Page 49 of A November to Remember

He looked at the extra N.

“Miss Eliza!” Miss Bingley’s voice achieved January’s warmth. “You have left the sickroom at last. And what a—” her eyes performed one descent of the grey gown, “—restful toilette. How sensible you are. I always say there is nothing as refreshing as a lady who does not trouble herself.”

“Thank you, Miss Bingley.” Miss Elizabeth executed a brief curtsy. “My sister is sleeping soundly, so I find I can be troubled about very little this evening.”

“Take this chair, Miss Elizabeth.” Richard had moved it beside the fire. “You have been on nursing duty restlessly. Sit down before you fall down; I have seen it happen to stronger recruits than you.”

“You are all kindness, Colonel.”

“I am nothing of the sort. If you collapse, dinner will be delayed.”

She laughed and sat. The fire caught the side of her face, and Darcy wrote, with great deliberation, please excuse the blot.

“Mr Darcy.” Miss Bingley moved to the desk as though tethered to it. “You write the most even hand in England. Do you not think a gentleman’s character may be read in his hand, Miss Eliza?”

“I think a gentleman’s character may be read far more reliably in his postscripts, Miss Bingley. The letter is what he means to say; the postscript is what he actually thinks.”

“Write that down,” Robert said, picking up a book from a side table. “Darcy. You are at a desk. Write that down.”

“I am writing to my sister.”

“Then your sister shall have it. She collects wisdom. She keeps it in a little book with a lock, which I have never picked, whatever Richard may claim.”

Darcy inclined his head to Miss Elizabeth just a fraction, over the top of the desk. “My sister would agree with you, Miss Elizabeth. She reads my postscripts first.”

“Then your sister and I should get on famously, Mr Darcy. What do you put in them?”

“Lately? Apologies for the letter.”

Her mouth curved although she tried to stop it. He watched her decide not to smile at him, fail entirely, and be annoyed about it, all in the space of a single heartbeat. He returned to the page in a state he firmly declined to examine.

Miss Bingley had observed the exchange, however. Something behind her eyes went to work, weighing possibilities. She abandoned the desk and repositioned herself at the arm of the long sofa, close to Robert, who had chosen a book from the table beside him.

“And what are you reading, Lord Keathley? You seem quite absorbed. I adore a gentleman who reads. I always say there is no better ornament to a man than a book.”

“Then Richard is the plainest man in England.”

“I read.” Richard shrugged. “I read dispatches. Dispatches are the only honest literature. Everything else is people making up problems in their heads.”

“You will laugh at me, my lord, but I have been longing all week to ask your opinion of—” Miss Bingley produced a small pause, and filled it with her lashes, “—poetry.”

“Poetry.” Robert closed the book on his finger. “Poetry, Miss Bingley, is what a man sends when the jewellery has not worked. I have written four poems in my life, all to married women, and each cost me more than the necklace would have.”

“Lord Keathley!” She rapped his shoulder with her fan, delighted. “You are wicked.”

“I am economical. The two are often confused.”

“Colonel, you must defend poetry. A military man such as yourself must possess so much feeling—”

“I once ate a page of Wordsworth in Portugal.” Richard crossed his arms. “Supply lines were bad. I can report that it was unsavoury, like most of his work.”

Miss Bingley’s laugh rang out over all three men at once, distributed in careful thirds. Darcy watched her calculate which of the three targets was presently yielding the best return. Her eyes moved from the sofa to the sideboard to the desk, paused on the desk, narrowed on the desk’s proximity to the fire, and finally settled on the person seated by the fire.

“Well, we must have our card game. I insist.” Miss Bingley directed a sharp nod to the butler. “Hughes, the card table. We shall play Loo.”

The parlour rearranged itself. Hughes swiftly brought in a green baize table. As Miss Elizabeth took her seat, Darcy abandoned his ruined letter and claimed the chair beside her.

The game commenced. Miss Elizabeth played with the same style in which she argued: boldly, laughing at her own losses, and ruthless at the kill. Darcy twice needed reminding to declare whether he would play, and misplayed a hand he could have won in his sleep. He paid his forfeits with distracted contentment. He had located the centre of the world, and he harboured no plans to leave it.