“Y-you must not threaten to wring my husband’s neck, I don’t think.”
“No, likely not,” said Mr. Darcy. “It might be better if I refrained from criticizing his behavior towards you, as lacking as I may find it, as much as I may think that I would do a better job with you if I had the chance. You have never wanted me.”
Her lips parted. She looked as if she might protest. Then she shut her mouth.
He turned away from her, scratching the back of his head, looking at the door. He pitched his voice up, as if they were now discussing the weather or something. “Likely this isn’t a good idea between us either, being alone in your bedchamber. I should take my leave of you.”
“Likely,” she said.
He started across the room, clearing his throat. He addressed the door as he grew closer to it, not her. “I do think that we must speak to Larilane and ask him what happened.”
“Both of us?” she said. “I could come along?”
He glanced at her over his shoulder. “W-well, that might prove… I don’t know if we should go off on our own together, madam.”
“It would be much easier if everyone knew I was married, of course,” she muttered. “Why is it that I haven’t told anyone of my marriage?” She was asking this of herself, not him.
He turned back to the door.
“Mr. Darcy?”
“Yes?”
“You’d be better off to cease to think of me and to stay clear of me and all my past issues and my current relationship with my husband, all of it.”
“I know,” he said. “I didn’t think you would be here.”
“Of course you didn’t,” she said. “I didn’t think you would be here either.”
He reached the door. He put his hand on the knob. He thought of saying something else, but he ended up saying nothing at all. He opened the door, stepped into the hallway, and shut it firmly behind him.
She is Richard’s wife now,he reminded himself.
CHAPTER THREE
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, a game of bowls was already going on by nine o’clock, and the players had been drinking ale with breakfast, and so they were already boisterous, crowing loudly as they stumbled around the lawn.
Elizabeth had come outside because she wanted fresh air, but then she could not escape the bowls game and its noise, so she declared she was going on a walk.
Caroline Bingley, of all people, said, “Oh, I should fancy a turn about the grounds myself,” and she came over to link her arm with Elizabeth’s. “Shall we?”
Elizabeth could hardly say no, though she wasn’t certain she wished to be in Caroline’s company. Truthfully, she had little reason to truly dislike Caroline, she supposed. The other woman had always struck her as a bit silly and shallow, it was true, but that could be said of a number of women. There was the fact that Caroline had snubbed Jane rather cruelly when Jane had come to London in the winter, but Elizabeth didn’t know if it was fair to lay the blame for this entirely at Caroline’s feet, for she knew that it was more complicated than that.
Mr. Darcy had wanted Mr. Bingley to distance himself from the Bennets. Caroline had shown herself to slavishly agree with simply everything that came out of Mr. Darcy’s mouth.
Her snub may not have been personal, in other words.
True, all of this added up to Caroline not being a person of principle or backbone, Elizabeth thought, but her dislike of the woman went beyond this.
Caroline beamed at Elizabeth. “Oh, Eliza, my dear, it’s been ever so long since we’ve had the chance to speak, just the two of us, has it not?”
“It has,” said Elizabeth, trying to beam back and failing. Maybe it wasn’t only that she didn’t like Caroline, it was that she felt guilty about disliking Caroline. Elizabeth did not think of herself as a petty sort of person. It seemed petty to her to dislike Caroline. She wished to rise above all of it, to be magnanimous to everyone.
But maybe that was simply impossible, in the end. One could not be friends with everyone. One could not like everyone.
She could, however, be polite, and she would be.
“I shall confide something to you that perhaps you have already guessed,” said Caroline. “I had a bit of a scheme at one point, one that would have matched myself and Miss Darcy with both of our brothers.”
