Page 45

Lady Matlock had taken to placing it on his desk every morning, no matter where he tossed it the night before. “You need to know what is being said,” she had warned. “Even if you think it beneath you.”

He did think it beneath him.

He had moved it to the bookshelf. To the window. To the waste bin once, only to find it perched beside his teacup an hour later, like a stray cat with opinions.

Now it sat squarely on top of the day’s post, mocking him in cheap gold type: “The Ink-Stained Nobody: A Series of Domestic Sketches by an Unknown Pen.”

He glared at it.

Then, grimly, he picked it up. It was insulting to even read the headline, but he might as well have done with one more task so he could dispose of the thing.

Darcy flipped past the preamble—an arch little note from “an admirer of human nature, though rarely impressed by it” —that bit was clever—and into the meat.

The tone was light. Observant. Irreverent. And irritatingly well-structured.

The first sketch opened with:

“Sir R— has seven daughters, two dogs, and a detailed memory of all their weights at birth. Only the dogs are thin now, but the conversation remains as unsubstantial as the hounds.”

Darcy snorted. He did not mean to. It escaped him before he could stop it.

The second offered:

“Mrs. C— moves chairs between dances not for the sake of upholstery, but to prevent a niece from forming unfortunate attachments. Her waltz patterns are more elaborate than the ones on the carpet.”

What worthless twaddle! He should have stopped there. He meant to. He nearly closed the pamphlet and pushed it aside.

And then he saw the heading for the next piece:

“A country wit, with a fatal taste for ink and insolence.”

He stilled.

No name. No initials. Only the silhouette of a girl with a quick tongue and a quicker pen, whose observations “could pierce the rind of a dinner party with barely a scratch to the silver.”

Darcy read the paragraph once, then again. The phrasing shifted just left of exact—but the shape of it, the cadence, the rhythm of intelligence held just long enough to be mistaken for amusement—it was hers.

Or had been.

Only now, it was turned inside out.

A line about “a gentleman’s eyebrows that give orders” made his stomach drop.

Another about “schedules masquerading as personalities” nearly made him close the pamphlet on instinct.

He set it down carefully, as though it might bite.

Not merely clever.

Familiar.

Too familiar.

How? Why? Elizabeth had never written for public amusement, let alone gossip. She abhorred idle cruelty. And she would never have made her little observations public.

But the details were too aligned to be coincidence: a misfired epigram at a musicale, a comment about a gentleman’s waistcoat that had clearly once been green.

Had someone overheard her? Followed her?

No. It was not merely her style being mimicked.

It was her actual words. How the devil…?

Darcy’s fingers clenched against the desk.

“Brother?”

He looked up.

Georgiana stood in the doorway, half inside the room. She held a folded piece of paper—something domestic, possibly a receipt or a note from Mrs. Annesley—but her eyes had landed on the pamphlet still open beside him.

She paused.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said too quickly. “I only—Mrs. Griffin wanted to confirm the arrangements for our aunt’s visit.”

Darcy looked up. “Arrangements? Which aunt?”

Georgiana hesitated. “Lady Catherine. The dowager says she is expected early next week.”

His brow lifted.

“I believe Grandmother received her letter yesterday,” Georgiana hastened to clarify. “And she said I ought to learn some of my duties, so... she asked me to see that everything was in order with the housekeeper.”

Of course she had. Delegation disguised as grace. And Lady Catherine assuming the world would adjust to her schedule like a well-trained dog.

Darcy suppressed the sigh. “Tell Mrs. Griffin the green chamber will suffice. And remind Cook—no onions.”

Georgiana nodded, but she did not move.

Her gaze had strayed—drifting to the pamphlet on the desk. Then back to his face.

“You recognize this,” he said.

“No,” Georgiana replied quickly—but her voice caught on the word, just slightly. Her eyes flicked to the pamphlet. Then to his face. Then away again.

“I mean... not truly. I have only seen it about. In... drawing rooms.”

She adjusted the note in her hand, folding the edge that did not need folding.

Darcy frowned and edged a brow upward. “Georgiana…”

Her gaze dropped further. “I did not think you would read it.”

The flush rose fast. Not guilt—embarrassment. As if she had just caught him rifling through someone’s reticule.

He shifted. “Who mentioned it?”

She tugged once at her cuff. “No one, really. Just—people.”

That was not an answer. He stood.

Her spine straightened—a reflex, years old and still reliable. His hands had not moved, but she looked braced anyway.

“ Who is reading it?” he asked.

She blinked. “I… everyone? It is passed about in drawing rooms. I have seen it at the Portmans’—Clara Portman had a copy tucked inside her embroidery book—and at the Fairchilds’ before supper. Louisa Fairchild said her sister reads it aloud when they have callers, if the conversation is dull.”

Darcy felt something cold settle behind his ribs. “They read it aloud? ”

“Sometimes.”

He blinked. “Do they laugh?”

She swallowed, then nodded. “Lady Marcus was laughing over it quite heartily, and Susan Andrews said it was sure to be the ruin of several people.

He stepped closer—not looming, not imposing, but narrowing the space between them by half a pace.

“Do they speak of who wrote it?”

Her throat worked. “Only in vague speculation.”

Not vague enough. “And what do they say? About the author?”

Georgiana hesitated again. “They say it is a lady. Because of the phrasing. And the focus. There are too many details about ribbon color and seating charts.”

Darcy did not blink. “Do they name her?”

Her voice dropped to a whisper. “No. But they say she knows everything.”

Everything.

He let the silence fall—not because it was dramatic, but because he did not trust what might come out if he spoke too quickly.

Georgiana swallowed and seemed to shake herself—no doubt in hopes that he would cease questioning her. “Shall I tell Mrs. Griffin the arrangements for Lady Catherine stand?”

He let the air out of his chest and nodded once.

She turned, quickly this time, and pulled the door closed as though she were desperately making her escape before he could ask more.

He stared at it for a long moment after it shut. Then he looked down at the pamphlet again. It lay open on his desk like a letter he had never meant to send, but had somehow already signed.

Elizabeth would never publish something so reckless.

She might mock a fortune hunter over dinner. She might skewer a fool in private. But to publish it? To make a show of it and risk discovery?

Even she was not that reckless. Not that shortsighted..

And yet—the phrasing. The cadence. The very shape of the wit.

It sounded like her.

Too much like her.

Had she run low on funds? Some desperate scheme to drum up a quick dowry for herself and escape Hertfordshire for good? That could be why she had raced him to London.

But he had no proof. No explanation. No answers from Georgiana, and no path to the truth through Elizabeth, because she would out-twist any questions he could possibly put to her.

He pressed a hand to the desk, as though he might steady the room by anchoring himself to it. The words were out there, and someone had given them life. If not her—then who had listened closely enough to steal her?

And if it was her—how much more had she written? Had she spoken of him? Had she let slip something he could not afford the world to know?

Or was it all just coincidence—sharp, uncanny, and cruelly timed?