12. Chapter Twelve #2
Miss Bingley stared at the damage in disbelief.
Then she peered about very slowly.
The boy had vanished already.
Unfortunately, Lydia remained nearby looking far too delighted.
“You little savage,” Miss Bingley hissed under her breath.
Lydia blinked innocently. “It was only water.”
“Mud.”
“Country water.”
Georgiana made a choking sound beside her that might have been suppressed laughter or impending death.
Mrs. Gardiner intervened before catastrophe fully erupted. “Perhaps you ought to clean the stain before it dries.”
Miss Bingley acted like she was moments away from murder.
Mrs. Hurst gathered herself with martyr-like resignation. “Come, Caroline.”
“I cannot walk through Lambton looking like this.”
“No one suggested you should.”
Darcy spoke then, calm enough to make Lydia suspect he was exerting severe effort. “The innkeeper’s wife will assist you.”
Miss Bingley fixed her attention upon him sharply, perhaps hoping for outrage on her behalf.
Instead, she found restraint.
That appeared to worsen matters considerably.
At last, she swept toward the inn with Mrs. Hurst following behind.
Halfway to the door she paused and cast Lydia a look of such concentrated fury that Lydia nearly laughed aloud.
The instant the inn door shut behind them, Georgiana seized Lydia’s arm.
“You are dreadful.”
“You are welcome.”
“That was wicked.”
“Yes.” Lydia grinned. “Did you admire it?”
Georgiana tried very hard not to smile.
Failed.
Utterly.
“Oh dear,” she murmured. “We are becoming terrible people.”
“Just strategically.”
Mr. Bingley wandered toward Darcy shaking his head helplessly. “I do not know whether to scold or applaud.”
“Do neither,” Darcy advised.
Elizabeth stood slightly apart near the carriages, one hand pressed against her lips. The expression in her eyes promised she understood exactly who had orchestrated the disaster.
Lydia gave her a tiny triumphant nod.
Elizabeth diverted her gaze before laughter escaped publicly.
Success. Complete success.
“Well,” Lydia declared, hooking her arm through Georgiana’s, “Mr. Darcy and Lizzy are temporarily free of interruption. We have performed a public service. Now you must show me every shop in Lambton before Miss Bingley returns from battle.”
Georgiana laughed outright this time.
Together they disappeared into the village crowd before anyone could assign them further responsibilities.
As they went, Lydia mused at just how much fun Derbyshire had proven to be. She found she did not resent her sister so much anymore.
Elizabeth had not expected to find a bookshop in Lambton capable of alarming her self-command.
A milliner, certainly. Lydia had already darted toward that establishment with Georgiana upon her arm, chattering about ribbons, feathers, and whether a bonnet might be both fashionable and dangerous.
A pastry shop, perhaps, for Mr. Bingley had mentioned one with great feeling.
A respectable inn, a few tradesmen, a circulating library of modest ambition, and several windows displaying goods arranged to tempt passing travelers—these belonged naturally to the village.
But Mr. Darcy led her past the more obvious shops, beyond the main bustle, and down a narrower lane where the buildings leaned companionably toward one another and the stones underfoot still held rain in their uneven places.
“You are taking me somewhere secret, Mr. Darcy,” Elizabeth said, gathering her skirts away from a patch of damp straw near the curb.
He peered down at her with amusement barely kept in check. “I had thought to show you something in Lambton I particularly value.”
“How ominous. Is it a better view of drainage?”
“No. Though I hesitate to disappoint you.”
“You wound me. I had prepared myself for culverts.”
His laughter, genuine and subdued, arose promptly, prompting Elizabeth to avert her gaze lest her evident delight become apparent.
That was becoming a difficulty.
Mr. Darcy laughing no longer astonished her.
That alone ought to have alarmed her more than it did.
At Netherfield she had thought him almost incapable of easy amusement.
At Rosings, she had thought him capable just of disdain and discomfort.
In Derbyshire he was forever revealing another portion of himself: dry humor, patience with Lydia’s nonsense, kindness to tenants, affection for Georgiana, and a startling willingness to let Elizabeth tease him without seeking the upper hand in every exchange.
She did not know what to do with all these discoveries. Or perhaps she did, and merely disliked the answer enough to avoid examining it too closely.
Mr. Darcy stopped before a narrow shop with green-painted trim and windows crowded by books in varying states of dignity. Some stood upright in proud ranks; others slumped beneath pamphlets, maps, and a few prints of local ruins. The sign above the door read Mr. Alden, Bookseller & Binder.
Elizabeth gestured to him. “A bookshop.”
“One with particular talents.”
“Mr. Darcy, you should have mentioned this sooner. You allowed me to discuss bonnets for nearly a quarter hour when this was waiting nearby.”
“I beg your pardon. I had not realized the injury was so grave.”
“It may never be forgiven.”
He opened the door for her. “Then I must attempt restitution.”
A small bell rang overhead as they entered.
The shop smelled of paper, leather, dust, ink, and faintly of cloves from some hidden source.
Shelves climbed the walls wherever windows did not interfere.
A table near the center held stacks of volumes in no order Elizabeth could perceive, though she suspected the proprietor understood the chaos perfectly.
Near the back, a little iron stove stood cold, and beside it an elderly man in spectacles raised his head from repairing a binding.
“Mr. Darcy,” he said, setting down a tool with care. “A pleasure, sir.”
“Mr. Alden. I hope we do not intrude.”
“Never, sir. Not upon a buyer, and rarely upon a reader.” He regarded Elizabeth with a knowing expression, sharp despite his age. “And this lady is both, I should think.”
Elizabeth liked him instantly.
“You are very charitable,” she replied.
Mr. Alden shook his head. “No charity in it. A browsing reader looks at the shelves first, not the counter.”
Darcy removed his gloves. “Miss Bennet has an interest in difficult volumes.”
“All volumes are difficult when one wishes for them urgently.” Mr. Alden rose with a slight creak in one knee. “Any particular quarry today?”
Elizabeth hesitated. It was foolish to ask. Mr. Bennet had searched for the book twice through London booksellers with no success, and she herself had written once to a shop in Gracechurch Street after hearing him mention it at dinner with an air of resigned longing.
Still, where was the harm?
“My father has long wished to find a copy of Harrington’s edition of Lucian,” she said. “The 1772 printing, if possible. He claims the notes in later editions are inferior, though I cannot pretend to judge.”
Mr. Alden’s brows lifted. “Does he indeed?”
Elizabeth’s gaze flickered between them. “You know it?”
“I know the gentleman in Bakewell who owned it last year and the widow who sold half his library three months ago.” Mr. Alden moved toward the rear shelves with unexpected briskness. “If memory serves, it came to me in a parcel with several sermons no one will purchase unless guilt overtakes them.”
Elizabeth followed, too eager now to pretend indifference.
Mr. Alden climbed a short set of steps before Darcy could stop him, drew out two wrong books, muttered at both, then retrieved a slim brown volume from behind a larger folio.
“There.” He descended and brushed dust from the cover with an old cloth. “1772. Binding serviceable. One corner repaired. Notes intact.”
Elizabeth accepted it with both hands.
Her father’s face rose in her mind so clearly that for a moment she forgot Mr. Darcy stood beside her.
Mr. Bennet would pretend not to be moved.
He would make some dry remark about daughters who spent their travels more sensibly than expected.
Then he would take the book to his library and not emerge for hours.
“Oh,” she said, quite inadequately. “Yes. This is the very one.”
Mr. Darcy watched her, his expression altered in a way that made her conscious of how fiercely she held the volume.
“I shall buy it,” she said.
“Of course,” Mr. Alden replied, satisfied. “And for yourself?”
“For myself?” Elizabeth asked, still half-distracted by her good fortune. “I had not thought so far.”
“Dangerous words in a bookshop,” Darcy said.
Mr. Alden nodded solemnly. “Very dangerous.”
Elizabeth wandered deeper among the shelves while Mr. Darcy spoke quietly with the proprietor about binding repairs.
She found histories, essays, volumes of verse, a few novels tucked in among moral works with no apology for their presence.
On an upper shelf, just beyond comfortable reach, she saw a title she had wanted for months: a travel account of the Lake District she had once borrowed in part but never finished.
She stretched, failed, and felt absurd.
“Allow me.”
Mr. Darcy was beside her before she could protest.
He reached above her and drew the volume down easily.
He did not crowd her. He need not have come close enough to affect her senses, and yet the narrow aisle did not permit much distance.
The sleeve of his coat brushed the edge of her shawl.
The scent of rain-damp wool and clean linen stirred faintly as he lowered the book.
“Is this the one?”
“Yes.” Elizabeth took it.
Or meant to.
His hand remained on the cover a moment too long. Or hers did. Perhaps both.
Elizabeth raised her head.
His eyes had darkened. Not dramatically. He simply held her attention with a focus that made the cramped shop, the dusty shelves, Mr. Alden’s quiet movements near the counter, and all of Lambton beyond the window recede for one dangerous second.
Elizabeth became aware that she was still holding the book between them and had forgotten to breathe sensibly.