Page 31 of Mr Darcy Bets on Love

"Something like that," said Elizabeth, touched.

"And you were snowed in on your wedding night, I hear, at some little inn at Whetstone! How perfectly romantic. Like a novel."

Elizabeth blinked. "Who told you that?"

"Oh—" Lady Theodosia made a small graceful gesture. "Somebody. Georgiana, I think. Or one of the servants at Matlock House. You know how things get about."

It was a trifle. Elizabeth let it go. Georgiana had heard the story from them at dinner and had been enchanted by it; she might easily have told it on to her aunt's household.

When at last her guest rose to go, Lady Theodosia took both her hands again at the door and pressed them.

"My godmother is at home on Monday afternoon," she said. "I will call for you at three, and go with you. You need not face her alone the first time. She can be very alarming."

"Is she very angry about the marriage?"

The grey eyes grew grave. "She was hurt," said Lady Theodosia softly, "that she was not told sooner. And my godfather is angry, a little. But they are not cruel people, Mrs Darcy. They only need to know you. Leave it to me."

She went down the steps to her carriage in a whisper of dove-grey silk, and waved from the window as it drew away. Elizabeth stood in the hall and watched it go, and thought that her mother had been wrong about a great many things, but perhaps not about this: that a real friend, in a strange place, was worth more than a fortune.

#

Darcy had not set foot in White's since November, and would not have gone that afternoon at all, except that his cousin Richard was in town for two days and had sent a note that said only: White's. Four o'clock. I have been in Portugal eating mule. You owe me a beefsteak.

The club was exactly as he had left it: the same leather chairs, the same smell of cigars and coal smoke and old port, the same grey heads nodding over the same newspapers. The famous bow window was full of young men watching the street and laying bets on which of the passing ladies would drop her reticule first.

He had always rather liked White's. It was restful. Nobody here wanted him to dance.

Richard was not yet arrived. Darcy took a chair by the fire and a copy of the Morning Chronicle, and had read half a column about the Prince Regent's latest debts when a shadow fell across the page.

"Darcy! By Jove, it is you. The married man!"

It was Aldridge. Lord Edward Aldridge, the Duke of Harrington's younger son, whom Darcy had known since Cambridge: good-natured, idle, generous to a fault, and fonder of claret than was good for him. He dropped into the chair opposite with his usual boneless grace and held out his hand.

"Wish you joy, old fellow. Heard all about it. Everybody has. A country beauty, they say, with fine eyes and a quick tongue, and you fell like a tree in a gale." He grinned. "I would never have believed it. Never. Not you."

"Thank you," said Darcy, shaking the hand, and could not help smiling back. "You will like her. She will laugh at you."

"They all do. I am used to it." Aldridge signalled for a glass. Then his face changed, a little sheepishly, and he leant forward and lowered his voice. "I say. Darcy. You do not remember the book, do you? The betting book? Two years ago. The night of Carlton's dinner."

Darcy frowned. "I remember Carlton's dinner. I do not remember much after the fourth bottle, and nor, I imagine, do you."

"No, well, that is just it." Aldridge rubbed his neck. "I was in my cups. You were being very stiff and superior about some girl Carlton's mother had pushed at you, and saying you would never marry for anything but duty. And I said something like, you'll fall for some little nobody without a penny, one day, see if you don't. And I wrote it in the book. For a joke. Fifty guineas."

Darcy remembered, vaguely, now. Aldridge at the great ledger on its stand, laughing, scrawling with a spluttering pen. Himself refusing to take the bet, refusing even to look at it, going home in disgust.

"I did not accept it," he said.

"No. No, you did not. You walked out. Nobody ever took it. It is just sitting there." Aldridge looked genuinely uneasy. "Only, somebody pointed it out to me last week, and laughed, and I thought— well, it is not a very nice thing to have sitting there, is it? Now that you actually have. Married, I mean. It looks as though I called it. As though somebody might think—" He floundered. "I am making a hash of this. I only meant, I am sorry. It was a stupid thing to write. I would scratch it out if I could, but you know the rules. Nobody touches the book."

"It was two years ago," said Darcy. "You were drunk. I was a prig. Nobody remembers it."

"Somebody did."

"Who?"

Aldridge screwed up his face. "Do you know, I cannot remember. Some fellow at the whist table. It did not seem important." He brightened. "And it is not, is it? You are quite right. Nobody cares. Forget I spoke. Here, have some claret, and tell me what she looks like."

Darcy had some claret. He told Aldridge a great deal more about Elizabeth than he had meant to. Then Richard arrived, burnt brown by the Portuguese sun and ravenous, and demanded his beefsteak, and the talk turned to Wellington and Badajoz and the price of mules, and then to Georgiana, and then to Richard's leave, which was only two days and which he meant to spend almost entirely at Darcy House, eating Darcy's food and making Elizabeth laugh.