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Darcy stepped through the doorway and into the hall, then looked to the left. Miss Lydia had come from this direction — he was certain of it. He had been some distance down the opposite end of the corridor, coming from the ballroom, and he had seen her, coming toward him to get to the library. So she had not come to the library from the ballroom, but rather from a part of the house that connected to the garden path along the east wing.

The garden path along the east wing, where an officer had spent enough time loitering near the side entrance that the staff had felt it necessary to speak to him and send him on his way…

The note had cancelled the appointment; the officer had left after the butler had spoken to him, but Lydia had still come here, which meant the cancellation had not reached her in time, or that she had not received it at all. But why was she coming from past the library?

Perhaps, Darcy realised, she had gone to the library, only to find that the gentleman was not there. Then, having waited and grown impatient, she might have gone to try to find whomever she had been there to meet.

The servant who had been sent to deliver the note had been told to give it to the Miss Bennet in the blue dress, in the library, but he had found no one in the library and so took the note to the ballroom, where he found Elizabeth. If the note had been sent to the library, the man who sent it had expected that Lydia would already be there to receive it. Perhaps because the time of their meeting had already passed, and he had not been able to enter because the household staff had been observing him. So he had sent the note to the library, not knowing that Lydia, in her impatience, had already gone to look for him elsewhere and was not in the library to receive it.

He could not prove any of this, still. But the picture was getting clearer.

Thomas, the senior footman who had told him of the loitering officer on the night of the ball, was cleaning the silver in the butler’s pantry when Darcy found him. He set down his cloth, straightening his posture and looking apprehensive about why a member of the household would seek him out in the pantry.

“You need not be concerned,” Darcy reassured him. “I only have a few more questions for you regarding the soldier that you observed on the night of the ball. Do you recall how long the officer had been there before Mr Stevens approached him?”

Thomas thought for a moment. “A good while, sir. Young Henderson had noticed him first and watched him for a bit before he said anything to me, and I watched him for a while before I spoke to Mr Stevens.”

“Was he simply there waiting, or did he try to come in at any point?” Darcy asked, frowning.

“Just waiting, sir. He was leaning against the wall. He saw young Henderson and waved at him, and did the same with me. Mr Stevens said he was a pleasant sort of fellow, left with no problem or fuss.”

“But he went back toward the garden when Mr Stevens turned around.”

“Yes, sir. Toward the garden passage, not the road.”

Darcy was quiet for a moment. “Do you know anything about a note that was brought, to be delivered to one of the guests?”

Thomas blinked, clearly not expecting that line of questioning. “I’m not sure I could say much of use, sir. I had heard that there was such a note. Davies — that’s who was charged with delivering it — wasn’t happy about doing the delivering.”

“Did the note come before or after the soldier left?”

“I suppose it must have been after, sir. Mr Stevens was telling Cook about the soldier when the note was brought into the kitchens, so he’d already spoken with him.”

“Do you know who asked that the note be delivered? Or who received it?”

“I couldn’t say, sir. Mr Stevens gave it to Davies to deliver, but he weren’t the one who received it in the first place.”

It was evident there was nothing more to be learnt. Darcy thanked the man and let him return to his labours. It was time for some work of his own. Returning to his room, he sat down at the desk, readied quill and ink, and then left the page blank for fully a quarter of an hour as he thought over what he must write. To attain the information he required without causing further trouble or gossip was not an insignificant challenge.

At last, Darcy dipped his pen in the ink and began. He wrote the letter carefully, trying to phrase it in a way that made clear what information he needed, without revealing the reasons he needed it. He had attempted to find these answers more discreetly for weeks, but had run out of options.

If Darcy was fortunate in having a cousin in the King’s regulars, who would know best how to find the information he required, he was unfortunate in that the militia was not the regulars, and the information would have to pass through a significant chain to reach him. Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam, who had handled intelligence missions on a number of occasions, would know how to accomplish it and would help his cousin without question, but it did mean both that the information would come with a considerable delay, and that Darcy would have to be prodigiously careful in what he asked.

Darcy did not ask his cousin to enquire into the night of the ball, or Lydia Bennet, or any of the events that had occurred at Netherfield that had led to the engagement. It would be best to ask only about Wickham’s record: dates of absences, debts, and his general conduct within the regiment. Then, too, it all must be framed in such a way to suggest that they were looking for more information before making a recommendation, all the while knowing that the inquiry itself might seem curious.

After considerable effort, Darcy finished the letter and sent it on to the post before he could revise it further. Then he sat back in his chair and looked out the window at the barren landscape. It was not much of an action. He still only had suspicion, and inference, and the overheard greeting that named the soldier as Wickham. It was little enough. When, at long last, the information reached him, it might clear up the matter — or it might leave him back at the beginning.

But his thoughts did not linger long on the decision he had made, or the consequences it might have. They turned quickly to Elizabeth, to the way she had gone to the library to protect someone she loved from making decisions that would harm her future. She had not told anyone, or vacillated about what she should do, or decided it was not her responsibility. She had simply gone, because there was no time and she was the one who could act. And when disaster had occurred anyway, and it had fallen on her, she had accepted a future she didn’t want, and her voice had not wavered because she knew the alternative was worse, for more people than just herself.

Darcy believed, as most people did, that he was a tolerably good judge of people, and yet he had to concede that he had been wrong about Elizabeth Bennet in almost every measure that mattered. He had thought her entirely unsuitable, if lively and pretty and rather too clever for her own good. He had thought, when he first found himself anticipating her presence and wanting to speak with her, that it was just a temporary infatuation that would cease being entertaining when he had spent some time in her presence. After the ball, when she had approached him for help and he had agreed to provide it, he told himself that what he felt was only a result of proximity and empathy and the strange intimacy of their shared purpose.

He was becoming less and less certain that he had been right about any of that.

Chapter 10

Elizabeth had set out for Meryton solely to purchase the five colours of embroidery floss she needed to finish the Christmas gifts she was making for her family. But the simplicity of the errand and the bright crispness of the day lifted her spirits so greatly that she felt almost cheerful as she walked down the road toward town.

Her situation was brightening, she told herself. Gossip would be dying down by now as people found other things to talk about. By Christmas, it should have subsided almost entirely, and by that point she and Mr Darcy might have found a way to disentangle both herself and his friend from the engagement for good.