Then Bingley dropped into the nearest chair. “My sisters lied to me.MonthsI have been unhappy, believing Miss Bennet indifferent—and she was in town, wishing to see me.”
“Your actions were founded on faulty intelligence,” said Richard, gentler now.
“Faulty intelligence?” Bingley let his hands fall. “I had no intelligence. I was outnumbered by falsehood, vanity, and” here he waved at Darcy, “excessive height.”
Richard chuckled. “A formidable alliance.”
“A doomed one, fortunately.” Bingley looked at Darcy. “I mean to go. I know I cannot expect much of a welcome, but I intend to go.”
“Good.”
It was not eloquent, but it seemed to settle something between them.
The door swung wide and Hurst stuck his head into the room. He took in the charged silence, the rigid faces, and asked the question nearest his heart.
“Is there any brandy?”
“Your wife,” said Bingley, “has just gone upstairs in a temper.”
“I saw,” said Hurst, making for the decanter. “Why do you suppose I came down?”
Darcy had not gone up to his rooms after all, but back to the saloon where Miss Elizabeth had sat on Thursday. He stood at the window, thinking about Mrs. Gardiner’s invitation.
It was quite late when Georgiana came to find him.
She had borne the day extraordinarily well, though he had not been able to tell her so for fear of making her self-conscious. She had greeted a group of guests, conversed with the Pelham girls, cared for Miss Atherton, and led the guests who were with her up to the house to wait out a storm.
She came with a lit candle. “Brother, I wished to bid you a good evening. I am for bed.”
He nodded. “You did very well today, sweetling.”
“Thank you. It was . . . I enjoyed myself, but I am rather weary now.”
He chuckled. “I can truthfully say the same.”
Georgiana moved towards the door, but after a few steps, turned back to face him.
“Brother . . . do you think the Gardiners might be persuaded to come into Derbyshire again? Or—Miss Bennet, at least. I should like it very much if Miss Bennet were to come again.”
She stopped, gathered herself, and went on.
“I have not often had a friend who talks to me as if she had already decided to like me. And I fear I had too little of her today, with so many guests.”
It was, Darcy thought, very nearly the longest speech he had ever heard his sister make about another young lady, and that she should have made it on this subject, on this evening, made him happy. For he had not had enough time with Miss Elizabeth either.
The thought came before he could stop it, plain and selfish and correct. He had enjoyed a morning of glances, a storm’s worth of nearness, a few words in a crowded folly, a farewell in the hall with half the house around them, but it had not been enough. He wanted more time with her. More conversation.More proof, perhaps, that he had not imagined the warmth in her face when she glanced back from the carriage.
He did not know whether Miss Elizabeth wanted more time with him. Had her aunt’s gentle opening had been offered on Miss Elizabeth’s behalf, or only from her own kindness? He did not know whether that backward glance had meant encouragement, gratitude, or nothing more than farewell.
“I think it not impossible,” he said carefully, “that Miss Bennet may be persuaded into Derbyshire again. But I cannot answer for her.”
Georgiana looked up at him the way she did when she had heard more in a sentence than had been put into it. The girl was too quick sometimes.
“You would like her to come again too,” she said.
It was not a question.
Darcy moved towards the window. “I should be very glad if she did.”