Darcy froze. The clerk, who was wrapping the book in brown paper, paused. Robert looked at Georgiana with delight.
"Fine eyes!" Robert crowed. "Oh, this gets better and better. William 'Standards High as The Himalayas' Darcy, has been brought low by a pair of fine eyes in Hertfordshire."
"Georgiana," Darcy said, his voice dangerously calm. "You are disowned."
"You mentioned it in your letter from Netherfield in November," Georgiana said innocently. "You said,'It is a pity such fine eyes are wasted on a woman of such impertinent opinions.'"
"Impertinent too!" Robert slapped the counter. "I am in love with her already. Any impertinent woman is one of discernment."
"I did not sayshewas impertinent," Darcy corrected, digging his grave deeper. "I said her opinions were. She is stubborn. And obstinate. And she decided to misunderstand my character entirely."
"And let me guess," Robert said, taking the wrapped parcel from the clerk and handing it to Darcy with a flourish. "You decided to prove her right by brooding in London instead of correcting her?"
Darcy snapped the parcel from his cousin's hands. "It is complicated, Robert. Her connections are unsuitable."
"Ah," Robert's face sobered slightly, though the twinkle remained. "Unsuitable connections. The Darcy Achilles' heel. Let me guess—her father is a solicitor? Her mother wasan actress?"
"Her father is a gentleman, but her uncle is in trade," Darcy mumbled.
Robert stared at him. Then he burst out laughing. It was a loud, uninhibited sound that drew stares from the entire shop.
"Trade! Oh, the horror! The humanity!" Robert wiped a tear from his eye, ignoring the scandalized look of a nearby vicar. "You are pining over a woman with fine eyes and a brain, but you won't court her because her uncle sells... what? Fish? Carpets?"
"I believe he owns warehouses. Somewhere in Cheapside," Darcy muttered. He gripped his parcel tighter. He had already paid for the book, thank God, or he might have abandoned it on the counter just to escape this conversation. "It does not matter. It is done. I have removed myself from danger."
"You have removed yourself from happiness," Robert corrected, shaking his head, looking impressed in a horrified sort of way. "You are a one-man wrecking crew of romantic potential. Remind me never to let you near my love life."
"You don't have a love life, Robert," Georgiana teased, glancing up from a display of poetry she had been politely pretending to read during this interrogation. "You have a series of unfortunate misunderstandings."
"Precisely," Robert winked at her. "And I intend to keep it that way."
He turned back to Darcy, his expression sharpening. "Look, Cousin. You are miserable. You are buying books you claim to hate. You are positively pining. And it is Christmas."
"What is your point?"
"My point," Robert said, clapping a hand on Darcy's shoulder, "is that you are a fool. But you are my favourite fool. So, I will let this go for now."
"You won't," Darcy said miserably.
"No, I won't," Robert conceded cheerfully. "I intend to bring this up constantly. Especially in front of Richard. Speaking of whom, have you bought him a gift yet?"
"No."
"Excellent. We shall find him an offensive tome later."
Darcy sighed, the weight of his family pressing in on him even in the middle of his favourite bookshop. He could feel the hard edge ofCeciliathrough the brown paper of the parcel in his hand. He was trapped. He was being mocked. He was entirely, entirely transparent to his rake of a cousin.
He stared at the parcel. He had the book. He had his misery. He had a headache. But he certainly did not have the will to move.
"If you are quite finished dissecting William's romantic failures," Georgiana piped up, her voice small but determined as she stepped up to the counter, "might I actually purchase my gifts? Or are we to stand in front of the till until the New Year?"
Darcy looked at his sister, who was holding a stack of novels with a defiant expression, then at the clerk who was pretending to be very interested in a ledger, and finally at Robert.
Robert was leaning against the mahogany counter, crossing his ankles, and smirking like a village idiot who had just beenbequeathed a brewery.
"By all means, Georgiana," Robert gestured grandly to the clerk. "Proceed. I am in no rush. I have nowhere else to be that is half this entertaining."
Chapter Two: The Art of Righteous Indignation
