“She is wise beyond her age, Uncle. Last week she informed me that God should be written to about the quality of the weather, and that she intended to include a list of specific complaints.”
Richard nearly choked on his port. The Earl’s mouth twitched. “And this wisdom—is it the governess’s doing?”
“Miss Bennet provides the structure. Anne provides the opinions. The combination is formidable.”
“Who is this Miss Bennet?” The Earl’s tone was pleasant but precise. He tracked the movements of his family’s household with the same attention he paid to Parliamentary divisions. “Richard mentioned a genteel lady in reduced circumstances, but he was characteristically vague on the particulars.”
“She is the daughter of a country gentleman from Hertfordshire. Mr Bennet of Longbourn. He died some years ago, and the estate was entailed to a cousin. His widow and five daughters were left without provision. They live now on the charity of an uncle.”
The Earl absorbed this with a slow nod. “A gentleman’s daughter, then. Properly bred.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Good.” He turned his glass. “Well, you did right, Nephew. Anne needs to be tended by a gentlewoman. Achild of her station requires manners and accomplishment, and those are not taught by servants, however capable. Miss Bennet will do very well until you marry.”
Until you marry.
Darcy raised his glass and drank. The port was excellent and he tasted nothing.
“Yes, Uncle. Until I marry.”
Until he married. The words tasted like ash.
Richard was studying him. The Colonel had sharper eyes than people credited him for, and the flatness in Darcy’s tone caught his attention. His brow furrowed, briefly, and then smoothed. He did not comment.
The conversation moved on with more port. They discussed racing prospects at Newmarket. They disagreed about whether Wellington’s Peninsula campaign had been strategically brilliant or merely fortunate. Richard won it by invoking his personal experience and the Earl conceded with visible pride.
At half past five, Darcy rose.
“You are not staying for dinner?” The Earl frowned. “We are meeting Allenby and Forsythe at seven. Good men. Sound investments. You would enjoy the conversation.”
“I must decline, Uncle. I have business at home.”
“Business?” Richard raised an eyebrow. “What business requires a man to leave his club before the second bottle?”
“Financial business. Georgiana and the modiste have been unattended for several hours. I need to assess the damage before it empties my coffers.”
The Earl laughed, but Richard did not. He was still watching Darcy with that slight, assessing frown, and Darcy could feel the question forming behind his cousin’s eyes.
He settled his account and collected his hat. He shook his uncle’s hand and clapped Richard on the shoulder. Then he was on St James’s Street and walking north at a pace that was, by any reasonable standard, too fast for a gentleman strolling home from his club. His hat was slightly askew but he did not fix it.
He reached Grosvenor Street at six minutes to six, which was, he calculated, precisely enough time to change his cravat and descend the stairs. He would be standing in the dining room when she arrived, as though he had not crossed half of London at a near-run to be in the same room as her at the appointed hour.
Ten
The last week of April brought warmth, and Elizabeth took it where she could find it.
She was sitting on the stone bench at the far end of the garden, her face tilted to the sun, her eyes closed. Anne was napping, Alice watching her. The nursery did not need her for another hour, the garden was quiet, the sun was on her skin, and for five minutes she intended to think about nothing at all.
She lasted three.
Yesterday had been her half day. She had missed the previous week because Anne had caught a head cold—nothing alarming, a runny nose and a cough that produced more outrage than phlegm. Elizabeth had wanted to stay close, and Mr Darcy had not pressed her to go. He had, in fact, brought Anne’s supper to the nursery himself that evening.
So yesterday she had gone to Somers Town for the first time in a fortnight, and what she had found there made no sense.
The house was different. It was altered in a dozen small ways that added up to something larger. The front step hadbeen repaired. The cracked flagstone that had caught Kitty’s heel in February was gone, replaced by a smooth new one. The window in the kitchen, which had been draughty and stuffed with rags, had been reglazed. The damp patch on the parlour wall, a spreading stain that Mrs Bennet had covered with a chair and pretended did not exist, had been plastered and whitewashed.
“We have a new landlord,” Mrs Bennet had announced, pouring tea that was, Elizabeth noticed, considerably stronger than the watered brew they had been rationing for months. “The old one sold up. The new one sent a man round to inspect the property, and three days later workmen appeared. They mended the step and fixed the window. They did something to the chimney and it has stopped smoking in the parlour.”