I then curtly excused myself and went directly across the room to Lady Montiel to ask for an introduction to Mr and Mrs Johnson.
By making the acquaintance of the objectionable family in question, I was indulging a fit of temper, and I knew it. Myexcuse had to be that Miss Bingley had shown me who I so very lately had been, and I did not like it. In a final stroke of irony, Bingley joined me as I was being introduced, and upon meeting their daughter, Miss Cora Johnson, he was pleased to lead her out onto the floor.
Still seething, I watched him as he led the young lady through the steps. She was a pretty girl—an uncommonly pretty girl—yet I was wildly relieved I did not have to ask her to dance because she was still so fresh from the nursery. I was appalled. Had I ever seriously considered taking a wife of seventeen years of age?
I never would again, for I had met a woman who is within striking distance of her majority, and she would not need parenting so much as she would require partnering.My God, I thought, resisting the strong urge to clutch at my head. I was so well and truly owned by Elizabeth Bennet she had me on my knees with contrition to even think of dancing with any other lady.
A light touch on my arm brought me up from the depths. “Are you well?” Georgiana asked.
“Yes, why? Was I scowling? Do not pretend I was not. Shall we dance? I believe the next is mine.”
“I would much rather go,” she said quietly. “You are tired, and I am more so. Might we properly leave before the supper dance?”
“Do you not have partners on your card?”
She looked down and said, “Well, I claimed we would likely be leaving after supper for the rout at Claremont.”
“What rout at Claremont?”
“There is not one, I know, only I heard someone mention it is to be held next week. I was hoping that the gentlemen I rejected would be too polite to point out I was merely confused.”
“In that case,” I said, “let us go to this so-called crush just as soon as we may.”
CHAPTER 21
Iwas still properly harassed by my temper the following morning, as evidenced by Carsten, who tied my neckcloth while maintaining the dreadful silence of a lion tamer forced to pull a nettle off of his beast’s tail.
What better time than now, when I was in such a foul state, to pay a call on my aunt and uncle? I felt suitably dangerous, and more than that, I was grimly certain of my errand. Upon being ushered into the breakfast room where they both sat, I bowed stiffly.
“Well, Darcy. Imagine you have come to us,” my uncle remarked drily as greeting. “Do you wish me to repair relations with my sister, or have you come to tell me what has befallen my youngest son?”
“Neither, sir.” I said, taking the seat he offered and asking only for coffee. “I have come to properly thank my aunt for all she has done for Georgiana.”
“There are two or three gentlemen she might consider,” that lady said with a supercilious smile, “though she is still so very awkward. It is a great shame that Anne died young, for that poor girl would have turned out better if she had not.”
This slighting remark coupled with that bit of glibness when speaking of the loss of my mother did little to improve my temper. I held it, however, solely for the sake of speaking with the cold power of restraint.
“I am in no hurry to marry her to anyone, ma’am. We plan to leave early in July, though I have not yet settled on a date. And given the press of engagements we have before we leave, I thought I ought to come now to pay my respects and to thank you sincerely.”
“July? The Season is not closed before the end of August. You do not mean it.”
“Yet I do. I am her guardian,” I said pointedly, a fact that annoyed my uncle still. “Not only has the press of engagements for so many weeks been fatiguing for my sister, but I am of the opinion the city is likely to become unwholesome in the heat. I would prefer she not end an invalid like Anne because we have pushed her too hard.”
“As you wish,” Lady Matlock said with a shrug. I knew then that our connexion to the Earl and Countess of Matlock had weakened to the point of strain, and I was glad of it. What good had their influence done me other than make me proud of being the nephew of a peer?
To cap it all, upon taking my leave, Lord Matlock had turned back to his letters and with an air of great distraction, he said, “Oh, and Darcy, if you see my other son, tell him he owes his mother a look at him at least once this year.”
Even after so little physical effort, the restraint required and frigidity of my reception during that unhappy errand left me spent. Upon my return to my house, I cancelled all commitments save for the dinner party I had committed my sister to attend some time ago. On many levels, I was bone-weary, though it was nothing like the healthy exhaustion of seeing Miss Elizabethsafely to London from Kent. I felt strangely filthy and longed for something like a good internal scrubbing.
The image that returned to me again and again was that of sleeping on a bedroll next to Mrs Hamilton’s meagre little fire with a belly full of righteous stew.
After several hours of staring out the window in my library, I went to my bookshelves and pulled out a book on the northern fortifications. That same afternoon, as I watched streaks of rain blight my window, I made a decision. Upon returning my sister to Pemberley, where she was most comfortable in all cases, I would spend what was left of the summer on a long tramp far from all comforts, all privilege—far from all persons with easy means, and as far from the man I used to be as I could reasonably get.
Fitzwilliam arrived the following week, though on Saturday—not Friday as he had said he would. I did not quibble over his tardiness, for he stumped irritably into my study, and to be frank, I did not dare.
“You are here,” I said stupidly.
“As you see. Where is Georgiana?”
