Page 6

But likely she was being foolish, Elizabeth told herself. Jane was right. None of it was hers to worry over. If Caroline Bingley harboured ambitions, they would reveal themselves plainly enough, and Mr Darcy would choose whether or not to make her an offer — though from all she had observed, Elizabeth suspected the answer would be ‘not’. He could hardly be made to marry her.

She pushed the thoughts away. Such speculation truly was meaningless, for it had nothing to do with her in any case. On that thought, more reassuring than any other could be, Elizabeth drifted off to sleep.

Chapter Three

Caroline Bingley prided herself on patience. She did not consider herself scheming, nothing as base as that. Patience was a virtue, and hers had been cultivated from necessity.

In the eyes of society, impatience betrayed insecurity, and insecurity was fatal. A lady must appear assured that what she desired would come to her, for the world was disposed to grant favour only to those who seemed least in need of it.

For weeks now — no, for months — Caroline’s patience had been sorely tested.

She stood before the mirror in her chamber, dismissing her maid with a curt nod once the last pin was removed and her hair neatly braided. The door closed softly behind the girl. As she studied her own reflection, the silence was almost total, broken only by the sound of the wind moving the branches outside. She was composed, elegant, and entirely in command. From her appearance, one would never guess that she was a woman thwarted.

Yet thwarted she was.

It had begun well enough. There was the great good fortune of Mr Darcy’s friendship with Charles, which had first given her the idea of a match being possible. If Mr Darcy would condescend so far as to consider Charles one of his closest friends, then surely a wife with ample fortune and accomplishments, marred only by a connection to trade one generation back, was not so very impossible.

Charles, for once making himself of use, had introduced Mr Darcy to her on one of his visits to London. Better still, she had sensed at the time that he was not indisposed to female society, provided it was the right kind. Cultivating a friendship with Miss Darcy was an obvious next step. Nor would it be any hardship, for the girl was sweet and shy, of a pliable temperament.

Caroline had made herself indispensable at every gathering at which they were both present, informed on every subject Mr Darcy cared about, accomplished at everything he was likely to notice. She was elegant without being showy, and admiring without being transparent.

Or so she had believed. She was no longer entirely certain about her transparency.

She reviewed each incident with the cold efficiency of a general assessing a failed campaign. The duets: declined, twice, and on the third occasion accepted so briefly and with such composed politeness that it had felt more like a refusal with better manners. The walks undertaken twice in the early weeks at Netherfield, pleasant in themselves, and entirely useless in terms of what they had been designed to produce. Mr Darcy had talked about the estate, about her brother’s plans for the tenants, about nothing at all that was personal, and had delivered her back to the house with the same courteous detachment with which he might have delivered a book to its shelf. The evenings on which she had chosen her gowns with the care of a woman who knew exactly what she was doing, positioned herself to best advantage in the room, laughed and spoken with a warmth meant entirely for him…and he had read.

Caroline shuddered to remember it. He had read with the serenity of a man in no danger of being disturbed by anything the room contained, much less enticed.

And then there was the letter. That, too, was not a pleasant memory. It had seemed so eminently eligible a move, sure to raise her in his esteem. She had been standing at Mr Darcy’s shoulder as he read a letter addressed from his steward, playfully pretending to read as well. She had not even pretended interest in its contents, only used the proximity as an opportunity to introduce Georgiana, to remind him that she was connected to everything he valued, to exist, warmly and unmistakably, at the edge of his attention. He had moved the letter and excused himself with a courtesy so impervious that it had felt like a wall.

She was accustomed to walls. She had simply never encountered one quite so well-maintained.

Charles had only made it worse, though Caroline was not in the habit of blaming Charles. He was, on the whole, the most useful brother a woman in her position could have asked for, and she was fond of him, but his behaviour over the past weeks had been nothing short of catastrophic. His attachment to Jane Bennet was as obvious as a weather vane and approximately as subtle. He spoke of her at breakfast. He enquired after her health with a solicitousness that would have awoken the suspicions of a far less cautious sister. And he had, on two separate occasions, mentioned the pleasantness of her manner in the same breath as the loveliness of her face, as though Jane Bennet’s beauty was but the outward expression of her character.

Charles in love was not a new phenomenon. He had been in love three times in as many years, and would likely be in love three times more before Caroline could manoeuvre him into a suitable match — or until some girl was clever enough to catch and keep him. But Mr Darcy’s attachment to Charles was not nothing.

Mr Darcy was loyal. After his wealth, his estate, and his connections, it was one of the things she most admired about him. And if Charles were to become seriously entangled with Jane Bennet, if she were to become part of their circle, then her sisters would follow. And if Elizabeth Bennet were to follow —

Caroline watched her reflection as her mouth pulled into a frown, cracking the facade of her composure.

She did not like to think about Elizabeth Bennet, and she had spent the past week thinking about her a great deal.

It was not that she was beautiful. She was not, at least not in any way that could be set against Caroline’s own acknowledged handsomeness and found superior. But there was something in her that Caroline had watched, with increasing unease, catch and hold Mr Darcy’s attention in a way that nothing else had managed to.

It was irritating precisely because it was so difficult to account for. Eliza Bennet was impertinent. She was of no consequence whatsoever. Her connections were nothing, her dowry scarcely more, her mother a mortification in human form, and yet Mr Darcy’s eyes had followed her across the room on the morning of her arrival with something that could only be called fascination.

Watching them, Caroline felt the bottom drop out of all her careful work and planning.

She had not shown it. Caroline was too disciplined for that. But she had felt it, and the feeling had forged her determination into its more insistent cousin, urgency.

There was no more time for subtlety. Caroline could not regret it; subtlety had served her very poorly.

The plan had come to her three days ago, arranging itself with the cold satisfaction of something long sought and finally found. It was simple, in direct contrast to her previous attempts at making her intentions known. She had overcomplicated things; she could see that now. This new plan required only two elements to succeed: timing and a locked door. The timing she had arranged with the care she brought to all arrangements. The door she had arranged with money, which was even more reliable than care.

The servant, a young housemaid with a sweetheart in the village and a persistent need for ready coin, had been approached. She had agreed and been paid half of what she was promised, with the other half contingent on success.

Her instructions were simple. Tomorrow morning, when she saw Miss Bingley enter the study, she was to turn the key from without and leave it on the mantlepiece of the west parlour, ensuring that its recovery would take a sufficient period of time. A quarter of an hour, perhaps twenty minutes. Long enough for the full consequences to ensue.

What remained was only to ensure that Mr Darcy came to the study. This was where Georgiana Darcy came in.