Page 77

Dyer leaned back in his chair. “You know this has little chance of succeeding.”

“I know it is the last option I have not yet exhausted.”

Dyer paused, brows lifted. “There is probably nothing that can be done, and the effort will not endear you to Matlock.”

“I do not require his affection,” said Darcy, “only his silence.”

The solicitor clicked his pen shut. “Silence costs.”

“I have paid more for less.”

Dyer shook his head. “Consider, Mr. Darcy—what if you were to prove cooperative? Would not your uncle be found to be more agreeable to your continued guardianship, or some modified form of it?”

Darcy snorted. “I doubt it. He has written me off already, thanks to those letters.”

“Ah,” Dyer said softly as his pen scratched some note out. This was not news to him. In fact, he seemed rather uncomfortable that Darcy had even mentioned it.

The hearth ticked softly. Outside, carriages rumbled past on wet cobblestones.

Darcy had not slept more than a handful of hours in three days.

He mused aloud—more to himself than in any effort to contribute to the conversation.

“Wickham boards a packet to Ostend tomorrow. He is no longer the threat for my uncle to mitigate.”

Dyer adjusted the ink blotter. “The damage lingers sir. Her letters, his word against hers—”

“Have already been twisted by those with motive.” Darcy’s gaze dropped to the leather-bound folder between them. “I cannot undo what was written, but I can bloody well ensure it is never used again.”

Dyer gave a slow nod. “Then I shall draw up the necessary petitions.”

A knock startled both men.

Before the butler could speak, Bingley entered unannounced, pale and windblown, rain still clinging to his coat.

Darcy straightened at once. “What is it?”

Bingley closed the door behind him. “Oh, forgive me, Darcy. I did not know you had business. I will not interrupt long,” he said. “I only came to bid you goodbye. Miss Bennet returns to Hertfordshire this afternoon, and I mean to make my return to Netherfield on the morrow.”

Darcy’s jaw tensed, but he said nothing. Of course. With her sister married only this morning, perhaps Miss Bennet had found it prudent to depart before the congratulations soured. Before the papers arrived on every breakfast tray in Mayfair.

But not so soon. Not today. He had thought there would be more time—at least a few hours. Enough for the ink to dry on one letter, the courage to form in another.

“She asked after your sister,” Bingley said.

Darcy glanced up. Bingley was watching him too closely.

“Sends her love.”

He nodded. Too quickly. His neck burned.

Do not ask. Do not hope. Hope was a fool’s wager.

Bingley shifted.

Darcy turned, sharply. “If this is about her —do not.”

Bingley hesitated, then met his gaze squarely. “She left Town this morning.”

The words hit clean, without echo. Darcy stared, willing them into some other meaning.

“She—” His throat tightened. “I assume they are taking their honeymoon. Although I wonder that they have left so early. Did you not attend the ceremony?”

“No. There was no wedding.”

Darcy’s breath caught. “What?”

“No wedding,” Bingley repeated. “Called off yesterday—her choice, from what I understand. She left with the Gardiners.”

Darcy swallowed once, the motion stiff and dry. “Where?”

“I do not know,” Bingley admitted. “Miss Bennet did not elaborate. But from what I gathered…” He shifted. “She means to stay away some while.”

Stay away . Not newly wed. Not safely out of reach. Just—gone.

“She left?” The words scraped out like stone on stone.

Bingley nodded. “I am sorry.”

Darcy followed them to the threshold, the floorboards creaking faintly beneath his tread.

Dyer paused long enough to slide a folded bundle of documents into his case. “I shall investigate the possibilities of adding the dowager Countess to the guardianship clause once more,” he said. “But I cannot promise a miracle.”

“You never do. But write them anyway,” Darcy replied. They exchanged a curt nod, and the solicitor took his leave, disappearing down the corridor with brisk, economical steps.

Bingley lingered.

His hand hovered near the doorframe, as if unsure whether to grasp it or lean upon it. “If I had known sooner—”

“You could not have,” Darcy said quietly.

Bingley studied him. “Still. It feels like I ought to have—done something.”

Darcy’s jaw worked, but no words came. The silence between them stretched just long enough to scrape.

Finally, Bingley shifted back a step. “If you learn where she’s gone…”

Darcy looked up, his eyes hard. “You will be the first to know.”

A pause, then Bingley offered a wry, uncertain smile—the kind that never quite touched the eyes—and slipped into the hall.

Darcy stood at the door a moment longer, listening to the receding steps. Then the latch fell into place with a hollow click.

He stood, listening to the house settle. A cart in the street beyond. A servant’s muffled tread on the stair. But nothing that offered clarity. Nothing that told him where she had gone.

He crossed to the desk, opened the drawer with care, and withdrew the old county map. Not because it could answer him—but because his hands required purpose. It unfolded stiffly, like a thing too long forgotten. He spread it wide, weighing the corners with whatever was close to hand.

Derbyshire. Sussex. Hertfordshire.

He stared at the printed names until they blurred.

Hertfordshire made no sense—it sounded as if Miss Bennet had returned alone, which meant Elizabeth had not gone with her.

Eastbourne? Marlowe had mentioned the coast once, though not with conviction.

And if she had gone there, would she not have left word? Or was that precisely the point?

He shifted his weight. The room felt smaller than before.

She could be anywhere. Some nameless village with no coach stop and no curiosity. A place where no one knew her name. A place to vanish.

His mind chased itself in circles. She was gone.

And he had no way to follow.

He crossed the threshold into the adjoining drawing room, more from habit than intent, and stopped short at the sight of his grandmother.

The dowager sat comfortably by the fire, half-buried in a small mountain of correspondence.

Her spectacles perched halfway down her nose; her cane leaned idly against her chair.

“I am not attending Lady Braymore’s musicale,” she said without looking up. “Her daughter plays the harp as if punishing it for a slight.”

Darcy made no reply. He stood in the middle of the room like a man recently struck.

She shifted another letter. “There is to be a ball in Matlock, I see. Week after next. The assembly sort. Punch that would make a sailor topple, immodest necklines, dreadful lighting. I shall go anyway, if I can abide the drive at this time of year. It pleases the locals to remember that I am not yet dead.”

He stilled.

“Matlock?”

Her eyes flicked up. “Yes. Do not look so surprised. Derbyshire has not relocated.”

He stepped forward slowly, his thoughts catching pace. “Mrs. Gardiner has family near there. Near Lambton...” He trailed off.

The dowager folded her letter with maddening slowness, creasing each edge before setting it beside her untouched tea. Her gaze remained lowered. “You are pacing again.”

Darcy stopped. He had not noticed he was moving.

“You are speaking of travel. Distance. Has someone gone somewhere?”

Still, he said nothing. But his silence spoke plainly enough.

She studied him then. Not sharply—curiously, as one studies an unfinished tapestry. “I suppose it is too much to hope this sudden unrest is about your cousin. Pray tell me you have not developed a sudden passion for Anne.”

His jaw shifted.

The dowager tapped one finger against the arm of her chair. “You mentioned… family. Offhandedly. But not yours, I presume.”

Darcy looked up sharply.

Her eyes narrowed in satisfaction. “Ah. So that thread holds.”

He did not confirm it. He did not need to.

“You said Gardiner, did you not?”

Darcy’s shoulders remained rigid, his eyes fixed on the coals.

Her tone sharpened. “That is the name of the aunt and uncle. The ones who chaperoned her in Town.”

Still, he gave no answer.

She leaned slightly on her cane. “I remember. You nearly tripped over yourself explaining their virtues when that pamphlet hit the breakfast tables.”

His jaw moved, barely.

She narrowed her eyes. “And now you pace the carpet like a man ready to ride halfway across England, muttering about Derbyshire and connections and timing.”

A pause.

Darcy turned his head, just enough.

The dowager let out a low breath, almost a scoff. “Ah. So she did not marry, after all.”

The words seemed to settle over the room like dust. “How did you guess that?”

She gave him one more look—shrewd, knowing, not unkind.

“I am not blind, Fitzwilliam,” she continued. “There has always been something between you and that girl from the auction. I did not require a pamphlet to see it.”

He flinched. Just slightly. But she noticed.

Her eyes narrowed. “What is it you are not saying?”

Darcy lifted his gaze. “She is no longer engaged.”

The dowager’s brows rose slowly. “Is that so?”

A coil of something unfurled behind Darcy’s ribs—too familiar to be hope, too dangerous to be named. He crushed it down. “There was no wedding,” he said. “No farewell. Only—absence. And silence.”

She regarded him for a long moment. “And you believe she has fled to Derbyshire.”

He nodded once. Not trusting his voice.

The dowager tapped her cane once against the floorboards. “Then why are you still standing here?”

His throat tightened.

She rose, not without effort, and crossed to him—her gaze sharp despite the years. “You will lose her, Fitzwilliam. Not to scandal. Not to society. But to hesitation. You tried once to marry without love, and see what it earned you.”

His breath caught.

“Go,” she said. “Before the world writes a final chapter you were too proud to pen.”

Darcy turned toward the door.

He did not look back.