“Oh, she is a sweet dear!” Elizabeth replied. “Once one has gotten her to actuallyspeakin the first place, there is nothing not to love in her.”
Darcy briefly wondered what Elizabeth would think if sheknew that Georgiana had nearly eloped with Mr. Wickham. He shook the thought away. “I was talking with Lady Matlock this morning, and—”
Elizabeth groaned loudly.
Darcy smiled. “She suggested that you have the serious flaw of not listening so often to her advice as she wishes you to.”
As he’d hoped, the wry way he phrased that made Elizabeth chuckle. But then she sighed. “I suspect from how you have begun this conversation that I am not following her advice as often asyoumight wish me to.”
“Ah.” Darcy tapped his fingers on his leg. “Let us rather say she convinced me that there is one particular point on which the advice you disregard is in fact correct.”
Elizabeth pressed her lips tightly together.
Darcy said, “I hardly understand why you have refused to spend so much on clothing as you ought, and—”
“I am spending exactly what Ioughtto spend.”
The snap was very unlike Elizabeth.
“While Lady Susan is, possibly, overly concerned with her raiment, my aunt is not. If she thinks you ought to spend more—”
“I will not.”
“I am not used to being interrupted as I speak,” Darcy replied sharply.
“And I am not used to being told how I ought to dress, as though I were a child and you my mother.”
“Whyare you resisting this advice?”
Elizabeth did not reply.
She started to tap her foot repeatedly on the carpet as they studied each other.
“I cannot support you if I do not understand.”
“Then do not support me. That is your choice. I will not go to her dressmaker, I will not order a thousand dresses for theseason, I will not spend more money than I have determined to spend on my clothes. That is my choice, and I am done with it.”
“Do you not have enough money? I… what have you spent the funds given to you on? What do you want so much money for?”
Elizabeth did not reply.
“I believe there were seven hundred pounds in the account set aside for your use. That ought to be more than ample for any reasonable purchases. Have you…” Darcy suddenly had a terrible, and likely stupid, suspicion that she had given all of the funds to Mr. Wickham. It was much more likely that she’d given it to her tradesman uncle or towards the dowry of her sisters. “Who did you give the money to?”
“No one. All ofyourmoney is right there, in yourbankaccount.” She made the word bank sound like a curse. “Forty pounds and change have been spent from it, no more, no less. Write to Mr. Childe to inquire if you doubt me.”
She stalked away, and went to stand by one of the windows, and stare out at the snowy night.
Darcy frowned. How had she become so angry? He’d spoken to her with the best of intentions.
Lord Hartwood walked next to him and put his arm familiarly around his shoulder.
With a grunt Darcy shook it off.
“Women,” Hartwood said. “One can hardly live with them, but… what is the alternative?”
“Did you have a purpose in speaking to me?”
Hartwood laughed, not unsettled at all by Darcy’s poor mood. “Of course I did. You just had an argument with Mrs. Darcy, I imagine.”
