Page 96 of Dear Friend

Elizabeth stared at her. “Willowbrook?”

“Yes. You know the place?”

“Julia lives there.”

Caroline’s expression cleared as though Elizabeth had solved some harmless mystery between them. “Then perhaps there was a connexion after all. Mr. Darcy has a property in Somerset, if I am not mistaken, and it is also called Willowbrook. I am certain that is what Charles called it when I asked him where Mr. Darcy was.”

“No.” Elizabeth answered more quickly than she intended. “There must be some mistake. Surely, if Mr. Darcy knew Julia, he would have told me.”

“Then I must have been mistaken.” Caroline gave a small laugh. “Forgive me. I think of us as friends, and when I remembered that Mr. Darcy had been at Willowbrook before coming to Hertfordshire and heard that Miss Julia had lived there, I merely supposed you had chosen not to mention that little circumstance. Seeing the letter brought the whole matter back to my mind, and I thought to ask.”

Elizabeth stood transfixed, as though she had turned to marble. A chill ran through her from head to foot, and for a moment she feared that if she moved, her legs might fail her.

Her thoughts raced through the last two months. She had spoken the name Willowbrook to Darcy only a day after his arrival in Meryton. The garden at Longbourn returned to her with uncomfortable clarity, along with her suggestion that someone might simply go to Somerset and make enquiries there. She remembered Darcy looking away before answering, the slight pause which had struck her as peculiar even then.

At the time she had allowed it to pass.

“How long was Mr. Darcy at Willowbrook?” Elizabeth asked absently.

“Several months, I believe.”

Elizabeth looked at Caroline more closely. “Are you certain Mr. Darcy has my letter to Julia?”

Caroline’s mouth curved faintly. “Mr. Darcy is your friend, Miss Eliza. Surely that is a question better put to him than to me, but I know what I saw, and I heard there were several others at Willowbrook when he arrived there some months ago.”

Elizabeth’s lips parted, but no words came.

“I ought to return to our guests.” Caroline touched her arm lightly. “I hope you enjoy the evening, Miss Eliza.”

She walked away before Elizabeth could decide what to say or do next.

For several moments Elizabeth remained beside the window while voices and laughter moved through the hall behind her. She opened her fan, realised she had no need of it, and closed it again.

Willowbrook. Darcy had been there.

One of her letters to Julia had somehow come into his possession, and Miss Bingley had mentioned several others. What were her letters doing with Darcy?

She tried to return to the explanation she had given Caroline. Colonel Fitzwilliam might have recovered one during his enquiries. There was nothing impossible in that. Darcy had been helping her find Julia, and an old letter might conceivably have surfaced during the search.

But Colonel Fitzwilliam could not explain Willowbrook.

Darcy had been there before coming to Hertfordshire.

Elizabeth drew a slow breath, only then becoming conscious that it had grown shallow. She looked towards the ballroom doors but found herself unable to move towards them.

The assembly returned to her first. Darcy’s expression when Sir William introduced them, the prolonged stare she had been unable to account for. He had looked startled, almost as though the introduction had confirmed something rather than presented him with a stranger.

She had wondered at it then.

Another memory followed. Conversations in which some remark of hers had required remarkably little explanation. The peculiar ease with which Darcy occasionally seemed to understand where her thoughts were going before she had quite arrived there herself. His interest whenever Julia was mentioned, which Elizabeth had taken for kindness because she had possessed no reason to call it anything else.

Elizabeth’s fingers tightened around her closed fan.

No. She would not condemn him upon the insinuations of Caroline Bingley. Whatever Caroline hoped to accomplish by this conversation, Elizabeth knew her well enough to distrust the appearance of friendly concern.

There could be an explanation for all of it, and Mr. Darcy would have the opportunity to give it.

Yet when Elizabeth finally turned from the window towards the ballroom, she was forced to clasp her hands together to conceal that they were trembling.