“I’m sure you did not come to discuss my art collection or my father,” Darcy said stiffly.
“I just cannot imagine living with that expression staring down at me. It would make me so nervous. It is making me nervous.” She laughed. Nervously.
“I plan to have it removed to the attics. I have tired of looking at it.”
“What shall you replace it with?”
“I haven’t given the matter much thought.”
“Perhaps a nice pastoral. With dogs, and horses . . .”
“Lady Bridget, I suspect that you did not come here to discuss paintings or pastoral landscapes with me,” he said impatiently.
Right, then. To the disaster at hand. Time to explain how the diary of a young woman was about to destroy lives. She sighed and summoned her courage and launched in.
“I need your help,” she said. “My diary has gone missing. And I know you would never say, ‘Who cares about the silly diary of a silly young woman’ but you might be thinking it. And in case you are, I must tell you that the diary could ruin me. Us. Rupert. Amelia. Everyone and everything.”
Darcy was silent, regarding her.
“It will be The Scandal of the Century,” she added in a whisper. It sounded a bit ridiculous when said aloud.
He lifted one brow. “Is that so?”
How dare he mock her now! How dare he make light of this!
“I wrote about Amelia’s mysterious and extended absence.” He frowned and looked down at the carpet. “I wrote about the time you kissed me in the rain. And the butler’s pantry. I wrote the truth about Rupert.”
His head snapped up, eyes flashing.
“How do you know?”
“Between what you said, and what he told me . . . I figured it out. Well, I asked James to explain it and that didn’t exactly go well.” That had been an awkward conversation for both of them, to say the least.
Darcy closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and if he tried counting back from ten, he made it only to six or seven. When he finally looked at her again, his eyes were full of sorrow.
“Bridget, Amelia would be cut from society. In fact, none of you would be welcome. And Rupert could be hanged if that were revealed. Or he might have to leave the country. Forever.”
And Darcy would be left alone, with no one. She so badly wanted to say, You will have me. But that wasn’t the same, it wasn’t enough, and it wasn’t the right moment.
“I know. I am so sorry. I thought that the worst that would happen would be Amelia reading it. She’s a snoop, but she doesn’t gossip. I care greatly for Rupert. And my sister. And that is why I’m here seeking your help. I don’t care at all about everyone finding out how many hours I spent practicing the quadrille, or how many desserts I refused over the past few months.”
“Record of your dessert consumption aside, this is indeed a disaster,” he said flatly. And calmly. And that was why she loved him.
He strode across the room and poured himself a glass of brandy.
“Brandy?”
“It’s quite early for that, don’t you think?”
“We are facing a crisis.”
“Ladies don’t drink.”
“Please don’t try to be a perfect lady,” he said softly. He glanced over at her.
She bit her lip. Her efforts to Be a Lady had some good effects: she was no longer confounded by a formal table setting, she knew most of the steps to the quadrille, and she knew how to address most peers. But it had also made her miserable as she tried to fit into some mold that wasn’t her. To please a man who liked her just the way she was. After the other night, she simply didn’t have the patience or the energy to keep trying.
“Oh, that ship has sailed. And I am not on it.”
“Right.” He set the drink down and started pacing. She watched his long legs, long muscular legs, take powerful strides across the carpets. Focus, Bridget.
“Where did you last see it?”
“Yesterday, in the drawing room. Before calling hours. We have searched the house all last night.”
“That explains it,” he muttered. And then, “I told him it wasn’t tuberculosis.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Nothing. Do continue.”
“I am afraid that Lady Francesca stole it during calling hours.”
He stopped short and turned to face her, his dark gaze narrowing. It occurred to her now that Lady Francesca was having her trousseau made and Darcy hadn’t proposed to her. She did not like what those two things added up to.
“That is a bold accusation.”
“This is true. Any one of our dozen callers yesterday could have picked it up and walked off with it. But I am not oblivious. I know she doesn’t like me. I would not be surprised if she wished to ruin me.”