“The details are hazy, of course, but I believe he has decided he is not worthy of her, that he has allowed selfishness and pride to rule the better part of his character, and that the best thing he can do for her is let her go on to marry another.”
“Which is completely untrue,” Fitzwilliam replied. “I must say, Miss Bennet is exceedingly imprudent. Darcy is the second eligible offer of marriage she has refused.”
“This is the poor girl we speak of, yes? The one with relations in service and twelve unmarried sisters?”
“Relations in trade and four sisters, but yes.”
“So marrying Darcy would be to the advantage of her entire family, even if he did act like a prideful fatwit. Ah, Jones! You darling man!”
The last had been directed at Saye’s valet, who had arrived with coffee and the small twists of powders that his master required most mornings.
“Forgive me, Colonel, I did not realise you were here. Shall I fetch you some coffee as well?”
“No, thank you.”
Jones bowed and left the room, and Fitzwilliam continued. “If she could be made to reconsider, it would be vastly differentfor her. Darcy is eager to please her. He tells me he will no longer disdain those around him. He is determined to become a truly amiable gentleman.”
Saye took a tentative sip of the coffee. “I would wager anything she does not despise him as much as she thinks she does.”
“Why?”
“There are two kinds of hatred—cold and hot. Cold hate comes from indifference, and if she were indifferent, nothing he said would have signified.” He took another sip. “She would have shown him the door, and there would have been the end of it. But she fought back.”
“Anyone who insults someone’s family in such a way is sure to rouse ire.”
“Not like that.”
“Surely like that,” Fitzwilliam insisted.
“If someone you disliked insulted me, or our father, or the earldom, would you have such an argument?” Saye asked. “Or would you tell them to go and hang in chains?”
He had a point. Fitzwilliam never did see the purpose of wasting breath on useless lobcocks. “Depending on what they said of you,” he observed with a smirk, “I might well agree.”
“That you might,” his brother concurred with a chuckle. “In any case, there is nothing you, or I, can do for any of this now?—”
“I disagree.”
Saye groaned. “I suppose we might make some last attempt to cajole him into?—”
Fitzwilliam shook his head. “Darcy will not be easily moved. We have tried consolation, we have tried reason, we have tried persuasion. You have even attempted to pay him.”
“What else can be done?”
“Nothing will rouse Darcy so fiercely as defending what is his own, even if whatishis own is a woman who insists she willnotbe his own.”
Saye took a moment and several sips of coffee to understand him. “Ah, another man. Do you know of some other suitor?”
“I know someone who was on friendly terms with the lady who mightappearto be a suitor with serious intentions.”
“Who?”
“Me, idiot.”
“You want to marry her too?”
“I do not—but I am not averse to pretending I should like to for a good cause.”
Saye yawned. “Darcy will run you through if he discovers you are playing a trick on him.”
