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Chapter Twenty-One

T he air had grown too warm.

Or perhaps he had simply been standing too long in the same spot, watching Elizabeth walk away and trying not to feel it.

Darcy tugged once at his cuffs, then smoothed them again, an unnecessary motion that did nothing to settle the thrum in his chest. The conversation with her—if it could be called that—looped back in fragments.

Do not—please.

She had not shouted. She had not flinched. But she had looked at him as though he had crossed some invisible line and could not be trusted on the other side of it.

Which was absurd.

He had invited Bingley as a courtesy. He had not invited the sister, and he could hardly be held accountable for that lady’s plans. If Elizabeth had truly wished to avoid her, she might have said so.

Unless she had assumed he would already know.

Darcy frowned and turned from the sculpture, beginning a slow, deliberate circuit of the room.

The gallery was more crowded now than it had been, filled with the sort of genteel milling that passed for conversation in such settings: three women and a parson discussing ceiling heights, a pair of naval officers eyeing the lemonade as if it had secrets, Lady Frances bemoaning the decline of real landscape painting to anyone within earshot.

Elizabeth stood near the far wall, speaking with a tall gentleman of fair coloring and broad frame. She laughed at something he said. Lightly. Easily. As though the afternoon were pleasant and unremarkable.

Darcy’s stride slowed.

The gentleman—he thought his name was Harcourt or Hartford, something vaguely pastoral—was nodding with interest, arms crossed loosely. Elizabeth tilted her head and said something further, and he actually leaned in.

Darcy narrowed his eyes.

He did not care. Not truly. Just enough to notice the way the man leaned in. Just enough to wonder whether he should have interrupted. But certainly not enough to feel anything approaching jealousy.

But if the whole point of this exercise had been efficiency, then perhaps it was time he resumed the business of finding a wife who did not stare at him like he had driven his carriage over her dog.

He turned toward the corner near the music trio and spotted a likely candidate. Miss Eugenia Partridge.

Darcy recalled only a few details—wealthy family, decent education, a recent tour of Italy.

He had seen her at the musicale, but for some reason, Elizabeth had declined to introduce him to her, even after a murmured request. So another friend had performed the office, but there had been little time for him to learn more of her on that occasion.

He could not see anything particularly amiss about the lady—her posture was elegant, her gown understated, and she was not presently engaged in conversation with anyone who looked actively unpleasant.

He approached with a bow. “Miss Partridge.”

She turned with a smile that had clearly been practiced in a mirror and dropped a curtsy just a shade too deep. “Mr. Darcy. What a surprise.”

“I hope I am not interrupting.”

“Oh no. I was just… looking at the paintings. They are very well done.” She nodded firmly at a portrait of a goose.

Darcy followed her gaze. “That one is a Flemish still life.”

“Oh,” she said. “Yes. I knew that.”

A pause followed. Not tense, but somehow effortful.

“You have recently returned from Italy, I believe?”

“Yes,” she said, drawing out the word. “We saw some very old buildings.”

“Indeed?”

She blinked slowly. “A good many of them.”

“I imagine you enjoyed the architecture.”

“Oh yes. My sister took sketches. I tried to, but it was hard to hold the pencil when it was warm. Everything gets slippery in Italy.”

Darcy narrowed his eyes. “I had not heard that… particular complaint before.”

“I brought back three fans,” she added brightly. “Two with birds. One with a poem.”

“A poem?”

“Yes, about a fountain. I could not read it, but the man said it was nice.”

Darcy inclined his head. “I see.”

Indeed, this was going well. Inspiring? No. But this was the sort of woman who would never press. Never suspect. Never ask what kind of letter might keep a man up at night.

Miss Partridge beamed, then abruptly looked serious. “I understand you have an estate in Derbyshire. Does it have arches?”

He blinked. “Arches?”

“I mean the old kind. Like in cathedrals. Or bridges. The ones that make you think of—” she paused, visibly fishing “—history.”

Darcy cleared his throat. “Not especially. The estate is Georgian.”

“Oh. That is a shame.” She tilted her head. “But maybe you could add one.”

“An arch?”

“Yes. In the garden. Or in the stables. Arches always seem very mysterious. I like things with gravity. Do you read Byron?”

Darcy shifted. This was a slightly more positive direction for the conversation. “Yes.”

She leaned in a bit, lowering her voice as if sharing a secret. “I think he might have been haunted,” she whispered.

Darcy blinked. “Sorry?”

“Some poets are, you know. I read it in a pamphlet. That is why their hair goes all wild.”

Darcy shifted his weight, silently counting to five. How long was he decently required to remain here?

She gestured toward a canvas of a horse in a storm. “I once tried to sketch a nightmare I had. I used charcoal and shut my eyes so the spirits could guide me, but I leaned on the drawing board and got black all over the curtains. Mother was not pleased.”

He stared at her.

She smiled as though this had been a triumph. “And Pemberley has some of the very finest horses, does it not? Do any of them ever stop and stare at nothing? That is usually a sign.”

Darcy lifted his chin a fraction and adjusted the cuff of his glove with exaggerated care. He was no longer interested in finding out what that was a “sign” of.

“Miss Partridge,” he said with immaculate courtesy, “I thank you for the conversation, but I believe Lady Frances may be attempting to summon me.”

“Oh,” she said. “Do extend my compliments to the hostess.”

He bowed. “Of course.”

As he turned away, he caught a glimpse of Elizabeth on the far side of the room, her hand gesturing with perfect ease as she spoke to a woman he did not know and a gentleman who looked dangerously interested.

Darcy walked on and did not look back.

As he turned away, Elizabeth’s laughter—more muted now—carried across the room again. Her gentleman companion bowed politely and moved toward the music, leaving her speaking to a matron in violet.

Darcy adjusted his cravat and tried to look purposeful.

You do not need her.

You are entirely capable of identifying a suitable match.

Elizabeth is not exceptional.

Except she might be. Not because she was clever, or lovely, or inconveniently vivid—but because she had a way of seeing through people faster than he could parse them.

She would have spoken to Miss Partridge for two minutes and known everything. He had needed the full ten. And probably wasted countless other opportunities.

S he had not failed immediately.

The first gentleman had seemed promising enough—young, not overly loud, possessed of fine boots and better posture. They had spoken of the paintings, the weather, and a recent article on marble preservation in The Gentleman’s Repository.

Elizabeth nodded, made an agreeable sound, and even volunteered a comment about the statue in the corner having a particularly expressive jawline.

“Ah,” he said, squinting slightly. “Yes. Remarkably noble. One imagines it spoke with great dignity. When it had a mouth.”

She smiled. “That may still place it above several members of Parliament.”

There was a pause. Then a blink. Then a smile that clearly meant: “I do not know what to do with that, so I shall pretend it was profound.”

He looked into his glass. “You have fine, serious eyes, Miss Bennet.”

She inclined her head.

“And that reminds me, there was a painting just there… Will you excuse me?” He wandered off in the direction of the punch bowl without another word.

The second had appeared while she was speaking with Jane and Aunt Gardiner. Older. Possibly a second son, possibly someone’s curate on the rise. Her aunt seemed to know him and introduced him as Mr. Hatherleigh.

“Miss Bennet,” he said with a small bow, “may I ask—do you prefer the harp or the lute?”

She blinked. “Sorry?”

“I find the choice speaks volumes,” he said gravely. “The harp is ethereal, mournful, transcendent. The lute, more grounded, more intimate. In your estimation, which most moves the soul?”

She hesitated. “Are we speaking of instruments or suitors?”

He chuckled, missing the edge in her tone. “Ah, the wit of lively minds. No, I refer to their timbre. Their capacity for stirring the heart.”

“I see.” She folded her hands. “In that case, I prefer the triangle. Immediate, honest, impossible to ignore.”

He blinked.

She smiled sweetly. “Though I suppose it does lack the soul-stirring melancholy of a harp in mourning.”

He recovered with a nod. “Well said. Quite. I myself heard a lute played once in the Lake District during a storm. My cousin Margaret wept openly. Her feelings are finely tuned.”

“Now there is a compliment I have not heard before,” she mused.

“Aye, but it is true. She once wept at a sermon on patience,” he added, apparently believing this a further point in Margaret’s favor.

Elizabeth nodded, lips pressed together. Perhaps the gentleman was secretly nursing a tendre for his cousin? She could not be sure.

“And again during an amateur staging of The Fair Penitent. The second act.”

“Did she recover?” Elizabeth asked. “Or is she still weeping somewhere in Cumberland?”

He blinked. She smiled.

He bowed.

She nodded.

And the moment he left, she turned to Jane with barely contained irritation.

“Why,” she whispered, “does he think I have opinions on lutes?”

Jane pressed her lips together politely.