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At that, Elizabeth glanced at him with a look he could not entirely read. He realised they had slowed considerably, and that Bingley and Miss Bennet had stopped and were looking at something in the garden, Bingley leaning in to look at whatever Miss Bennet was pointing to, and for a moment they were simply two people in a garden, wholly present and wholly at ease with each other. Then Miss Bennet glanced back and saw them watching, and the ease vanished. She said something to Bingley, and they both turned and started walking back toward them.

They returned to the house shortly thereafter, and the ladies took their leave. Darcy stood at the window, watching the figures of the sisters disappear down the path, when he felt a presence beside him and turned to find Miss Bingley at his elbow.

She was, he noted, sporting her wide-eyed innocent expression, which meant that she was going to say something extremely unpleasant, biting, or calculated to manipulate. More often than not, it would be all three.

“I hope you will not think me impertinent,” she began, “but as one who has your best interests genuinely at heart, I feel I would be failing in my duty if I did not mention something that has been occupying my thoughts.” She paused, looking down with pretended reluctance, “It has occurred to me that Miss Elizabeth’s visit today was perhaps not entirely concerned with the propriety of paying a respectful visit to Charles. After all, she did not walk with him, but with you. It would be rather a triumph, would it not, to exchange one friend for the other, so that Jane secures Charles, and Elizabeth secures —” she tilted her head “someone considerably grander. I would not wish to see you caught unawares by such a strategy.”

Darcy looked at her, and for a moment, he could not think of a single thing to say in response. “I am grateful for your concern,” he managed at last.

Miss Bingley waited, as though expecting more. Darcy gave her nothing. She held the pause distinctly longer than was comfortable, then excused herself with icy composure and withdrew.

Darcy remained by the window, mentally assuring himself that he was not going to think about what Miss Bingley had said. It was a clumsy manipulation and deserved no consideration whatsoever, and he was not going to —

He thought about what Miss Bingley had said. Not because he gave it any credence, because he most emphatically did not — Elizabeth Bennet did not have that type of manipulative duplicity in her character. But Miss Bingley had, in her utterly ineffective attempt at making him develop suspicions about Elizabeth’s motives, forced him to ask himself a question he had been refusing to consider.

He had been exercising considerable, if imperfect, discipline on that particular subject since the night of the ball. Elizabeth had walked beside him and argued with him about faking her own death (which remained at once the most alarming and the most remarkable conversation he had had with anyone in recent memory, or perhaps, ever), she had looked at him with those dark, steady eyes, and held his arm on the uneven gravel, and trusted him, albeit reluctantly, with the truth about her sister and the reason she had been in the library.

And after all she had done, he had to concede now that he was not just working to right a wrong. For if they were successful, and the engagement was dissolved, and she were free, and possibly disposed to look at him differently as a result of his assistance, then perhaps…perhaps…

Darcy didn’t let himself finish the thought. He thought instead about all the rational, sensible reasons such an idea was impractical, undignified, and quite impossible, and went to his rooms.

Chapter 8

Time, as she had told Mr Darcy, was indeed something that Elizabeth had in rather greater supply than she would have liked. The initial fuss over the engagement and its scandalous start had subsided somewhat, but Elizabeth knew that the tide of gossip would not really fade until a wedding had occurred. At the moment, it had settled into a low, steady stream of observations and opinions that Elizabeth could feel flutter to life every time she walked into a room, the flurry of whispers a constant reminder that she was now not a person, but a character in an ongoing story, a woman who was betrothed to a good (and wealthy) man who did not want her, but who was very much in love with her sister. It made a thrilling story, but a miserable situation, and the only thing that kept her going was her steadfast hope that the engagement would prove temporary.

She had not wanted to approach Mr Darcy for assistance. But having done so in the absence of other options, she had found him surprisingly helpful. Elizabeth had expected he would try to argue with her, as he had never, in her experience, demonstrated the ability to be in the same room with her without silently arriving at some unflattering conclusion about her or her family, but he had proved a practical partner in planning and far more willing to help than she had anticipated.

It was not entirely surprising: as she had anticipated, he clearly wanted Mr Bingley to be freed from this engagement nearly as much as she did. No wonder, for Mr Darcy had made his opinion of her quite plain on any number of occasions. Thus his willingness to work alongside her was purely a matter of their interests happening, for the moment, to coincide. She was under no illusions on that score.

It was certainly an oddity, and one that proved only stranger in the coming days. Though betrothed to Mr Bingley, it was Mr Darcy whom Elizabeth found herself encountering everywhere.

The first such meeting, she dismissed as a coincidence. Mrs Long’s Scottish cousin, Mr Blanchard, had arrived from Edinburgh for a visit, bringing with him many opinions on verse that he was eager to share, and so Mrs Long had introduced him to society with a small gathering where all were promised a selection of the gentleman’s original poetry. Elizabeth attended because she liked Mrs Long, she liked poetry, and she was prepared to go anywhere rather than remain at Longbourn, where her mother had no topic of conversation besides the wedding that Elizabeth was doing her best to prevent. It made planning the flowers rather awkward.

She had not expected to find Mr Darcy in attendance, and expected him to display an interest in poetry even less. She watched him for a moment, just to see if he were actually interested in poetry, she assured herself, and was intrigued to discover that he appeared to be attending to the poet’s words with great concentration.

Mr Blanchard finished his third piece, which Elizabeth thought interesting but overwrought, and paused to accept the room’s applause. “Very affecting,” she murmured. “One could feel the anguish of his soul, though the fact that his soul appeared anguished about many things at the same time rather weakened the effect.”

She didn’t expect an answer. Surely Mr Darcy would not be interested in observations on poetry from someone as gauche as she. But to Elizabeth’s surprise, Mr Darcy murmured a reply without looking up from his program. “The metaphor of the sea as time does more work than the meter can support, I am afraid. He has strained the vessel beyond its capacity.”

Elizabeth blinked, nodding in surprised agreement. “I do believe the comparison has merit, and fits well with the natural imagery in the rest of the work, but as you say, it collapses under the weight of its own ambitions.”

He looked at her then, nodding thoughtfully. “Yes. The feeling is genuine, but the architecture of the work fails it.”

It was such a precise description, one that showed such an intuitive understanding of both emotion and poetry, that Elizabeth could hardly believe she was talking to Mr Darcy. She replied, and the conversation somehow proceeded into whether genuine feeling in a poem was enough, rendering technical failure immaterial, or whether the reverse were true, with the feeling being flattened when the form was less than perfect. She would have expected, if she had ever thought of having a lively discussion on poetry with Mr Darcy, that he would have been very much a stickler for rules of form and structure, but instead found that his observations were intelligent and nuanced, enough so that she had to sharpen her own arguments to keep up with him, as one did only when sparring with an opponent worth engaging.

When Mrs Long’s manservant came round with refreshments, Elizabeth realised they had been talking for twenty minutes and that she had failed to observe that Mr Blanchard had begun reading his fourth poem. She made a small face at herself for her lack of attention, and looked up to find Mr Darcy watching her, doing something she had never seen him do in all their acquaintance.

He was smiling. Not smirking, but actually smiling, and she was startled to realise that she was smiling back. Elizabeth looked away, blushing, and when she looked back, Mr Darcy wore his usual expression of polite disinterest.

“Have you made any progress on our mutual goal?” he asked, his voice dropping to a low, businesslike tone.

“Not as of yet,” she said, “though my assignment was largely to wait upon your discoveries, so I suppose I am progressing as I should. Have you made any discoveries?”

“I have written enquiries and am waiting for a response.” He paused. “These things take time, Miss Elizabeth, but I assure you we will have some news to work with soon.”

She nodded, turning her head as Mr Blanchard finished his poem to add her appreciation to the applause, though she hadn’t heard a word of the poem. For some reason she could not define, Elizabeth realised she felt better than she had in some time.

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