CHAPTER 66 #3
The colour had risen too high in her cheeks.
She had been still for too long. The office was warm, the air close with ink, dust, summer heat, and five people bent over old paper.
She did not fan herself, but her hand moved once to the edge of the table, as if she were resisting the impulse to push the ledgers away.
Then her finger paused beneath a figure, moved back, and returned again.
She had read the same line twice.
No one else noticed. Mr. Latham was speaking quickly now, directing the younger clerk to compare annual rental increases against extraordinary charges.
Bell had bent over the map. The elder clerk was sorting receipts with the grave pallor of a man who had found enough employment to last him into old age.
A clean fear went through Darcy.
Not panic. Not the old fear that a world beyond his reach might harm Georgiana while he stood outside a locked door. This was nearer and simpler. Elizabeth was beside him. Elizabeth was too warm. Elizabeth would call endurance usefulness if every man in the room looked grateful enough.
Pemberley could wait.
His father could wait.
Wickham’s theft, having waited years, could endure another hour.
Darcy closed the ledger.
The sound was not loud, but every man in the room looked up.
Mr. Latham paused. “Mr. Darcy?”
“I find the room close.”
There was a small silence.
The younger clerk looked at the open window, then wisely looked down again.
Darcy rose. “And I am hungry.”
Mr. Latham’s expression became carefully blank. “Hungry, sir?”
“Yes.”
Elizabeth turned her head toward him. Her eyes narrowed.
Darcy did not look at her. “I should like a turn in the garden before luncheon. Mrs. Darcy, you must take pity on me and come with me.”
“Must I?”
“I am in a reduced state.”
Bell looked at the map with violent attention.
The elder clerk dipped his pen without having opened the ink.
The younger one appeared to be revising, at speed, everything he understood about estate management.
Mr. Latham was too experienced a lawyer to require the truth, and too courteous a man to expose it.
“The accounts will remain accounts after luncheon,” Darcy said. “They have waited several years to be understood. They may wait another hour.”
Elizabeth’s mouth parted, no doubt to dispute both the logic and the authority. Then she looked at his hand resting on the closed ledger, and something in her expression changed.
She understood him.
That moved through him more sharply than obedience could have done.
“Very well,” she said, with admirable dignity. “If your condition is so delicate, I cannot in conscience abandon you.”
The younger clerk made a strangled sound over his papers.
Mr. Latham became very interested in the alignment of his spectacles.
Darcy offered Elizabeth his arm. “I am grateful for your compassion.”
“You have arranged to deserve it very publicly.”
“I regret the necessity.”
“You do not.”
“No.”
But she took his arm.
He felt, as they left the room, every eye carefully not watching them go.
The passage outside was cooler, but the true relief came only when they reached the garden.
Warm air moved over the lawns, gentler than the trapped heat of the office, and the shade beneath the trees lay green and quiet before them.
Elizabeth did not speak at once. Her hand rested on his arm; he shortened his pace and felt her notice it.
Still she said nothing.
They followed the gravel path past the nearer beds and into the shrubbery, where the leaves thickened enough to hide the house for a few moments. Only then did she stop.
“You are not hungry,” she said.
“Not particularly.”
“And yet you were in a very reduced state.”
“I relied upon your compassion.”
“You relied upon my good sense. There is a difference.”
Darcy looked down at her. “I hoped there might be enough of both.”
Her mouth softened, though she plainly meant it not to do so.
“The room was close,” she said.
“Yes.”
“But you did not leave it for yourself.”
“No.”
“You left it because I would not.”
He did not answer.
That silence did what denial could not have done. Her expression changed; the accusation went out of it, leaving something quieter and more disruptive to his composure.
“You chose to make yourself ridiculous before Mr. Latham,” she said.
“I hoped only to be inexplicable.”
“You exceeded it.”
“I did not wish to embarrass you.”
“You did not. You embarrassed yourself. There is a distinction.”
“That was the intention.”
She looked at him then — not amused only, not grateful only. Something in her expression changed before she moved, and Darcy had just time to understand that she was no longer thinking of Mr. Latham at all.
“You are very troublesome,” she said.
“I am sorry for it.”
“No, you are not.”
“No.”
Her hand tightened on his sleeve.
Then she rose on her toes and kissed him.
It was meant, perhaps, as thanks. It did not remain so. The first touch was brief, but she did not draw away quickly enough for prudence, and Darcy, who had been prepared for gratitude, found himself met by something much less manageable.
For a moment he forgot the garden.
Then she remembered it for them both and stepped back, breath unsteady, colour high.
“There,” she said, with an attempt at composure that did neither of them any good. “That is for being hungry.”
Darcy’s hand closed over hers.
“I shall endeavour to be hungry with judgment.”
“You had better,” she said. “I do not reward every appetite.”
“No,” he said, and heard his own voice alter. “I shall try not to presume upon this one.”
That should have restored them.
It did not.
Elizabeth looked at him for one charged moment too long, and the second kiss was her own fault entirely.
It was still brief. The shrubbery was not a locked door, and Pemberley had gardeners, windows, and an unforgivable habit of being inhabited. But when she drew back, Darcy was less certain than before of several things, including luncheon and ledgers.
Elizabeth resumed walking with the composure of a lady who had merely paused to admire the laurels.
Darcy followed, feeling her hand return to his arm as if she had not just disordered him past reason.
Happier, too — but not calmly. Not neatly. She had not submitted to care. She had accepted it, understood it, and then, for one unguarded moment, wanted him for it.
That was much worse.
And much better.
They walked until the heat had left her face and her hand rested more lightly on his arm. When the estate clock struck one and the house came back into view, Darcy turned them toward luncheon.
“The ledgers,” Elizabeth said.
“After luncheon.”
“And if Mr. Latham has solved everything in our absence?”
“Then we shall be spared the inconvenience of doing it ourselves.”
“You would dislike that.”
“Very much.”
She smiled, and that was answer enough.
When they returned, the figures remained open on the table, accusing in columns.
Mr. Latham had set aside three clean charges for prosecution and marked half a dozen more for corroboration.
Bell had begun a list of farms where improvement and increased costs must be compared.
The younger clerk had lost his bewildered look and acquired the grim satisfaction of a man entrusted with a well-founded suspicion.
Nothing was solved.
But the shape of the theft was visible now.
Pemberley had not been failing. That was the cleverness of it. John Wickham had not robbed a dying estate; he had taught a living one to hide its growth.
Darcy sat beside Elizabeth and placed the plate of bread and cheese within her reach.
Mr. Latham said nothing.
Bell looked at the map.
The younger clerk bent very low over his notes.
Elizabeth took one piece of bread, broke it neatly in half, and placed the larger half on Darcy’s side of the table.
“Since you are hungry,” she said.
Darcy accepted it with perfect gravity.
Then the ledgers resumed.