“And the arrangement was to everyone’s benefit, yes. My uncle got the contract with Burley Mills, Andrew ‘hired’ someone to govern his sisters... as well as Charles... and my mother saw a daughter married.”
He pretended interest in an actual, normal conversation, or at least that was what I thought at the time. Perhaps it was genuine, but I doubt I shall ever know. “Have you much family in Hertfordshire?”
“Prepare yourself for something terribly shocking. I have four sisters and a mother who has once tasted success in matchmaking. There, you may consider yourself warned and retreat to a safe distance, lest I see fit to ensnare myself yet another brother.”
“I am not easily caught.”
“Oh! A challenge, then!”
“Others have tried and failed,” he warned me, with that quirky little smile of his.
“But withfoursisters to dispose of, each more beautiful than the last, surely the odds are in my favor. If you ever care to test your luck against mine, Mr. Darcy, I dare you to stop in Hertfordshire for a month or two.”
“Do you intend to return to Hertfordshire?” he asked idly, swirling his glass again.
“Now that I am in half-mourning and Louisa is married, yes. After speaking with you, Charles says would like to try his hand at managing an estate, and my father writes that there is a fine one for lease not three miles from my family home.”
“Does Miss Caroline share your enthusiasm for this venture?”
I smiled like a Cheshire Cat. “No.”
His hand stopped swirling, and his eyes narrowed slightly. “Indeed.”
“But she will come, regardless, because whatever she might say, she despises Hurst even more than she dislikes me. It will chafe her beyond reason that I shall be Charles’s hostess and not herself, but I suppose she will rub along until another opportunity presents itself.”
Fitzwilliam smiled in earnest this time and raised his glass to me. “If Charles would care for any advice as he embarks on this new venture, tell him I would be at his disposal.”
“And mine?” I teased.
“Naturally.”
“Very well,” I declared, “let us have a private wager. Oh, nothing indelicate!” I cried when he looked scandalized. “For amusement only, and the winner will claim a forfeit of their choosing.”
“What is your wager?” he asked cautiously.
“Why, that by my means, I will see one of my sisterswellsettled, of course. Let us say by Christmastide?”
“Then I shall take care not to arrive in Hertfordshire until late December.”
“Foul, I say! We hope to be settled by Michelmas, and it would not be sporting of you to delay, sir.”
“Very well, I will risk it. After all, I have prevailed against all the belles of theton. I am confident that it will be I who claims the forfeit.”
I flashed him my most impertinent smile. “I am willing to bet that country girls from Hertfordshire have something that the London debutantes do not.”
“Probably mud on their skirts,” he scoffed, and finished his drink. “Until Michelmas, Mrs. Bingley.”
He dipped me a very proper farewell and left the breakfast shortly after that.
Four
The way Elizabeth usuallytells it, I was only lured to Hertfordshire by means of duress. She has probably written something about a wager in which she pitted her wit against my pride and felt assured of the victory. Nothing could be further from the truth. I do not doubt that she expected to foist one of her sisters off on me. She claims she was nearly successful, but I was never in any danger of falling for one of the Bennet sisters.
The simple reason is that the sister I learned to prefer was no longer a Bennet.
But there, I am getting ahead of myself. Charles—I shall hereafter call him Bingley, for the family name was now his by right—had little experience of the world beyond Eton and Cambridge. Barely graduated, he had expected a Grand Tour and a few years of leisure before assuming any sort of responsibility. I had once counseled Andrew not to keep his illness from his younger brother, but it was his judgment that sorrow deferred was sorrow foreshortened. And so, Bingley hadbut two months of intelligence before he had to bury his brother and head the household.
When I arrived in Hertfordshire, I expected disorder and confusion. I was disappointed.
