Page 192 of What Change Entails

Across the drawing room, Lydia had abandoned her embroidery and now sat cross-legged on the carpet beside Georgiana, despite Mrs. Gardiner having told her twice that young ladies did not sit cross-legged anywhere outside a nursery.

“Lizzy is pining,” Lydia announced.

Elizabeth closed the book. “I am reading.”

“You are holding a book. Those are distinct actions.”

Georgiana bent over her sewing with suspicious attention.

Elizabeth pointed the closed volume at her sister. “If I am pining, it is for peace.”

“Then you came to the wrong house,” Lydia said. “Horace has eaten part of Mr. Hurst’s newspaper.”

From near the fire Mr. Hurst lifted his head. “Which part?”

“The dull part.”

“That does not narrow it much,” Mr. Gardiner observed.

Bingley, who had spent the last quarter hour attempting to write a letter and producing little beyond ink stains and sighs, laughed into his sleeve.

The room was pleasant. Too pleasant, perhaps, because Mr. Darcy’s absence marked it with the sharpness of a chair pulled from its accustomed place. Elizabeth did not doubt him. That was the troublesome truth. Miss Bingley might glare from every corner and Lady Catherine might descend from Kent with a regiment of objections, but Elizabeth had heard Mr. Darcy speak. She had felt the tremor in his hands when he held hers. She had seen, in his face, a hope too earnest to be feigned.

No, she did not doubt him.

She doubted herself, which was vastly less convenient.

A woman who had once believed Mr. Wickham honest and Mr. Darcy proud beyond redemption had little right to trust her own conclusions without inspection.

That thought had followed her since the gig ride. It did not lessen her happiness, but it sat beside it, an unwelcome aunt at a wedding breakfast, reminding her that delight was not proof.

By midafternoon the household had dispersed in pieces. Mr. Gardiner walked toward the stables with Bingley to inspect some fishing tackle the latter insisted was superior to any in Hertfordshire. Mrs. Gardiner retired to write letters. Lydia and Georgiana took Horace into the garden with solemn assurances that no shrubbery would be disturbed, which proved that shrubbery was certainly doomed.

Elizabeth, left alone in the gallery, was examining a small portrait of a Darcy ancestor with an unfortunate chin when Miss Bingley approached.

“Miss Bennet.”

Elizabeth turned.

Miss Bingley stood at the far end of the gallery, one hand resting upon the back of a chair. Her gown was faultless. Her expression was less so. The triumph she had once carried so easily had thinned into something harder to maintain.

“Miss Bingley.”

“I wonder if you might grant me a few minutes.”

Elizabeth would rather have granted Horace custody of her bonnet.

“Certainly.”

The morning room was nearest, and Miss Bingley led the way without asking whether Elizabeth preferred it. That, too, was very like her. She entered a room and assumed it must arrange itself to her purpose. Sunlight fell across the carpet in long rectangles. A tray from some earlier refreshment had been removed, leaving behind the faint scent of tea and lemon.

Miss Bingley closed the door, though not fully. Enough for privacy. Not enough to invite comment.

“I hope you will not think me intrusive,” she began, taking the chair nearest the window.

“That will depend upon what follows.”

The reply was perhaps too direct.