“Wrangle with Miss Elizabeth! My dear Charles, I do not ‘wrangle’ with her or with anyone!”

“Debate, then. Darcy” — he paused and looked at his friend beseechingly — “I am exceedingly sorry that you and Miss Elizabeth do not get on, but —”

“Have no fear, Bingley. I believe I know how to behave in company,” Darcy cut him off, unable to quell an impulse to sarcasm. Bingley colored at his tone, causing Darcy to condemn his hasty words for an unprecedented second time in one day.

“Charles, I beg that you will overlook my graceless words and deplorable manners. I have not felt myself lately, a disagreeable sensation, I assure you, and have been so impolitic as to cause others to feel the effects of it. For the embarrassment this has caused you, I am heartily sorry.”

“Embarrassment…caused me?” Bingley sputtered. He threw back his head and laughed in his friend’s puzzled face. “Darcy, when I think of the situations from which you have rescued me, due entirely to my own stupidity! Well, I despaired of ever making it up to you. Paying me back in the same coin is not what I would have expected, and the installment is minute compared with my great balance.” He paused and swept Darcy a regal bow. “It is forgotten, sir, with pleasure. Now come along and rejoin the human race. We are really not such a bad lot, after all.”

Darcy smiled broadly in the face of such easy good nature and thanked God that He had provided him such a friend. Setting his book down on the desk, he followed Bingley out the door.

Although his words to Bingley had warranted his ability to conduct himself in company as a gentleman, Darcy did not view the gathering in the conservatory with equanimity. That any topic remotely interesting or entertaining enough to distract him from his awareness of Elizabeth would arise in the conversation was highly doubtful. Hurst, he dismissed immediately. Bingley would be dancing attendance upon Miss Jane Bennet. Miss Bingley, abetted by her sister, would in turn fawn upon him or attempt to confound the lady she so clearly regarded as her rival. The only hope of any lively discourse was centered in the very person to whom the danger of his paying attention was beyond calculation. If he was to be successful in crushing any suggestion that Elizabeth Bennet held the slightest material influence over his felicity, his behavior toward her now would either confirm or deny it.

The ladies and Hurst were before them, engaged in desultory admiration of the specimens of flora that still boasted blossoms. As Darcy anticipated, Bingley broke from him and strode over to the Bennet sisters, exclaiming as he did on how well Jane Bennet was looking. A delicate smile teased her lips at his salutation, and she serenely nodded her acceptance of the offer of his arm for her support. Her sister happily relinquished the lady’s arm into Bingley’s keeping and stepped away from them with a graciousness that Darcy would have liked to admire but resolutely denied to himself. Instead, he turned away from the gathering and examined the room.

Netherfield’s conservatory was a small one and stood in need of the services of an expert gardener, but the suggestion of wildness given by its unkempt appearance lent it some piquancy. Evidently, a previous inhabitant had indulged in a passion for the exotica of the plant kingdom, for rather than the staid groupings of most gardens under glass, this one pulsed with the energy of rampant, twining vines and lush foliage. The moist, earthy scent of the air reminded him of his own extensive gardens and the pleasures of the conservatory at Pemberley.

The appearance of servants laden with the tea tray and dishes of sweets and cakes drew the company to the wrought-iron table in the center of the room. The last to accept his cup, Bingley paused at Darcy’s side and motioned with a quirk of his chin to the vacant seats next to Elizabeth and her sister. Even as he silently declined the invitation, Darcy could not prevent or deny the bittersweet pull on his senses the opportunity presented. Determinedly, he took up a position somewhat apart from the others, from which he could safely bide his time.

As it was, the conversation was consumed with the ball that Bingley had promised. Since the others were well aware of his aversion to the scheme, Darcy’s opinions were not solicited, even by Miss Bingley, and he was left to his silent contemplation. Relieved that he would not have to take part in a conversation fraught with traps that would militate against his plan, Darcy breathed in the tangy scents of earth and vegetation. Suddenly there swept over him an acute longing. Pemberley! For a few moments he forgot all around him, his mind’s eye roving hungrily over the geography of his beloved home.

The conservatory had been a favorite place of his when he was a child and youth. There, until her death, his mother had reigned as a benevolent tyrant, taking personal care of her roses and coaxing the exotic slips imported for her by her husband to thrive and blossom. Among the family and household, it had never been “the Conservatory,” for early in his marriage his father had one day gaily dubbed his wife’s efforts there “an Eden.” And Eden it had remained. As his own death approached, his father had insisted upon being carried down to Eden each day for a few hours of the companionship and solace of his late wife’s flowers. Often Darcy would join him there after a harrowing day wrestling with the responsibilities his sire’s weakening health had thrust upon him. Sometimes they would talk of the past, sometimes of the difficult days ahead, but more commonly they would sit in a shared silence deeper than words. For three years following his father’s passing, during which all his energy and thought had centered on Pemberley and the completion of his father’s designs for it, Eden had been a painful reminder of his loss, and he had rarely set foot into it until Georgiana one day expressed a desire for “a little garden.” Together they had chosen a space in Eden to be cleared for her use, and he had become a regular visitor there again, now to praise his sister’s efforts.

Darcy reached out and fingered the blossom of an unknown vine, then gently tucked its drooping head back into the greenery, that its interior glories might better be seen. The sound of a soft step behind him caused him to drop his hand quickly and turn, blocking his handiwork from view. Elizabeth approached him slowly, a look of puzzlement on her face, and then, rather than stopping, she moved past him to examine his rearrangement of the flower.

“A lovely flower, Mr. Darcy, and now displayed to advantage. But do you not think that the admiration it will attract will be detrimental to its character?”

Darcy looked down into her teasing eyes but would not be drawn into battle. “Do you garden, Miss Elizabeth?”

“Since girlhood. A little plot, but it gives me pleasure. And do you, sir, garden?”

“An ardent admirer only.”

“So I see.” She nodded toward the flower, then stopped and cast up at him a searching glance. Caught by the question in her eyes, he could not look away. He bit at his lower lip. Could another meaning for his words have occurred to her?

“Or rather, a perfectionist in this, as in all things?” she dared him. Darcy merely smiled and offered her a bow, experiencing an indecent gratification with the dissatisfaction his reticence had caused to be mirrored in her face. Leaving her to puzzle through his meaning, he moved past her to remind Bingley of their engagement in the billiards room.

After he and Bingley had exhausted the lure of the billiard table, Darcy kept himself employed in one activity or another for the rest of the day. He read; he played several rubbers of whist with Bingley’s sisters and Hurst. At dinner he spoke only to Bingley and Hurst on the subject of a day of shooting. Afterward, he wrote letters to any relation or friend he could think of who might reasonably be expecting communication from him. Finally, the evening drew to a close and he could in good conscience retreat to his rooms. Closing the door, he rang for Fletcher and congratulated himself on keeping to his purpose, but on wearily slumping down into a chair, he found that the effort had fatigued him all out of proportion to its intended effect.

Do not think about it, he adjured himself, closing his eyes and yawning. You are much too tired to parse it all out. He stretched his legs and settled back into the chair to await the arrival of his valet.

“Ahem.

“Mr. Darcy, sir.

“Ahem!”

Darcy’s eyes opened slowly, but upon resting them on Fletcher, he sat up with a jolt. “Fletcher! I must have fallen asleep!”

“Yes, sir. You were quite caught in Hypnos’s thrall. Do you require anything more than the usual tonight, sir?”

“No, no.” Darcy shook his head and yawned. “I just wish to continue what I started here in this chair and as soon as it may be possible.”

“Certainly, sir. May I inquire as to which coat and waistcoat you wish readied for Services tomorrow?” Fletcher asked as he swiftly divested his master of coat and cravat. Darcy sighed; the energy needed to wrap his mind around his valet’s question seemed unavailable to him.

“Perhaps the green, sir, with the gold and gray striped waistcoat?”

Darcy managed a wry grin as he looked down at Fletcher. “Yes, I suppose. Rather grand for a little country church, though, wouldn’t you say?”

“Grand, sir? Memorable, certainly, sir, but grand? No sir,” Fletcher assured him as he set about preparing his master’s nightclothes.

Darcy peered narrowly at his valet. “Memorable, eh? And why should I want to style myself in a ‘memorable’ fashion tomorrow?”