Darcy rode past the last shop before he loosened his grip on the reins.

His horse had borne the encounter better than he had. Beyond the houses the animal stretched into its stride, grateful for a length of road upon which its rider could cease giving contradictory instructions. Darcy ought to have apologized to it. There were several apologies he owed that morning, and this would have been the easiest to deliver.

Wickham had asked after Georgiana with the ease of a man entitled to an answer.

Wickham supposed her at Pemberley. Darcy had let the mistake stand. A servant might mention her, a tradesman see her carriage, Denny repeat a piece of harmless neighborhood news. There was no reason to make the discovery easier for him.

Beside him Bingley settled his reins with unnecessary care.

“Handsome fellow,” he said at last. “The town will be undone.”

“Quite.”

“You told me he had pleasing manners. I had not understood that the pleasure ceased when you met.”

“Our families have been acquainted a long time.”

“I begin to suspect the acquaintance has been too long for comfort.”

Darcy looked back. The turn had hidden the street, Wickham, and the young woman who had contrived to make his escape from them more difficult. Miss Elizabeth had invited Bingley to her aunt’s with her eyes upon Darcy. She knew he wished to leave. The knowledge had improved her morning.

He had deserved that much.

“Your Miss Elizabeth was quite at her ease with him,” Bingley said.

“She is not my Miss Elizabeth.”

“No, no, of course. I only meant the lady you offended so thoroughly.”

“Thank you.”

Bingley laughed, then looked at him more closely. “I had hoped you might laugh too.”

Darcy adjusted his seat. The movement brought the horse back to a steadier pace. “She has ample reason to think poorly of me.”

“Perhaps give her a reason to change her mind.”

“You make it sound simple.”

“An apology generally is, until one begins preparing it.”

Bingley could recommend simplicity; nobody had required him to choose a wife before a solicitor’s date. Darcy opened his mouth to say that he had been distracted, then shut it. Miss Elizabeth knew nothing of the date either. He could not require her to forgive an injury on evidence he meant to withhold.

The horse pulled against the rein. He let it have another inch.

“I shall speak to her when an opportunity offers,” he said.

“Sir William has asked us to Lucas Lodge later in the week. There is an opportunity with music attached.”

“Must everything be improved by music?”

“It covers the pauses. You ought to value it.”

They gave their horses to the groom and came in by the side door, carrying enough of the road with them to provoke Caroline before either gentleman had spoken.

“Charles, you might at least have spared us the mud.”

Caroline stood at the morning-room door. Bingley glanced at his boots, then obligingly stepped back upon the mat. Darcy would have gone upstairs, but she had already turned to include him in her welcome.

From the room above came Georgiana’s music. She reached the turn without faltering and began the next phrase. Darcy pulled off his gloves; until he heard her, he had been ready to go straight upstairs.

“There,” Caroline said, drawing a chair toward the fire. “You look easier already. You must allow us to take care of you sometimes. There is coffee, if it has survived my sister’s neglect. Louisa, ring for a fresh pot.”

“It has only just come,” Mrs. Hurst said from the sofa.

“Then we are fortunate in the timing of our guests.”

Bingley entered with the pleased air of a man discovering that a return home entitled him to another meal. He went to the tray.

“We were in Meryton. Darcy encountered an old acquaintance, and I acquired a new one. Wickham, whom Lucas spoke of.”

Caroline’s hand stopped above the cups.

“George Wickham?”

“You know him too?”

“I know enough of him. What can have brought him here?”

“A commission, I imagine. He has joined the militia.”

“How very enterprising.”

She placed a cup before Darcy. “I am sorry you were obliged to meet him. I had understood he had treated you shamefully.”

“You had understood correctly.”

Caroline drew her chair nearer, leaving her own coffee untouched.

“Then I hope Charles will remember it when he begins offering the man our hospitality.”

“I had scarcely been introduced to him. You might permit an acquaintance to exist before you forbid it.”

“If you had waited for the introduction to ascertain his character, I should be less concerned.”

“You seem to have ascertained it very comfortably without one.”

“Charles.”

Louisa looked up from her work. “There is no occasion for a dispute. Mr. Darcy has known the man for years. Surely you may rely upon his judgment.”

Bingley turned to him. “I should be happy to, if he would give it.”

Darcy held the cup. Caroline had set aside even the pretense of attending to her work. She would carry any account he gave her into Meryton before he could consider how to contain it.

“I would advise you against lending him money,” he said.

Bingley set down his cup. “That is useful. Thank you.”

“Useful!” Caroline repeated. “It ought to be conclusive.”

“About lending him money, certainly.”

She appealed to Darcy with a look that invited him to share her trial. “My brother must discover everything at his own expense.”

“I generally discover enough at everybody else’s expense before I am allowed to try,” Bingley said. “In any case, the Bennets have taken him under their protection. We found him with them.”

“Naturally.” Caroline stirred her coffee.

“Miss Elizabeth was speaking to him when we arrived.”

“Then each has found a companion suited to the occasion. A red coat will furnish her conversation, and an audience will furnish his.”

“Miss Elizabeth can furnish her own conversation,” Darcy said.

Caroline looked up.

He had said it before he had considered how it would be received. Bingley’s mouth curved above his cup.

“Very agreeably too,” his friend observed.

“I meant only that country neighborhoods must receive those whom they can,” Caroline said. “One cannot expect Miss Eliza to inquire very closely into the son of a steward.”

Darcy set his cup upon its saucer.

The son of a steward. It had been a sufficient description for most of his life, spoken with varying degrees of kindness by people who supposed they knew the order of his father’s house. He had never questioned the comfort he took in that order. Now the same distinction lay upon Caroline’s tongue, and he could feel its injustice even while the man it concerned deserved so little of his defense.

“His father’s occupation is hardly the objection.”

“Of course. His behavior is. I am sure Miss Eliza will discover the difference in time.”

“I hope she will be given better evidence than his parentage,” Bingley said, rising. “I must speak to the steward. Darcy, if you are in a mood for another ride later, find somebody less exhausting.”

He took an apple from the dish and went out before his sister could reply.

Caroline followed him with her eyes, then turned back to Darcy. “You must forgive him. He wishes everybody to be good and finds us all unkind when we oblige him to doubt it.”

“It is a fault that has served his friends well.”

“Some of us would serve him better by discouraging it. Another cup?”

She poured before he answered, remembering how he took it. She had remembered for years. Her gown was suitable to the morning, her household well supplied, her attention capable of anticipating a guest’s want before he was obliged to admit to it. She would know which room to open for a visitor, whom to invite, what ought to be spent upon a dinner. She would learn Pemberley’s people and arrangements because she wished so much to belong to them.

He looked at her hand upon the silver pot and, with a deliberateness that made him ashamed, imagined it at his own table.

Caroline Bingley would marry him.

A little over seven weeks remained. He had spent the first days of them offending a woman he had scarcely met and waiting for a lawyer who might offer nothing. Here was an attachment he could encourage today. Caroline’s fortune was ample; Bingley would welcome the alliance. She knew his family, wanted the position, and would not require months to discover whether his manners could be borne. With Selwyn’s assistance, the arrangements could be made before his birthday.

Pemberley would remain his. Georgiana would retain her home. Wickham’s claim would fall away under the very terms that had raised it.

He could end the matter by asking the woman beside him a question.

“Was there something you wished to ask me?” Caroline said.

He returned his attention to her face and found an eagerness there that was more difficult to bear than calculation. She had hopes of her own. He had encouraged them sufficiently merely by sitting still and considering her as the answer to a legal problem.

“I have been thinking of Pemberley.”

“You must miss it.”

“I do.”

“A house like that deserves a settled household. You have had too much upon you since your father’s death.”

He set his cup down. He could ask whether she wished to see the north again; follow it with a less general question; make his intention understood before Bingley returned. He had known her long enough that nobody need find the haste extraordinary.

“You are very good to my sister,” he began.

Caroline’s fingers stilled upon the pot. “I am very fond of her. She needs a little encouragement among people who understand her situation. It would be a pity to leave her at the mercy of a Miss Eliza Bennet, for instance. Cleverness of that sort makes timid girls its audience.”

“Miss Elizabeth has not met her.”

“My dear Mr. Darcy, I hope she need not. One may preserve a young lady from an acquaintance as well as from a cold.”

He remembered Georgiana waiting to learn whether she might remain at Netherfield. Caroline would know how to settle that question. He had almost invited her to settle a lifetime of them.

“I should prefer to judge when they have met,” he said.

Caroline resumed pouring, though his cup was still half full. A drop ran down the silver spout onto the cloth.

“You should go north more often,” she said. “Charles has us here, and you have Georgiana to consider. I am certain she would be happy in our care for a visit.”

He rose.

“My sister will remain with me. Thank you for the coffee.”

Caroline put down the pot. “I hope I have not offended you.”

“You have been very attentive.”

He could offer her no fairer answer. In the passage he stopped, aware that he had left the possibility where it stood. He had declined to make use of it today. If the weeks went by and Selwyn found no remedy, he knew where it would be waiting.

He disliked himself for finding that knowledge a comfort.

Upstairs, Darcy opened his traveling desk and wrote to Selwyn. Wickham had arrived in Meryton; the solicitor must discover what remedy he could, and quickly.

His cousin’s letter lay beside him. Colonel Fitzwilliam offered to come down and asked how Georgiana did. Her other guardian was entitled to the truth. He would also be ready to confront Wickham in public, a service Darcy had found useful before. This time he wanted the lawyer’s answer first. He wrote that Georgiana was beginning to enjoy the country and there was no occasion to interrupt his cousin’s duties in town.

He blotted the letters. Beneath them lay his father’s confession, the fold crossing Susan Younge’s name.

As a boy he had read quite different pages: hard winters, improbable catches of fish, a fall upon the frozen stillroom stairs. His father had made him read that mishap aloud. Darcy had stumbled over a word and been corrected, kindly; his father had waited for him to reach the joke, then laughed as though he had never heard it before.

He had loved him. His father’s confession demanded that he reconsider a thousand things, and left that one untouched.

The three sealed private volumes had never been offered to him. He put the confession away, locked the desk, and rang for a servant to take his letters. Mrs. Annesley met the man at the door.

She had Georgiana’s shawl over her arm.

“Miss Darcy wonders whether you will be at leisure this evening, sir. She has been choosing something to play for you.”

His sister had sent another person to discover whether she might have his company.

“I shall come to her now. Is she well?”

“We have been out upon the terrace. The wind drove us in, but we had a tolerable walk.”

“There is something you should know. An acquaintance of the family has joined the militia in Meryton. I wish to regulate my sister’s meetings with that company very carefully.”

“Has Miss Darcy been told?”

“She is not to attend any public evening where officers are expected. Bring such invitations to me. For her ordinary callers and appointments, you may make the arrangements yourself.”

“I shall require the housekeeper to understand what you permit. The servants bring messages to whichever of us they find first.”

He sent for the housekeeper. When she arrived, Mrs. Annesley asked whether altered messages should be entered in the servants’ dispatch book.

“They should,” Darcy said. “Messages concerning my sister may go in my name when Mrs. Annesley directs them. Any difficulty is to be referred to me.”

“And if Miss Darcy wishes to walk beyond the grounds?” her companion asked.

“You will accompany her. A footman must attend you on a public road.”

The housekeeper repeated the instructions. Darcy confirmed them and left the women to settle the morning’s arrangements while he went to Georgiana.

She rose from the music stool when he entered. He caught the movement, so courteous and so entirely wrong between them, and put his hand upon the back of the chair nearest her.

“May I sit here? Or have you reserved it for a more discerning audience?”

“It is your place.”

“I am fortunate.”

He sat. Georgiana settled again, watching him with a care he wished he could relieve merely by remaining where he was.

“Mrs. Reynolds has not written?”

“Her answer is to come through Mr. Selwyn. It will take a little longer.”

“Is there something wrong at Pemberley?”

He considered what he could give her that was true.

“There are papers of my father’s I must examine. I have asked for them to be kept safe until I can do so.”

“We are still to remain here?”

“For the present.”

“Because I asked?”

“Because you asked, and I considered it best. You are allowed to be pleased without taking responsibility for the decision.”

She set her fingers upon the keys. “I am pleased.”

Mrs. Annesley came in with a loose fastening from Georgiana’s walking cloak and sat at the worktable to mend it. Georgiana took up her music.

“May we walk to the bridge tomorrow? The trees are turning there.”

“Beyond the gate? You must let Mrs. Annesley arrange it. A footman will go with you.”

“He will think it a great deal of trouble for a bridge.”

“It is his employment to accompany you.”

Her fingers pressed the folded corner of the sheet flat.

“I shall inquire about a man in the morning,” Mrs. Annesley said. “We can be certain of the terrace after practice. Shall we settle upon that if the household is occupied?”

“The terrace will do,” Georgiana said.

She began to play. Darcy stayed in the chair she had kept for him, still trying to find a better answer.

When she finished, she asked whether he meant to accompany Mr. Bingley to Lucas Lodge.

“He says there is to be dancing. You might come home with something amusing to tell me.”

Miss Elizabeth would be there. He could almost hear Georgiana laughing at something she said, safe in a little circle of people who did not wait in silence for her to perform. He might take her with him.

Wickham would find a way of being there too.

Darcy moved his chair so Georgiana could open the music fully. There must be another occasion to bring them together. First he must persuade Miss Elizabeth to hear him without immediately wishing to be elsewhere.

“I shall go,” he said.

Georgiana opened the music to the beginning. “You must remember what people say. You never do when I ask.”

He promised to try. He had spent the morning considering how to deliver an apology. Already he found himself thinking more of what Miss Elizabeth might say in return.