Darcy had been listening with growing fascination to the pretty New Yorker’s remarkable tale. Every word she said about her discovery had the ring of truth to it and he was certain this was the break he had been anticipating for so long. By the time she had reached the end of her narrative he was leaning expectantly across the table, his green eyes fixed raptly on hers.

“The two letters you found,” he began when she had finished, “do you have them with you?”

Eliza nodded and lowered her eyes to the portfolio on the table near her. “As a matter of fact I do,” she said. “Although I’m afraid that poor Thelma Klein nearly had a nervous breakdown over my taking them out of her temperature-controlled vault. I was forced to remind her that they are still my property,” she added, thinking of the heated debate she had had with the stolid researcher.

She paused thoughtfully, examining Darcy’s eyes in an attempt to read the surging emotions she saw there. “I felt that it was important to bring the actual documents with me so you could examine them for yourself,” she told him.

Darcy nodded eagerly. “May I see them, then?” he asked, reaching for the portfolio.

Eliza’s hand beat his to the leather case, pinning it firmly to the table. “On one condition,” she said.

Disappointment was evident in his eyes as he leaned back in his chair and stared at her.

“You are reputed to have bought another Jane Austen letter from a British document dealer two years ago,” Eliza continued flatly. “I would like to see that one.”

“Who told you there was another letter?” Darcy demanded. “Oh, of course,” he snorted angrily, “it was that damned Klein woman.”

Darcy then realized that his tone had been too sharp. “I’m sorry,” he told her, “but the letter you mentioned has been a source of immense irritation to me for some time. I paid a great deal of money for it, with the express understanding that I would remain completely anonymous,” he explained. “So perhaps you can imagine how I felt when Thelma Klein, whom I had never met, suddenly began pressuring me to send it to her within twenty-four hours of the purchase.”

Eliza smiled. “Sounds exactly like Thelma.” Conceding in a pseudoconspiratorial tone, “She can be more than a little pushy.”

“At any rate,” Darcy said, calming down, “of course there’s no reason you can’t see the letter. I have it in my study.” His handsome features lit up with a charming smile, “If you’re finished with lunch we can go in now.”

Almost knocking his chair over in his rush to stand, his cheeks flushed pink and he looked away. Regaining his composure he gestured to the door. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Eliza was amused by the exuberance with which Darcy expressed his impatient desire to go into the house and see the letters. Trying not to reveal her own excitement, she smiled at him as she rose, “No time like the present.”

Chapter 14

The enormous cherrywood paneled room that Darcy referred to as his study reminded Eliza more of a university research library than a personal workplace. Besides the massive hardwood desk holding his computer, phones and what appeared to be several stacks of business papers, and a grouping of antique furniture arranged around a large fireplace, the richly decorated study contained a long, banquet-sized table that was strewn with reference texts, piles of letters and leather bound journals and diaries, all of which appeared to be of great age.

After showing Eliza to a comfortable armchair beside his desk, Darcy walked over to a file cabinet, removed a plain manila folder from an upper drawer and laid it on the desk in front of her. She looked at him questioningly and he nodded. “Go ahead, open it.”

With trembling hands Eliza opened the folder and found herself looking at a tattered fold of writing paper nearly identical in size and texture to the sealed letter that she had found behind the vanity mirror. Her voice was an awed whisper as she excitedly read the address written by the familiar hand in faded, rust-colored ink. “‘Jane Austen, Chawton Cottage ~ Fitzwilliam Darcy, Chawton Great House.’”

Her dark eyes sparkling with anticipation, Eliza looked up at him. “Yes, it looks the same as mine,” she told him. “May I read it?”

Darcy nodded, then he walked to one of the study’s tall windows and stared out at the lawns as she carefully unfolded the letter. Eliza read aloud:


12 May, 1810

Sir,

I have after some study located the passage that you and I were discussing last evening. If you will call on me at home at 2:00 p.m. today, I shall be glad to point it out for you.


“It’s signed ‘Jane A,’” she concluded.

Eliza looked up at Fitzwilliam Darcy, who had turned back to face her. “This is positively amazing,” she said, examining the old letter more closely. “This letter is dated the same day as my letter from Darcy to Jane. In that one he told her that someone he called ‘the Captain’ was suspicious of him and that he had to go into hiding.”

Darcy acknowledged that information with a slight nod. When he offered no further comment Eliza opened her portfolio and took out her two letters. She picked up the opened one and held it out for his examination. “Would you like to read it?” she offered.

To her utter amazement, he made no move to take the proffered letter but merely shook his head. “May I see the letter from Jane now?” he asked in a curiously subdued tone.

Eliza frowned at what struck her as his exceedingly odd behavior, but she handed him the sealed letter anyway. Darcy said nothing, but stared at it for several long seconds, slowly turning it over and over in his hand.

“Your letter from Jane says that she found the passage they were discussing,” Eliza interrupted, hoping to start a discussion with him about the mysterious message she had just read. “Do you have any idea what that means?”

Ignoring her question, Darcy returned to his desk and seated himself in the leather chair. Reaching down, he unlocked a lower drawer and removed from it a large folio checkbook, which he opened on the desk before him.

“Miss Knight, let me come directly to the point,” he said without looking up at her. He lifted a silver-chased fountain pen from an ornamental holder on the desk and held it poised above a blank check. “I would like very much to purchase these letters from you, as well as the vanity table in which you discovered them.”

Darcy slowly raised his eyes to meet Eliza’s. “What is your price?”

Taken completely off guard, both by the man’s seeming disinterest in the mysterious contents of the two opened letters, and by his abrupt offer to buy her letters without further discussion, Eliza could think of no instant reply. Instead, she sat there scrutinizing him from behind her glasses, trying to imagine what was going on in his mind.

Darcy remained motionless, waiting for her to speak. Sunlight from the tall study windows glinted brightly on the silver barrel of the fountain pen hovering over the check.

“Mr. Darcy,” Eliza finally commenced, clearing her throat and taking pains to keep her voice deliberately neutral, despite her growing anger. “I came here today hoping you might confirm for me that these letters were exchanged between Jane Austen and one of your ancestors. I certainly hope you don’t think that I intended to sell mine to you.”

Darcy smiled back at her with the barely concealed impatience of a headwaiter who has been insufficiently tipped. “I’m sure you had no such intention,” he said in a condescending tone that Eliza interpreted to mean that that was exactly what he thought. “Nevertheless, I would like to buy the letters from you all the same.” He raised the silver pen meaningfully. “You need only tell me how much you want, so that I can fill out the check.”

The arrogance of this man, who was obviously used to getting whatever he wanted simply by paying for it, irritated her and she snapped back, “My letters are not for sale and you haven’t answered my question: was your ancestor Jane Austen’s lover?”

The determination he saw on her face and in her eyes made it clear that she had no intention of selling him the letters or relinquishing this line of inquiry. Their eyes locked and she watched as the arrogance drained away, replaced by a palpable disappointment. Not sorry that she may have caused the change, she persevered, “Well?”

Darcy slipped the pen back into its holder and closed the checkbook, and with downcast eyes and in a voice barely above a whisper said, “No.”

More than a little surprised and unable to keep the skepticism out of her voice, she asked, “Are you telling me it’s just a coincidence that you share the same name?”

Getting irritated himself at what he perceived as an invasion of his privacy, he shot back, “I’m not telling you anything; I simply said that he wasn’t my ancestor.”

“I don’t understand.”

“No, I don’t suppose you do.” He offered nothing else as an uneasy silence descended on the room.

“That’s it, I don’t get any kind of explanation?” Her abrasive challenge reflected her growing annoyance with his evasions.

She was surprised to see his handsome features now filled with his own frustration and barely suppressed anger. “Although I can’t see that it’s any of your business, I can guarantee that you would not understand the only explanation I have and you certainly wouldn’t accept it.”

Shocked at what she considered an insult, she said, “So you think I’m too stupid to understand.”