Page 55

Elizabeth felt as if the air had been knocked from her lungs.

Inside, her thoughts were a whirlwind. Darcy, engaged?

She had not expected this, not so soon. Christmas…

that had been… well, that had sort of been their agreement, had it not?

He still had a few days, but had rushed to fill them without…

but that was silly, why would he speak to her about it?

A pang of something—regret? jealousy?—stabbed at her heart. And… were those words coming from her mouth? “How lovely for them both.”

And it was. It ought to be.

She had encouraged this—had named Miss Ashford herself as the least offensive candidate for his abbreviated courtship.

She had insisted it was the sensible choice, the safe one.

But knowing a thing was right and feeling it were entirely different matters.

She could still hear the edge in Darcy’s voice, recall the way his gaze had held hers too long, remember the last unfinished argument between them as if it had been set aside mid-breath.

She meant to say something else—something light, something gracious—but the words turned to ash behind her teeth. Elizabeth smiled. Or something like it.

Then Captain Marlowe clapped his gloves together. “Well! The afternoon is still promising and yet here we stand. Shall we take another turn?”

Bingley offered his arm to Jane. “Shall we?”

Jane accepted, her smile returning with warmth. Elizabeth glanced back at the fire for a heartbeat, as if it might offer more comfort than it had before, then nodded and took the Captain’s arm.

And off they went—skates gliding, eyes forward, conversation easy. Or easy enough to pass for it.

It felt like something she had once known how to do, skating. She allowed herself to be steered, her balance a half-second behind his pace. A performance. A pantomime. Her cheeks stung from the wind and the effort to keep them curved in amusement.

Jane and Mr. Bingley glided just ahead, close enough for Bingley’s hand to hover respectfully at her back. Jane looked the picture of contentment—radiant, warm, just slightly breathless. Elizabeth caught a glimpse of her sister’s smile and wanted to weep and cheer at once. It was so deserved.

And so far away, if Elizabeth was exposed too soon.

Captain Marlowe chuckled at something he thought she had said. She had no idea what it was.

He was kind. He was attentive. He was right there.

And she was pretending. Every word, every fluttering breath of laughter was a stitch in some absurd costume she had sewn for herself. One that looked very much like a happy young woman enjoying a crisp winter afternoon with a promising gentleman.

She could feel it beginning—his glances becoming more intent, his silences more charged. The confidence building just behind his hesitance.

They skated until the sun dipped lower and the firelight turned golden. Someone had begun tuning a fiddle near the edges of the gathering. Elizabeth made a remark about the quality of the music. It sounded like something she might have said.

At last, as they returned toward the brazier, Captain Marlowe cleared his throat. Not the fussy kind—he was trying to be brave now.

“Miss Bennet—”

She turned, careful to meet his eyes with the appropriate softness.

“—if I might be so bold as to request a private audience tomorrow—” he hesitated, blinking as if the words startled him by existing “—I should be very much obliged.”

Jane had already turned discreetly toward the cider table with Mr. Bingley. They were laughing. He touched her elbow.

Elizabeth gave a small, steady nod. “Of course, Captain.”

His face lit with pleasure, and he bowed with perfect form. Not so perfect that it seemed rehearsed, but just enough to suggest that he had imagined this moment before, more than once.

“I shall call after two,” he said, his voice steadier now.

Elizabeth inclined her head. “We shall be at home.”

And she smiled again, dazzling and faultless, because that was all she could do.

#

“ L ady Catherine de Bourgh,” the footman announced.

Darcy was already on his feet.

He met her at the threshold with a bow, precise but not warm. “Aunt Catherine.”

“You are receiving me, then. I half-expected to be turned away at the door.” She stepped past him into the drawing room without waiting for invitation, Anne trailing behind like an afterthought.

Darcy followed, closing the door himself. “You are always welcome.”

“Not always wanted, though, I think.”

He said nothing. The fire crackled in the grate.

“I have just come from your uncle,” she said, tugging off her gloves in sharp jerks. “He is in a state. You may congratulate yourself. It is not every day a man’s temper outruns his gout.”

“About?”

She let the gloves fall into a chair. “The girl, of course. Who else? Georgiana’s name is being bandied about in all the wrong places. Drawing rooms. Card tables. One of Lady Haversham’s poetry circles, if you can believe it.”

Anne said nothing. She had not looked up once.

Darcy shifted his stance. The fire was roaring, but his hands were cold.

Anne followed in silence, moving like a ghost behind her mother—no greeting, no glance, just the quiet burden of someone used to being ignored.

Lady Catherine did not sit. She stalked to the edge of the rug and stood there, daring the furniture to flinch. “He is most distressed.”

“I do not doubt it.”

Her eyes flared, as if his calm was a mockery to her. “Your uncle is contemplating taking the management of her in hand himself—and about time, I say.”

Darcy turned. Not with haste, not with drama. Just enough to register that he had heard something outrageous and was giving the speaker one final opportunity to amend it.

“She is not a horse to be sent to another stable upon a whim.” He said it coolly. Too coolly. Because he had just done that—handed his future off like a parcel, carefully wrapped, thoroughly unloved.

“A horse! A horse knows his place!” Lady Catherine snapped. “She is a girl of sixteen with a reputation already teetering—and once it tips, Fitzwilliam, it will not right itself. You were meant to prevent this.”

“And I have,” Darcy said tightly.

“Have you? Your uncle believes otherwise. It rather looks like you have been playing at guardianship instead of practicing it.”

Darcy’s fingers curled against his palm. “Georgiana’s reputation is not ruined, nor even tainted. Do not throw that word around as if it means nothing.”

“It means everything!” she shot back. “To us. To the family. And to every man who might have once considered her a sensible match.”

“This is all mere hearsay.”

“Hearsay it may be,” Lady Catherine said, “but it is being repeated in drawing rooms that matter. And I say this not to chastise, but to advise. You have delayed long enough, and now the path is clear: secure your position, and you secure hers. A proper alliance would settle the matter swiftly. Anne, you know, is prepared for the responsibility.”

“I have already taken steps to secure Georgiana’s position,” he said, keeping his hands clasped behind his back. “I am engaged,” he said too quickly. Too loudly. As if speaking it louder might make it feel more true.

A flicker of silence followed. Then Lady Catherine’s mouth trembled, her brows arched in absolute disbelief.

“Engaged? To whom?” she demanded.

“Miss Penelope Ashford.”

There was a beat—just long enough for him to begin regretting the phrasing—and then she barked a laugh.

“Miss who? ”

He did not answer. She did not wait for him to.

“That is not a name,” she scoffed. “That is an excuse. A falsehood meant to put me off. Say it again—I daresay you have already forgot it.”

He did.

She stared, as if he had just recited something obscene in French. “I have never heard of such a person. If she were anyone worth hearing of, I would have heard. Where on earth did you find her? A milliner’s luncheon?”

“Her father is Thomas Ashford of St. James Square.”

“And I suppose that is meant to reassure me? Square footage is not pedigree. Has the girl even been presented?”

He let the insult pass.

But she did not. “This is absurd. You are announcing an engagement to a girl no one knows, a girl you met—what, a fortnight ago?”

“Three weeks.”

“Well, that changes everything,” she snapped. “And what of Anne?”

“What of her.”

“You know very well what. It has always been understood that you would marry her.”

“Understood by you, ” he retorted.

“Understood by your mother! Your father!”

Darcy’s expression did not change.

She seized on it. “Yes. Your mother, who trusted me. Who named Anne as your equal in every regard—”

“She is not.”

Lady Catherine recoiled. “You dare—”

“I dare nothing. I state a fact. Anne is not my equal. Nor my choice. Nor my bride.”

The door opened without ceremony—just a creak, a firm tread, and the unmistakable rustle of superiority. The dowager countess swept in like she owned the house, which, in most practical respects, she might as well have.

“Gracious,” the dowager countess said, brushing a fleck of lint from her shoulder. “I leave you two alone for ten minutes and somehow we are staging a bloodless coup.”

Lady Catherine turned, already mid-protest. She paled. “Mother—”

“Do not ‘Mother’ me,” the dowager snapped, pausing just inside the room. “You are nearly sixty and still clinging to the same arrangement your sister-in-law mentioned once in passing while drunk on ratafia.”

Lady Catherine stiffened, but the fight in her posture deflated by degrees. It was not that she feared her mother. No one feared the dowager. They simply did not survive disagreeing with her.

The dowager moved into the room with all the authority of a duchess and none of the title. “Anne was never promised. The match was never formalized. You may stop invoking the dead as your chaperone.”

“I am only trying to preserve the dignity of our family,” Lady Catherine said tightly.

“A noble aim. Start by leaving off the melodrama.” She settled into the chair by the hearth with a crisp rustle. “And for heaven’s sake, stop glaring like a governess caught stealing the port.”

Darcy, who had been standing still so long his fingers had gone cold, felt something ease in his chest for the first time that day.

A flicker of amusement caught him off guard, sharp and uninvited.

He fought it down—but not fast enough. The corner of his mouth betrayed him.

It was the first time he had smiled in days, and it felt like a splinter cracking through frost.

The dowager flicked her gaze toward him. “Now. I understand congratulations are in order. Miss Ashford, is it?”

Darcy’s smile vanished. He gave a nod, curt and entirely devoid of pleasure.

Lady Catherine made a sound of derision, something between a cough and a scoff.

The dowager’s brow arched. She would—always catching the shifts in his demeanor like a hunter scenting a change in wind.

“Hm,” she said, too lightly. “Well done. You have confounded your uncle, your aunt, and most certainly yourself. I shall send the girl a handkerchief—she will need something to wave in surrender.”

Lady Catherine’s mouth opened, then closed again. For once, she had no rebuttal.

The dowager gestured toward the sideboard. “Now, my dear Anne, let us call for tea, and perhaps something to eat before your mother declares a duel.”