“I will give Jane Bennet her closure,” he declared, his voice ringing with authority. “She wished to look him in the eye and confirm her assessment of his lightness. I will provide the venue. When Bingley inevitably bounds over to our box and begins raving about the fetlocks of his dappled grey mare... I will watch her face.”
He stopped pacing and turned to face his three cousins.
“If she weeps, I shall offer her my handkerchief,” he promised. “But if she laughs... I will ask her to be my viscountess before the interval is over. Or at least allow me to court her.”
Darcy stared at his cousin, a grin spreading across his face. It was brilliant, it was theatrical, it was entirely Robert.
“It is a daring stratagem, Cousin,” Darcy noted, moving to the drinks cabinet.
“It is a solid plan, Brother.” Richard vaulted off the sofa. “I shall wear my dress uniform. If Bingley becomes tedious, I can threaten him with a sabre.”
“I shall wear my most intimidating diamonds,” Anne agreed, standing up and smoothing her skirts. “To ensure the Gardiners know we consider them worthy of our finest jewels.”
Darcy poured four glasses of brandy and handed them out.
“To Astley’s Amphitheatre, then,” Darcy proposed, raising his glass. “May the horses be swift, may Bingley be oblivious, and may you finally find your voice, Robert.”
“To Miss Jane Bennet.” Robert clinked his glass against Darcy’s, his eyes burning. “And to the total surrender of my bachelorhood.”
Chapter Eighteen: The Absolution at Astley’s
IF THERE WAS AN ENVIRONMENTless conducive to the delicate blossoming of a gentleman’s fragile heart, Robert Fitzwilliam, Viscount Keathley, had yet to find it.
Astley’s Amphitheatre was an assault on the senses. The air was thick with the scent of sawdust, roasted nuts, gunpowder, and an overpowering quantity of horse manure. The wooden bleachers trembled with the stomping of hundreds of boots, and the orchestra was playing a military march with a zeal that bordered on outright violence.
It was, in short, pandemonium. And Robert, a man who usually thrived in the glittering ballrooms of Mayfair, was sweating through his white linen shirt.
He was seated in the front row of his private box, gripping the railing as though he were bracing for a naval bombardment. To his immediate right sat Miss Jane Bennet, like a celestial being who had accidentally wandered into a stable. She wore a gown of pale blue silk, and she was watching a man perform a handstand on the back of a galloping pony with fascination.
Robert tried to swallow, but his throat felt as though it had been coated in plaster. He had managed to escort her from thecarriage to the box, a journey that had consisted of him staring straight ahead and offering stilted, one-word answers to her pleasant observations about the weather.
He was not well. The renowned rake of London, who had once talked his way out of a duel by complimenting his opponent’s waistcoat, was still mute. Boodles had tied his cravat in the ‘Mathematical’ knot that morning without being told, but Robert’s inner state was rapidly descending into abstract geometry.
He glanced around the box, seeking an anchor, but he found no sympathy. His family was useless.
On the opposite side of the box, Darcy was leaning to Elizabeth Bennet. The master of Pemberley—the man who, mere weeks ago, was a carriage wreck—was smiling. Not a grimace, not a gargoyle spasm, but a devastatingly handsome smile.I taught him that, Robert bristled. Miss Elizabeth whispered something behind her fan, and Darcy actually chuckled. Robert rolled his eyes to the heavens but found no sympathy there either.
Look at him,he thought bitterly.The recovering lunatic is fluent in banter, and I am sitting here like a decorative urn.
Behind them, the Gardiners were conversing with Anne and Georgiana.
“Do you think, Mrs Gardiner,” Anne was musing, watching a woman in spangled pantaloons vault over a flaming hoop, “that my mother would permit me to install a flaming hoop in the drawing room at Rosings? It would certainly liven up the Sunday dinners with Mr Collins.”
“I have not had the pleasure of meeting your mother yet, but I suspect Lady Catherine might not agree to a fire hazard in her parlour, Miss de Bourgh,” Mrs Gardiner replied carefully.
“Pity.” Anne sighed. “Perhaps a small moat, then.”
“That formation is useless against French artillery!” Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam bellowed from the back of the box, gesturing with a roasted chestnut at the trick riders below. “They are exposing their left flank! You cannot charge a cannon while doing a somersault! It is insubordinate!”
“They are acrobats, Richard, not the dragoons,” Robert managed to croak, his voice cracking slightly.
Miss Bennet turned to him, her blue eyes filled with that luminous kindness of hers. “Are you quite well, Lord Keathley? You seem uncommonly warm. The air in here is very close.”
Robert’s heart was beating like a drum.Speak,he ordered his brain.Say something witty. Say something charming. Do not mention the weight of Egyptian sarcophagi.
“I am... robust, Miss Bennet,” he choked out, instantly wincing at his choice of words.Robust? I sound like Collins’s sow.“That is to say, the horses. They are very... fast.”
Her lips twitched into a gentle, forgiving smile. “They are indeed, my lord.”
