“Explanation? How so? I would counter that it is you who must explain yourself. What can you mean, going off without a word to anyone and in the company of some trollop all day, deliberately to humiliate your cousin?”
“I was with no trollop.”
“Your aunt showed me the proof in your own hand! She even had a name… Benwick, something like that?”
Darcy shifted uneasily in the seat and, for a moment, longed for the safety of the foot pegs on the back of the carriage. “I know of none by the name Benwick. There must have been some misunderstanding.”
“Well, I still say you have a bit of talking to do, for it is utter nonsense to me, that you should have gone off as you did like a petulant boy.”
“What is nonsense is that my aunt was so insistent upon my immediate acceptance of my cousin that she would attempt to drug and then compromise me so that I might not escape with my honour intact. I would know the plain truth, for if I decide to bestow my hand on my cousin, whatever has been the cause of my aunt’s desperation will shortly become my own concern.”
“Her desperation, as you call it, is nothing more than frustration with your lack of commitment.”
“And you do not think it strange that she attempted to impose upon me now? Would she not have had better opportunities on other occasions?”
The earl shook his head. “I have no interest in your intrigues, Darcy. When we walk in the door, I expect you to do your duty as a man of this family and act with honour. Do not forget, we still have Georgiana’s future to think of as well, and I would see you situated first—for her good as well as your own.”
Darcy ground his teeth. “I have not forgotten.”
“Darcy! There you are, my dear boy. Come, let us greet one another as family and put this nonsense behind us. And my dear brother, of course, it is only fitting that you should have come as well, for I am excessively attentive to all manner of discord within a family, and we ought not to have any hint of that between us.” Lady Catherine stood in the centre of his own drawing room, a caped dress spread opulently like a royal cloak and held court at his favourite wingback chair.
“Aunt Catherine,” he acknowledged. “You will pardon me if I do not rush to kiss your cheek. I have a few plain questions to which I must hear an answer.”
She looked hurt, her wrinkled brow falling and her lips trembling. “Darcy, you speak as if you have been the injured party. Would you accuse me, an old woman, of wronging you? I declare I cannot see how. What has anyone done that you ought not to have done yourself?”
He glared darkly, refusing to answer his aunt’s plea. His gaze searched all round till it settled upon his butler, standing at a far door. The man’s face reddened faintly when he felt his master’s scrutiny, but he remained stock still, his hands locked behind his back, and his eyes straight ahead.
“Dawson! Have Mr Wilson brought, please.”
Mr Dawson looked unhappy and glanced to Lady Catherine before he stammered, “Sir, Mr Wilson has been relieved of his duties and confined to his chamber for unseemly conduct. I should not like to expose any ladies or your distinguished guests—”
“Mr Dawson, who pays your salary? I know not what other compensation you have received, but your position in this house is retained atmypleasure.”
“Darcy!” Lady Catherine objected. “What accusation is this? Do you suspect me of some treachery in your own household?”
He glanced levelly at the lady but did not give the satisfaction of a reply. “Dawson,” he resumed, “I will also have Mrs White, and the cook brought.”
“James!” the lady implored now, walking toward the earl, “hear you this? Does he intend to bring some sort of charges against me? I will not be thus spoken to! If he has some manner of protest to make, have I not greater? Has he not refused to perform his duty these six years since his majority? Nay, it has been eight since the subject was first canvassed openly, yet he refuses to oblige! That I should live to see the day my own sister’s son should thus treat his family!”
“Darcy,” the earl’s deep voice cautioned, “we had settled that you intended to accept your duty. Do not delay or complicate matters by reluctance or pointless allegations now.”
“I do not consider it pointless. The integrity of my household has been breached, my authority challenged, and my private affairs meddled with. If—and this point is absolutely conditional—I choose to offer my cousin my hand in marriage, I must have some assurances that such behaviour shall never be repeated.”
“If!” Lady Catherine nearly erupted. “Have you no decency? Your cousin has been disgraced, and in your very own bed! How can you stand before me now and claim that you have some choice in the affair? The matter was settled last night!”
“That is the very point I would dispute, and to do so will require more honest witnesses than can be found in my own corrupted household.”
“I will hear no more of this slander! Where is my daughter? Anne will be heard, for she is the wounded party here!”
A maid was thus dispatched, and the young lady brought from the very next room, but at the same moment she appeared, a footman bowed and announced a Mr Collins to see Lady Catherine.
Darcy, heated and offended as he was, could not help but be checked by such a name. “Collins?” he repeated.
“Indeed,” his aunt smiled. “My parson from Hunsford. He is here to perform the ceremony at my request. I have already procured the license, and I will have satisfaction of you this very night before my daughter’s ruin is made known.”
Darcy knew not what to think. Outrage at his aunt’s presumption and high-handed meddling was but one of the swirl of ill feelings plaguing him at that moment. Collins? Not… notherCollins, surely!
He had not the opportunity to answer his aunt, for in the next moment, the very bumbling fool he had seen on the pavement in Cheapside that morning now bowed his way into the drawing room. And beside him, with her lovely eyes cast down over rosy cheeks and her hands folded demurely before her….
