Page 77 of Companions of Their Youth
The room stilled. Even Bingley glanced over with some surprise.
Darcy went on, ignoring Miss Bingley’s slight intake of breath. “Pemberley is only five miles from Lambton, and it is much the same in atmosphere. Whoever should one day be mistress there must be prepared to spend long months away from London—and to show true care to those in the surrounding country. The tenants, the farmers, the villagers. A woman unsuited to country life would find herself quite miserable.”
Miss Bingley’s mouth opened slightly before she seemed to recall herself. She rose at once, her spine ramrod-straight. “Well. I have matters to attend to,” she said coldly. “I shall go write letters.”
Without waiting for a reply, she swept from the room, her footsteps sharp upon the floorboards. Mrs. Hurst, casting a wary glance between the two men, followed.
Once the door shut behind them, Bingley let out a low whistle. “You have a gift, Darcy.”
Darcy raised a brow. “A gift?”
“For taking the wind from her sails without ever raising your voice.”
“I spoke only the truth.” He stood and crossed to the window. A narrow plume of smoke rose in the distance—Longbourn’s chimney, perhaps. “The truth is not always welcome.”
Bingley chuckled. “Well, welcome or not, it was long overdue.”
Darcy said nothing, but his gaze lingered on the road. The morning was passing more slowly than usual, all because he was at Netherfield and not Longbourn.
When had one small, insignificant family in the country become so necessary to his happiness?
He had little time to dwell on the matter, however; Mr. Hurst entered the room, stretching with a loud yawn. “Are we to have any sport today?” he asked, thumbing the velvet lapel of his fashionable waistcoat. “It is clear, the air is dry—if we are not to shoot now, then when?”
Darcy turned gratefully from the window. “You are quite right. A few hours of fresh air will do us both good.”
Bingley nodded. “I will have the grooms fetch the gear. Let us make a morning of it.”
Within the hour, they were in the fields beyond the estate, the crisp air stinging pleasantly against their cheeks. The silence was companionable, broken only by the sharp crack of the musket and the occasional murmured comment between them. Darcy welcomed the simplicity of it—the steadiness, the clarity of focus. No letters. No mysteries. No simpering smiles or false civility.
And no rose-scented laughter lingering in his thoughts.
By the time they began the walk back, their coats bore the smell of powder and bramble. The morning's sport had been more successful than Darcy expected—not for the number of birds they bagged, but for the sheer relief of doingsomethingother than sitting around Bingley’s house watching the seconds tick by on the clock.
But as they rounded the final slope and the house came into view, all of the relief he had felt shattered. There, in the front drive, was a carriage.
Darcy stopped walking. His breath caught.
It was one of his carriages.
He dropped his musket, leaving it for the gamekeeper behind them, and strode forward with sudden urgency, heart hammering. Why was his carriage here? Who had sent it? Had something happened at Pemberley? Was Georgiana—
But surely Richard would have sent an express, not a coach. What is going on?
By the time he reached the gravel drive, the footman had barely laid a hand on the carriage door before Darcy brushed him aside and yanked it open himself.
“Georgiana?” he gasped.
Sure enough, she was seated within, arms crossed, wearing a sullen scowl that would not have been out of place on a spoiled child denied sweets. At her side was Colonel Fitzwilliam, looking rumpled and grim.
Notably absent was Mrs. Younge.
Darcy blinked, thrown.
“What—what are you doing here?”
Then, recollecting himself and realizing the proximity of the servants, he took a step back, straightened, and added stiffly, “I mean… it is good to see you both. I had no notion you were coming.”
Georgiana made a noise somewhere between a sigh and a huff, looking deliberately out the opposite window. The colonel, however, gave Darcy a meaningful look and said, “We will explain everything inside.”
