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“And Miss Bingley is one of your patrons?”.

“Miss Bingley has had small services from me before now. She knows where to find me.” Cassandra pulled the lace tight and tied it. “A few days ago, I had a letter from her by express, with the whole story written out. She paid for my seat on the coach to Meryton, and we met at the inn there while her sister and brother-in-law dined. And she paid me well enough.” Her mouth twisted. “But when it was done, she would not so much as lend me the carriage back to Meryton. There were too many people about the house, she said. It would be noticed. So I walk.”

“And Mr Bingley?” Elizabeth asked.

“I have never met him. I know him only from what she told me. Fair hair, a great deal of smiling, and a habit of running his hand through his hair when he is pleased with something. I dare say I should know him if I passed him in the street.”

Elizabeth took the handkerchief out of her pocket. She had carried it all the way from Longbourn without once unfolding it. Cassandra looked at it, then looked away.

“She gave me that as well. She said it would do more than anything I could say, and she was right. Your sister never asked me a single question after she saw it.”

Elizabeth thought of how Miss Bingley must have come by it. She must have gone into her own brother’s room and taken it from his drawer. Jane had worked it for him the week they were engaged. Elizabeth held it so tightly that the little embroidered flowers pressed into her palm through her glove.

“You may go,” she said at last. “I cannot see that there is anything to be gained by keeping you.”

Cassandra stood up and shook out her skirts. She glanced at Mr Darcy, as if she expected some further threat. He only stepped aside to let her pass.

“If it is any comfort to your sister, Miss Bennet, I did not enjoy it. She has a kind face.”

She went on down the hill towards the town, limping a little. She did not look back.

***

For a while neither of them moved. Mr Darcy smoothed out his gloves and drew them on again.

“I must go home to Jane at once,” Elizabeth said. “She has been sitting in her room all this while, believing him false. I will not leave her like that a minute longer than I must.”

“No.” He hesitated. “And Bingley?”

She had been asking herself the same thing ever since the woman sat down on her stone. “He is to be married tomorrow. If we tell him his own sister paid a stranger to call him faithless, he will think of nothing else all through the service. And Jane will see it in his face and think of nothing else either. I cannot see why their wedding day should be spoiled for Miss Bingley’s sake.”

“Nor can I. Let him have tomorrow.” He said it at once, before she had quite finished. Then he looked away down the empty road. “He will learn the truth soon enough. It need not come from us today.”

Elizabeth took it for kindness to his friend, and liked him better for it.

He brought the mare round and helped her up. This time, when she was settled in the saddle, he did not step away at once. He stood with one hand on the bridle, looking up at her, and there was a trouble in his face that she could not account for.

“Mr Darcy,” she said, “I have not thanked you. I do not know what Jane would have done if you had not seen that woman this morning. I do not know what I would have done.”

“You owe me no thanks.” His hand dropped from the bridle. “Of all people, Miss Elizabeth, you owe me none.”

He turned to his own horse before she could answer.

They rode back towards Longbourn without speaking. Elizabeth watched his back a length ahead of her and thought of everything she had believed about him since the night of the assembly.

She had been so sure what kind of man Mr Darcy was. Now, with Jane’s handkerchief in her pocket and his last words still ringing in her ears, she was not sure of anything at all.

Chapter Eleven

Elizabeth

“Eliza! I thought it must be you. Nobody else would be out walking at this hour in December.”

Charlotte Lucas stood at the gate of Lucas Lodge with a shawl thrown over her head. She must have seen Elizabeth from the window and hurried out, for she had not stopped to put on her pattens.

Mr Darcy had set Elizabeth down at the Meryton fork a quarter of an hour before. He had taken the mare's bridle, touched his hat, and turned back towards Netherfield without another word. Elizabeth had watched him until the hedge hid him from sight.

“You are quite right,” she said. “I have walked a great deal farther than I meant to, and I am frozen through.”