Page 47

“I admire both,” Miss Ashford said. “Though I confess I find the very sad poets rather... comforting. I like a sonnet where someone dies by the fourth line. It feels honest.”

Elizabeth watched Darcy’s jaw shift.

Now was the moment.

She stepped in gently, with the kind of social grace that could only be mistaken for goodwill.

“Miss Ashford, you should know—Mr. Darcy has an exquisite memory for verse. Especially the sort that reinforces proper behavior.”

Darcy’s gaze snapped toward her.

“Particularly Latin proverbs,” she added lightly. “He once recited seven in a row, all rhyming, about punctuality.”

Captain Marlowe gave a small, diplomatic cough. “That is rather impressive. I should take notes. Though I fear I remember nothing in Latin except ‘hic jacet’ and one toast I once heard at sea.”

Miss Ashford’s eyes lit up. “Latin! My cousin calls it the language of civilization.”

“And embroidery,” Elizabeth said, sweet as poison. “He likes verse best when it comes stitched across a cushion.”

Darcy narrowed his eyes. “Miss Bennet is teasing you.”

“Oh,” Miss Ashford blinked. “Are you not fond of moral embroidery?”

“I am not fond of embroidery,” Darcy said, flatly.

“But Latin—”

“Is orderly,” he replied. “Which is not the same as ornamental.”

“Then I wonder that you bother with any salon in London,” the captain laughed, adjusting his stance a little. “Full of ornamental frivolities, they are, but rather entertaining ones. I will confess a partiality to Pope myself. He fits perfectly into a pocket.”

“A pocket?” Miss Ashford looked alarmed.

“In book form,” he clarified quickly. “Though I suppose if you had large enough pockets…” He faltered. “I did not mean—of course—”

Elizabeth offered a smile, small and serene. “Only the abridged editions, I hope.”

“Never fear,” said Marlowe. “I always ask my tailor to reinforce the seams.”

Miss Ashford tittered.

Darcy glanced sideways at Elizabeth. “Miss Bennet, if I recall correctly, has her own fondness for moral instruction. Particularly when set to rhyme. And cross-stitch.”

Elizabeth’s brows rose. “Do I?”

He nodded, too solemnly. “A strong defender of aphorisms. Though you prefer yours delivered through riddles and flirtation rather than fabric.”

“Then I imagine I am overdue for a sampler that reads Irony is the soul’s true virtue.”

Marlowe laughed aloud. “That is very good. Would you mind if I borrowed it for my family motto?”

Darcy pressed forward, gaze never leaving Elizabeth. “Miss Bennet’s embroidery may be theoretical, but I am told her singing is not.”

That made Miss Ashford perk up immediately. “Oh, do you sing, Miss Bennet?”

Elizabeth turned slowly. Darcy stood quite still, composed as a portrait—but she knew the look in his eye. He was not simply teasing her. He was calling a bluff.

Captain Marlowe took it up at once. “Then we must have you at the pianoforte. I was told Lady Frances has a young cousin with a lovely touch. But if we might have a voice as well—unless you would rather not, of course—”

“I do not sing in public,” Elizabeth said sweetly. “Nor in private, if I can help it.”

“Oh come,” said the captain, “surely that is false modesty.”

“I assure you it is not.” She smiled directly at Darcy. “Though I do admire the art of invention.”

“Then you admire yourself,” he said.

The smile vanished.

Captain Marlowe glanced between them with raised brows and then, to his credit, inserted himself with grace. “Well, I see I have interrupted a most instructive discussion. Miss Ashford, shall I escort you to the music room before I say something unforgivable about Horace?”

Miss Ashford, visibly relieved, nodded, and the pair evaporated into the crowd.

That was when Darcy grabbed her by the elbow and propelled her across the room.

And there was little she could do but smile as he did so—a little wave at Mrs. Winston, a dip of her head to Lady Stanhope, and…

oh, blast, there was the dowager hiding behind her fan and saying heaven-knew-what to her aunt.

She might as well send in her notice to the papers that she had expired—gone, dead, that was it, life ruined.

They stopped near a half-curtained alcove that smelled faintly of lemon tarts and old upholstery. A painted screen offered half-privacy, enough to lower voices without raising alarms. Darcy pulled her around the plaster column before he turned to her. “You might have let me speak for myself.”

She shifted just enough to meet his gaze. “I thought you said quite enough for both of us.”

“No, you had. That was the problem. That is always the problem! You know very well I hate needlework and empty poetry and moralism.”

“I know very well you hate being helped.”

“That was not help!”

“No?” She folded her arms. “Because it looked remarkably like assistance. I saw you struggling, and I thought: how might I rescue this fine conversation?”

“Rescue? You sabotaged it. Deliberately!”

Elizabeth scoffed. “I did no such thing.”

He took one step closer, not enough to be improper, but enough to make her nerves snap taut. “You seemed rather comfortable earlier,” he said. “With your naval companion. I imagine he finds everything agreeable.”

“I find him attentive . And I appreciate a conversation that does not collapse under its own disdain.”

“You laughed at everything he said. Even the things that were patently ridiculous, which was proof enough that you were faking it.”

“Some men are easy to laugh with. Others insist on being laughed at only when they mean to be.”

Darcy’s eyes narrowed.

“You can hardly afford to criticize me,” she continued, “for you looked positively entranced when Miss Ashford began categorizing poets by cause of death. Does she place Keats in the romantic consumption section? I warrant that is the highest honor she can bestow.”

His jaw hardened. “That shows how much you know. Keats is still very much alive.”

“Alas, poor fellow.” She buffed her nails on her sleeve and surveyed them casually. “The greatest tragedy of a poet’s life is to live long enough to hear his verse quoted poorly in salons by simpering girls who cannot understand their meaning.”

Darcy’s lip curled. “At least she has the benefit of good breeding and a decent upbringing.”

Elizabeth’s ire flared. Was that… did he just insult her family? Oh, no, no no… She balled her fists. “She has the benefit of not knowing you! ”

Darcy scoffed. “She is civil and well-mannered. Unlike others in the room.”

“She is an embroidered cushion!” Elizabeth snapped. “Soft, decorative, and entirely unburdened by original thought.”

Darcy inhaled once. That landed. For a moment neither spoke. Then Darcy growled, “I thought we were supposed to be allies. Yet, you seem to delight in making me ridiculous.”

“You do not require my help for that.”

He leaned in, voice quiet and pointed. “Then perhaps we might return to honesty. What is it, precisely, that has put you so off your stride since the ball?”

Elizabeth laughed bitterly. “Aside from Caroline Bingley appearing in London without warning? Aside from learning that Charles Bingley has been here for days—came with you, and never once saw fit to speak to my sister, whose hopes he has deliberately raised?”

Darcy did not reply. His silence felt practiced.

She shook her head. “I see. You will retreat into mute obstinacy again. How very convenient.”

“And you?” His voice cut, not raised, but sharpened. “You ask me to be honest while playing coy about things you know very well I have seen—things everyone has seen and heard by now.”

“What things?”

Darcy’s gaze did not flicker. “You know what I refer to.”

Her heart lurched. She forced a breath. “Upon my word, I do not.”

“Indeed, I think you do.” There was no accusation in his tone—just certainty. Unshakable, infuriating certainty.

Elizabeth held his stare. “If I did, Mr. Darcy, I would be quite happy to enlighten you. But as I am not in the habit of playing charades at a poetry salon, perhaps you might say plainly what you mean.”

“I think you know precisely what I mean,” he said, voice low. “And you are choosing not to say it.”

“I am choosing not to fabricate answers to riddles I have not been asked.”

His silence was worse than any reply. Not cold—just calculating. She could see the wheels turning behind his eyes.

She crossed her arms, her gloves creaking faintly with the motion. “You believe I have said something,” she said. “To someone. About something that displeases you. And instead of asking directly, you prefer to interrogate me like a criminal caught in the middle of her confession.”

Darcy gave a single, almost imperceptible nod. “Because you are far too clever to confess. Even when you ought to.”

Her fingers tightened over her elbows as her eyes widened. She leaned forward with a hiss. “I have not betrayed your confidences, sir.”

“Nothing?” he asked. “Not one detail about the reason I came to London? Not a single note passed to a friend? Not a phrase, not an impression?”

She flinched. Not visibly. Not quite.

Because the truth was—she had written. Often. Privately. Carelessly. Sometimes even impishly—not cruelly, but taken out of context, perhaps it could be…. Not words meant to be read by others, but in that blasted journal she had never meant to lose.

And now it was gone.

“I do not answer to you, Mr. Darcy,” she said at last. Her voice was steady, but too calm—like a lid fitted too tightly to a pot.

“Perhaps not,” he said. “But your words do.”

Elizabeth blinked.

That made no sense. Or it made too much.

He saw it. The hesitation.

And then she turned on her heel. “I am done here.”

She walked without hurry. But she did not stop for the woman who called her name near the pianoforte, nor for the pair of cousins who lifted their brows in recognition as she passed. A footman approached with a tray of ratafia and a strained smile—she waved him off without a glance.

The gallery’s outer ring was cooler. Quieter. The music sounded faint here, half-muffled by velvet and voices. A curved settee waited beneath a niche where a bust of Marcus Aurelius frowned at nothing in particular.

Elizabeth dropped onto the seat with a heavy creak of the furniture. Her gloves itched. Her teeth ached from clenching.

And then she saw it.

A folded pamphlet on the cushion beside her—lightly creased, as if thumbed through and forgotten. Probably a handbill. Probably nonsense. But it was something to look at that was not a person.

She picked it up.

The print was dense, too florid. She flipped past the front page, half out of habit.

And stopped.

A line.

A very specific line.

#

“A gentleman whose entire soul is held together by cufflinks and contempt.”

#

She had written those same words three weeks ago, on the back of her journal page, beside a list of words she had been trying to rhyme with “arrogance.”

No one had seen that entry.

No one should have.

She turned the page. Another phrase leapt out, buried mid-paragraph. A lady who “catalogues introductions like stamps.”

That had been hers. Not her best—barely amusing—but decidedly hers.

Now printed.

Anonymous.

Decorated with illustrations.

She stared at the page until the words blurred. Caroline Bingley had certainly stolen her journal. And now some anonymous print shop had stolen her .

And everyone else had laughed.