Page 42

A NOBLE HELPING HAND

A few days after Bingley’s visit, the weather turned delightfully sunny and warm.

Darcy called on his sister again, intent on making amends for his ungrateful and surly exit at the end of his previous visit by offering to walk with her on Rotten Row.

Elizabeth had been gone from town for the better part of a week, and Darcy hoped that interest in them might have waned enough that a foray in public would not incite another riot.

Nevertheless, he suggested to Georgiana that they walk out before the fashionable hour to avoid any unpleasant scenes from the crowds.

The park was still far from empty, and Darcy grew tired of people’s stares within minutes.

He was glad when Lord and Lady Rothersea hailed them from farther along the path, for to stop and converse with them would avert an unwanted address from any of the other people who looked tempted to approach him.

“Mr Darcy, Miss Darcy, what a pleasant surprise,” said Lady Rothersea.

“You have been keeping your head down,” her husband added. “We thought you must have retreated to Pemberley until all this lunacy died down.”

“I had hoped people would come to their senses,” Darcy replied. “And there are signs it is working. I have only received thirty-two invitations so far this week instead of the fifty-one I was sent last week.”

“I take it you have not seen the newspapers yet today?” Rothersea said.

“Which ones?”

“All of them.”

“Not all ,” Lady Rothersea corrected. “But the Duchess of Gracemont has had an invitation printed in some of the major publications—and a few of the gossip pamphlets—calling for you and Miss Elizabeth Bennet to open her grand ball together in April. She has challenged you to come forward and claim the triumph you have thus far shirked of being London’s most esteemed couple. ”

Georgiana made an awed sound, drawing a wink from Rothersea. “Indeed! Not sure how your brother will get out of that one without ruffling a few feathers.”

The Duchess of Gracemont’s first ball of the year had become synonymous with the official start of the Season.

To be asked to open the first set was a prodigious honour—and surely the pinnacle of society’s deranged captivation with a non-existent engagement.

Darcy had been waiting for people’s fascination with him and Elizabeth to diminish before speaking to her, hoping she might be persuaded his friends were not all vacuous gossipers with more money than sense.

The duchess’s invitation put an end to that plan.

He tried not to sound too irritated as he said, firmly, “Her Grace will be disappointed. I can assure you, no such spectacle will ever take place.”

Lady Rothersea looked excessively disappointed. “Oh. So it is true.”

He corrected his first impression—she was not disappointed; she was angry. “What is true?”

“That you and Miss Bennet are not engaged and never will be.”

Darcy reviled the irony of her so easily accepting that which she had been determined to disbelieve from the outset, now, when he most wished the opposite to be true.

“You would be the first person I have heard say they believe it,” he said mildly.

“Much though I did not want to believe it, I heard it from the horse’s mouth.”

There was no disguising his dismay at hearing this. Elizabeth had told Lady Rothersea that she would never marry him. It was such an abrupt end to his hopes that it rendered him speechless.

Her ladyship’s countenance softened slightly. She turned to her husband. “Rothersea, what was that wonderful piece our cousin was practising the other day? Pray tell Miss Darcy about it.”

Rothersea took his cue, offering Georgiana his arm and conversing about pianoforte music as they set off along the path. Lady Rothersea did not wait for Darcy to offer his arm before taking it and sauntering after them.

“Pray, tell me why an engagement to Miss Elizabeth is out of the question,” she said without preamble.

Darcy looked ahead at the back of Georgiana’s bonnet and thought longingly of the time when his private affairs had not been considered the rightful property of every interested party.

“Did the horse not enlighten you?” he said bitterly.

“She said only that there was no prospect it would ever happen. But I find that baffling. In the short time I have known Miss Bennet, I have come to admire her very much, and I cannot see any good reason why a sensible man of sufficient means would not want to make her his own. She is perfectly delightful.”

“I do not disagree.”

“Then pray, what is the impediment?”

Darcy wished he had some of Elizabeth’s disdain for rank, for he wanted nothing more than to tell Lady Rothersea it was none of her business. But the habits of eight-and-twenty years were difficult to overturn, and the best he could manage was sullen silence.

“You think I am being impertinent,” she persisted. “I am, of course, but a gentleman would never point out a lady’s weaknesses. So, I ask again, what is preventing you from marrying Miss Bennet?”

“ She is,” Darcy said brusquely. “Marriages are surprisingly difficult to bring about when one party is opposed to the union.”

There was a pause. An involuntary glance showed him Lady Rothersea with a small, half-smiling frown. “What makes you think Miss Bennet is opposed?”

“She…” He faltered. This was insupportably humiliating—yet there was just enough hint of something resembling good news in Lady Rothersea’s confusion as made him willing to lay himself bare. “She told me so herself. She thinks I am proud and conceited.”

“Are you sure? That is not quite consistent with how she talked about you to me.”

“Is it not?”

“No, she was decidedly more complimentary—and much better disposed to the idea of marriage.” Lady Rothersea broke into a broad, self-satisfied smile. “May I take it Her Grace will be gratified with your attendance after all?”

Darcy shook his head—partly in amazement at such a serendipitous discovery of Elizabeth’s esteem, but mostly to contradict her ladyship’s assumption that this removed every barrier to his happiness.

“That is the very opposite of what Miss Bennet would want,” he told her. “To stand up at such an assembly as that, to have her worth judged by people so wholly unconnected to her, would represent everything she detests about fashionable society.”

“You are right. She said something in that vein to me as well. This affair has rather betrayed our worst side, has it not?”

“The very worst. The most ridiculous part being that never was any woman more worthy of such universal admiration.” He cleared his throat and added hastily, “Present company excepted, I am sure.”

“Oh no, you were right the first time. Miss Bennet is a far better woman than I. Witty, handsome, and principled. I am not sure why I like her really. I usually try to avoid women who do not make me look wonderful by comparison. But you think her distaste for our sphere will prevent her from accepting a proposal?”

“I hope not, but she could win the heart of any man she chose. She does not need anything I have to offer, least of all this degree of controversy.”

“Then give her something she does need. There cannot be much that is not within your power to secure.”

“You have mistaken her character entirely if you think her good opinion can be bought.”

“And you have mistaken me if you thought I was suggesting that you buy her a trinket. Come, Mr Darcy, use that famed intellect of yours. What does she need?”

Put like that, the answer was simple: Elizabeth needed her mother to go home.

“There! You have thought of something, have you not?”

Darcy chuckled. “Yes, I believe I have. I shall have to find her mother’s friend to arrange it, but that ought not to present a problem. I know someone who is likely to have her direction.”

“If you mean Mrs Randall, I know where she lives. I found that out for Miss Elizabeth before she left London.”

Darcy remembered Elizabeth breathlessly explaining that a friend had found Mrs Randall’s address for her. He had wondered who at the time, but events at the Four Feathers had overtaken them, and he had forgotten to ask. “I am indebted to you, my lady. Truly.”

“Oh good. There is nothing quite like having devilishly handsome men indebted to me to keep Rothersea on his toes.”

Darcy was quite sure she could manage that without his assistance.

Her sportive manner reminded him of Elizabeth; he could see why they had hit it off.

He could well imagine her and Rothersea visiting him and Elizabeth at Pemberley, and the two women running rings around both of their more-than-complying husbands.

Then he berated himself for getting carried away with an outcome that was far from being certain enough to justify such reveries.

Even so, he could scarcely keep his elation under good regulation as they rejoined the others, for he was far more hopeful of achieving it than at any point before.