Page 7 of Mr Darcy’s Quizzing Glass

“Darcy!”

“Fitzwilliam.”

No one was happier to see him at Boodles than his cousin, who was quick to pull Darcy aside and secure his promise to attend a dinner party at his parents’ home the following evening.

“I had planned to call on them in the afternoon, after finishing some business here. I am to depart for Pemberley the day after.”

“You cannot leave in the middle of the Season,” his burly cousin barked. “Remain in town for another week, at least?”

“What is the urgency of my company?” Darcy looked at him closely. “Have you orders for France?”

Fitzwilliam gave him an odd look. “There is a young lady I wish you to meet.”

Darcy groaned. “You too? A matchmaker?”

“You are not the only man in this family who catches the eye of eligible young ladies,” came the indignant reply. “My mother has invited Baron Lewiston and his wife and daughter to dine. I met her at a ball a fortnight ago and have found her delightful on subsequent meetings.”

“You, in love?”

His cousin shrugged. “Infatuated perhaps. She is an exceptional beauty, from a good family.”

Darcy thought quickly on what he knew of the baron. No sons to inherit and a family fortune burnished through investments in mining. His daughter need not marry a gentleman of wealth, but societal connexions would ever be important. Fitzwilliam fulfilled those requirements and brought a good heart and steadfast disposition to all that he undertook.

“I shall join you at dinner.”

Darcy was standing by the front window when the Lewistons entered the drawing room. The baron and his wife were equally plump and expensively attired, but it was their dour expressions that caught his notice. Did they dread dining at his uncle’s home—being at war with the French, Lady Matlock’s cook was a stickler for serving only English dishes—or were they displeased by Fitzwilliam’s attentions to their daughter?

Miss Lewiston stepped forwards to greet his aunt. She was indeed a classic beauty, although her pale, red-haired delicacy did not excite Darcy’s interest. He was somewhat surprised she had caught his cousin’s eye, for he had a longstanding preference for blonde hair and had always celebrated liveliness in a lady. Her presence coaxed a smile from Fitzwilliam, and she seemed as pleased with his company as he was with hers; her eyes never left him except to gaze demurely at the floor or at the evening’s other guests. She seemed…agreeable, if a bit dull.

Introductions were made and drinks served, and Miss Lewiston, enthralled as she was by his loquacious cousin’s banter, left him with no strong impression of her. As it was, Darcy was eager to escape the baron’s persistent enquiries into his investments and interest in a mining venture in Cornwall. His fingers itched to pull out his quizzing glass and take his measure of the man, but he wished not only to avoid such a theatrical gesture, he was determined to come to his own conclusions first, trying to strengthen them before examining Lewiston covertly. All in all, he was unimpressed.

Relief arrived when dinner was announced, and with every lady’s arm claimed, Darcy was odd man out. He followed the group to the dining room. As they walked down the staircase, he raised the glass to his eye and looked at Lewiston’s broad back. A warm light emanated from him. Surprised, he peered at the baroness. It was the same.

Abashed to have thought ill of the couple, Darcy moved the glass away and glanced at Fitzwilliam, who appeared agreeably engaged with their daughter. Almost unconsciously, he again lifted the glass to his eye and peered through it at the lady, nearly stumbling on the final step at the sight of the dark shadow pulsating within and around her.

Once again, he had got everything wrong.

FIVE

“You and that fool glass,” Fitzwilliam growled at him hours later, when they each had swallowed a glass or two of port and their cravats and tongues were loosened. “You say hardly a word all evening and then pull it out and gawp at Miss Lewiston. Why did you scowl? She was quite put out, you know.”

If that had been all it was, Darcy thought, regretting she had turned and caught him looking at her. But it had been the shock at seeing her true self that had stunned and sickened him. For the next hours, he had hidden his feelings, speaking little and avoiding his cousin’s eye.

What can I say? What should I say? No one, not even Fitzwilliam, knew the power of the quizzing glass; discretion and secrecy had guided its use for generations.

“My intention was not to gaze at Miss Lewiston but at the feathered creature in her mother’s coiffeur. I thought it my only chance to examine it⁠—”

“Zooks, do you think yourself to be like Beau Brummel?” Fitzwilliam rocked forwards in his chair, slamming his glass on the table between them. “I have spoken of you as my favourite relation, and she finds you staring at her with a quizzing glass and then remaining silent the rest of the evening. She likely thinks you are a supercilious nob.” He stood and stalked across the room. “As do I.”

Fitzwilliam’s charge was undeniable, and well-deserved; he had failed to develop his own judgment, and then, startled upon learning how little discernment he possessed, had sat like a lump for the rest of the evening, thus provoking his cousin’s anger.

Better I remained silent than reveal how wrong I was about the Lewiston family.

The father’s bloviation and the mother’s peculiar fashion sense concealed their inner decency. By contrast, the appearance of Miss Lewiston’s cool beauty and coy affection for Fitzwilliam was a mask for her true self—as usual, Darcy could not faithfully define the sensation, but he had been struck by a powerful lack of moral decency. What a miserable business—I see an unhappy mesalliance and have no sensible basis on which to caution Fitzwilliam.

“I am sorry for any distress I caused you,” he said slowly, trying to quell his need to warn his cousin.

Fitzwilliam’s expression, florid with anger and drink, softened. “Truly, you are a disaster. You spend too much time at Pemberley without the company of civilised young ladies.”