Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
CAROLINE’S KNIVES
Darcy
No gentleman attends a musicale to juggle the woman he cannot stop thinking about and the woman intent on ruining his life, yet here I was.
I stood in Lady Meynell’s anteroom, fussing with a cravat that was already perfect, waiting for Mrs. Gardiner’s carriage and wishing Caroline Bingley’s words would stop buzzing in my head like a trapped wasp.
The evening before, Caroline had arrived at my townhouse uninvited, as was her custom. She had sniffed out Bingley’s visit to Gracechurch Street, his renewed acquaintance with Jane Bennet, and his return home looking as if someone had relit the lamps behind his eyes.
“I understand you have been busy, Mr. Darcy.” She stood beside my library window, turning her gloves in her hands. “I understand Charles has rediscovered his fascination with the Bennet family.”
“He has.”
“And you arranged it.”
“I informed him of Miss Bennet’s presence in London. What Charles chose to do with that information was his own affair.”
“How generous of you. And how convenient that you have been cultivating the Gardiner connection for weeks, paving the way with a tortoise and a basket of strawberries, so that when Charles arrived, the door was already open.” She set her gloves on the windowsill.
“You have been remarkably industrious for a man who once told me the Bennet family was beneath serious consideration.”
I said nothing. Caroline was, infuriatingly, right.
“Lady Meynell’s musicale is tomorrow evening,” she had reported, as though the subject had naturally presented itself.
“Miss Audley will perform the Beethoven. She has been preparing for weeks and has asked specifically about Charles. I have taken the liberty of accepting on his behalf, along with Louisa, Hurst, and myself.”
“Bingley is capable of accepting his own invitations.”
“Charles is capable of many things, Mr. Darcy. He will eagerly squander the finest match of the Season because you have pointed him at a country gentleman’s daughter with no fortune and no prospects.
Miss Audley has forty thousand pounds, the Pembroke connection, and a talent at the pianoforte that Miss Bennet—however sweet—cannot approach.
All I ask is that Charles meet her properly.
An introduction complimenting her performance. Is that so very much?”
“It is, when the purpose is to redirect affections that are not yours to manage.”
Caroline’s smile thinned until it was less a smile and more a blade held sideways.
“Then let us be plain. You have spent weeks ingratiating yourself with the Gardiners, laboring to repair the damage done in November. The Bennet sisters believe, and I imagine you have taken pains to encourage the belief, that the separation was entirely the work of Louisa and myself. That we concealed Jane’s visit.
That we turned her away. That we alone are the villains of the piece. ”
“You are responsible for the concealment.”
“We concealed her presence, yes. But we are not responsible for the friendly persuasion.” She had held my gaze with malice. “You convinced Charles that Miss Bennet was indifferent, and he left Netherfield on your word alone. And if Miss Elizabeth were to learn the full extent of your involvement…”
“That is enough.”
“Is it? Because I rather think Miss Elizabeth would find it illuminating. She is clever, Mr. Darcy. She observes, and she has a long memory. She has spent these last weeks revising her opinion of you—to your considerable satisfaction, I note, since it has won you leave to call on her. How unfortunate, were she to discover that the revision rested on a half-told story; that the man she has begun to admire is the very one who pronounced her sister indifferent and judged the family beneath his friend.”
The fire snapped in the grate; a carriage rattled past below. Caroline was not bluffing. She had found the one lever that could topple everything I had managed to build.
“What do you want?”
“Introduce Charles to Miss Audley at the musicale. Compliment her performance publicly. Give her an honest chance. That is all.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Then I shall write to Jane—who trusts me, as she trusts everyone—and express my concern, sister to sister, that Mr. Darcy’s motives in reuniting her with Charles may not be as selfless as they appear.
I shall be so very gentle, so very kind.
And Miss Elizabeth will read it over her shoulder, for Elizabeth reads everything, and the entire revision she has been so carefully constructing will come apart in her hands. ”
I could have called her bluff, announced my intention to confess everything to Elizabeth and Jane, and let her threats hurry along what I already meant to do.
But timing was everything. I had not yet earned enough of Elizabeth’s trust to survive a confession.
Her respect, perhaps. Her amusement, certainly.
Her attention—sharp, relentless, missing nothing and forgiving less—I had that.
But trust? The sort that could hear the worst of me and still believe in the rest?
Not yet. A woman does not leap from active dislike—some might say outright loathing—to forgiveness, especially not Elizabeth Bennet.
“One introduction,” I said. “One compliment. And you will say nothing to either Miss Bennet until I have spoken to them myself.”
“You have my word.”
Caroline’s word was worth approximately what one might expect, but it purchased time. I had secured the invitation for Mrs. Gardiner’s party through the Derbyshire connection—Lady Meynell’s mother had been a Kingsley from Bakewell.
Mrs. Gardiner’s maiden name was enough to earn an invitation without raising eyebrows. What I had given Mrs. Gardiner to understand was that it would do Jane no harm to be seen in good company on the arm of friends rather than tucked away in Cheapside.
I had also warned Jane privately, during a visit to check on Bertram’s sleeping habits, that the Bingleys would be present. She had said only, “Thank you, Mr. Darcy,” with a steadiness that reminded me, as it always did, of her sister.
And now I stood in the anteroom, adjusting my cravat, and wondered how I had arrived at a point in my life where the woman I admired most in the world believed me to be her sister’s rescuer, when I was in fact the architect of the original disaster.
The Gardiner party were announced at half past eight, and I went out to the vestibule to receive them.
Mrs. Gardiner came in handsome and composed in dove grey; Jane followed, pale and luminous in white muslin, her eye going at once across the room to Bingley, who half rose and was kept from us only by Lady Meynell’s seating.
And Elizabeth wore the moss green I had come to think of as mine.
She looked so well that I had to remind myself the arm I owed was Mrs. Gardiner’s, as the senior lady of the party, and not the one I wished to offer.
As I handed Mrs. Gardiner to her chair, Elizabeth leaned near.
“You did not arrange all this for the music,” she said, low, and rather pleased with herself.
“You have brought Jane where the Bingley sisters cannot pretend they failed to see her—and put her under your protection while they try. It is neatly done, Mr. Darcy. I did not take you for a tactician.”
I should not have smiled; in this company, to smile at Elizabeth Bennet was a public declaration. But I had lost the trick of governing my responses somewhere between the Elgin marbles and a basket of strawberries.
The room was packed; Lady Meynell’s musicales were less about music than the sport of scrutiny. Lorgnettes rose as Mrs. Gardiner settled, fans unfurled for the opening round of whispered commentary.
“A Miss Bennet, I believe. From Hertfordshire.”
“Her people?”
“Country. An estate of some kind. The uncle is in trade. Cheapside.”
The word Cheapside drifted over, and Elizabeth caught it. Her spine straightened, and she said something to Mrs. Gardiner that made her aunt laugh. And the room responded with a fresh flurry of raised lorgnettes and whispers.
I leaned closer to Elizabeth, lowering my voice so that it might serve as a barrier between her and the room.
“Do not trouble yourself with their scrutiny.” My gaze swept the circle of idle, judging faces. “They are people of small minds and narrower horizons. Their opinion is a mirror of their own limitations, nothing more.”
She turned to me, her eyes dark and searching. “You are very kind to say so, Mr. Darcy. But you need not fear on my account. I have lived long enough in Hertfordshire to know that a verdict delivered from behind a lorgnette is rarely worth the glass it is viewed through.”
She was right, of course, and I admired her all the more for it. Still, the urge to shield her from their censure was nearly overwhelming. One day, when she was mistress of Pemberley, these same women would lower their lorgnettes and curtsey as if their knees depended on it.
Miss Audley performed the Beethoven at nine o’clock, and I will grant Caroline this much: the woman was talented.
The sonata was the Pathétique, and Miss Audley played it with technical precision and emotional intelligence that silenced the room as genuine artistry does.
Caroline had not been wrong about Miss Audley’s accomplishments.
She had only been wrong about their relevance.
I watched Elizabeth instead. She sat perfectly still, hands folded, her face open with unguarded admiration.
It undid me, that willingness to be moved by beauty without first building a wall of irony.
We glanced at each other during certain passages, sharing something wordless and private—a recognition, perhaps, that music could say what we could not.
During the interval, I drew Bingley aside from his sisters. “Charles, there is an introduction I should like to make.”
“If it involves Miss Audley, Darcy, I would rather—”
“It involves Miss Audley, Miss Bennet, and Miss Elizabeth. It will take three minutes and prevent Caroline from doing something considerably worse. Trust me.”
He studied my face. Bingley may not be perceptive in the usual ways, but he has always read me with alarming accuracy. Whatever he saw convinced him.
I gathered Elizabeth and Jane under the pretense of congratulating the performer—an entirely unremarkable social maneuver. Elizabeth took my arm, and the warmth of her hand through my sleeve was precisely what I could not afford to notice while crossing Caroline’s battlefield.
Miss Audley stood near the instrument, receiving compliments. She had fair hair and an open, intelligent face that bore no resemblance to Caroline’s sharpened features.
“Miss Bennet, Miss Elizabeth, may I present Miss Audley. Miss Audley, Miss Bennet and Miss Elizabeth Bennet, nieces of Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner of Gracechurch Street.”
“How do you do?” Miss Audley’s smile was the uncomplicated kind. “Did you enjoy the programme? I am always nervous about the Pathétique. Beethoven demands such exactitude, and I worry the adagio loses its shape in a room this size.”
“The adagio was exquisite,” Elizabeth said with sincerity. “You play with great feeling. I am not accomplished enough to dissemble about music I admire.”
“How refreshing. Most people praise the difficult passages. Very few notice the quiet ones.”
“Those are the passages where the real playing happens,” Elizabeth said.
“Miss Audley and my sister Caroline attended Madame Girard’s seminary together,” Bingley offered.
“How lovely,” Jane said, her composure flawless.
But I caught the flash in Elizabeth’s eyes as she glanced at Caroline.
She understood the subtext: I have heard so much about you from Caroline.
It was a declaration of war, dressed up as drawing room civility.
Caroline had been orchestrating this for months, weaving a trap that used Miss Audley’s kindness to make Jane look unsuitable.
Elizabeth looked at me, a silent, piercing question: Is this your doing?
I held her gaze, steady and impenetrable. I am managing the situation, I tried to convey through the silence. Trust me.
Whether she saw the bargain or only saw me being Darcy—composed, unreadable, distant—I could not tell. But she gave a small, sharp nod, and the tightness in my chest eased.
Caroline returned to her seat. The second half of the programme featured a soprano whose voice was competent but unremarkable, and I sat beside Elizabeth—not touching, propriety observed to the letter—and allowed myself the luxury of being near her while the music played amid the social machinery of a London Season.
“Miss Audley was not what I expected,” Elizabeth murmured, leaning close enough that I caught the faint, clean scent of her hair. “I had thought she would be pretentious, more like Caroline.”
“She may have attended the same academy, but she has real talent, standing as an earl’s daughter and wealth enough to draw Caroline’s interest.”
Elizabeth glanced at Caroline, who pretended not to notice our whispering. The thin line of her lips betrayed her true interest.
“Miss Audley is being presented to Charles,” Elizabeth observed.
“Caroline has been arranging this for months. She believes Miss Audley’s fortune and connections will cure Charles of his attachment to your sister.”
“I don’t believe it will work.” Elizabeth peered at Bingley, who sat with his body angled toward the platform, but his eyes were fixed on Jane as if no one else existed.
Her gaze lingered on the pair before she turned back to me.
“You are protecting them, aren’t you? You are managing Caroline so that she cannot interfere.
It must be so exhausting for you, Mr. Darcy, managing other people’s happiness. ”
Her words cut closer than she knew. I was managing threats, introductions, compliments, and the three careful minutes that kept Caroline from destroying everything with a single letter. I could not tell Elizabeth any of it, because the reason was my guilt.
“It is not exhausting,” I said. “It is what friends do.”
“Is that what you call it? Friendship?” Her voice was light, almost teasing, but her eyes—those fine, dark, devastating eyes—studied me with an attention that made my walls feel made of glass. “You have a very exacting definition of friendship, Mr. Darcy. And you are most noble, I find.”
And it was this exact sentiment that made me squirm. If only she knew…
“I do not find friendship a duty to be noble about.” I attempted to lower her opinion. “I protect those I care about for my own reasons.”
“Yes, you do. And I wonder sometimes whether you are as generous with yourself as you are with others.”
I opted not to answer. The truth would have been a confession of failures I had yet to set right, and anything less would have insulted the only woman who deserved nothing less than the truth.