“And did not you as well as your friend become her quarry?”

“I did not suit.” Darcy looked down his nose at his cousin.

“I can well imagine.” Fitzwilliam laughed at his ironic expression and then shook his head. “Your friend must have been besotted. Fallen ‘violently in love,’ then, was he?”

“In a word.” Darcy seconded the description but then turned his attention to the passing scenery. Fitzwilliam was all too perceptive. It would not do to have him surmise too much. “But I believe he is now in a fair way to relinquishing that delusion.”

“With your help, of course?”

“Yes,” he responded brusquely and looked his inquisitor squarely in the eye. “With my help. I congratulate myself upon achieving it. It would have been a disastrous match. The bride’s family would have made him the laughingstock of Polite Society.”

Fitzwilliam breathed out a sobered sigh. “A laughingstock, eh? I hope your friend appreciates the service you have done him. He owes you his life or, at the least, his sanity. Well done, Fitz,” he finished sincerely and reached for the Post.

Well done? Was it truly? Darcy frowned, his thoughts and emotions caught in a web of contention. His words to Fitzwilliam had not been hollow. Miss Bennet, he was still prepared to swear, did not suffer that most tender of emotions in regard to Bingley. Had he not observed her closely to discover just that? But neither, it was equally true, did she present the appearance of a fortune huntress. No, he would swear to that as well. Miss Bennet, quite frankly, was an enigma. An enigma that Bingley had pierced and he had not? Bingley had been adamant that she loved him! Darcy crossed his arms over his chest and stared out the coach window at the rolling hillocks and fields just come into their spring green.