Page 33 of The Crown’s Gift

She did not turn. "Jane cried herself to sleep."

He entered and closed the door.

"She would not wish you to tell me."

"She did not. I heard her."

Elizabeth set the candle on the mantel. "I hate him."

"Bingley?"

"Darcy. Bingley is weak, which may be worse for Jane, but it is Mr Darcy who persuaded him. I am certain of it."

"Certainty has arrived before evidence again."

She faced him. "You saw them. You know Bingley meant to speak. What changed except his friend's counsel?"

"Distance, his sister, his own doubt, perhaps Darcy. A conclusion may be correct and still reached badly."

Elizabeth looked toward the heights on the doorframe. "Jane deserves someone who cannot be redirected by the first grave face."

"Yes."

The agreement took the force from her anger.

Sir Thomas sat on the window seat and picked up the broken horse. "The night I saved the King, you asked whether the guards might have killed me. Do you remember?"

"Everything."

"So do I. Not the swords as much as the carriage afterward. You all looked at me as though I mattered to you, and I realized I had behaved as though none of you required me."

He turned the little horse in his hands.

"I had told myself that your mother's nerves excused my absence, that your good sense would supply my neglect, that laughing at folly was superior to correcting it. The King gave me Netherfield, but fear gave me honesty."

Elizabeth sat beside him.

"You changed."

"Slowly. Badly, at first. I hired Miss Harwood as if employing wisdom discharged my duty. She informed me that governesses cannot be fathers. Your mother informed me more loudly."

Elizabeth smiled despite herself.

"I became involved," he continued. "Then I made the opposite mistake. When Jane was sixteen, I refused a young man's calls without telling her because his debts worried me. She had not cared for him, but she rightly objected that I had decided for her."

"You never told me."

"It was Jane's story. I tell you now because I will not repeat it. I shall investigate Bingley's conduct and speak plainly if he comes before me, but I will not arrange your sister's happiness as if it were a tenancy."

Elizabeth thought of Darcy, whose caution had apparently done exactly that.

"What if Bingley never comes?"

"Then we shall help Jane grieve what she believed possible. We shall not persuade her she imagined it."

He set the horse upon the sill. "And you will not let anger at Darcy become a substitute for attending to Jane."

The rebuke was gentle and deserved.