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Chapter Thirty-Three

T he knock came just as Elizabeth stood to fetch another log for the fire.

She froze. Mrs. Gardiner, seated nearby with her embroidery, glanced up and gave a small nod toward the door. A moment later, the manservant entered with a bow.

“Captain Marlowe, madam.”

Elizabeth turned, her hand still resting against the back of the chair. She had not expected him until the morrow.

Captain Marlowe stepped into the drawing room with a practiced ease that fell just short of genuine. He made his bow—perfectly crisp, precisely angled—and smiled as though the room, the day, and its occupants could not possibly offer him anything but pleasure.

“Miss Elizabeth. I hope I do not intrude. The hour was idle, and I found myself in the neighbourhood.”

Elizabeth dropped a small curtsey. “Not at all, Captain. The hour is yours.”

He crossed the room in three brisk steps and immediately bent to adjust the footstool by her chair, as though its position might deeply concern him. “I feared the fire might be low,” he said. “Are you quite warm enough?”

“It is more than sufficient,” she said. “Though it does make one nostalgic for frostbite.”

His brow furrowed curiously, but instead of inquiring further, he turned to Mrs. Gardiner. “Ma’am, I trust you are well?”

“Well enough, I thank you.”

He turned back. “I hope I have not interrupted anything of importance.”

“Only a book I have not been reading,” Elizabeth said.

He laughed—a short, polite sound—and took the chair nearest her, leaving a discreet but noticeable distance. His gloved hands rested on his knees. They remained there, still and careful.

For a moment, no one spoke.

The fire cracked, and Marlowe’s eyes darted toward it, as though startled by the noise.

“I had wondered,” he said after a pause, “if the season’s revelry had quite exhausted you. I find society somewhat... overfond of spectacle.”

“Then it is fortunate you have come to a house so devoid of it,” said Elizabeth, managing a smile.

He nodded, almost grateful. “Indeed.” He shifted, adjusting the fall of his coat sleeve. “I hope your uncle and aunt have not found the city too vexing in recent weeks?”

Mrs. Gardiner, still sewing, replied, “We are quite used to London’s tempers, Captain.”

“Yes. Yes, of course.” His hands returned to his knees. “It is only—I have found the tone of late rather more sour than sweet. Especially in drawing rooms.”

Elizabeth folded her hands in her lap, pulse steady.

Marlowe gave another small smile. “But we endure, do we not?”

“I suppose I should make a confession of my own,” he said at last, after another silence. “Not of the sort that earns headlines, thank Heaven, but a confession nonetheless.”

Elizabeth turned slightly. “I am listening.”

He sat straighter. “When I began the business of courting, it was not—entirely—a matter of romantic impulse. I am a practical man. Naval life is uncertain. Promotions, even when deserved, can lag behind good fortune. A settled household, a respectable wife—these things do not go unnoticed by the Admiralty.”

“I see,” Elizabeth said. She did not blink.

He rushed on. “Which is not to say that I hold you in anything less than the highest regard. Indeed, I believe myself quite fortunate.”

Elizabeth let her eyes settle on the mantel. “And yet?”

Marlowe shifted. “And yet… perhaps I was hasty. You were not in want of a husband, nor I a wife. I pressed the matter. It was not fair to you.”

Her hands remained clasped, light but unmoving. “Captain, are you suggesting a withdrawal?”

He flinched—not visibly, but something in his manner recoiled. “No. That is—not unless you wish it. I have no intention of forsaking my word.”

She looked at him then, properly. “Despite what you have heard?”

His smile grew brittle. “The city feeds on gossip. It has no loyalty and little memory.”

She nodded once. “Then we must be well suited. I too am tolerably forgettable these days.”

He cleared his throat. “I meant rather that I—well, I have been warned to expect a posting. Cadiz, most likely. Once assigned far from London, none of it will matter.”

“You are certain it will not?”

He hesitated. “It may… trail us. But only faintly. It is not as though you wrote the pamphlets with your own hand.”

Elizabeth blinked once. Her fingers flexed slightly in her lap.

Ah. So that was the new threshold of virtue—plausible deniability by technicality.

She resisted the urge to check if ink still stained her fingertips.

Marlowe cleared his throat. “What I mean to say is, I find your wit engaging. Not threatening, as others do. I have always admired clever women.”

Elizabeth inclined her head, but her thoughts were elsewhere. Clever. Engaging . It felt as though he were describing a pastime, not a person. A woman to be admired from a distance, not cherished, not known.

He meant to comfort her, but the effect was airless.

She folded her hands, resting them lightly in her lap. The silence between them thickened—not strained, but hollow. Polite. That was worse.

Captain Marlowe made a small motion as though to speak again, then only adjusted the cuffs of his coat. His posture had stiffened; his earlier gentleness now carried the edge of someone mindful of stepping too near the fire.

“I am pleased to have your continued regard,” Elizabeth said, the words too careful, too practiced. “And I am grateful for your honesty.”

He looked relieved. “Then we are in accord.”

She managed a smile, the sort meant for drawing rooms and reverends, not partners. “Entirely.”

He stood and offered a brief, neat bow. “I shall call again on Thursday, if it suits.”

Elizabeth nodded.

And then he was gone.

The clock ticked twice. She rose only once the front door closed and paced to the window. She watched him pass under the streetlamp, his figure square, coat immaculate, not a hair disturbed. He walked like a man pleased to have fulfilled a duty.

He did not love her. And he did not pretend to.

She pressed her hand to the cold pane of the glass, lips twisting into a hollow smile. She had wanted to be seen. And now she was visible only as a possibility—sensible, tolerably clever, unlikely to embarrass him in public.

But she did not want to be admired from across the room.

She wanted to be watched. Fought with. Laughed at.

She wanted someone who would call her difficult and mean it as a compliment.

Darcy would have said nothing at all—and she would have known exactly what it meant.

Behind her, the hearth crackled. Elizabeth stayed at the window long after he vanished from sight.

13 January

D arcy had not stepped five paces into Dyer’s office before he regretted the delay.

The stench of stale pipe smoke clung to the drapes, mingled with the sharper scent of scorched ink.

It bit at the edge of his restraint. He had come directly from an endless meeting at the bank, where nothing could be decided and everything was urgent.

His coat was still damp from the morning fog, and beneath it, every bone in his body ached from the weight of holding everything together.

The last thing he wanted was to conduct this business surrounded by the oily hush of legal clerks and the muffled creak of dusty ledgers.

But he had insisted upon it—insisted the meeting be held here, not in his own home. Wickham did not belong at Darcy House. Not on his threshold. Not within sight of Georgiana.

Wickham, of course, had arrived early.

He was seated by the hearth, of course. Chair drawn slightly askew—enough to claim the space but not so much as to make a scene. Legs crossed, head tilted at a contemplative angle, a book held lightly in one hand. As if he had not been dodging correspondence for a fortnight.

As if the past ten days of Darcy’s life had not been spent fending off disaster with a penknife while Wickham toyed with the matchbox.

The gloves stayed on. If he removed them, he was not entirely sure his hands would be steady.

“You kept me waiting,” he said.

Wickham looked up with the air of a man being interrupted at leisure. His smile arrived half a moment too late. “You did say today.”

“I said last week.”

A shrug. “I only received leave yesterday. The colonel is not easily swayed, even by your fine signature.”

Darcy’s breath stilled. The anger was not hot now—it had cooled, hardened. It was heavier this way. Measured. Lethal.

“You delayed on purpose.”

“Come now.” Wickham set down the book with a lazy hand. “Even I cannot manufacture army leave.”

“You have manufactured plenty else.”

Wickham’s brows rose. “Touchy this morning. Do you speak so to all your former friends?”

“You are nothing of the sort.”

Wickham stood, brushing his coat as if Darcy’s presence had soiled it. “Well, then. Shall we get on with it?” He gestured to the desk, where a thin folio lay. “Or would you prefer to circle each other like scandalized aunts?”

Darcy did not move. He looked at the folio. His pulse ticked once at his temple.

The letters were in there.

Georgiana’s handwriting. Her hopes, her girlish flourishes. Lines never meant for any eyes but one pair—and not even that, now. He could picture them too clearly. Could feel the sick twist in his stomach at the thought of Bingley’s sister passing them around a drawing room like curiosities.

And Wickham knew it.

Darcy drew a breath. Controlled. Leashed.

“Return them to me.”

Wickham smiled slowly. “For what?”

Darcy stepped closer, his boots silent on the worn rug. “For the decency you abandoned long ago. For her dignity. You will return them.”

Wickham laughed—quietly, but it rang too loud in the narrow room. “Decency? Come now, Darcy. You cannot possibly still think that word applies to either of us. I may be a villain, but at least I never pretended otherwise.”

Darcy’s jaw ached from clenching. “You cannot keep them.”

“I can,” Wickham said pleasantly. “And I might.”