Page 62 of Dear Friend

Darcy remembered her hand in his and the relief upon her face when Sotherton withdrew.

He had told himself the second and third dances were merely a continuation of the first kindness. Reading Elizabeth's account now, he was forced to acknowledge that somewhere between offering his assistance and the end of the third set, avoiding Sotherton had ceased to be his principal reason for remaining with her.

I confess Mr. Darcy is a strange sort of man. He is grave where Mr. Bingley is easy, careful where Mr. Bingley is open, and yet I found myself more than once over the course of the evening forgetting to be as wary of him as that first extraordinary stare had made me.

He listens rather more than he speaks, for we did not speak a great deal at the assembly. I have not yet decided whether to find that admirable or unsettling. You know I have never much cared for being unable to tell what another person is thinking, and Mr. Darcy gives away very little unless he chooses to.

Darcy's mouth curved despite himself.

That opinion had already begun to change. At Longbourn she had drawn him into conversation more than once, and upon Oakham Mount the previous day he had spoken to her with an ease he rarely experienced with a new acquaintance.

The letter, however, belonged to an Elizabeth who had not yet known any of that.

I do not know what to make of him yet, in truth. I only know that Meryton has not had this much to talk of in months, and that I find myself, rather against my better judgement, curious to discover whether that first strange look of his meant anything at all, or whether I have simply invented a mystery where none exists, which I am told happens rather more often than people like to admit.

Darcy read that sentence twice.

I wish you were here to tell me which it is. You always did see through people rather faster than I managed to, however loudly I insisted otherwise at the time.

I hope, wherever you are, that you are well, and that something in your own life has given you half so much to be curious about as Meryton has lately given me.

Yours, always,

Elizabeth

Darcy remained still for some time after reaching the end. Then, despite himself, he smiled. Elizabeth had been curious about him.

It was hardly a declaration of admiration. She had called him strange, grave and unsettling within the space of a single page, and had devoted an uncomfortable amount of attention to his failure to behave properly when they were introduced. Yet beneath all of it remained one fact Darcy found himself taking far too much satisfaction in.

She had thought about him. Enough to write of him to Julia the very next day.

Darcy folded the letter along its original creases and placed it with the others he had brought from Somerset. The stack had grown sufficiently large that the sight of it ought to have troubled him more than it did. Each contained thoughts Elizabeth had never intended him to know, and this latest one was worse in one important respect.

He had wanted it.

There had been no question of discovering Julia's whereabouts when he broke the seal. No necessity compelled him to read beyond the direction, nor could he pretend he had mistaken the intended recipient. He had opened it because he wanted to know what Elizabeth Bennet had written after meeting him.

And now that he knew, he was pleased.

The admission sat uneasily beside his conscience, but Darcy could not deny it. Nor could he deny another truth which had become increasingly difficult to dismiss since Oakham Mount. His concern with Julia Harding was no longer merely the consequence of what he had discovered at Willowbrook.

He wanted to find her for Elizabeth.

Perhaps it was the memory of her face the previous morning, or the longing threaded through the final lines of every letter she sent to a friend who never answered. Whatever the cause, Darcy wanted to be the one who brought an end to that uncertainty, who could finally replace it with the relief Elizabeth had been denied for so many months.

His thoughts went briefly to Richard. Perhaps his cousin would succeed where Mr. Humphrey had failed.

Darcy hoped he would. The strength of that hope no longer surprised him as much as perhaps it ought.

Elizabeth Bennet had mattered to him long before she knew his name.

Chapter Twenty-Three

October 1811

Meryton

Elizabeth