Page 50 of The Widower of Pemberley

He put the fine crystal glass down onto a small table and wiped his lips with a handkerchief.

“It is my business to manage myself,” he finally said.

“And mine as your uncle to support you. I should have taken better care of you. I promised my sister as she died that I would do my best for you, and I have not attended properly to that duty.”

“I am perfectly well,” Darcy repeated, a little touched even though the notion that he needed any care was incorrect. “And my decision to marry Elizabeth comes from sober and cold calculation, not inflamed passion or some sort of…insanity caused by seeing Mary die.”

Matlock stood and pressed a hand on Darcy’s arm. “You wish to avoid anything like that happening again.”

“Should I not? I learned much.”

“You should—you have no distance from the matter. You should have waited at least twelve months before entering another marriage.”

“Emily needs a mother. I am no mother. I am not suited to raising a child.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam loudly cleared his throat. “I have watched you with the girl. You are more diligent with her than most mothers.”

“You have succeeded in insulting those women but failed to praise me.”

“Lord, this is why I never mean to marry for affection,” his cousin replied. “It has done more damage toyourgood sense than a cannonball to the chest.”

“Darcy takes others more seriously than he ought,” Lord Matlock said. “Tell me about this Elizabeth. What is she like? I am hardly inclined to think well of a woman who would use her wiles to entrap a man in your present state, but your honour is engaged, and there is nothing to be done.”

“Miss Elizabeth has always acted in the most proper and ladylike manner, and I will hear nothing said that questions her honour or virtue,” Darcy replied.

His uncle stared at him.

Then he nodded with an air of satisfaction. “Good. You have a little feeling towards her. I almost hope that she cares nothing for you and that she is the coldest scheming fortune hunter. It would be painful for a tender-hearted girl to marry a man whom she liked, who in turn had married her because he thought she would be easier to mistreat than a rich girl.”

“What? No—” Darcy frowned. “I certainly do not…I do not wish to mistreat her. I do not. I know that…I have warned her of my cold nature, of my inability to become soft in the way that women like. I have tried to warn her. To make her understand what Mary saw. And…but, I am not…”

Was he marrying Elizabeth because she would be ‘easier to mistreat’?

He liked her. Therefore, she deserved better than him. But she also deserved better than Collins.

Was he worse than Collins?

Would Mary have thought that he was worse than Collins?

Stop being ridiculous.You have done Elizabeth a great kindness.

His uncle pulled at his side whiskers.

Colonel Fitzwilliam pushed a glass of port into his father’s hands, and the older man sipped it. “I struck closer to the mark than I expected. But as I said before, your honour is engaged. Do not believe everything Mary said to you. She was an adulterer. She was…not much like you. You have everything required in you to make a reasonable woman happy—but that is no longer the question. The question is whether you can make this Elizabeth happy—oh damn, by George, I wish I had spent more time with you after Mary died.”

“You spent two weeks at Pemberley. You remained for the whole duration of the inquest—what more could you have done?”

“A great deal.” Matlock pulled again at his whiskers. “A great deal more. I seenow. That is life. You always realise that you have failed in some essential matter when it is too late.Youhave also learned that lesson.”

Darcy poured a glass of port for himself.

He had indeed.

“So,” Lord Matlock asked, “what do you hope from me? Shall I disappoint you greatly if I do not rant about the importance of marrying well? I know that you want a chance to use all those arguments that you have rehearsed in your mind about why you are acting reasonably by marrying, with very little delay, a woman whose station in life is decidedly beneath your own.”

“She—” Darcy could not speak. The simple fact was that too much of what he could say along those lines came down to ‘she will be easier to mistreat’ and ‘she will have no right to complain when I mistreat her’.

Good God.