Elizabeth laughed merrily.
“Ah,” Darcy replied. “I ought to finish my letter.” But the way Elizabeth’s dimpled smile watched him was an incentive to abandon that letter and join them. Miss Bingley pouted.
“Oho! You’ll not escape so easily.Mycuriosity is not satisfied,” Colonel Fitzwilliam exclaimed from the card table. He slapped his hand on his leg. “And the second reason that occurred to you as to why a lovely pair of women might promenade the room?”
Darcy flushed. “Did I say I had a second reason?”
“You certainly did.”
Was his cousintryingto embarrass him?
“Yes, yes. Tell us!” Miss Bingley eagerly studied him. “Do tell us your other notion!”
“I ah…”
“Eliza, you must also encourage Darcy.”
“I’d like to know as well. My curiosity is aroused! Mr. Darcy, if you do not wish me to quite annoy myself with speculation all night, you must tell me.” That bright, dimpled smile.
Nothing for it.
Darcy sat straighter, put the feather pen back in the inkpot, and aware that his cousin was watching him, he said with a confidence he did not quite feel, “My other notion was that you both were aware that your figures appear to best advantage while walking, and if that was your intent I can admire you better from here.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam laughed and clapped his hands. “Bravo! Bravo, cousin! Better than I anticipated ever hearing fromyou.”
Miss Bingley giggled. “No, no! Horrible! Horrible! How could you say something so shocking.”
Elizabeth also smiled. Dimples still out. But she was not flushed with any sort of extra awareness at hearing him praise them — did she possibly think that his words had been principally aimed at Miss Bingley?
“Eliza, how shall we punish him for such a speech?” Miss Bingley asked.
“Tease him. Annoy him. Surely with an extra four weeks of acquaintance you must have learned some method by which he might be teased.”
“I swear to you, I have not. Tease calmness, self possession, and evenness of temper? It is impossible.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam choked on his port and started coughing and chortling with laughter.
Miss Bingley glared primly at Colonel Fitzwilliam.
For his part Darcy sat straighter and desperately tried to focus on his own confidence in himself to keep from blushing.
“Well then,” Miss Bingley said with asperity, “how would you tease your cousin?”
“Me? Oh, do not askme. I have the advantage of a family relation, and having been his slightly older companion in childhood. I saw Darcy fall into one too many muddy creeks and streams to respect him.” Then he laughed again. “So very self possessed — Bingley, remember that time I had you shove him to disrupt his aim at snooker, and he still won the game?”
“Charles! You didn’t?” Miss Bingley said horrified.
Darcy could not repress his smile this time. He noticed Elizabeth studying him as he grinned, and said, “Of course I won the game. I am immune to, ah, what did you call them? Unconventional stratagems. I’d say, fraudulent tactics.”
“See, Eliza,” Miss Bingley said, “we cannot laugh at him without a cause for it. Mr. Darcy cannot be teased.”
“Mr. Darcy is not to be laughed at!” cried Elizabeth. “That is an uncommon advantage, and uncommon I hope it will continue, for it would be a great loss to me to have many such acquaintances. I dearly love a laugh.”
“Miss Bingley,” Darcy replied, “has given me more credit than I could possibly deserve. Any man, whether as wise as Socrates or Plato, or as good as Christ himself may be rendered ridiculous by a person whose first object in life is a joke.”
“I hope I am not such a person,” Elizabeth replied.
“I certainly am not,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam. “A joke is only my third or fourth object in life. However, I assure you, that Icanlaugh at my cousin.”
