Page 32 of The Longbourn Bloodline

“And he should not,” Jane said. “It would be highly improper for him to speak about this to either of us or to Mamma or Papa. If Bingley wishes to call, he knows where I am. Let us leave the Bingley question alone, as I believe your concern is with Darcy and whether he has come to marry any of us five sisters.”

“No, I do not believe he has,” Elizabeth said. “Nor does it signify to me in the least.”

“Oh, Lizzy.” Jane shook her head and reached for her hand again. “I can see it is of great concern to you. It is why you observed us dancing with Darcy, and why you are so troubled.”

“I am not⁠—”

“Lizzy, I see no other reason for Darcy to come to Longbourn so soon after leaving Netherfield Park. The reason Caroline gave me was that the two of them, Bingley and Darcy, had social engagements in town. They were to spend the Yuletide with one of Darcy’s relations. So let me ask you, why is he installing himself in a draughty steward’s cottage with five unmarried cousins and a mother who measures him for wedding clothes every time he enters a room?”

A reluctant smile tugged at Elizabeth’s lips, quite against her will. “That is true enough.”

“He is not needed here,” Jane continued, her voice thoughtful and a little wondering. “And yet he stays. He engages masters, walks to the tenant farms with you, saves our cat, and rescues rabbits from snares.” She looked at Elizabeth with an expression that was not teasing but closer—a warmth, a gentle probing, the tender curiosity of a sister who knew her too well. “I think he cannot stay away, Lizzy. And the reason is the woman sitting at the pianoforte all night—the one he made a point of speaking to before he left tonight.”

Elizabeth’s breath caught. She turned her face toward the window, where the winter moonlight lay in pale slabs across the floorboards, and felt her composure—that careful, practical, hard-won composure she carried like armor through every drawing room and dinner and walking party—tremble at its foundations.

“You are imagining things, Jane.”

“Perhaps, but what I say is the truth. Darcy did not return because he found Papa’s wit entertaining and his library diverting. Or that Mamma’s dinners are exceedingly tasty, or the mud of Longbourn, which Richard told me he had a very intimate acquaintance with while racing you along the stiles, or even the thorny hedges appealing. And lest you think he will disappear when the wind changes, Darcy is a different man from Bingley. He does not praise or flatter. He observes and judges.”

“He has found me wanting. Barely tolerable. And he looks down at our family.”

“Perhaps he has changed his mind,” Jane said. “Have you never known a man capable of altering his first impressions?”

“Not a Darcy,” Elizabeth replied firmly, though her chest tightened with a sudden, traitorous ache. “He assured me at Netherfield that a man of his disposition never forgets or forgives an injury to his pride.”

“We do not always say what we mean, do we? But do you remember,” Jane said, and her tone shifted, grew quieter, almost tentative, “the day the masters arrived? When we were gathered in the drawing room, and Mamma was in such transports?”

“I remember wanting to commit murder and being restrained only by the inconvenience of witnesses.”

Jane’s laugh was soft. “You were flushed. You and Mr. Darcy had been arguing, or only you had been arguing, at any rate—and he offered you a handkerchief.”

“You saw?”

“I notice these things,” Jane continued, apparently studying the candle flame with the absorbed interest of a woman examining a portrait. “You were overheated from your walk and from—well, from being yourself, I think. And he noticed. He reached into his pocket and offered you his handkerchief before you even knew you needed it.”

“It means nothing.”

“Maybe by itself, but I have noticed that he is always watching for you, and offering some small comfort, a steadying hand, a glass of wine, or a question that changes the subject—without requiring gratitude or even acknowledgment.”

Elizabeth swallowed, suddenly too warm for the banked fire. “You are reading too much in these polite gestures.”

“He knew you did not wish to dance and deflected Mamma’s demands,” Jane said. “He also lingered at the pianoforte while Mamma was pushing me to say goodbye to him.”

Elizabeth said nothing. She was aware of her own heartbeat, steady and traitorous, and of the phantom warmth on her knuckles where his lips had pressed.

“You do not have to tell me what he said to you,” Jane added. “I am not asking.”

Elizabeth’s lips trembled, but no, she could not admit to Jane what she hoped, against all reason, against what Richard had told her about Darcy’s marriage opportunities. He was here because he cared about his third cousins who would become his wards should their father depart, and he was doing the work to ensure they would survive with reasonable prospects.

And for that, he was honorable and good, and she could no longer hate or even dislike him.

“You do not hate him, do you?” Jane said, as if reading her mind. “And that frightens you.”

“Because what if I am wrong?” She wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand, impatient with herself. “What if all of this… kindness or whatever this is… meant nothing more than civility? Then I shall have made a fool of myself, and I cannot bear that, Jane. I cannot bear to have hoped for something and been wrong.”

“Then we are two of a kind.” Jane pressed her cheek against Elizabeth’s hair and said nothing more. Outside, the wind moved through the bare elms, and somewhere in the house a door closed softly. Elizabeth felt the ghost of his lips on her knuckles and the weight of her confession in her chest, and she wondered what it would mean to stop being afraid.

CHAPTER TWELVE