“To Mr. Bingley. Loud enough that I could hear easily. Ido not believe we had yet been introduced.” She laughed again, delighted by the reaction this revelation had gained. “You also said that my sister smiled too much — a less propitious meeting I can hardly imagine! And see how we are today?”
“Did you take that as a challenge?” Lady Matlock asked.
Darcy’s aunt put a challenge into the way she asked the question, with a raised eyebrow. She was a finely dressed woman, but with more real intelligence and real worth in her countenance, Elizabeth thought, than her son or his wife had.
“Hardly,” Elizabeth replied, not glancing over to see how Darcy took what she said. “I laughed about it with my friends, and swore eternal dislike, as of course any girl ought, after hearing such a thing said about her.”
“Fitzwilliam, did you really say that?” Georgiana asked again, looking at her brother, and then blushing and looking down at the table.
“I do not recall saying it… though… you and your sisters were accounted the beauties of the neighborhood. I believe Miss Bingley disliked her fear of being outshined and pressed us all to agree that there was little beauty in the room.” His mouth was downturned. “Bingley would not agree.”
Elizabeth’s heart jumped at the mention of Bingley, and his attachment to Jane at the time.Whathad possibly happened to drive him away from her?
She’d not yet received a letter from Jane since she reached Pemberley. If only she could be with her sister in this time of her heartbreak. Elizabeth’s own troubles had nearly driven Jane’s situation from her mind.
“But you did agree?” the Viscount asked Darcy. “I can say for certain that any room with our Elizawouldbe a room with beauty in it.”
“Hear, hear,” Lord Matlock said, turning an admiring gaze at Elizabeth.
The old man had that manner Elizabeth had seen amongst some very satisfied men. He had an awareness that he was attractive to women, and he had a confidence that allowed him to enter any flirtation he wished and take it wherever the woman allowed.
“And then how,” the Viscount asked, “did you come to agree to marry Darcy from such a start?”
“Conversation — the sort with words,” Elizabeth replied.
A lie.
But a necessary one to make.
There was further laughter.
She looked at Darcy, his handsome face, neatly shaved again by his valet while he’d dressed for dinner.
Their eyes met, and she forced a smile.
When had he decided he wanted her so much? When had he dropped that disdainful sneering that demanded he think little of her beauty?
When the dinner ended the parties separated.
Elizabeth felt a wincing tightness grow in her with each step towards the drawing room. She followed behind Lady Matlock and Lady Susan, with Georgiana following her.
Until now, what disdain they felt towards her was partly veiled by a need to not say something that Darcy would see as having shown a disrespect to her position as his wife.
When she entered through the elaborately carved decorative doors to the drawing room, she noticed that Georgiana was pale and frowning, and she wondered if her sister-in-law was likewise anxious about this conversation despite her greater familiarity with the others.
Or perhaps she was still shocked by hearing about her brother’s rudeness. The girl saw her brother more in the nature of a parent, and a perfect sort of parent, than as an equal.
She’d seen that Darcy had the same view of himself inrelation to the girl twelve years his junior, and of whom he had been the primary guardian for four years.
Lady Matlock and Lady Susan were already seated, a cup of steaming mulled wine in Lady Matlock’s hand, and one of melted chocolate in Lady Susan’s. Elizabeth took up the chocolate with a little bit of brandy she’d ordered for herself. Georgiana had a steaming cup of tea, and she walked to the far side of the drawing room to look out the window. The dark had already fallen.
Elizabeth walked over to Georgiana. “Are you well?”
With a surprised weak look, Georgiana nodded at Elizabeth. Pulled by an impulse that surprised her a little, Elizabeth squeezed the younger woman’s arm. “I can see they are very different in manners than you.”
Georgiana made a startled giggle. Then she asked, “Did Fitzwilliam and you really… uh…”
“What?”
