Page 44 of A Compromise By Design

Darcy turned from the window. The continuation of the conversation from the Robinsons’ card evening had not grown less disquieting in the interval. Bingley, seeing that Darcy’s mood and countenance had not improved in the days since, had returned to the subject in an effort to cheer his friend. Or, perhaps, to reason with him.

Bingley was looking at him with the expression he wore when he believed he was being obvious and could not understand why the other person was not following. It was an expression Darcy had seen often, though it had never before made him feel as though the floor had shifted slightly beneath him.

“What makes you say that?” he said, with a care that Bingley likely heard as composure, though it was not.

“Because I have eyes,” Bingley said patiently. “And because I have watched her across a great many rooms and tables over the past weeks, and what I see when she looks at you is not a woman counting the days until she can be free. It is a woman who has decided not to look too often, which is a different thing entirely.” He rubbed his chin. “The forced smiles you describe. When does she smile like that? Not when she is talking to you. When she thinks you are not happy.”

Darcy said nothing. He was engaged in the uncomfortable work of comparing Bingley’s observations to everything he had concluded, and finding that they did not produce the same picture.

“She deflected the investigation,” he said finally.

“Yes,” Bingley said. “And you have decided that meant the worst.” He tilted his head. “Has it occurred to you that she might have found something she is protecting someone else from?”

Darcy was at the point of answering when he happened to glance at the library door.

It was closed. It had been open when they came in. He looked at it, and understanding came approximately a minute too late.

∞∞∞

Darcy did not go to the sitting room immediately. He stood in the library for a while after Bingley had excused himself, looking at the door and conducting the kind of internal inventory that requires stillness and produces very little comfort.

Bingley’s reading was possible. He held it honestly, with the same discipline he applied to things he wanted to be true and therefore had to be most careful about. It was possible that what he had taken for Elizabeth’s reluctance was protective distance. That the deflection of the investigation had a different source than the one he had assigned it.

It was also possible that he had formed an attachment he had not intended and was now constructing arguments that served the attachment, and that Bingley, who was constitutionally optimistic about human affection, was perhaps not the most rigorous source.

He was still considering both possibilities when he went upstairs.

Darcy resisted the temptation to seek her out for another five minutes. But he was in need of further evidence, for additional data was required for him to make any decision about his feelings or Elizabeth’s regard. With Bingley’s interpretation held carefully, as one would hold a fragile hope, he entered the sitting room.

Georgiana was at the instrument but not playing, turning pages with the absorbed focus she brought to music even in its static form. Jane sat near the fire. Elizabeth was beside her, cup in hand.

She looked up when he came in. Something moved through her expression, quick and carefully managed, and then her face was composed again. She said, “Mr Darcy,” in a pleasant, neutral tone that gave away nothing. Darcy concealed a flinch. It was so very cold, compared to the tone of teasing challenge that sounded so well from her lips.

“Miss Elizabeth. Miss Bennet,” he said. “I hope I am not interrupting.”

“Not at all.” Elizabeth gestured lightly at nothing in particular. “Your sister has been keeping us well entertained. She is a most accomplished pianist.”

Georgiana looked up from her pages, blushing a little, but obviously pleased by the compliment. Darcy sat down because to remain standing would have been strange, and because some part of him that he was no longer entirely trusting had decided that he needed to see her, and he was here now.

Telling himself he must maintain some measure of dignity and self-control, Darcy cleared his throat. “And — is your family in good health? Mrs Bennet, is she quite well?”

“Very well, thank you,” Elizabeth said. “She has been occupied with the question of which hymn is most suitable for the ceremony. The debate has now entered its fifth day.”

“I was not aware that there could be so many opinions on the subject.”

“There are at least four. Possibly five. I have lost count of the iterations.” She set down her cup with precise care. “I believe the church organist has been consulted twice and has ceased responding to correspondence.”

“That seems understandable.”

“It does. I should adopt that policy myself if we did not live in the same house. I hope the question will be resolved before the New Year. For everyone’s sake.”

“That seems prudent,” Darcy said.

A silence established itself and stretched out, heavy and uneasy.

Darcy looked at her and felt the sharpness of that silence bury itself in his chest. “Have you been walking this week?” he asked. “The frost has held. The lanes must be passable.”

“A little. The paddock, mostly.” She glanced at him briefly. “Not the kind of walking that produces anything useful.”