Page 189 of Pride and Prejudice Resolutions

The Earl spoke first. "You look less like death. Improvement."

"Thank you, Father." He inclined his head. "I aim to please."

Robert snorted. "You aimed to please three days ago and ended up chasing a carriage like hound chasing partridges. Standards have fallen."

The Earl ignored his eldest son. He studied Richard with the slow, deliberate scrutiny of a commander inspecting troops before battle.

"You will not be going to the West Indies."

Richard blinked. "What?"

"I never wrote to the General. There is no posting. It was a ruse to motivate you."

The words hung in the air like smoke after cannon fire. Richard turned them over in his mind, examining them from every angle, waiting for them to assemble into sense.

"You lied."

"I manoeuvred."

"You told me I would be shipped to the West Indies."

"I implied it. You extrapolated."

The Earl moved to the window, his back to the light. "I did not expect you to take me literally. I did not expect you to fallin love with a woman who thinks you incapable of the emotion. And I certainly did not expect you to chase her carriage through Mayfair like a bedlamite."

"Lindon helped," Richard offered.

"Lindon is an idiot. You are supposed to be clever."

"I thought I was. Apparently not."

The Earl grunted. He picked up one of the untouched food trays from the bedside table, examined it, set it down in disgust. "I will pay Schultz. The tailor. Stop looking at me like that. It is not a gift. It is a bribe."

"Father—"

"Your mother and I called on Miss Bingley."

Richard's heart stopped. "You what?"

"She is proud. Stubborn. Wounded." His voice remained flat, matter-of-fact. "She reminds me of your mother. Same steel. Same refusal to bend."

"What did she say?"

"She said she would 'consider' the possibility that you are not a complete villain." He turned to face his son. "Which is, I suppose, progress."

Richard did not know what to say. His father, the Earl of Matlock, who had never admitted defeat, never shown uncertainty, never once raised his hands in surrender, stood before him—and for the first time in Richard's memory, he looked lost.

"I have no advice for you," he continued. "I have been married to your mother for thirty-five years and I still do not understand how she thinks. The Miss Bingley situation is beyond my expertise." He spread his hands. "It is up to her. There is nothing to be done but wait."

"Wait."

"Wait. And stop lying in bed like a corpse. It is unbecoming."

He stood by the door. "Get out. Eat. You are a Fitzwilliam. We do not surrender to despair. We outlast it."

He paused at the threshold.

"Father."