“There you are,” Kitty exclaimed as the two came around the corner. “Mama sent us to bring you in. You ought not be alone in the dark with Mr. Darcy.”
Lydia looked Elizabeth up and down. “You do not appear at all rumpled.”
“Rumpled?” Elizabeth exclaimed, the heat in her cheeks increasing. “Do not be absurd. Does Mr. Darcy seem the sort of man to rumple a miss in a garden?”
Lydia turned her all too knowing scrutiny on him. “I would say so, and for your sake, I hope he is.”
Fitzwilliam coughed.
Elizabeth hadn’t feared before that moment that mortification could in fact kill, but so acute was her embarrassment that it made her dizzy. “Lydia!”
Fitzwilliam hugged her arm to him. Elizabeth cast him a quick look to find only amusement on his face. Relief washed through her.
“You are so ill-mannered,” Kitty declared to Lydia. “Mr. Darcy is never going to introduce you to any of his wealthy friends.”
And with that, Elizabeth’s embarrassment redoubled.
“His wealthy friends will introduce themselves to me, because I am fun.” Lydia tossed her curls. “Unlike you.”
“Dinner,” Elizabeth said with enough volume to cut into whatever Kitty meant to retort.
Kitty huffed, but she turned back the way they’d come.
Dinner progressed in a similar manner, with Mrs. Bennet joining her youngest two daughters in badgering Fitzwilliam about when they could meet more of his friends and relations. Mr. Bennet, predictably, did nothing to curtail their behavior. The only relief he provided was, for a time, to engage Fitzwilliam in a detailed discussion on the value of Welsh sheep and how better suited their strains were to the English countryside than Scottish rams and ewes. From her suitor’s bland expression, Elizabeth could not ascertain which of her family members taxed Fitzwilliam more.
Finally, the evening concluded, Elizabeth walked him out to where one of their men had brought around his horse. Once they were far enough from the house not to be overheard, though in full view of the front parlor’s wide window against which two faces pressed, Elizabeth said, “I am sorry for their behavior. You endured them well.” A trill of worry went through her. Despite those wonderful stolen moments in the garden, she and Fitzwilliam merely courted. If her family dismayed him too greatly, he could choose never to ask for her hand.
“They are boisterous, I admit, but they have been nothing but kind, even after they learned of Richard’s lie. And not only kindto me but to Georgiana. My sister had not smiled, nor played a single note except in dreary misery, in over a year. Your sisters, and you, helped her heal.”
“For which I applaud them as well, but surely your gratitude for Miss Darcy’s restoration will dim, and my relations will still behave as they do.”
“I believe I find open, but well meaning, avarice and highly informed discussions on livestock preferable to relations and friends who perpetuate deceit upon an entire community, while drawing unsavory individuals in.”
Elizabeth’s lips crooked. She’d spent so many years worrying over the behavior of her mother and younger sisters that she had not paused to put their actions into such context. “Perhaps you are correct. A bit of ill manners is not so terrible.”
He smiled. “No. Not so terrible.”
“And perhaps still correctable, in my sisters,” Elizabeth said thoughtfully. “Especially were they separated. I should discuss Kitty visiting my aunt and uncle in London.”
“I should like to meet your aunt and uncle there,” Fitzwilliam said. “If she is as kind as Mrs. Phillips and he as practical as Mr. Phillips, I am certain we will get on.”
Elizabeth laughed. “Now you are being too generous, for I know that my Aunt Phillips is very similar to my mother, and that Uncle Phillips’ conversation is quite dry. You will, however, adore Aunt and Uncle Gardiner, I assure you.”
Fitzwilliam kissed her hand. “I am certain I will.”
Not ready for him to leave, Elizabeth did not relinquish his fingers, even though Kitty and Lydia watched. “Are you staying at Netherfield Park? Surely, you do not mean to ride from London and back every day?”
“You do not believe that, for you, I would ride twice as far, twice as often?”
“I do not believe you should have to, and I would not ask it of you.”
He kissed her other hand, for no reason Elizabeth could ascertain, though she had no desire to protest, then offered, “I am certain Patrick, my valet, has secured me a room at the inn.”
It pleased her that Fitzwilliam was a gentleman who would refer to his valet by name.
“And if the inn is full, I will impose on Bingley.”
“It is good of you to make that your second option.” Especially as, though Elizabeth doubted Fitzwilliam knew as much, Jane and Mr. Bingley definitely required their privacy. First, because their union had begun on rocky footing, and more recently because of Mary and Mr. Collins insisting they be put up. Fortunately, it had taken Mr. Bingley only a few days to find them accommodations outside of the manor house…living and working with Farmer Grason. As his wife had passed on years ago and his children had all elected to move away, he had the space and required the assistance.
