I stopped and plucked a roll of lace from a higher shelf. “No. I meant it as I said it. Because if you want to find something special, you have to look in the right places.Thisis the lace you should buy—from thetopshelf, not the bottom.”
Jane fingered it dubiously, her eyebrows lifting ever-so-slightly in admiration. “Trust you, Lizzy, to turn a mere shopping outing into a metaphor for men.”
I lifted my shoulders. “Shopping for lace, shopping for men— ‘tis all the same, really. Know your means and do not settle until you find the best one you can afford.”
Jane shook her head and dropped the lace into a little basket Aunt had given us to carry our purchases. “If I did not know you better, Lizzy, I would say those words smack of bitterness.”
“Bitter? Why, no, not in the least. I am merely a realist. We cannot always have the very best.”
She tucked her arm inside mine and hugged it, drawing me close as we continued walking. “Or perhaps one person’s ‘best’ is not another’s. Perhaps the ‘very best’ man for you is still out there searching until he finds Elizabeth Bennet of Hertfordshire.”
I rolled my eyes and chuckled at her. “I am become too much of a cynic to believe in fate or star-crossed loves. If such a thing existed, I know already the man who would inevitably cross my path at just the right moment for us to meet our destiny, but it will never be so. Therefore, I will bide my time and look to my means, and perhaps one day I will happen upon a balding gentleman in his forties, ready for his second marriage. And if I am very lucky, perhaps he will not have bad breath and eight unruly children.”
Jane scoffed. “You do yourself too little credit, Lizzy. But come, let us show these to Aunt Gardiner and see if Lydia and Kitty have left any tea for us.”
I bounced into a playful curtsey. “After you, milady.”
Two
Darcy
“Fitzwilliam!Thereyouare.Egad, man, it is eight in the evening, and here you are in your study. Do you ever stop working?”
I lifted my eyes from the crop estimates my steward had presented me earlier in the day and sat back in my chair. “Do you ever start?”
My younger brother sauntered toward me, shaking his finger with a knowing grin. “Oh, testy this evening, are we? Very well, perhaps I shall not introduce my friend to you. He is waiting in the drawing room, but I can just as easily send him away.”
I dipped my quill in the inkpot and made a note beside one line, then cleaned the quill and put it away. I was meticulous and not fast—mostly because it drove George mad to watch me moving so slowly.
“Good heavens, man. It is a bloody good thing you employ men to do the hard work around here, or nothing would ever get done.”
I raised my brow as I put my ink away. “Yes, what a mercy I have a man to cut wood and another to muck out the stables. It leaves me all that time to sit at my desk.”
“Are you coming?” he demanded. “Because Bingley is going to drink all my Scotch while I am away.”
“MyScotch,” I corrected. “And I told Huxley you were not to serve my best spirits to your guests any longer.”
“Oh-ho-ho!” He wagged a knowing finger at me. “It just so happens Ididbuy this bottle. It was when we were in Edinburgh on holiday. Got a bloody good price, too.”
“Language, George,” I admonished. I wasn’t sure why I bothered. It never did George any material good, and it made me sound like a tired old codger trying to parent a full-grown man. I rose from my desk and straightened my jacket. “Very well, let me to this Bingley fellow you insist on me meeting.”
George’s face blossomed. “About jolly time. Gad’s teeth, Fitzwilliam, you have ink on your fingers like some common clerk.”
“I do not.” But I twitched, just to make sure… I had, after all, been writing all evening.
“Got you!” George laughed. “Come, brother, you must smile a little when you meet my friend. He is not used to bold and commanding figures such as yours. You will frighten him off.”
I shot my brother a sideways glance. “If he is a friend ofyours, perhaps he deserves to be frightened off.”
“Ah, very good. I see your sense of humor has returned. I say, Fitzwilliam, you are become rather dusty, spending all your days in the study. It will do you good to meet my friend.”
I sighed. “Very well. How did you meet this one? Did he pay your gambling debts at the racetrack? Or did you meet him in Town while trying to decide which gold watch fob to purchase?”
“Neither. He is a very respectable chap I met in school.”
“Oh, so you do remember the place? That is encouraging.”
“I remember a fat lot of rules, but with some sport mixed in for good measure. You will like Bingley—he’s not like Howard or Bixby. Son of a steel mill tycoon who—”
