Georgiana excused herself early to attend to final preparations for the morning, and Richard escorted her out, leaving nephew and aunt alone.
Lady Catherine did not speak immediately. She turned her glass in her fingers, watching the candlelight fracture through the crystal. Her face was unreadable, the imperious mask firmly in place, but Darcy had spent enough years studying his aunt to recognise the calculation beneath it. She was choosing her approach, selecting her weapons.
“The child is healthy,” she said at last. “That is something.”
“She is rarely ill.”
“Her mother was never healthy. From infancy, one complaint after another. The physicians were useless, naturally. They always are.” Lady Catherine took a measured sip of port. “I had hoped... but it does not matter what I hoped. The child is what she is.”
Darcy refused to be drawn into that particular conversation, not tonight, not ever. The fiction of Anne’s parentage was a wall they had built together, he and his aunt, and neither of them would be the first to breach it.
“Georgiana’s match is advantageous,” Lady Catherine continued, changing the subject abruptly. “Lord Lofton’s family is respectable, his fortune sufficient, his character reportedly sound. She has done well. The Fitzwilliam name will be honoured.”
“Georgiana is very happy.”
“Happiness is a secondary consideration. Duty is primary. She understands this, I trust.”
“She understands that she is marrying a man she loves, who loves her in return. I consider that the primary consideration.”
Lady Catherine’s eyes narrowed. “Love. A word much abused by the young and the foolish. Love fades, Fitzwilliam. Duty endures. A woman who marries for love and finds herself disappointed has only her own expectations to blame. A woman who marries for duty and finds contentment has exceeded her requirements.”
Darcy thought of his own marriage. The cottage in Cornwall, the silent meals, the separate beds, the mutual agreement to endure without pretence. Anne de Bourgh had married for duty, and she had died without contentment, without love, without anything but the relief of ending.
“This family has weathered scandal before,” his aunt continued. Her voice had dropped, the lecturing tone disappearing. “We have survived whispers and speculation and the vultures who circle when great houses stumble. We have survived because we protect each other. Because we do not give reasons to our enemies, and we conduct ourselves with discretion.”
“I am aware of our family’s history, Aunt.”
“Are you?” She set down her glass and focused on him with an intensity that made his skin prickle. “Then you are aware that discretion is not merely a virtue. It is a requirement. It is the price of the position you hold, the name you carry, the legacy you will pass to your daughter, whatever her origins.”
Whatever her origins.The closest she had ever come to acknowledging the truth aloud, and she had done it as a weapon, a reminder that she held knowledge that could destroy them both.
“I am aware, Aunt.”
“Good.” She reached for her glass again, her movements unhurried, her point made. “Then we understand each other.” She let a moment pass, then lifted an eyebrow. “The governess,” she said. “Miss Bennet. She is satisfactory?”
Darcy’s pulse quickened, but he kept his voice even. “She is excellent. Anne has flourished under her care.”
“I recall her from Rosings. An impertinent girl. She had opinions above her station and no hesitation in expressing them.” Lady Catherine’s mouth curved, the expression too sharp to be called a smile. “I trust employment has improved her manners.”
“Her manners require no improvement, Aunt.” The words came before he could weigh them, quiet but certain. “They never did.”
Lady Catherine went still.
The silence that followed was charged, watchful, the hush that preceded storms. His aunt studied him across the table, her eyes sharp as cut glass, and Darcy felt her cataloguing every nuance: the warmth in his voice, the immediacy of his defence, the slight tension in his shoulders that betrayed more than he had intended.
“Indeed,” she said softly. “How curious that you should say so.”
He did not respond. Any response would be evidence; any defence would be confession. He offered nothing.
Lady Catherine rose from the table. “It is late, and tomorrow will be long. I shall retire.” She paused at the door, her hand on the frame, and looked back at him. “Fitzwilliam. I have given you counsel tonight. I suggest you heed it. Discretion is not optional for men in your position. It is survival.”
She swept out. Her footsteps faded down the corridor, measured and unhurried, and Darcy remained alone with his thoughts in the dining room.
His aunt suspected. He had seen the recognition, the calculation in her eyes. She did not know the extent of it, not yet. But Lady Catherine de Bourgh was a woman who collected ammunition before she fired, and she had just added a new piece to her arsenal.
He reached into his pocket and withdrew Elizabeth’s note. He unfolded it, read the familiar handwriting, traced the curve of her letters with his thumb.
I thought it best.