preferred not to pursue.

He found Elizabeth standing slightly apart from her family. Her posture was immaculate, the carriage of a woman who had rehearsed her ease. Her shoulders were set. Her smile was precise. Her eyes, when they met his, contained nothing he could use against her and everything that kept him awake at night.

"Mr. Darcy. How good of you to join us this evening."

"Miss Elizabeth." He took her hand. Held it one beat longer than propriety allowed. Felt her pulse jump against his fingers and thought: There. That is the truth of it, whatever your unsigned letter might claim. "You are looking well."

The emphasis on "well" was private, a reference to the salve, the marks, the shared knowledge of damage and concealment that bound them. She coloured. The flush sat high on her cheekbones, and the sight of it, that involuntary warmth beneath her careful concealment, stirred his blood in a way he managed to keep off his face.

He positioned himself near her in the parlour. Near enough to claim. Not so near as to alarm. He had learned the precise distance that communicated possession to onlookers while preserving the fiction of courtship: close enough to suggest attachment, far enough to avoid remark.

Caroline struck within minutes.

"Miss Eliza, what a pleasure. And in such altered circumstances! I understand we're to wish you happy on your engagement?"

Elizabeth's expression held. Darcy watched her face and saw nothing, which was itself remarkable. A month ago, she would have shown the hit. Now she absorbed it as a good fighter absorbs a jab, turning the force of it into energy for the return.

"You are most kind. Circumstances have evolved in unexpected ways since our last meeting."

"Most unexpected. One might almost say... miraculous. To secure the affections of a gentleman of Mr. Darcy's standing, with nothing but... conversation to recommend you."

Darcy stepped forward. Elizabeth spoke first.