“Myfather is not a peer of the realm.”
“I had to explain to Mrs. North how to prepare it, but she was delighted to make anything I promised to eat.”
“Yes, yes, you told me about how worried she is about how thin you are. I hadn’t noticed.”
“She loves me more than you.”
Darcy laughed and then winced and pressed his hand against his head.
This only made his cousin laugh more. “Not used to your alcohol.”
“I seldom drink so much.” And the time before this when he’d drunk, he’d found himself kissing Elizabeth and engaged despite his own best judgement.
“Delicate old man.”
“You are three years my senior.” Darcy rubbed at his temple.
“I bear my years, you are borne under by yours.”
Rather than replying, Darcy pursed his lips. He’d just remembered a time when he’d drunk all night at Oxford with Bingley after an exam. Andthatreminded him ofBingley.
Damn.
He needed to talk to Bingley. Bingley was still in London, since his friend had been one of the group who'd left their cardsat Darcy House the day after he’d been seen in the theater.
“Eh, looks like you just swallowed a toad.”
“I need to speak with a friend.”
“Can’t imagine that they are much of a friend ifthatis how you look at the prospect of discussion with them.” Colonel Fitzwilliam chomped at his food. He turned a page in the newspaper. “No wonder you keep so few intimates. Any case, you will soon have to lose my company. I need to return to my business, managing a regiment and keeping us in training and with full complement. Terrible difficult business being the commanding officer of one of the king’s regiments.”
“Don’t you always complain how bored you are, and that your major… What's his name?”
“Mackenzie — stout highlander fellow.”
“Yes him, you often brag about how he does the great majority of the work.”
“Would be a busier business without him, I’ll admit that.”
After a while Mrs. North came herself. “Master Richard, did your breakfast match your hopes? I sent Tom down to the market yesterday to get the cayenne peppers.”
“Divine! Northy, divine.”
Darcy rolled his eyes.
When she left, he said, “Now I no longer wonder how you made it into my house despite my hung up knocker. I am only confused about how I have anything left when you are in the city so often.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam brightened. “A capital notion, to dine here whenever I pass by the way. You could tell Northy—”
“Northy.” Darcy grinned. “She’d be in an offended snit for a week ifIcalled her that.”
“You are a reserved and dignified gentleman. One of the great of England. I am just a young rapscallion who went into the army, and whohappensto be the younger son of an earl. Butnothing else recommends me.”
After the cousins finished their meal, they donned coats against the forbidding sleet. It was one of those days where an icy drizzle mixed with the rain.
“Fine day,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said cheerfully as they walked around the corner to the stables two buildings down the road. “I much prefer this to a particularly cool June afternoon in Deogiri.”
With a whistle he started off on his own path as soon as he’d collected his horse.
