Darcy exhaled slowly. “The usual ones. Society would gossip. Some doors would close. My aunt would likely suffer an apoplexy.”
Richard chuckled. “Lady Catherine’s apoplexies are legendary, but not fatal so far. Come now, Darcy. Be honest. What would truly happen?”
Darcy stared into the ruby depths of his port. “My uncle and aunt would be disappointed. They have certain expectations.”
“Expectations,” Richard repeated. “My parents would welcome any woman with a pulse if she would consent to marry me, a bachelor at seven-and-thirty. They have grown desperate. After the catastrophe of my elder brother’smarriage to a lady of impeccable lineage and zero affection, they have revised their standards considerably. They want their remaining son happy. They want grandchildren who are not raised in cold silence. A governess who makes you smile and treats Anne with kindness would, I suspect, be received with relief rather than outrage.”
Darcy remained silent for a long moment.
Richard leaned forward, his voice dropping. “You are not my brother. You are not bound by the same chains. If you wished to marry a gentlewoman—even one currently employed as a governess—I believe my parents would not oppose it. They might grumble for appearance’s sake, but they would not stand in your way. Not if she made you and Anne happy.”
Darcy turned the glass in his hands. The idea, once spoken aloud, refused to retreat.
“You are right, Richard,” he said at last, quietly. “They would not oppose it. And even if they did, I would not care. The only obstacle that matters is whether the lady in question—let us say a governess—would accept my suit.”
Richard studied him for a moment, then gave a low laugh and clapped him soundly on the back.
“Poor bastard,” he murmured, affection clear beneath the words. “You are well and truly caught.”
Darcy did not deny it.
The clock on the mantel showed a quarter to six. Darcy straightened abruptly.
“We should return,” he said. “It is nearly time for dinner.”
Richard raised an eyebrow. “Since when do you hurry home fordinner?”
“Since I have a governess who expects me at the table,” Darcy replied, already rising.
Richard’s smile was knowing, but he said nothing further. They left White’s at a brisk pace that bordered on undignified for two gentlemen of their station. Darcy set a punishing stride, and Richard matched it without complaint, though his occasional sidelong glances spoke volumes.
They reached Grosvenor Street just as the hall clock chimed six. Darcy handed his hat and gloves to Barton with more haste than elegance and moved directly to the dining room.
Elizabeth was already there.
She stood near the window, speaking softly to Georgiana. When she turned at the sound of their entrance, their eyes met for one brief, charged moment.
She looked away first.
Darcy took his place at the head of the table, acutely aware of every inch of space between them. Richard and Georgiana joined them, filling the room with easy conversation.
Darcy watched Elizabeth across the candles as the first course was served. She answered Georgiana’s questions with grace, and barely glanced at him.
Yet every time their eyes did meet—however briefly—the memory of last night flared between them undeniably.
Darcy reached for his wine and drank deeply.
A precaution, he reminded himself.
Fourteen
The carriage turned onto The Polygon at half past ten, and Elizabeth was out of the door before the wheels had fully stopped.
She had not slept. This was becoming a pattern—nights spent staring at the ceiling, her mind circling, her body remembering. But this morning the reason was not the one that had kept her awake for the past fortnight. This morning, the reason had a name which was not Mr Darcy.
She had rehearsed it. In the bath, in the nursery while Anne made drawings, in the corridor outside the dining room where she had stood for a full minute before entering for breakfast. The words were plain, she had arranged them in order, and there was no gentle version, none that would not land on Lydia and shatter the fragile stillness she had built around herself. Elizabeth was bringing a hammer to a glass house, and the only mercy she could offer was steadiness.
The front door was unlocked. She let herself in and stopped.