Page 42 of The Difference of a Darcy
For several minutes, neither of them spoke.
Then she said softly, “You are very quiet.”
He looked down at the leather strap holding the basket closed. “I am thinking.”
“That,” she murmured, “is always a dangerous thing in your case.”
He almost smiled. “I am thinking,” he repeated, “of how strange it must have felt for you to sit across from people who have known you your whole life, only to find they have no idea who you are.”
“It was more difficult than I anticipated,” she said in a shaky voice. “I wished for nothing more than to throw myself into my aunt’s arms and tell her everything.”
“You are quite close to them, then?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Mr. Gardiner is my mother’s brother, and Jane and I have spent many a month in their home over the years.”
He raised his eyebrows in shock that the fashionable, refined man he had just met wasMrs.Bennet’s relation. On seeing his expression, Elizabeth gave a watery laugh. “Did you expect them to be vulgar?”
He hesitated. “No. Not vulgar. But…” He trailed off.
“But what?” she prompted.
“I had heard they lived in Cheapside. I… assumed a certain tone would accompany such an address.”
Her mouth curved faintly. “And now?”
He turned to look at her fully. “Now I see they have more warmth, more refinement, and more natural grace than half the drawing rooms of Mayfair. Good company has less to do with address than I might have thought.”
She blinked, clearly startled.
He exhaled slowly and added, “Your aunt is a remarkable woman.”
Elizabeth smiled, but it was a subdued smile, touched with something more fragile.
He continued, “It was strange, though. Sitting across from her, hearing her speak of you, yet knowing she spoke of someone else entirely.”
“Yes,” Elizabeth said, her voice quiet. “I kept waiting to feel comforted. And instead… it felt like mourning.”
Before he could respond, the hack came to a halt. Darcy stepped out first and offered his hand. Elizabeth took it, her fingers cold in his.
They stood before the gates of Darcy House.
Or what remained of it.
The shutters were bolted. The door chained. No lights. No staff. The windows were boarded over.
A metal placard hung beside the gate:
Property of Crown Bank of London
Auction Pending
A paper notice flapped damply underneath it.
Darcy stared in shock, a cold, hollow ache forming in his chest, his hands clenching into fists. The house looked… abandoned. Stripped of dignity. As though it had died and no one had noticed.
Elizabeth stepped closer. “I am sorry,” she whispered, her hand tightening around his arm.
He swallowed, a lump having formed in his throat. “This house has been in my family for generations. Since the reign of Queen Anne.”
