She pulled back and her eyes focused on his waistcoat.
The cream silk was crumpled and dark with moisture, her tears soaked through the fabric, the careful tailoring ruined. She stared at it in horror.
“Oh my God. I am so sorry, Mr Darcy.”
She did not wait for his response. She turned and fled, her footsteps too loud on the carpet, but she did not care. She reached her room and shut the door behind her. She pressed her back against it and stood there, her face wet, her chest heaving, the scent of cedar soap still on her skin.
She slid down the door until she sat on the floor, and she pressed her forehead to her knees, still shaking violently.
Nine
“Mr Carruthers. We are about to make someone disgustingly wealthy.”
Carruthers, who had managed the Darcy financial affairs for seventeen years and had survived every crisis from failed harvests to French wars without so much as loosening his cravat, merely inclined his head. He was a small, precise man with spectacles perched on the bridge of a nose that had been calculating compound interest since the age of twelve. Nothing Darcy said surprised him anymore. Or if it did, he had the professional courtesy to conceal it.
Darcy slid a folded paper across the desk. “This is a property in Somers Town. Number fourteen, The Polygon. A narrow house, leasehold, currently tenanted. I wish to acquire it.”
Carruthers opened the paper, glanced at the address, and returned his gaze to Darcy without blinking.
“You shall offer double the market price. If you find resistance from the current owner, you shall double it again. I do not care what it costs, and I do not care how quickly you spend it. What I care about is this.” He held the man’s gaze. “My name is never to appear in any document, anycorrespondence, any conversation related to this transaction. Not now, not ever. No one must know of my involvement. You shall conduct the purchase through a third party of your choosing, and that third party shall be ignorant of the true buyer. Is that clear?”
“Perfectly, sir.”
“Once the purchase is complete, the rent is to be reduced to the minimum you can justify without raising suspicion. Inspect the property. Make improvements where necessary—the roof, the windows, the fireplaces, whatever requires attention. The tenants are to live in comfort. Not luxury, but comfort. The distinction matters.”
Carruthers made a note, a single line of shorthand that probably represented several hundred pounds.
“And I want this done with all possible despatch, Mr Carruthers. With the utmost discretion.”
“Naturally, sir. Might I ask the nature of your interest in the property?”
“No.”
Carruthers nodded. He had been toldnobefore. He gathered his papers, rose, bowed, and departed. He understood that some questions were above his station and all answers were below his curiosity.
Darcy sat for a moment after the door closed. He pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose and breathed. He was doing this for the right reasons. He was not buying Elizabeth’s family a house because he was in love with her. He was buying them a house because they were living in conditions that no gentlewoman should endure. Their rentwas precarious and their uncle’s charity was finite. He had the means to help and the ability to do so without detection.
He was also, without question, doing this because he was in love with her.
He rang the bell and Barton appeared promptly.
“Ask Mrs Hatfield to attend me, if you please.”
Mrs Hatfield arrived within minutes, her hands folded, her expression attentive. She had run the London household for many years and had mastered the art of anticipating her master’s needs before he articulated them. This, however, was not a need she could have anticipated.
“Mrs Hatfield, what I am about to discuss requires your absolute discretion. You will speak of it to no one in this household or outside it. Is that understood?”
“Of course, sir.”
“It has come to my attention that Miss Bennet’s family is in difficult financial circumstances. They reside in Somers Town with limited means. I wish to assist them, but the ladies are proud and would not accept charity openly. Any hint that the assistance originated from this household would cause Miss Bennet considerable distress and would compromise her position here.”
Mrs Hatfield’s expression did not change, but something shifted behind her eyes—a warmth, a recognition, an understanding that went beyond the words.
“I wish you to arrange regular deliveries of provisions to the family’s address. Groceries, household supplies, coal—whatever is necessary. You shall present yourself, or a trusted proxy, as the representative of a charitable foundation. One that assists families of reducedgentlewomen. The name and details I leave to your invention, but they must be convincing. Mrs Bennet is not a fool.”
Mrs Hatfield’s mouth opened. She had something to say—he could see it forming behind her careful composure, a question or perhaps a comment that skirted the boundaries of what a housekeeper could properly observe to her master.
He gave herthelook. The one that had ended debates in clubs, silenced impertinent cousins, and once, memorably, stopped a horse mid-bolt. It was the Darcy stare, inherited from generations of men who had brooked no nonsense, and it worked on Mrs Hatfield exactly as it worked on everyone else.