The nursery was quiet. Anne was napping in the adjoining room, the door half-closed, and Elizabeth was alone, tidying. She was bent over the low table, gatheringchalk and paper, and the line of her neck was exposed where her hair had slipped forward from its pins. The curve of it from her jaw to the collar of her dress was a clean, pale arc, and Darcy’s mouth went dry.
He cleared his throat.
She straightened and turned. “Mr Darcy.” Composed, as always. If she was surprised to find him lurking in doorways for the second time that week, she did not show it.
“Miss Bennet. I came to collect the Aesop.” He gestured vaguely at the shelf. His eyes, which had been instructed to remain on the shelf, disobeyed and returned to her neck. He redirected them to the table and found something unexpected.
A chessboard. Small, wooden, the pieces simple and sturdy enough for a child’s grip. The black queen had been replaced by a carved button, and one of the white rooks appeared to be a thimble. It had been set up mid-game, the pieces arranged in a position that suggested someone had been teaching basic strategy with considerable patience.
“You are teaching Anne how to play chess.”
“I am attempting to. She has grasped the concept of the knight and refuses to use any other piece. The board is littered with the fallen.” Elizabeth’s mouth twitched. “She also insists on naming each piece. The black king is Mr Muffin.”
“Naturally.” He studied the board. The position was simple but sound. Whoever had been playing white had a decent opening. “You play well.”
“My father taught me.” The words came out before she caught them, and something crossed her face, brief andsharp, before she smoothed it away. “I have not played in some time.”
“Play me.”
She blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“A game, Miss Bennet. Unless you would rather not.”
“I would rather finish tidying, Mr Darcy. Anne’s chalk does not organise itself.”
“Are you afraid you will lose?”
Her chin lifted. There it was. The flash in her eyes, the old defiance surfacing through the careful composure like a blade through cloth. She held his gaze and the years fell away, and they were at Rosings again. She was sitting at the pianoforte, and he was standing too close, and neither of them had learned a single thing.
“I have told you before, Mr Darcy. My courage rises with every attempt at intimidation.” She paused and smiled briefly. “I am not afraid of you.”
“Then play with me.”
He heard what he had said. He did not take it back.
The silence that followed was absolute. Her eyes held his. Elizabeth’s jaw tightened, the smallest movement, barely visible, and then she turned and sat in the chair opposite the board.
It was a child’s chair, built for a person of approximately three feet, and Elizabeth, who was a little more than five feet, arranged herself easily. She spent her days at this table and had long since made her peace with the proportions.
Darcy sat.
Or rather, he attempted to sit. The chair was absurdly small. His knees rose nearly to his chest. His legs, which werelong and had served him well on staircases, ballroom floors, and the grounds of Pemberley, proved entirely unsuited to furniture designed for a child. He folded himself downward in stages, each stage more undignified than the last, his elbows jutting at angles that defied both comfort and anatomy. The chair creaked ominously beneath him.
He caught her watching.
Her mouth was pressed shut. Her nostrils flared, barely. Her eyes were bright, and the brightness was not tears. She was laughing at him. She was laughing at him, though trying very hard not to, and the effort of containment was turning her face pink.
“Well, Miss Bennet.” He settled his weight with what remained of his dignity, which was not much. “I am glad to entertain you. Shall we play now?”
The pink deepened. She dropped her gaze to the board and moved a pawn.
She was good. Better than good. Her father had taught her well, and whatever rust the years had deposited was burning off rapidly. She played the way she spoke—precisely, economically, with an instinct for the unexpected move that left him scrambling to adjust. She sacrificed a bishop on the twelfth move in a gambit he did not see coming, and by the fifteenth he was in trouble and knew it.
He should have been concentrating. The position demanded it. His king was exposed, his queen poorly placed, and Elizabeth’s remaining rook was bearing down on his flank with the menace of an advancing column.
Instead of concentrating, Darcy was watching her lower lip.
She bit it when she was thinking. A small, unconscious gesture—her teeth pressing into the fullness of it, holding for a moment, then releasing. She had done it three times in the last four moves, and each time, Darcy’s thoughts had scattered like startled birds, leaving his board position undefended and his pulse doing something entirely unhelpful.