A couple of their wives were also around, arriving for the day with their husbands. Pemberley was to be open all day to everyone who was invited to the feast after the hunt. These women stood in a small circle, chatting in low voices, and drinking cups of mulled wine, tea, or coffee.
As Elizabeth had half expected, Lady Matlock was still abed, though her husband gestured confidently in the center of a knot of other gentlemen, looking as alert as if it were noon on the summer solstice. Lady Susan had come down with Lord Hartwood, dressed in a resplendent dressing gown embroidered in silver and gold. It had a look of China about it. Lady Susan looked at once as though she had only crawled out of bed, andyet elegant and well put together.
That was a talent.
Lady Susanwould not, Elizabeth thought with amusement, leave any opportunity fallow where she might put beauty into the world.
“What are you smiling about?” Darcy asked her as he took a cup of mulled wine from one of the servants milling about. He also grabbed one of the lemon tarts that Elizabeth liked very much. But as she still felt this resurgence of that nausea from yesterday, she shook her head to refuse the offer.
Darcy shrugged and took a large bite of it himself.
“Lady Susan spoke to us upon what has motivated her to make being the best dressed woman in her circle her life goal, and—”
“Oh god! Bringing beauty into the world? As though anyone cares. She is a good match for Hartwood, but I’d rather be dragged behind a herd of wild horses than marry any of the women she’d suggested would make a ‘well-matched partner’ for me.”
“Ah,” Elizabeth hid a smile. “Were there many such women? Particularly beautiful?”
“I hardly noticed.” He shrugged. “In truth our circles, while they overlap, are different.”
“Oh, but they must have beenparticularlylovely if they could make a matched pair with a man who combines Darcy tallness with the Fitzwilliam good looks.”
Darcy stared at her aghast and groaned. “She asked you to ask me.”
“But only think, how muchbeautyyou deprive the world of,” Elizabeth said in an earnest sing song voice, “When a man of your gifts dresses with all the spark and flash of a fashion plate inDull Gentleman Monthly.”
With a laugh, Darcy replied, “Thatcannotbe a realperiodical.”
“We’ll sponsor it,” Elizabeth replied. “So that we might share with the worldyournotion of dress.”
Darcy shook his head and grinned at her. “Do not let Lady Susan hear you teasing her so, she is in fact—”
“A fanatic for beauty.” Elizabeth smiled. “It makes her more tolerable to know her to be ridiculous.”
When Darcy did not reply at once, but tilted his head, Elizabeth glanced backwards, fearing that she’d been overheard by Lady Susan, and would need to apologize. No one was there.
Maybe Darcy had been offended by her calling his cousin’s wife ridiculous? He asked seriously, “How did you ever forgive me for calling you merely tolerable?”
Elizabeth flushed and looked down.
Before she could come up with an answer — an answer that might have included admitting to him that she was not sure she everhadforgiven him, even now that she knew that he found her very tempting, Lord Matlock came up to them, clapped Darcy on the shoulder and said that Mr. Pearson had just arrived, and that made the whole planned party.
Soon all the gentlemen went out the door, shouting and laughing. With the lifting of the early morning fog that quietness also lifted, and the horses and dogs were brought round. The yard was filled with stamping and the baying of hounds.
The gentlemen all lifted themselves into their saddles, and while Elizabeth had an urge to grab Darcy’s hand one more time before he went off for the morning, her mild fear of horses was enough to keep her on the stairs up into the house instead.
She watched him, handsome and tall, and she admired the line of his body, from the excellent black boots to his buckskin clad legs, the red coat, buttoned tight against the cold, and then to the red hunting cap on his head.
He looked at her, picked up his hat and waved it at her,and grinned.
Then the group went off with the blowing of horns, the baying of hounds, the pounding of hooves, and the happy shouts of gentlemen enjoying sport.
The breakfast had been laid by the servants in a larger room that was still not nearly so big and formal as the dining room. It also wasnotwhere the family ate when it was just the three of them, that was a cozy room that overlooked the stream, while this room faced the tall grove of trees to the back of the house.
Rather than being appetizing, the rich scent of ham, tarts, rolls, coffee, porridge, and whole cooked eggs made Elizabeth nearly vomit.
Her odd little stomach flu from the previous morning was not yet gone. Elizabeth asked one of the kitchen maids to just have a piece of dried toast brought for her, and some weak tea to drink.
She then swallowed back her anxiety, pasted a smile on her face, and happily entered the conversation, working to catch the interests of this group of wives and daughters of her husband's neighbors. Her neighbors. Her new society.
