“Ha! He would be quite resistant to my charms, even if I wished to catch him.”
“I considered his arguments with you a form of determined courtship.”
Elizabeth laughed. “No, no, no. And I would be as poor a match for him as he for I. He wants a woman quite the opposite of me. Sweet; tender; easily ordered. A woman who argued with him at every turn would never do forthatman.”
“You have thought about what woman would do for Mr. Darcy then.”
Elizabeth blushed. “I determined that she was my opposite in every point.”
“If Mr. Darcy desired a woman who always made the pretense of sweetness and obedience, he would have been wriggling in the Parson’s mousetrap many years past.”
“Yes,” Elizabeth replied sourly. She hated the idea of Darcy being married to anyone but her.
That was not good.
Her feelings were moving beyond simple admiration for his form and frankness into a real attraction.
Elizabeth was a reasonable creature, and she would not permit herself to fall for a man such as Mr. Darcy. No, she would not.
“It would have made his happiness, had he married such a woman.” Elizabeth said, “Alas, his happiness is nothing to me.”
“As a fellow human being, a kind person would care for his happiness, while an infatuated woman would make pretense of caring not at all.”
This deserved same particular gesture of disdain. Elizabeth reached her arm over and moved the collection of essays Papa had been reading to the opposite side of the desk from him. Then for emphasis she softly placed it on the ground.
“Lizzy,” Papa replied with a mild mournful tone.
“I confessed already asmallinfatuation. No need to tease me further.”
He shrugged and smiled.
“I am too wise to be trapped.”
“Lizzy, I beg you not to depend upon yourwisdom. You have never been in love, and—”
“Notthis. I hear enough of how a woman in the grip of a passion cannot reason fromhim.”
“Reason always thinks itself reasonable, while it justifies the hidden reasons of the heart.”
Elizabeth picked up the book and handed it back to her father.
“At least, Lizzy,” he waited to speak until she looked at him, “I beg you to be in no hurry to know either your own or his heart. Do not make any enduring decision in haste.”
“I promise.”
Papa’s expression relaxed. He smiled at her. “Back then to books and letters. If you want to travel from Longbourn, anywhere, tell me — funds and my presence are on call.”
“That is the sweetest.” Elizabeth patted her father’s arm. “You will always be my dearest man.”
“Will I?” He had placed his spectacles back on, and he now tilted them down his nose, and smirked at her.
“Always.”
Chapter Eleven
With the meal past, Darcy was decidedly surprised howwellthe dinner at Longbourn with Georgiana had gone. Mrs. Lucas and Mrs. Goulding immediately took to Georgiana, and while Mr. Lucas insisted on winking and teasing Darcy about the day that they had met and how he had insulted Miss Bennet, Mr. Lucas was an intelligent man who rather reminded him in some ways of Bingley without the shine of sophistication that the time he spent in the city gave Bingley.
Georgiana was happy. That was what mattered.
