Page 32 of Mr Darcy’s Quizzing Glass

“I am not unwilling to practise,” he said wryly.

Seeing sincerity in his countenance, Elizabeth spoke in an encouraging tone. “You said the glass serves as safeguard.”

“Without it, I might have afflicted my sister with a black-hearted villainess as her companion rather than the kind lady who now guides her. I might have wasted valuable time separating truth from fiction in the grievances my tenants sometimes make against one another. I might have invested with a man trying to sell land that was not his—as a friend had the misfortune to do.”

He recited the instances blandly, as though the impact of the glass had become unremarkable for him. She, however, was shocked. “Of course, you should employ it to protect your sister,” she said, adding, “and to warn Mr Bingley about Mr Tremblay.”

“It is difficult to know just how much is ‘too much’—but I shall do anything necessary to protect my sister. In the case of my estate, I must do what appears wisest for many beyond myself, and the glass has proved valuable since I became Pemberley’s master. But I had other sources of knowledge of Mr Tremblay—and nonetheless reached immediately for the glass.”

“It was instinctive of you to protect your friend.”

“A pretty way to put it. You found amusement in my plight as a single man of wealth pursued for my attention or my fortune or my interest in their daughter or sister.” He gave her a wry look, and Elizabeth’s cheeks warmed. “But with the glass, I have managed to see whether those of the ton care more for my friendship or my fortune.”

“Your friendship and attention are much coveted,” she assured him.

“Trust, however, is as valuable as gold. I came into my fortune, and the responsibilities that accompany it, before I felt myself able. It has helped me to protect my sister, who was only ten years of age when I became her guardian.”

His sister is the same age as Lydia, and fully dependent on a brother with duties and responsibilities far greater than anyone she had met. How could she question, let alone fault him for relying on the mysterious power of the quizzing glass? Lord knew her own father set aside his obligations in favour of books, and other gentlemen she knew made imprudent decisions from pride. Sir William, so pleased with his knighthood, had given up his business, causing the family to retrench only five years later.

“I understand it is difficult to converse easily with those who have not earned your trust.” She pressed the quizzing glass into his hand. “You would not have allowed me to gaze through the glass, and explained it to me, unless you trusted me.”

“I do.”

At her touch, her hand on his, the relief and gratitude that flooded through him turned to something more. After a long moment, he pocketed the glass. “Do I have your trust, despite my continued reliance on it, even when I had a surer grasp of my duties?”

“Duties to your sister and your estate never cease,” Elizabeth said, nodding. “And you chose not to rely on it here, not because we were beneath you, but because you were already trying to ease your reliance on it outside of those areas?”

“Yes. I admit, I arrived here with relatively few expectations, coming to aid Bingley in a small town where little was anticipated of its society and from which I expected little beyond good shooting and fishing. I was content to bide my time, assist him, and even learn to enjoy the reprieve from relying on the glass. I almost despise my reputation for infallibility—it was not earned solely by me.”

“You expected neither challenge nor intellect in Meryton,” she said soberly, “and while I cannot like your presumption, having lived here all of my life, I can understand it.”

“No! Yes,” he said quickly, disliking the gravity in her voice. “But none of that mattered, for you alone subverted my most ridiculous assumptions, all concocted from what I had grown to expect from a beautiful woman looking for a wealthy husband.”

“Oh,” she said. “I am neither of those⁠—”

You are beautiful, and I would be happy to be your wealthy husband, he thought before managing a less impulsive reply. “You appeared to me in a singular manner, and I was induced to leave Meryton when I did to fetch the quizzing glass.” Darcy rubbed his neck, unused to confessing emotions or fault, and overwhelmed at the way Elizabeth Bennet compelled him to do so. “I admit, in the beginning, I thought to return and look at you through it and determine whether I was in fact losing my mind or whether you... To see how you looked through the glass.”

“And yet, you did not return, and you did not use it to look at me in town, you said.”

He blew out a breath and swallowed. “When we met in town, and you were as you had been, I could not bear to treat you as I had others. It was unjust. You were not like any other. You are not like any other, not only in how you appear to me but in every way.”

She blushed in a most becoming manner before replying in a soft voice, “I-I cannot understand this light you see around me even without the glass, but now, having seen you through it, I understand how very wrong I was in my own first impressions.”

Much as Darcy wished to know the particulars of how he appeared to her, or better yet, to kiss her, the cacophonous arrival of her sisters drew them apart.

TWENTY-FOUR

Longbourn, if he was generous, was less than a sixth of the size of Pemberley, yet Darcy was certain more people were crowded within the Bennets’ home for this wedding eve soiree than had been inside Pemberley since he was a young boy and his parents had hosted a ball. Most of them he did not know, but many faces—if not with names attached—were familiar from his weeks in Meryton last autumn. Had he been introduced to the elderly, winsome-looking lady on the arm of a lean, red-faced man? He could not recall. They appeared well-to-do, and likely among the ‘twenty-four families’ of whose society Mrs Bennet had boasted, but unless he gazed at them through the quizzing glass, he could have no recollection of them.

“That is Mr Robinson and his mother. She rarely makes social calls but wished to join us here to celebrate Jane and Mr Bingley. Jane, you see, has long been one of her favourites, and had she a grandson of age to marry her, I am certain she would have encouraged it.”

Darcy exhaled, desperately pleased to hear Elizabeth’s voice. “It appears you saw my struggle. Thank you. I now remember meeting Mr Robinson briefly at some gathering⁠—”

“The Lucases, I believe.”

She glanced up with that gleam in her eye that seemed to contain a laugh and perfect understanding of what he was about. It made all the improper thoughts he had worked so hard to suppress since the meandering walk they had taken two days earlier flash through his mind.

“May I ask,” she said quietly, the humour in her voice more restrained, “whether using the quizzing glass might have assisted you in recalling his name?”