Chapter Six
Fitzwilliam Darcy calmly pasted the creamy butter from Bingley’s pantry onto his roll. “Mrs. Bingley, I shall properly apologize. I behaved in a wrong and uncustomary manner to your sister last night, and I shall make it right.”
Jane Bingley daintily wiped a crumb from her lips and smiled sweetly at him. “The behavior was unlike you.”
“My word! I’ll wager a guess! Darcy likes our Lizzy.” Bingley grinned like a mischievous child who had stolen a cookie and elbowed Darcy’s ribs.
Darcy glared back at his friend. Bingley’s chair scraped against the wooden floor as he pulled himself a half foot further away from Darcy, but he did not cease grinning impishly.
Jane tilted her head and looked at her husband.
Darcy’s mind painted a vivid portrait of him intimately close to Elizabeth Bennet, with her flashing eyes, laughing red lips, and yellow clad hips.The deuce. “You shall not push your sister upon me — even if she has nothing of the spinster’s look about her.”
“Nothing of the spinster about heryet.” Bingley laughed. “I have never been so entertained as when Mr. Lucas reported your attempt to apologize.NowI grasp why you never married.”
“I offended Miss Bennet but that deals no fatal injury to my chances if I wish to pursue her.”
There was a pause. Bingley put down the piece of ham he’d begun to lift with his fork and simply looked at Darcy. Delightedly smiling.
“I donot,” Darcy added, in an annoyed voice.
Damnation. There was nothing impressive about her. She had been rude to him, but she was a damned fine woman. If only her image would leave him alone.
It would be deuced uncomfortable if he was filled with lust for the hoyden when the Bennet family called on Netherfield in a half hour. “I confess, she is an impressive woman, and I desire to remove the insult I uncharacteristically uttered.”
“Impressive woman? Do I hear the parson’s mousetrap snapping shut? Is marriage nigh?” Bingley grinned with that irrepressible boyishness again and backed a bit further away, and pulled his silver plate piled with sausage and berry tarts with him.
Little Anne piped up from where she sat at the breakfast table on a chair with a big cushion so she could sit tall next to Georgiana. “Uncle Will will marry someone pretty, pretty, pretty.” She grinned childishly at Darcy and waved her pastry about, causing crumbs to fly over the dinner room.
“Not after your introduction.” Bingley added, “She’ll refuse you; she’s had her share of suitors. Maybe if you brag more about Pemberley…”
Georgiana grabbed Anne’s hand and firmly took the lemon pastry away from her and put it on the table. “Don’t wave your hands about so when you eat.” She kissed her daughter on the cheek and said, “Fitzwilliam, this story is most unlike you — I wish we were not meeting anyone. They all judge me, and I put you in an ill mood.”
It was like a kick in the stomach. He hated that Georgiana knew of his misbehavior because of Bingley’s thrilled amusement at how he’d mistreated Miss Bennet. And Georgiana was right aboutwhyhe’d been in a poor mood, but she should never blame herself for it.
“Georgie…” Darcy put a hand on his sister’s shoulder. Their parents had never been physically demonstrative of affection, but he’d learned during the months of her pregnancy that fraternal touches could help to comfort Georgiana, so he made himself embrace her regularly. It was pleasant for him as well.
His sister’s smile was brittle.
Jane exclaimed, “Lizzy will not hold a grudge! And she will adore you too, my dear Georgie!”
Bingley leaned forward and patted Darcy’s arm. He whispered in a loud voice, “Don’t be sanguine — Lizzycanhold grudges.”
“Charles!” Jane poked her husband, who brightly poked her back.
A half hour later the children had been sent up to the nursery and the adults waited near the crackling fire for the Bennets to arrive and be ushered in. It was a particularly cold day, so they had decided not to wait outside for their guests, but to have everyone brought inside quickly so no unnecessary time would be spent in the freezing temperatures.
Darcy looked through the frost gathered on the windows. Darcy watched his sister with concern. She was always nervous when meeting new people. She sat stiffly on the yellow sofa in her blue dress, with a sort of trembling visible in the way her hair shook. But she noticed Darcy looking at her, and calmed and smiled at him. The drawing room had a pleasant smell from the burning pine wood and the few red and yellow flowers brought from the small hothouse Jane maintained.
He had failed his sister in many ways, but Darcy had made the right decision when she begged not to be made to marry. He could have protected his own reputation by selling his sister’s person, future, and fortune to a barely known man. It would have made him miserable.
Darcy had been happy these past years.
Georgiana and Anne kept the house full of laughter and sweetness. His habits had always been such that he did not enjoy parties and large gatherings overmuch, and the excuse that the neighborhood refused to acknowledge Georgiana had left him happily able to avoid such clumpings. He maintained an extensive correspondence with his friends; he hunted and fenced with his neighbors; and the three of them had traveled extensively on the continent after the peace came.
A clattering of carriage wheels sounded outside. Through the window Darcy saw the Bennets’ brightly colored carriage roll to a stop. Two horses pulled the chaise, one black with white markings on the face and the other a bay horse.
Bingley had told Darcy once that his father-in-law preferred to avoid expenses that merely served to enhance his consequence, instead putting the money towards a fund for his daughters’ dowries. Darcy approved of such thrift. If Bennet’s estate had been unentailed, the matter would have been different though.
