“Oh, I am certain I do not know,” Elizabeth said, her tone innocent, but her gaze pointed. “Perhaps the way Jane has been mincing about her packing, looking over her shoulder every handful of seconds, and delaying putting that nice gown of hers up until it grew awkward.”
“Oh, come now,” Mrs. Gardiner chided gently. “Your uncle only invited them to dinner to sort out some new business, whatever you may suspect, Lizzy. But I daresay it will not be such a terrible duty for you both to put on a smile or two for the gentlemen. If you cannot manage to enjoy yourself for an evening, Elizabeth, well…”
Elizabeth laughed, shaking her head. “I am merely wary of how very eager you both seem to throw us in their path. Very well, I shall take myplum-colored dinner gown out, since it will not be as much bother as trying to get the creases out of the blue one. But Aunt, if I fall asleep halfway through the soup, I shall hold you entirely responsible.”
“Indeed,” Mrs. Gardiner said, smiling as she patted Elizabeth’s hand. “I am sure you will find a way to endure it, dear.”
As Mrs. Gardiner left the room, Elizabeth turned back to Jane, arms crossed and a knowing smile on her lips. “And you—you are not nearly as innocent as you pretend. What is it you know that I do not?”
Jane bit her lip, looking up at Elizabeth with a slightly guilty but thoroughly amused expression. “Nothing more than you, I am sure. I simply think that one evening among old friends—whether they are Uncle Gardiner’s or not—will be rather pleasant. And perhaps even enlightening.”
Elizabeth narrowed her eyes, her smile turning wry. “Enlightening. Yes, I am sure. And if by the end of the evening, I discover the whole affair has been a grand scheme between you and Aunt Gardiner, I shall demand full recompense.”
Jane laughed. “Then you had best begin thinking of your price now, Lizzy, for I believe it shall be a most charming evening indeed.”
Bingley’s footsteps echoed impatientlyagainst the gleaming floor of Darcy’s study as he paced back and forth, casting the occasional exasperated glance at his friend. Darcy was seated at his desk, pen in hand, though he was currently more interested in issuing a mild scolding than in finishing his correspondence.
“Tell me, Bingley, just what possessed you to drag me to that… farce of a dinner party two nights ago? You assured me it was a mere gathering, but I counted no fewer than six young ladies strategically placed around the table, all of whom seemed ready to faint dead away if I so much as inquired after their names.”
Bingley stopped his pacing long enough to flash an innocent grin. “Oh, come now, Darcy. You are being melodramatic.”
“Am I?” Darcy arched an eyebrow. “Perhaps you failed to notice that the only other gentlemen present were married or otherwise engaged. Or did you think it was a coincidence that Lady Stanwick arranged her table so I was boxed in by not one, but two of her nieces?”
Bingley shrugged, utterly unrepentant. “The ladies were pleasant company, I thought.”
“Pleasant company?” Darcy scoffed. “Bingley, one of them spent twenty minutes extolling her own embroidery, speaking of it as though it were the work of Michelangelo himself, while the other waxed poetic on the beauty of—what was it? —seashell collections.”
Bingley stifled a laugh. “Seashells, Darcy. Come, they can be quite pretty! The lady was only being polite, filling the silence since you seemed determined to contribute nothing beyond the occasional monosyllabic response.”
Darcy shot him a withering look. “Can you blame me? I agreed to attend a dinner, not a matchmaking symposium.”
Bingley chuckled, unruffled. “You have always been impossible to please. You find the ladies vacuous. You find the company dull. Would it have killed you to smile a little?”
“Smile? Bingley, if I had smiled, the entire evening would have been declared a triumph, and I would find myself besieged by Lady Stanwick’s relations for the remainder of the season. No, thank you. I am finished with these so-called dinner parties. From now on, you are to attend those affairs on your own.”
“On my own?” Bingley threw up his hands in exaggerated despair. “Darcy, you cannot abandon me to these people. Besides, that would defeat the entire object!”
“Which is?”
“Gettingyouout from behind that desk once in a while and thinking of something besidesmybusiness all the time.”
“Ah, I nearly forgot.” Darcy dipped his quill again. “You seek to be rid of me.”
“Notridof you, Darcy, but perhaps… less of you. Egad, are you not weary of seeing hardly anyone butme, and the people who work for you?”
“You are mistaken. I speak with dozens of men each week who do not work for me.”
“Yes, all contracts and business partners and the like. By Jove, I wish Fitzwilliam were in Town. I could bloody well use a bit of his cleverness just now to oust you from your study—for your own good, of course.”
“Such a pity he entered the Army and made himself more useful to the crown than to us…”
“You speak as if all I do is use and manipulate you, Darcy.” Bingley’s tone sounded wounded. “It is not as if I have not exerted efforts of my own in this partnership.”
Darcy glanced up and dash it all if Bingley was not massaging that old bayonet wound as he paced. Darcy sighed. “I never said you did not, but all these things you claim are formybenefit seem rather to be things thatyouwant, not I.”
“But how can you not want this? A little jolliness, a little pleasure in life! I know you do. You are a dull shell of a man suffering from desperately low spirits, not at all the fellow I knew in France.”
“Good heavens, I should hope I am no longer a youth of twenty.”
