“Brandy, my lord.” The man bowed and offered the tray.
“Excellent! Dry work this!” Manning snatched a glass. “Darcy?”
“No, I thank you.” He watched as the Baron attempted to soothe the discomfort of the distasteful position in which he found himself.
“Would you — despite our long-standing antagonism — would you allow an introduction, encourage a friendship between Miss Darcy and Bella?” The proud look, so briefly abandoned, returned, daring Darcy against pity or triumph in whatever his answer might be.
Everything inside Darcy went very still as he made shift to recover from the surprise of Manning’s request. How could he answer him? It involved so much: years of what Manning had rightly called an “antagonism,” of which he had taken the brunt, the foisting upon Georgiana of a “friend” not of her own choosing, and the increased contact with Manning that this meant for both of them. This was not to mention that Manning’s Sayre connections were in serious social and financial disgrace, one of whose members was up to her lovely neck in sedition! Narrowing his eyes on the man across the table, Darcy looked for anything that indicated some feeling in his bosom for his sister’s difficulties beyond irritation and the desire to be relieved of responsibility for her. The fact that Manning had come to him for assistance was unaccountably wonderful and spoke in favor of more than a concern for his sister’s effect on his purse, but the hard eyes and arrogant demeanor Manning displayed as he waited for his answer mitigated against the possession of softer affections. If Darcy agreed, it appeared that it would make no real difference in Manning’s disdain of him, a disdain he had never understood or discovered how he had earned. If there were any justice in the world, he should take this opportunity to —
Though justice be thy plea… — as his jaw hardened to deliver his refusal, Georgiana’s soft vow to be his Portia, his advocate, recalled itself — we do pray for mercy. What more would be his bid for justice in this than revenge for his own offended pride? In his struggles, had it not been Georgiana’s mercy and Dy’s rougher sort that had pulled him through?
“Well?” Manning barked at him, his lips preparing to curl into a sneer when the refusal came.
“Would Thursday morning be convenient for Miss Avery?” Darcy inquired. “Perhaps eleven o’clock?” The astonishment on Manning’s face was, he found, worth every ounce of his surrender to mercy’s better angels.
“You agree? I’ll be damned!” Manning sank back against his chair, astonished. “Dashed decent of you, Darcy!” he managed after several speechless moments. “I did not expect…Well, that is neither here nor there. Yes, eleven on Thursday; Bella will be ecstatic.” He rose and awkwardly extended his hand. “Th-thank you.”
“You are welcome.” Darcy gripped His Lordship’s hand. He had done the right thing; he was sure of it now. But that conviction did not include spending any more time with Manning than was strictly necessary. “Now, I am for home. Can I drop you anywhere, Manning?”
“No, no,” His Lordship quickly responded, evidently no more at ease with this new way of relating to him than Darcy was with him. “I shall look in at White’s a bit, and then my dancer will be waiting…” He let the sentence dangle and shrugged. “Until Thursday.”
“Thursday.” Darcy nodded, then took his leave of Manning and his club. Sauntering down to the sidewalk, he smiled to see Harry jump from the carriage and move swiftly to open the door and bring down the steps.
“Evenin’ Mr. Darcy, sir.” The groomsman pulled on his forelock.
“Good evening, Harry,” Darcy returned as he mounted the small steps. “Tell James to take us home. I have had enough for one evening.”
“’ope it were a good un, sir.”
“Oh, it was an extraordinary one, Harry! Proof of your assertion, I would say.”
“Which one ’ud that be, sir?”
“That ‘the Quality be a strange lot.’ ” He quoted Harry’s sage observation back to him.
“Humph!” Harry snorted. “Proof o’ that ain’t in want!” He made to shut the door and then stopped short and ducked his head, apparently scandalized by his own free speech. “Beggin’ yer pardon, Mr. Darcy!”
“Close the door, Harry.”
“Yes, sir.”
The door clicked shut, but Darcy waited only until Harry was back up on top of the carriage before he gave in to the humorous truth of his groomsman’s philosophy. “Strange” surely described Manning’s seeking him out tonight and the odd turn their association had taken.
“I cannot tell you what a relief it is to be back in London.” Miss Bingley accepted a cup of tea from Georgiana’s hand and settled back comfortably in her chair. “The shops and theaters of Scarborough are nothing, never mind what my aunt may claim for them! You may imagine, Georgiana, how I longed to return to civilization.”
Darcy watched as his sister responded with a politely sympathetic smile before pouring out the next cup for Bingley. “It was not so bad as that.” Bingley looked up at him. “Though I will admit to feeling more at ease here in London than among our relatives and our parents’ older acquaintances in Scarborough. I fear we have quite lost touch with them. Another life altogether, it seems.” He ended on a pensive note but then rallied. “It has been weeks since we were last here! How was your visit in Kent, Darcy? Warmer than ours in the North, I should imagine.”
“Yes…warmer.” Darcy’s voice caught only briefly. Georgiana looked up into his eyes, extending him a supporting smile. He nodded his receipt of it. “But it did not last. Both Fitzwilliam and I were more than glad to return to Town.”
“And your portrait, Georgiana.” Miss Bingley’s voice bridged the lull that threatened to settle upon them. “I am so distressed that we returned too late to see it. Was the Unveiling well attended?” She paused, then shook herself with a throaty laugh. “But of course it was. I should rather ask who attended. Come, you may crow your triumph to us!”
Such an invitation! Darcy looked hard at Bingley’s sister, wondering again how she could have so little understanding of Georgiana. Mistaking his observation of her, she cast him a sideways smile that spoke of a conspiracy of indulgence in which he declined to claim his share. “You are mistaken, Miss Bingley; I acceded to my sister’s wishes and issued no invitations. The portrait was displayed to family only and is on its way to Pemberley as we speak.”
“Really?” Miss Bingley looked between brother and sister in puzzled disbelief.
“It was my wish, Miss Bingley, which my brother was kind enough to grant.” Georgiana held out his cup to him with a tender smile. “He is very good to me, is he not?”
Her lips pursed in an uncertain smile, Miss Bingley assented to her proposition.
“What are your plans now that you have returned?” Darcy directed the conversation away from himself. “Society will soon explode into activity, and you will be much in demand.”
“I have not altogether decided.” Bingley set down his cup. “My desk is already awash with invitations and notices.”
Darcy nodded his understanding. “You must take care that you hold the reins, Bingley, and are not driven by Society’s whip. Else, my friend, you will end in the ditch.”
Bingley grimaced. “I shall keep your advice in mind. It is just making a beginning —”
“Upon which subject I have spoken to Hinchcliffe.”
“Hinchcliffe!” his friend exclaimed, a glimmer of hope gilding his features.
“The same.” Darcy grinned to see the cautious relief in Bingley’s face at the mention of his formidable secretary. “He is of the opinion that his nephew might well start in your service as an undersecretary in charge of your social affairs, if you are agreeable.”