Viscount Hartwood rolled his eyes. “Dicky always was his favorite. You think I would be, the heir, and the better looking by far, butnooooo, always Richard says this, Richard does this, Richard is twice as strong as you and three times as brave, why can’t you be more like Richard? And then look what Richard did, as soon as he finished Eton, joined the army where he’d be forced to wear the same uniform as everyone else, just to spite me.”
“Wellington is an excellent dresser, with the way he’s decorated his uniform,” Lady Susan said with an envious sigh. “And such a fabulous figure of a man.”
“I am delighted that you now know my good character because a man who has met me twice for an hour each has given me such a reference of good character,” Elizabeth replied. “But I beg you to make yourownjudgement after you have spent enough time in my company for it to display itself to you. One should not rush to judgement upon a person.” Elizabeth waved her hand to Darcy. “I once heard you say that you were very cautious of forming your opinions, especially before choosing to dislike a person.”
Lord Matlock huffed.
Hartwood laughed. “I’d thought that about Darcy too. Very precipitate on both your parts. You’d known each otherwhat, three weeks?”
His cousin was asking him the question, not Elizabeth.
Darcy read the challenge clearly. He wanted to either judge him for being the besotted and infatuated man who'd thrown away his hand on a pretty face,orto see his anger at having been maneuvered into a position where his honor demanded he make a bad marriage.
“It was certainly longer than that,” Elizabeth replied for Darcy. “I believe it was shortly after Michaelmas when you and Bingley stomped into our assembly ball. He did a shocking thing, and danced with no one outside of his own party, though I know for certain fact that gentlemen were scarce, and more than one lady was required to sit out a set for lack of partner.”
She had a sly smile as she looked at him, and Darcy suddenly remembered the first time he really noticed Elizabeth. Bingley had said something to him, about dancing with her, and he’d foolishly decided not to, and then she walked off, and there was something about her…
“Just surprising. Surprising.” Hartwood continued, “I expected more of a beauty — I mean no insult to you, Mrs. Darcy, but if a famed bachelor falls to a country maiden withnofortune, one expects…”
“Yes, what does one expect?” Elizabeth replied. She smiled widely, and Darcy thought falsely. “Besides, I am the heir to a whole fifty pounds a year — what, you expect me to pretend it to be higher, or to not say anything about the matter at all?”
Fifty pounds a year? Wasn’t that also what Elizabeth had said she intended to limit her clothing purchases to?
“Small change. That might be enough to keep me in gloves for a whole year, but not shirts as well. In such a case a man expects the, uh, lascivious — pardon me, Georgie — the lascivious interest to be aroused. I myself am an expert in watching such interests become aroused, as a member of thecircle of his esteemed highness. Though I do not take part in his revelries, I need not pretend with such a friend that he does not revel.”
“It was my conversation,” Elizabeth replied. Her smile was wholly gone now, and her fingers tightly pressed into the arm of the sofa. She’d wriggled slightly further away from Lady Matlock on the cushion.
“Your conversation? Ah… yes, that is the story we have heard,” Lord Matlock replied instead of his son.
“This is enough,” Darcy said firmly.
“I hardly know what story you heard, but Iassureyou,” Elizabeth suddenly laughed with real humor, “it was a matter of conversation.”
Lady Susan giggled. “Conversation! A matter of male and femaleconversation.”
Everyone, except Georgiana who looked confused, turned to stare between Darcy and Elizabeth.
“Was it now?” Lord Matlock said slowly, “Was it?”
“No,” Darcy said sharply. “And you ought to know me better than to even imagine I would do such a thing.”
“I would not have imagined,” Lord Matlock said, “that you would marry in such a precipitous way — no warning to Lady Catherine and Anne, never allowing the rest of your family to see the girl beforehand, so that we might offer our opinions, and no—”
“Your opinions,” Darcy said, “were not desired.”
Elizabeth frowned. It was clear that this line of conversation bothered her in a way that being called a fortune hunter had not.
“I assure you,” Darcy added, “that if you had ever believed that I was the sort of man who neededyourapproval and blessing before I chose to marry, you were deeply mistaken in my character.”
Hartwood stood up from the chair next to Elizabeth and clapped Darcy on the back. “Good man. I agree, you don’t need the approval of the Earl of Matlock for anything.”
Darcy glared at his cousin.
Unfortunately, that had little effect on his cousin who, as he’d often announced, remembered perfectly well that time Darcy had stripped off his little pants to run around bare bottomed during a family visit to Matlock when Darcy was three and the Viscount eight years of age.
“Solid man, solid man. Not asking myfather’sapproval. You do not need mine either. Never thought you did. And with the appeal of such loveliness, and of suchconversation—” He winked at Elizabeth. “Even if she does not dress…a ton. Though in a lovely manner. But not…a ton.”
“Perhaps,” Elizabeth replied tartly, “you merely say that because you dress too much toa ton.”
