“Yes. May I?” He indicated the empty space next to her, then sat in it.
“You already have,” she said with an air of annoyance.
“Pardon me, but it would be better if I said this quietly.”
“Said what?”
Fitzwilliam glanced at her. She was even more striking up close, and he found himself unusually stupid. “Might I, um…might I introduce myself first?”
“You may not.”
Fitzwilliam’s face flamed even hotter, though not with embarrassment. Something else, much pleasanter, was making him hot under the collar. “Very well,” he conceded with a small smile. “But I must say my piece all the same, for I could not bear for a lady as fair as you to be ill-used. Lord Rutherford is not to be trusted. I am sorry if this pains you, madam, but so it is. I beg you not to put yourself into his power, for your reputation would be at stake.”
Two spots of colour appeared on the woman’s cheeks and her lips plumped deliciously as she pursed them in apparent displeasure. “Pray, what has his lordship done to you that you should have such a low opinion of him?”
Fitzwilliam stumbled over his response. He had not considered that she might require him to support his claim. Between his senior rank and Darcy’s elevated consequence, they were, neither of them, often required to account for themselves. “I confess—nothing,” he replied. “It is a warning my cousin tasked me with passing on.”
“Well, you may tell your cousin thatmycousin is as decent a man as ever lived, and I do not appreciate him attempting to convince me otherwise.”
Fitzwilliam recoiled. “Lord Rutherford is your cousin?”
“He is, and I could not be prouder to own it.” She was hissing her words in anger now, her lips no longer plumped but snarling—though strangely all the more captivating for it. “You and your ilk ought to be ashamed, going about slandering a good man for no reason but spite.”
“It is not for no reason, madam. I have it on excellent authority that he has persuaded an innocent young girl to meet him here, this very afternoon.”
“Persuaded? You make it sound as though he tricked her into it! I assure you, the invitation was sincerely made, and Miss Darcy accepted it freely and gratefully.”
Fitzwilliam almost choked. “Miss Darcy? MissGeorgianaDarcy?”
“Yes.”
“Over my dead body—she ismycousin!”
“That is difficult to credit, since your cousin apparently thinks my cousin is a scourge of London!”
“I have more than one cousin, madam.”
She lurched to her feet and stood, looking furiously down at him. “Then I hope for Miss Darcy’s sake that more of them are like her than the one who thought it politic to spread slanderous gossip about an innocent man all about town! At leastmycousin is not lost to all sense of civility and honour.”
Fitzwilliam stood, too, and found himself toe to toe with her. “Tell Lord Rutherford to leave Miss Darcy alone.”
“Do you see him here, sir? Or her? From where I am standing, the only person accosting a woman he does not know in a public place, forcing her to listen to his nonsense, isyou.”
Damn!He stepped backwards to put some space between them. “I beg your pardon, madam, it was not my intention to alarm you.”
“You did not alarm me. You disappointed me.”
Somehow, that was the worst slight Fitzwilliam had ever received. She walked away without another word, and he watched her go, aware that his mouth hung agape and unableto do anything about it. When she had disappeared from sight, he shook his head to clear it and made his way out. His priority must be to discover Georgiana’s part in this fiasco, for it savoured far too strongly of Ramsgate for his liking. All considerations of Lord Rutherford’s infuriatingly alluring cousin would have to wait.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Darcy tried to distract himself by whatever means he could, but nothing worked, not even a visit from his officiously energetic tailor. He stood, trussed and pinned into the canvas pattern of a new jacket, and remained mercilessly uneasy, plagued with visions of what might be happening in Potters Fields. His tailor fussed and flapped and eventually left. His sister went out and came home again. His butler came and went into his study. At least three books were picked up and immediately discarded, unread. Darcy could think only of Elizabeth.
Would she be pleased to see Fitzwilliam, dismayed not to see Mulhall, or furious to discover thathehad orchestrated it all? The likelihood of her being grateful that he cared enough to involve himself and sending her regards was too trifling to waste a scrap of hope on it—so, of course, that is what he spent the chief of the morning wishing for. The minutes ticked by—each seeming to last an hour—until he thought he would go mad waiting for news.
There had been a time, at the beginning of his acquaintance with Elizabeth, when such incessant introspection and uncertainty had frightened him. Far too many chances hadbeen squandered as a result, as he attempted to repress his feelings so that nobody—least of all himself—could deride him for weakness. He was better used to it now, having spent the best part of two years feeling this way. That made it no less objectionable, and by no means easier to endure; thus when he heard the front door slam and Fitzwilliam’s voice echo along the hall, he leapt from his chair as though he had been stung.
His apprehension intensified when he heard his cousin calling for him, repeatedly and angrily, as he made his way through the house, and erupted into blistering alarm when Fitzwilliam burst into the room and demanded, “Is Georgiana here?”
