Page 9 of Courting Elizabeth

“It existed before your birth! Your mother and I formed that plan.”

“My mother wished for my happiness.”

“With a young woman of your rank!”

I felt anger rising, cold and precise.

“Miss Bennet will be my wife if her father consents. I ask you to speak of her with the respect due my choice.”

“Respect? For a family without name, without fortune, without propriety? A mother whose manners are known throughout Hertfordshire, a father who abandons his daughters to their foolishness, uncles in trade!”

“Enough!”

The word came out so harshly that Anne started.

I regretted frightening her, not interrupting her mother.

Lady Catherine rose.

“You will sacrifice Pemberley to a pair of fine eyes. It is unworthy of you.”

“Pemberley cannot be diminished by a mistress who is intelligent, courageous, and capable of understanding her responsibilities.”

“Capable of understanding her advantages, above all!”

I looked at her without answering.

Her voice dropped.

“Miss Bennet refused Mr Collins because he offered her a mediocre house. She now accepts a man who possesses ten thousand pounds a year, an estate in Derbyshire, and one of the finest names in England. Do not mistake well-managed ambition for virtue.”

The violence of this accusation made me step forward.

“Elizabeth refused Mr Collins when she had no way of knowing whether a better offer would ever come. A mercenary woman would not have taken that risk.”

“An intelligent woman, a skilled strategist, knows when to wait.”

“You do not know her.”

“I know young persons who wish to rise.”

“What you know best is the world you have chosen to imagine.”

Anne looked up sharply. Fitzwilliam, behind me, did not move.

Lady Catherine paled.

“You will regret this insolence!”

“Less than I would regret allowing you to insult the woman I have chosen!”

I left Rosings before my anger could make me forget what I owed to her age and our kinship.

On the way to the parsonage, her words stayed with me.

I rejected them.

Elizabeth was not mercenary. She had refused Collins despite the security such a marriage would have offered. She had spoken to me of Jane, of how I judged her family, and of all she still did not know about me. She had declared that her opinion was not fixed.