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“Of course,” he said, starting forward again, encouraged by his welcome.

Bending down, he kissed her lightly on the back of her neck above the brown ribbon of her choker. Following the path of the ribbon with his nose, he planted tiny kisses along the silk until his eyes crested her shoulder and the owl winked from the cameo nestled above her breasts. Then, inflamed by her proximity, he brought his hands up to the smooth orbs, cupping the material of her stays to push her cleavage higher.

Elizabeth sighed and rolled back into his arms as his lips descended her chest, giving her body freely to him. So generous! Just how he had imagined her to be! He twisted himself around her, snaking his arms under her shoulders. Their lips met. They kissed wantonly. Frantically raising her skirts to run his hand along her thigh, he pressed himself to her. Something fell to the floor with a crash.

Darcy’s eyes flew open. Feeling hot and bothered, he remembered with relief that he was now aboard the Baden; he was alone and his cabin door was locked. When he reached out for the candle, his hand closed on empty space. He realised that it must have been the candle which had fallen to the floor. Getting up, he lit a spill in the closed stove and, after some searching, retrieved the candlestick. The candle was broken, but he managed to balance the two halves on top of one another with a piece of broken wax as a chock. Rueful, he surveyed the devastation of the sheets, and with embarrassment, realised the front of his nightgown was damp. He could only be glad that Finn had removed to his own modest cabin.

Returning to bed, Darcy tried to settle down, but his heart continued to thump inside his chest. Every time he nodded off, Miss Elizabeth hovered there waiting for him, like some angel of slumber. Unwilling to surrender himself to further improper dreams, each time he flew back into consciousness and safety. Thus were the last two hours of the night spent in uneasy dozing.

When the morning dawned, he noticed a small brass pail of water had been left on the hob. He got up to sponge down the front of his nightgown with his handkerchief. Satisfied the mark was not so obvious, he returned to bed, feeling like a green youth, caught in indiscretion.

Pulling his banyan round his shoulders and propping himself up on the pillows of his bed, he pulled the white sheets of paper that were his proof towards him, determined to adopt a proper frame of mind. After racking his brain to recover his train of thought, he put a cross through the last half-page of his equations and, backtracking to that point, proceeded on a fresh page.

Assisted by the current, the Baden passed the fortified walls of Ingolstadt by ten that morning. Although Miss Bingley had not emerged from her room, having had a relapse of her sick cold, Darcy chose to return to his cabin to work on the proof after breakfast. Bingley and Hurst were pursuing a rather noisy game of Hazard in the saloon. He pushed on with his equations until the late afternoon where he reached a point where he could go no further. Convinced he had made a mistake; he screwed the sheet of paper up and threw it at the wall. Such fits of temper were uncharacteristic of him, and when Finn knocked to announce dinner, Darcy sheepishly retrieved the detritus of his tantrum before opening the door. Perhaps pique was contagious, like Miss Bingley’s cold.

Determined not to recommit the lapse of the previous night, Darcy stayed up to drink port with Bingley and Hurst after dinner. Having gone to bed determinedly drunk, he went out like a light upon reaching his cabin. He woke at ten the next morning when Finn knocked on his door with a breakfast tray. Darcy saw the impressive cathedral of Ratisbon pass by from his cabin over a cup of tea.

The rain was still misting down when he went up on deck in the afternoon, eager to escape his cabin after a frustrating day during which he progressed his proof by three single lines. Miss Bingley presented at dinner with traces of maquillage on her face, obviously covering the ravages of her illness. Darcy did nothing to encourage her attentions but stopped short of incivility. If she had thrown herself into the river deliberately, as he suspected, then he thought she had been punished sufficiently by the aftermath. However, it was clear that Caroline had little energy for dalliance and he ate his dinner in peace.

Darcy retired at his normal bedtime and then regretted his punctuality when Miss Elizabeth slunk through the door as soon as he passed into the arms of Morpheus. Twice he woke up and ordered her back into the corridor, but when she appeared for the third time, he realised the futility of the exercise and for the sake of propriety, attempted to transform her into Almeria for their tryst. If he thought he could tame Miss Elizabeth’s blithe spirit so easily, he was wrong, for when he opened his eyes at the peak of his ecstasy, it was Elizabeth’s dark eyes that stared back at him, not Almeria’s blue orbs.

On the following day they reached Passau, where the Danube is joined by two other rivers. The rain finally stopped, and the gentlemen repaired to deck chairs in the stern, as had been their habit on the Rhine. Caroline and Louisa joined them soon after. Miss Bingley immediately began her flirting again, causing Darcy to shoot several meaningful glances at Charles to intervene. His friend merely shrugged in reply. When the servants brought out tea, Darcy used the distraction to draw Bingley aside and whisper quietly into his ear. Charles apologised for his sister’s behaviour before acknowledging he was as powerless to stop her as Canute had been in holding back the tide. After tea, Darcy chose to abandon the sun rather than endure it any longer. He was impatient to reach Vienna now.

For the rest of the day, he worked on his proof in a desultory way, feeling he had lost the thread through the labyrinth once more. His mind drifted to the names of the two ladies that remained inscribed in his pocketbook and he sighed. Lady Sophia Amberley—favoured by his uncle—was a lady of impeccable breeding, very beautiful and well educated. But she had the disadvantage of possessing two singularly dissolute brothers who frequented fashionable gaming hells, where they were running through their family’s fortune at an alarming rate. Should he marry her, Darcy was fairly sure he would be called upon in the future to bail them out. Even if he was clever about it, using mechanisms like mortgages in his wife’s favour, he knew her brothers would be millstones around his neck. But despite her charms, Darcy also had reservations about Lady Sophia herself—her conversation during their last dance at Almack’s, while witty, had been remarkably commonplace, teasing him about the silly names that men gave their racehorses, like Mopsqueezer. Her brothers’ influence was all too clear.

The other name that had survived erasure was Miss Berenice Andrews. She had not been the first lady Darcy had written down or even the fifth, but she had proved to have great staying power, for Darcy could not name a fault in her. She was pretty rather than beautiful, which he did not consider a great deficit. Her family’s fortune was solid. The worst he could think of her was that her education was somewhat lacking—her family being staunchly against bluestockings. But it seemed wrong to hold something she had no control over against her. She had a tolerable understanding; was a very sensible lady. Certainly, he could not deny Miss Andrews’ tendency to be rather too dull and virtuous. Her only pastimes seemed to be reading her prayer book and needlepoint. Nonetheless, he reminded himself, she would probably make a fine mother and Mistress of Pemberley. Was it wrong of him to want something more?

Darcy stared into the fire, wishing that navigating these social decisions had some underlying sense to it, like mathematics. He felt rudderless, having no idea which way he should go.

After another unsettled night, they passed Linz at dawn. Darcy rang for Finn so that he might dress to walk on deck before Caroline had awoken. Finding himself alone in the morning mist, he stuck his gloved hands into his pockets and paced up and down, his fingers fiddling with the ivory pages of his notebook. Stopping, Darcy took it out and fanned the sheets open to the names of the two ladies he had written there, only to be outraged that a third name had joined his list in a mockery of his own handwriting: Caroline Bingley. Anger ripped through him. How had she got hold of his notebook? When had he left it unattended? Did she really think that he was that stupid?

He had barely got his temper under control when Mr Trevor joined him on deck.

“Good morning, sir. Not far now. The captain says we should dock in Vienna, late tomorrow afternoon.”

“Very good, Mr Trevor. And what then?”

“I will send a message to the city immediately, to let the princess know we have arrived.”

“I thought her uncle’s estate was outside the city?”

“It is, but he has already closed it up and gone off to Russia. The princess is staying with friends in a palais in the city.”

“How strange! Does he have no concern for his niece’s welfare?”

“He wrote that he judged her capable of making decisions for herself. For the moment there is no binding agreement. If all goes well, she and her maid are to accompany us home to England where hopefully we can get her to sign the registry.”

“Good Lord! How unromantic!”

Mr Trevor smiled. He had never suspected Mr Darcy of being a romantic. His secret name for his employer’s nephew was Mr Parallelograms and Prisms. Although Mr Darcy was a very handsome man, it had not escaped Mr Trevor’s notice that he routinely rebuffed all overtures from the fair sex. The earl’s secretary had hitherto suspected that Darcy did not have a heart. Watching his interactions with the rapacious Miss Bingley was positively comical. But it would not do to let Mr Darcy know he found him entertaining.

“Well, I expect these members of royal families are used to being bartered about,” Mr Trevor said, attempting to hide his smile. Then he mentally scolded himself, thinking he had perhaps spoken too freely.

He disguised his faux pas by coughing into his hand. “Hopefully, we can arrange a meeting for the following day.”

“And what if she should object to Robert once we arrive in London? What is to happen then?”

“Her uncle said I should engage a courier to escort her home to Vienna.”