Page 33 of An Offer of Marriage (Engaged to Mr Darcy #7)
A GAME WITH RULES UNKNOWN
F itzwilliam and Saye were playing a disinterested game of cards when Darcy entered the drawing room half an hour later. “I had not imagined to see you tonight,” Fitzwilliam cried out jovially. “Are you here to run my brother through?”
“Yes,” Darcy replied shortly. “Saye, whatever were you thinking?”
“Well firstly, I was thinking that Mrs Darcy might be fun to drink with, and in that I was correct,” Saye replied. “Is that so terrible?”
“Yes, it is terrible,” Darcy retorted, taking a seat at the table. “You induced a lady to drunkenness and in public.”
“Yes, well, it fortified her through the attack of Bingley’s horrid sisters, so I say, ‘Well done, Saye’,” he replied blithely.
“An attack of Bingley’s sisters?” Darcy asked. “What happened? She said nothing of it.”
“They entered the box and began with their remarks to her about the seduction rumours,” Saye replied. “I took care of them well enough, but a little whisky was the least your wife deserved.”
“Seeing a lady inebriated in public is never good .”
“She held her drink very well, in fact. I was proud of her. And further, everyone knows I only share my drink with those whom I really love, so I do not doubt it was my approval they noted more than her mild intoxication. I told Lady Cowper to come in and meet her?—”
“While she was foxed?”
“—and Lady Cowper quite liked her. She invited her to call. And really, she was hardly foxed.”
Darcy opened his mouth to protest, but if what Saye said was true, it was excellent for Elizabeth indeed. Further, it indicated that people saw that Elizabeth was ensconced within the bosom of the Fitzwilliam side of his family, a very good thing for them all.
“You might have exercised some restraint,” he said gruffly. “How did you arrive back here so quickly, anyhow? I had thought there remained another act complete?”
“I left after you did. What did you imagine, I should remain alone in your box like a friendless gollumpus?”
“I would have imagined you might remain to see the end.”
“Those things all end the same. Everyone murders everyone else’s lovers and then they sing a song about it.
” Saye began to shuffle the cards, mentioning a game that they had invented as boys, a game they called Fitz in their own collective honour.
Fitz was a game incomprehensible to anyone outside of the three of them, for its rules were changeable and errors in obeying them carried harsh penalties.
Saye had added in the novelty of shouting Fitz!
whenever he laid an advantageous card or earned a point, but neither Darcy nor Fitzwilliam joined him in that .
For a time, they played with their only conversation being that which was needed for the game itself. It was Fitzwilliam who began the interrogation, leaning back and lighting his pipe. “Just what is your plan, Darcy?”
Darcy reached for the snifter that a servant had placed on the table, and poured himself some Cognac. “My plan?”
“With your wife? Do you mean to remain enraged forever?”
Immediate images from the night filled his brain. Her beauty. Her elegance. Her touch on his thigh. He took a drink, then swirled the glass absently. “I daresay my anger at her has gone already, even if the larger issue yet remains.”
“Which is what?” Saye enquired, fanning out some of the cards to show what he had. “Fitz! That is ten points for me!”
“She despised me, for many months, and she led me into thinking she flirted with me,” Darcy said.
“I was so wholly gulled and beguiled by her, a man who has avoided the very same stratagems in the ladies of the ton for years. Somehow she enraptured me so that I just stupidly went along, imagining her enamoured with me.”
“This sounds like it is about injured pride, then,” Saye observed.
“It is not only pride, and you would not like a woman to act thus towards you any more than I do,” Darcy protested, wounded by the remark.
“Yes, I know,” Saye said, “and that is because I am proud and arrogant. As are you.”
Darcy and Fitzwilliam both looked at one another, and Fitzwilliam rolled his eyes.
“Pride or not, she despises me, and I am now forced to live daily with the reminder of how she scorns me. ”
“Mm,” said Fitzwilliam, studying his cards and seeming unconvinced. “Do you truly think she scorns you?”
“She is adept in the art of veiled contempt. Why, even our own aunt! When I think back to how she gave her sly little insults to Lady Catherine…so cleverly disguised that even her ladyship failed to discern them!”
“If Lady Catherine failed to discern Elizabeth’s wit, it was most likely because she was enjoying the sound of her own voice too well to perceive it,” Saye opined.
“Yes, but even so, does she deserve to be ridiculed? By a young woman of inferior birth?” Darcy asked.
“I daresay she does,” said Fitzwilliam. “And if Elizabeth is clever enough to do it without being detected, then kudos to her.”
“Would you rather have a stupid sort of girl who was so enraptured by position that she overlooked every other flaw?” Saye asked.
“A Mr Collins!” Fitzwilliam cried out delightedly. “Saye, you do not know him, but I shall tell you this: if Lady Catherine broke wind in that man’s face, he would proclaim it an honour and beg for another.”
When their laughter had died, Fitzwilliam said, “You see there, Darcy? You cannot have it two ways. Either she is the toadying sort or else she is clever enough to see a person for who they are, regardless of their position. I prefer the latter myself.”
“Save for the fact that she did not see the truth of who I was,” Darcy said quietly. “She decided what she believed I was, and disliked me for it, and I never realised until far too late.”
“Why do you think she did that? Took such a decided dislike to you?” Saye enquired. “Does she simply despise wealthy people, or were you behaving as your generally charming self?”
His cousin’s words pricked him. “Why do you think it is something I did?”
Saye shrugged. “She is sweet and disarming. I cannot think she would simply decide to make sport of a man.”
“Perhaps she did it merely to get his attention,” Fitzwilliam said. “It seems unlikely, knowing her now, but some ladies do think despising a man the sure means to get his attention, particularly a man so much accustomed to flattery.”
“She certainly did get my attention with it.” Darcy pondered that a moment. “But no, I do not think she had any design to earn my notice.” Ergo…it was something I did. He did not much like that conclusion.
“That is nothing at all like the young ladies of London,” Saye suggested with a grin. “They learn to lay their traps in the seminaries, I believe.”
Darcy chuckled, but his mind was not on the jest. “I daresay her dislike of me was true, and not some scheme to provoke me, but nevertheless I was led into this engagement thinking…”
In fact, he had not thought she loved him, had he? He had assumed she would accept him, but love? In all truth, he could not recollect having thought about it once. He had contemplated his own feelings for hours on end, but hers? Very little, if at all.
“I suppose I must own it was not she who led me into anything. Her feelings were evident, but I chose not to see them,” he admitted. “I assumed she would accept me, but I never really considered why.”
Saye reached out and cuffed his shoulder in a friendly way. “Any man in today’s society with a full head of hair and a good fortune can rightly assume his proposal of marriage will be accepted.”
“And women are taught to conceal their feelings,” Fitzwilliam said. “I can still recollect our own mother telling Aurelia she ought not to show her teeth when she laughed. Good lord! Why ever not?”
“Aurelia caught a marquess, so I daresay it was good counsel,” Saye informed his brother. “Even if he is an oaf.”
They were unfortunately correct. Women were taught to conceal and flatter, to hide every bit of their truth in favour of the male conceit.
And Elizabeth, particularly, had far more feelings to conceal.
He had overheard her speaking to Georgiana one morning, confiding in her about the embarrassment she had faced from her family over the years.
She had referred to herself as possessing a thickened hide of assurance.
He sighed heavily and ran a hand over his mouth.
“I think it is why so many marriages are unhappy,” Saye pronounced. “The shock of it all! Your wife! With teeth! And going so far as to show them when amused.”
“In truth, it is rather terrifying,” Darcy said slowly. “No one truly knows a woman until after they marry and then who knows what might emerge.”
“If you really want to know what I think,” Fitzwilliam said. “I think you have made too much of it. It was idle nonsense spoken to a friend when she was angry. It was never serious.”
“The letter was only the revelation of her true opinion of me. I am not dismayed by the letter as much as I am the understanding of how she felt for many months.”
“Opinions do change,” said Fitzwilliam. “For you both.”
In his head Darcy heard her say, again, ‘I did not know you’. Was it possible that meant that once she did know him, she had begun to like him? If she had, he had certainly put an end to it with his resentful temperament since.
“Do you still love her?” Saye asked.
His reply came without a moment’s hesitation. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, of course I do.”
“Well, then? Seems like it’s long past the time to talk things through with your wife.” Saye slammed a card down onto the pile. “Fitz! I win!”