Page 33 of The Briar Bargain (The Rom Com Collection #3)
T o Darcy’s eye, Bingley’s study was a testament to well-intentioned inexperience.
Maps lay partially unrolled across the desk, weighted down by an inkwell and a half-eaten apple.
Ledgers lay open at various pages, marked with scribbles in Bingley's illegible hand. Correspondence formed what might be called “piles,” but to Darcy’s sensibilities, were precarious monuments to disorganisation.
He resisted the urge to straighten them, but the absence of order made him long for his own study at Pemberley.
A surveyor's measuring chain hung from a hook near the window, and what appeared to be soil samples sat in small glass jars along the windowsill, each carefully labelled in the absent Mr. Grant's precise script. The walls bore more maps of the estate’s plots and roads, several of which were marked with pins and coloured threads that Darcy assumed represented various ongoing improvement projects.
"You know, Bingley," Darcy observed, noting the signs of genuine industry and wishing to encourage it, "when you do finally settle on a permanent estate, you might consider employing a secretary.
A good man could help you maintain better order while leaving you free to make the more important decisions. "
Hurst, who had been contemplating the brandy decanter with obvious longing despite the early hour, let out a bark of laughter. "Hear, hear! Though I suspect any secretary worth his salt would take one look at this chaos and demand additional pay."
"It is not chaos," Bingley protested mildly. "It is an evolving system. I know where everything is."
"Do you?" Darcy asked with amusement, noting a letter that appeared to be protruding from beneath a treatise on crop rotation. "Then where, pray tell, is the correspondence from your uncle with his business accounting for the first half of the year?” Bingley, still an investor in his family’s holdings, had spoken about receiving it shortly after Darcy had arrived in Hertfordshire.
Bingley glanced around the room with sudden uncertainty.
"It was . . . I distinctly remember . . .
" He began moving papers with increasing urgency.
Then he put those papers down and opened a drawer in his desk.
Then another. "Aha! Here it is. Beneath the soil analysis from the fields nearest the river. "
"Naturally," Hurst said with a roll of his eyes. "One can see the obvious connection between them."
"There is a connection," Bingley insisted with the earnestness that made him so endearing. "If the soil quality is poor, it affects the yield, which in turn affects the price of . . ."
"Of course it does," Hurt interrupted.
Darcy chuckled. "I maintain that a competent secretary could help you establish a more systematic approach to your correspondence. "
"And perhaps," Hurst added, "teach you to finish eating before beginning your morning correspondence. That apple has been decomposing on your desk for two days."
Bingley glanced at the offending fruit with mild surprise. "Has it?"
Darcy and Hurst exchanged a look.
"Bingley," Darcy said carefully, "please tell me you do not conduct business meetings in here while that apple decays."
"Only small meetings," Bingley replied defensively. "And I open the windows."
"Good God," Hurst muttered, reaching for his brandy. "Let the maids in to do their job, man."
They had their laugh at Bingley’s expense, but he soon joined them. After, though, Darcy found his fingers unconsciously moving to the pocket where he had secured the folded sketch. He was not the only one whose thoughts were still on the scene they had just witnessed.
“Well,” Bingley said eventually, dropping into the chair behind his desk with a long-suffering sigh and casually nudging the apple out of arm’s reach, “that was certainly something. ”
“Something ridiculous,” Hurst muttered. “Those sketches were about as scandalous as a wet sponge.”
He was not wrong. The drawings might have caused a stir among other ladies, but most gentlemen had seen far racier artwork displayed in the windows of London shops.
He was surprised Miss Bingley herself had not seen them, though Bingley had often mentioned she thought it common to stand about on the pavement, and the printer’s windows always drew a crowd of gawkers.
And even those drawings were nothing to what might be found on the walls of a respectable tavern, or worse, in their club’s reading room.
“I had not thought my sister so prudish,” Bingley said with a chuckle .
“Indeed,” Darcy replied, unamused. “Though her little display was far too polished.”
Hurst shrugged. “Caroline has been plotting since the moment you carried Miss Elizabeth back into the house, Darcy. She has that gleam in her eye, the kind women get when they are about to set fire to something.” He paused. “Metaphorically, of course.”
“What kind of gleam?” Bingley asked, genuinely curious.
“You have seen it,” Hurst said, scrunching up his face like a disgruntled pig. “That tight squint and the lip purse.”
His impression was disturbingly accurate. Darcy choked on a laugh.
“And you did not bother to warn anyone?” Bingley asked.
“Not my place,” Hurst said with a shrug. “Besides, Caroline’s plots usually collapse under their own weight. This one folded more quickly than most.”
“I cannot imagine what she thought would happen,” Bingley mused.
Darcy shook his head. “Your sister thought she would ruin Miss Elizabeth’s reputation as a maiden, Bingley. And if she succeeded in maligning Miss Elizabeth’s character, then Miss Bennet would have been tainted too.”
Bingley’s normally amiable expression hardened.
“Precisely,” Hurst nodded. “Caroline’s been watching Darcy and Miss Elizabeth and getting twitchier by the day. Yesterday I heard her muttering about ‘fortune hunters’ and ‘country nobodies.’”
“She called the Bennet ladies that?”
Darcy sighed. How could Bingley be surprised? He supposed at least Bingley had been kept busy away from the house, but really . . .
“She has called them worse,” Hurst said. “Nothing I would repeat unless we were duelling.”
Bingley flushed a dangerous red. “I see. ”
“But I will say this,” Hurst added with a slow grin. “Watching the whole thing blow up in their faces was worth every second. ‘Elizabeth has a difficult time drawing a straight line.’ Absolute perfection.”
“What I cannot understand is how she thought she would get away with it,” Bingley said with a sigh.
“She clearly expected both of you to explode with moral outrage and be so angry you would not question the source,” Hurst said. “Instead, Darcy here calmly took responsibility and quite destroyed their plans. But the best part was when Miss Bennet pulled a tactical masterstroke.”
“She did rather surprise me,” Bingley said with obvious pride. “I have never seen her speak so firmly.”
“Firmly?” Hurst scoffed. “She dismantled Caroline’s entire scheme even before Darcy confessed. Ha! With little more than a well-timed laugh.”
“Miss Bennet has hidden depths,” Darcy said.
“She is a reservoir,” Hurst agreed. “And Caroline has only a teaspoon.”
Bingley chuckled, then sobered. “Caroline truly has underestimated Miss Bennet and Miss Elizabeth.”
“Caroline underestimates everyone,” Hurst said bluntly. “Usually, she surrounds herself only with women less clever than she. This household, however . . .” He gestured vaguely. “Bit above her usual preferences.”
“I shall take that as a compliment,” Darcy said.
“You should. Not often I find myself surrounded by people with actual thoughts in their skulls.” Hurst sipped his brandy. “Makes for lively conversation. Even when the topic is Caroline’s descent into Machiavellian plots.”
Darcy lifted his glass. “Machiavelli would be heartily disappointed in this attempt.”
“Ha!” Hurst crowed. “You see? Clever. ”
“I still cannot believe she tried to publicly disgrace Miss Elizabeth,” Bingley said, shaking his head. “Honestly, I must believe it, having seen it. She told me she disapproved of my admiration of Miss Bennet, but this is beyond anything.”
“This was not about your admiration,” Hurst said. “This was about hers. Caroline has expectations for her future. Miss Elizabeth threatens them.”
Both men turned to look at Darcy.
“I am Miss Elizabeth’s friend,” Darcy said stiffly. How often must he say it? “Nothing more.”
Bingley gave him a look so knowing it practically winked. “Darcy, please. You pulled her out of the river, held her in the cart, and carried her to her bedchamber. There was nothing to be done that you did not do yourself except tend to her in her chambers. Who do you think you are fooling?”
“No one,” Darcy said, barely repressing a sigh. “I helped her because she needed help.”
Hurst raised a brow. “Every time someone says something even remotely unkind about her, you step in like a dowager defending her family name.”
Darcy gave him a withering look. Bingley, however, leaned in, all interest and mischief. “He is not wrong. You have been on an unrelenting campaign of protection ever since she fell ill.”
Darcy did not answer immediately. He looked away. “The morning after she was finally able to leave her sickroom,” he said finally, “I found Miss Elizabeth outside, ready to walk back to Longbourn via the northern bridge. She was alone, and it had not even stopped raining.”
Both men fell silent.
“She would rather risk that journey,” Darcy said quietly, “than endure another moment in Miss Bingley’s house.
” The image of Miss Elizabeth, still pale, walking slowly, deliberately, and all alone, had rooted itself in his mind.
The resentment it stirred was wholly out of proportion for a man claiming only friendship.
“I promised Miss Elizabeth that if she stayed until it was safe for her to return to Longbourn, I would deal with your sister.”
Bingley swore under his breath.
Even Hurst set his glass down with a frown.