“I am well, Lizzy. You need not concern yourself on my account.”
“How could I not after such a disagreeable morning? Mama was unpardonably thoughtless, and as for Miss Bingley?—”
“And you.” Jane opened her eyes and regarded her unhappily. “You were uncommonly quarrelsome. Mama left her friend’s bedside to visit us, yet you seemed determined to provoke her. And I have been waiting to see Miss Bingley for days, yet you could not be civil to her even for my sake.”
Incredulity flared hot in Elizabeth’s breast at the suggestion thatshehad been the antagonist in any of that day’s encounters—but remorse quickly doused it. Jane had always been blind to Miss Bingley’s crueller instincts and, by Elizabeth’s own design, had no inkling of her mother’s aberrant behaviour. To her, it must have seemed that her younger sister was being inexplicably disobliging.
“I was only angry on your behalf. I know how little you wished to hear what either of them had to say.”
Jane grimaced ruefully. “It was not pleasant, but I needed to hear it. They were both, in their own way, trying to tell me what I have not been brave enough to accept myself. Whatever Mr Bingley felt for me last year, he evidently feels it no longer. I must endeavour to forget him.”
“I wish I could say you were wrong, but for your sake, I think it may be for the best. We could begin to think about visiting some sights. It would do you good to take your mind off it.”
“You mean I should cease pining in the window seat and go out?” Jane chuckled lightly. “Now that Miss Bingley has been, I shall not worry about missing her call. You and Aunt Gardiner may take me wherever you wish.”
Elizabeth grinned happily. “What I should like most of all is to take you to Arneaux’s shoe repair shop.” She wondered fleetingly whether Mr Darcy had felt the same satisfaction upon seeing her identical bewilderment when he suggested the same to her. “Trust me, it will cheer you no end.”
9
A REPORT OF A MOST ALARMING NATURE
“Did you not eat breakfast?” Darcy asked. He was watching his cousin stuff forkfuls of pie down his gullet as though he had not been fed in a month, let alone a few hours.
Colonel Fitzwilliam grinned around his mouthful and shook his head. “Only got in at six, then overslept.”
“I am honoured you kept our arrangement in that case.”
“Do not flatter yourself. It was a good bit of beef I was after.”
Darcy rolled his eyes but took no real offence. They had met at John O’Groat’s eating house precisely because the food was superb. “Where were you until that hour?”
“Lady Rochelle’s winter ball.”
“Oh God,” he said with feeling. Portia Rochelle was no lady, and the sort of dancing that occurred at her parties was generally done in a more recumbent attitude than the average quadrille.
Fitzwilliam only grinned more broadly. “You ought to have come. Or were you too busy with your new paramour?”
“I do not have a paramour, but I would not be caught dead at a Rochelle event. I was at a dinner at Drake House last night. Johnson was giving a talk on drainage.”
His cousin screwed up his face. “Quite literally as dull as ditchwater, then. Is that all you have been doing of late?”
Darcy washed down his own mouthful with a sip of wine, instantly wary of such a leading question. “Obviously not. Why?”
“I have just heard a few whisperings.”
“What kind of whisperings?”
“The usual sort of thing. Someone has linked your name to a pretty face.”
“Whose face?”
“I was hoping you would tell me.”
“You should know better than to pay attention to such talk. I daresay if you asked around, you would hear reports of a dozen ladies connected to any one of you, me, or Cunningham.”
“You could find a good deal more than a dozen women connected to my brother! But I take your point.”
It rather seemed he did not when, a few moments later, he pressed, “Any idea who it might be, though? Rumour has it that you singled this woman out to talk to.”
