Page 5 of Some Natural Importance (Pride, Prejudice and Romance #3)

“Hello, Lizzy. Have you come to cheer for your father or to polish your technique by watching Mr Darcy?” His eyebrows rose. “He is a most worthy opponent. You will have much to fear from me when we next play.”

“You play chess, Miss Elizabeth?”

She turned her eyes to the intruder . “Yes, Mr Darcy. My father taught me when I was six years of age.”

“She won her first match a year later.”

“She bested you?”

Ignoring the tone of disbelief in Mr Darcy’s voice, Elizabeth shook her head. “Not my father. My neighbour, Mr John Lucas.”

Mr Bennet smirked. “A young man who is four years her senior. Lizzy won kings more quickly and climbed trees more nimbly than John or any of the other neighbourhood boys.”

With her attention on the chessboard, it took a moment for Elizabeth to register the lingering silence that had greeted her father’s pronouncement.

It took a moment more for her to feel that two sets of eyes had focused on her.

A rush of shock and indignation swept through her; accustomed as Elizabeth was to her father’s mocking of her mother and sisters and the mirth he took in making sport of their neighbours, never before had he made her the object of a joke.

As if she were a hoyden, running about the countryside to challenge boys to contests and boast as she bested them in their own games and sport.

This was their game, hers and Papa’s; his cutting jests were softened by her humorous defences of the victims. Now he had turned his acerbic wit upon her, to amuse his particular friend and illustrious guest!

She had not thought to care what Mr Darcy might think of her or her childhood adventures, but neither had she thought her father would exploit them at her expense simply for amusement.

She fought back the reddening blush she felt heating her neck and cheeks and awaited a witty rejoinder from Mr Darcy.

When none came. she took a breath and said quietly, “Do you mean to move your rook or castle, Mr Darcy?” When she looked up, she saw her father’s eyes now rested on the board but Mr Darcy’s remained on her.

He moved away his attention and his hand reached for his rook.

“Ha!” Mr Bennet cried. “You came here to encourage my demise at the hands of our guest. You wound me, daughter. Leave us to our game.”

It was as if he had slapped her, dismissing her from his book room, showing no interest in his hitherto favourite and whatever she had arrived to share with him.

As she walked to the door, bemused and angry that her own amusing story was left untold, Elizabeth’s notice was drawn to Mr Darcy’s face.

A small smirk had flashed briefly before good manners caused him to suppress it. Was she the source of his mirth?

Suddenly a sense of humiliation swept over her; she had been exiled from her haven, from her father’s company, and it had amused his visitor.

A man who had been no better than a stranger two days past now sat in her seat, sharing her father’s chessboard and monopolising his time.

It took real patience—and the determination that Elizabeth Bennet would never resemble her younger sisters—not to slam the door behind her.

Five daughters out and not one of them wed or attached?

Darcy shook his head in wonder. Something is wrong at Longbourn.

His cousins would guess it to be large noses, empty heads, or misshapen bosoms. But he had met four of the sisters, and while one or two might have an empty head, their real disadvantages were more likely a lack of dowry and scarcity of single men of decent eligibility.

As his horse galloped across the field towards Netherfield, Darcy noticed Elizabeth Bennet in the distance, walking determinedly in the direction opposite him.

Her bonnet dangled just above the grass, her hand clasping it by the ribbon.

Suddenly she leapt in the air and swatted a tree branch before breaking into a run.

Alarmed, he glanced about to see whether she was pursued by a wild animal or a miscreant.

Then he saw her slow down, twirl and laugh.

Astonished, he stifled a chuckle. She was spirited, and she made an interesting study, whether intent on her father’s chessboard or striding across a field.

Miss Elizabeth was clearly the Bennet daughter most favoured by her father and why would that not be?

She was the most intelligent and well-spoken of the lot, and was teasing or subdued, with little range between the two; at dinner, she had stared at him with a curious expression that verged on vexation.

It was not a look common to ladies eager to flatter and flirt with him.

No, there was a perverse sort of joyfulness in Elizabeth Bennet, but there also was warmth and passion.

After his experience with Anne’s weak and indifferent temperament, to be in company with her complete opposite was curiously alluring.

A girl who bested boys at tree climbing and chess had grown into a spirited young woman who sparred in conversation and ran through the countryside.

Perhaps that was the key: living in the country allowed her the freedom to behave as ladies in town could not, or would not.

He and Georgiana would play spirited games of spillikins and blindman’s bluff when she was younger, but as she had grown older and more ladylike, so had their approach to games, and any time spent together.

He did not wish to see his sister running about wildly in field and forest, but she could benefit from a little more liveliness within a drawing room.

Miss Elizabeth’s liveliness was not always present in Longbourn’s drawing room, either.

After that first night at dinner and in the past two days when Darcy emerged from the book room, he had nodded at her and she had, now that he thought about it, made no effort to forward a conversation.

It was damn odd. Ladies, especially those of a certain status and of marriageable age, did not dismiss Fitzwilliam Darcy.

It nettled him.

He wondered whether the elder sister, off visiting their relations in London, was her closest companion.

Missing a dear sister’s company would account for Miss Elizabeth’s dispirited detachment from social interaction and niceties.

If she was as intelligent as her fine, dark gaze implied, she was, like him, undoubtedly bored with her company.

His own situation was of shorter duration but it was a worse one.

Tedium could be cured; unbearable company could not be avoided.

Longbourn’s book room was at least one escape.

Mr Bennet welcomed his presence and Mrs Bennet set a good table.

There was no demand on him to spend time with their daughters; Mr Bennet had, plainly, stirred himself to tell his wife to have no expectations.

Darcy appreciated Bennet’s effort as—from the looks of the estate and the wildness of the daughters—it was clearly a rare exertion.

“Give a man his books and a comfortable chair, neighbours to amuse him, and a family to irritate and indulge him,” Mr Bennet said after a particularly loud screech caused Darcy to drop his queen.

Miss Elizabeth had sighed and her face had reddened; then with some scant words of excuse, she slipped off her chair and out the door.

A few moments later, he had glimpsed her outside the window, walking quickly away from the house.

Mr Bennet saw her as well, and chuckled. “Ah, and Lizzy makes her escape. ”

Darcy was struck by the cruelty underlying such an observation. Mr Bennet was a father who looked to his second eldest for her mind and to her sisters for his entertainment.

This entire experience was making him feel quite old.

Since leaving Cambridge, he was unaccustomed to keeping company with a man old enough to be his father yet unrelated to him by blood, and certainly not with a man whose intelligence demanded respect even if his use of it did not.

Mr Bennet was a country squire, remarkable only for his disinterest in squiring.

The man was indolent by nature, but his observational proficiencies and his angling skills were keen.

As Darcy realised that very day, Mr Bennet had discerned his weakness and reeled in the younger man—more learned of estates and land and the law—to help him address a problem with a drainage channel.

So this is what I have come to. A brother of no use to his sister, an undutiful cousin and nephew, and a surrogate steward for others’ estates.

How was it that the only people who sought and seemingly valued his advice were two men out of their depths and unsure or unwilling to pursue their course alone?

This morning, his request for a tome on Hertfordshire history had brought him to Mr Bennet’s book room, and as he perused the highest shelf, his eye was caught by something wedged between two books.

Darcy reached in and pulled out a heavy, misshapen coin with unfamiliar markings.

Seeking better light, he stepped down and moved closer to the window.

He rubbed his thumb over the face of it, noting what appeared to be some lettering around its edges.

“Mr Bennet, I wonder about the origins of this coin.”

He held it out to the older man, who rather than take it in hand, simply leaned over and peered at it disinterestedly for a moment. “Coin? That is a generous estimation. It was given to Jane and Lizzy by a neighbour boy some years ago. Something he pounded out for them at the blacksmith’s anvil.”

Darcy glanced at it doubtfully.

“Would you mind if I borrowed it for a day or two? The design is most intriguing.”

A shrug was all the response he received. It was unsurprising; Darcy found he now expected such disinterested rejoinders.