Page 57

“Darcy.”

Will started at the unexpected voice and turned from the window to discover that Colonel Fitzwilliam had come to stand beside him.

“You had best go rescue Bingley before my brother gets his claws into him much further.”

They looked across the room to the corner where Charles was standing, wide-eyed, with a slightly inebriated and very garrulous Viscount Ashbourne, who appeared to be expounding on the best ways to encourage his prize pointer to cover a bitch.

Darcy gritted his teeth. “Has he no sense of decorum at all?” he muttered under his breath.

“Less and less, from what I’ve seen,” answered Richard in a similar tone.

Before either man could move, however, the Countess of Matlock (ever the consummate hostess) gently extracted her guest from her firstborn, depositing the former with her two sons-in-law and directing a sharp look at the latter.

Finding himself without an audience, Edward Fitzwilliam surreptitiously refilled his wine glass with something rather stronger than Lady Eleanor would have considered offering in her drawing room before dinner.

Grimacing, Darcy spoke in an undertone that his cousin barely caught. “I should have insisted that they attend the dinner at Derwent House, instead of Matlock hosting a separate engagement party. Here, they will act like…”

Richard suddenly grinned. “Like we’re at home? Ah, Wills… you were an only child for far too long. Don’t worry—Miss Bennet is accustomed to a large family, and the various squabbles that are bound to break out when siblings are forced to spend time together in the same room with their parents. ”

Seeing that his companion showed no sign of being comforted, the Earl’s younger son sighed.

“Darcy, truly—be at ease. The Bennets have already met Mama, Ellen, and Lucy, and from what I heard, they got along famously. I expect Miss Bennet will quite like Maggie and Olivia… and now that I think on it, Pelham shall thoroughly amuse her.”

Richard referred to his sister’s husband, Lord Percy Hyde, Baron Pelham.

That gentleman was widely regarded as a jolly fellow, not terribly bright, but always pleased to have company and make new acquaintances.

It was not unknown for Lady Margaret to have guests arrive for dinner with no advance warning, her husband having proffered the invitation in a moment of garrulous sociability without remembering to inform his wife.

Darcy grunted and turned back to the window.

He had thought he was nervous before Elizabeth and her family had come to dinner at his London home earlier in the week, but that had been primarily due to excitement.

Georgiana had been anxious about acting as hostess and he had wanted everything to go perfectly.

In hindsight, the siblings’ distress was wholly unnecessary; his staff’s eager competence and the company’s innate desire to be pleased had combined for a lovely evening.

Seated together at the foot of the table, Miss Bennet, Mr. Bingley, and the Gardiners had chatted easily with their hostess, generally keeping Miss Darcy too well entertained to become nervous.

At the other end, Colonel Fitzwilliam had formed an alliance with Mr. Bennet, and those two gentlemen had amused themselves and the others by trading embarrassing stories of Darcy and Elizabeth’s childhoods.

The Davenports had proven just as intelligent and friendly as Darcy had expected, happily engaging Sir James Darcy in a discussion on the societal benefits of educating the poor.

The Viscount Hampden had seemed to be particularly intrigued by Miss Davenport, and her blushes had indicated that the lady was not unaffected by his attentions.

Darcy had begun the evening apprehensive that something would go wrong and ended it with a warm glow of happiness that he sincerely hoped would be a constant state after he and Elizabeth were married.

For, had it not been Miss Elizabeth Bennet who, upon sitting down to the piano forte and discovering that the day’s excessive humidity had left the instrument badly out of tune, turned the disaster into a great game, challenging the company to guess her tune based on the rhythm and tempo of the notes rather than the pitch?

It had taken little encouragement for the other ladies to join in and the drawing room had been filled with more laughter than Darcy could ever remember as they had proceeded to miss even the most common lullabies, let alone current popular ballads.

Even Mr. Bennet had been entertained and it had come as a shock to all when the great hall clock had tolled one o’clock in the morning.

Darcy had found himself entirely sincere when he bid farewell to his guests with the wish to see them all again soon.

Peter Davenport had departed after a firm handshake and Michael Trevor had slapped his host on the back like a bowler to a fielder after a particularly fine inning.

Darcy hoped for a similar outcome tonight, but could not stop feeling as if a kettle of agitated eels had taken up residence in his stomach.

Aside from Ashbourne’s drunken outbursts, Lady Alameda’s calculated cattiness, and Pelham’s loose tongue, this would be the first time that the Earl of Matlock would meet Elizabeth, and Will had not forgotten about the objections that his uncle had voiced earlier in the summer upon first learning of his engagement.

Before Richard could attempt another bit of reassurance, however, his cousin saw what he had been watching for on the street.

Turning on his heel without a word, Darcy strode from the room in which his mother’s family had gathered to greet his fiancée and her relations.

Or at least, he hoped the majority was there to greet her.

Fitzwilliam reached the front door of the Earl’s London house only a step behind the butler and beat the footman to the carriage door by a stride. He cared not what anyone else thought of his eagerness once he was reassured by Elizabeth’s bright smile.

Darcy absentmindedly acknowledged Mr. Bennet and the Gardiners and vaguely noticed Miss Bennet’s soft greeting, but it was Elizabeth who filled his eyes.

Her thick hair was piled high on her head with a few ringlets allowed to bounce freely.

He had gifted her a set of hair combs with purple amethysts set cunningly to resemble violets and they sparkled among the intricate pile of curls and braids.

When Elizabeth placed her gloved hand into his, both released a small sigh, undetectable to any but themselves.

They shared a look before Lizzy quirked an amused eyebrow.

“You appear rather relieved to see me arrive, sir. Is the society inside so savage?” For some reason, teasing Mr. Darcy helped settle her own nerves.

“I’m glad you’re here,” admitted Darcy, his own nerves and the proximity of her family keeping him from saying all he wished.

Elizabeth considered and discarded several responses that were all rather too intimate for the situation and finally simply squeezed his hand and smiled. “And we are glad to be here.”

With this subtle hint and her hand tucked safely around his arm, Mr. Darcy turned back to the others and greeted them with slightly more attention before leading the group up the stairs and into the Earl of Matlock’s home.

As the servants took their wraps, Elizabeth peeked around the foyer, gathering impressions of the extended family that she would be joining in little more than a month.

Although approximately the same size as Derwent House (and built in the same decade), the Fitzwilliams’ house was more ornate in both architecture and decoration.

Nothing was in poor taste; it simply seemed rather more…

aggressive… in its desire to impress the observer with the importance and wealth of the owners.

She stepped over to study a series of portraits—clearly past family patriarchs—and remembered what Darcy had once commented; although they had been landed gentry for many decades, the Fitzwilliams were still conscious of their relatively recent rise in rank.

The first Earl had been a wealthy sheep farmer who had agreed to marry some long forgotten Royal’s mistress in exchange for a title and land; not quite the same for animating family pride as having an ancestor who had saved the King’s life during the Crusades.

Elizabeth turned to ask her fiancé a question but promptly forgot it. Darcy was standing beside the others but all of his attention was focused on her. The intensity in his eyes made her blush and look down, but he was before her in an instant.

“You are beautiful.” Elizabeth was wearing the first of the gowns Madame Lavoisier had made for her and it showed the dressmaker’s eye for style as well as her skill with a needle.

The creamy yellow silk glowed like candlelight and reminded Fitzwilliam of the dress she had worn long ago at the Netherfield Ball.

He knew little of lady’s fashion, but he was a man and thus needed no more than his eyes to recognize what the cut and drape of the fabric did for her figure.

His slightly breathless voice had lured her eyes back up. “Why thank you, kind sir. You are looking quite handsome yourself.”

Before Will could respond, the butler appeared at his elbow and inquired, “Shall I announce your guests to the drawing room, sir?”

“Must we?” Darcy’s attention had been so focused on Elizabeth that he had not noticed that the others had shed their wraps and joined the couple.

As a result, his dry response garnered not only the grin he had expected from his fiancée, but also an unexpected chorus of laughter and smiles from her relatives behind him.

Mr. Bennet slapped him lightly on the shoulder and cut off his embarrassed apology.