“My dearest Jane!” Elizabeth went to hug her.

Jane threw herself into those welcoming arms, wept afresh. What she was saying was unintelligible; it would be days before her tender feelings were settled enough to permit lucid speech, Elizabeth knew.

As if he owned some extra sense, Charlie put his book down and went immediately to Lydia, guiding her to a chair with many compliments about how much black suited her, and gave her no opportunity to snatch a mug of ale from the table where a jug of it had appeared to sustain the men. A snap of Fitz’s fingers, and Trenton whisked the jug away.

“Pater?” Charlie asked.

“Yes?”

“May I travel in Uncle Charles’s coach with Aunt Lydia? Mama would be more comfortable with Aunt Jane for company.”

“Yes,” Darcy said brusquely. “Charles, we must go.”

“Is Ned Skinner to ride with us?” Charles Bingley asked.

“No, he has other business. You and I, Charles, will be able to avail ourselves of an occasional gallop. The party will put up at the Three Feathers in Derby, but you and I will have no trouble reaching my hunting box. We can rejoin the ladies in Leicester tomorrow night.”

Bingley turned to look at Jane, his face betraying his anxiety, but he was too used to following Fitz’s lead to raise any objections to leaving Jane in Elizabeth’s hands. There was no denying that grief-stricken ladies in need of succour were better served by sisters than husbands. Then he cheered up; Fitz’s Leicester-shire hunting box was just the ticket to break the monotony of a two-hundred-mile journey to Shelby Manor.

Only her sisters and their husbands could be accommodated at Shelby Manor; the rest of the extended family would be at the Blue Boar and Hertford’s other good inns, Mary knew. Not that she had any say in such matters. Fitz would, as always, be arranging everything, just as he communicated with the various persons who saw to the running of Shelby Manor and even such minor things as the payment of her own pin-money. Fitzwilliam Darcy, the centre of every web he encountered.