In a pique of equal parts irritation and curiosity, Darcy followed after Brougham a quarter hour later when he had acknowledged those who had taken his part in the contest and retrieved his clothing. Dy had left the hall immediately, it appeared, without stopping to freshen or resume his usual impeccably garbed state. Where would he have taken himself? Hurriedly buttoning his coat after tying his neckcloth into something presentable, Darcy left the fencing hall and hailed a cab.
“Boodle’s,” he called up to the driver as he leapt into the vehicle. If the story of a prior engagement had been merely the tale he suspected it to be, it was likely that Brougham would have withdrawn to their club, expecting that Darcy would follow. If not, well, he had no intention of chasing after his friend all over London. He would take his leisure among the gentlemen of his club and wait for a more opportune time to corner Dy. More to the point, he admitted to himself, he was still in nowise ready to return home.
The ride to the address was not a long one, hardly providing him time enough to consider the meaning behind his friend’s provocative words. It was clear that Brougham did not approve of the manner in which he was keeping himself from Georgiana, causing her distress over his behavior and concern for his health and the well-being, he supposed, of his soul. But what the Devil business was it of his! Dy’s actions were suspiciously like those of a lover! Darcy shifted uneasily, dismayed that the thought should arise once more. Had Dy not taken his hand and sworn that he was no danger to his friend’s sister? And then there was the matter of the differences in their ages and temperaments…“No, it could not be!” he assured himself aloud. There had to be another reason. It must be that Dy had come to regard Georgiana as the sister he never had while he had the charge of her. His friend was warning Darcy that his behavior toward her was not what Brougham, in his severely limited experience, considered “brotherly.” Darcy leaned back into the cushions. Yes, that must be it!
Free now to turn his attention from the messenger to the message, he could only concede that Brougham was right; and he had known that immediately. He should have more care for Georgiana’s tender feelings — had he not always done so? — but at present, he found himself reluctant to act on the admission. That unwillingness, as so many other thoughts and emotions he had experienced this week, struck him as curiously unlike himself. Smothering the thought quickly, Darcy looked out on the exclusive shops and clubs of fashionable London. Things would come about…in time, and when he had gotten himself to rights again and Miss Elizabeth Bennet was a distant memory, they could all return to the way it had been, to the life he had planned before he had lost his senses in the parlor at Hunsford’s parsonage.
Once inside Boodle’s hallowed halls, he crossed the black-and-white marble-tiled entrance and hurried up one of the broad staircases to the clubrooms beyond. A quick survey revealed that Brougham was not among their denizens, although others of Darcy’s acquaintance were there, and he was hailed with enthusiasm by more than one gentleman as he made his way through the rooms.
“Darcy.” Sir Hugh Goforth nodded to him as he passed through one of the billiard rooms. “That friend of yours was looking for you.”
“Sir Hugh.” Darcy stopped and bowed. “Brougham, was it?”
“No, no — have not seen Brougham for an age. Bingley, I think the name was. Said he was taking his sister over to see your sister, or something like. Was hoping you would be about, I gather.”
Darcy almost flushed with the ire that seized him as he thanked Sir Hugh for the information. Bingley — whose headlong flight into love had started the whole miserable affair and whose chestnuts he had drawn out of the fire only to be thoroughly burnt himself! Darcy let out a heavy breath. Well and so, it appeared that Bingley and his sister had returned from their annual trip to Yorkshire and were once again in Town. If he had bothered to look at the stack of calling cards Hinchcliffe always laid so precisely upon his desk, he might already have been in possession of the knowledge and sent round a note forestalling any thoughts Charles might have entertained of an imminent visit. As it was…
“I say, Darcy!” Sir Hugh called from the other side of the billiard table. “Devereaux’s horse is running, and he must as well. Care for a game?”
He ought to go home. He ought to go home, ask Georgiana’s forgiveness, and welcome Bingley and his sister back to Town. He ought to be there this very moment discharging the mountain of papers awaiting his attention on his desk, as had always been his custom.
Darcy turned back and reached for a cue. “As many as you like, Goforth. I have all afternoon.”
The Bingleys’ visit could not be staved off forever, and though Darcy had arranged to avoid it the previous day, Charles’s card appeared once again the next morning. Resigned to it, Darcy met his sister in the drawing room to await their entrance. He had spoken to Georgiana only briefly the night before, his curiosity about what she knew of Brougham’s behavior driving him to seek her out after having shunned their home most of the day. She replied innocently enough that, yes, Lord Brougham had come by to see him, but that they had spoken very little after His Lordship knew he had gone out.
“And what ‘very little’ did you discuss, Georgiana?” he had asked her in an offhanded manner as he examined a piece of her embroidery lying on the small tambour table. Her work was, as everything she did, exquisite and precise. The silks were fair on their way to portraying a scene from Eden, their mother’s conservatory garden at Pemberley. A collection of differing colors strewn alongside it caught his eye, and without thinking he reached for them.
“He asked how you had been keeping yourself since returning from Kent, as he had not seen you about since bringing Trafalgar to us. Then, he kindly inquired about the Unveiling.”
“Nothing more?” He fingered the strands, their cool silkiness sliding so familiarly between his fingers.
“We spoke a little of a book he had sent and encouraged me to read. I recall nothing more; although, for a moment…” She hesitated and then looked at him curiously. He followed her bemused gaze to his hand and flushed to see he had unconsciously entwined the silk threads about his fingers. As indifferently but rapidly as he could, he unwound them and laid them back on the table. “Oh, you may have them to add to your others, if you wish,” she assured him with a small, quick smile.
“For a moment…?” he prompted her and turned his back on the wretched temptation.
“For a moment” — Georgiana’s young brow wrinkled in perplexity — “he appeared unwell…but not ill, precisely. I cannot say; it happened so quickly. You know him so well.” She looked up at him. “What could it have meant?”
“Humph,” he snorted. “It meant that he had determined to embark upon an errand he knew to be officious and impertinent.” He looked away then in some exasperation, confounded with the inexplicable workings of Dyfed Brougham’s mind. Did Darcy really “know him so well”? He leaned down and bussed his sister’s forehead. “Good night, my dear.”
“And to you as well, Brother.” Her smile for him was shaded with uncertainty.
He left her to spend a restless night knocking about his chambers, at once unable to sleep and distrustful of the dreams sleep might bring. The morning had been a loss, for try though he might to deal with the backlog Hinchcliffe had laid before him, he could wade through little of it before drifting into a reverie or dozing off to sleep. Giving up, he had stretched out on the divan in his study and recouped an uncomfortable but dreamless hour before Witcher’s diffident knock had awakened him to the arrival of Bingley’s card.