Her eyes widened slightly, but she did not draw back. “You are abominably rude to your guests.”
“I am perfectly hospitable and generous to mywelcomedguests, madam. Why are you here, and why are you provoking my sister?”
“She is not provoking me,” Georgiana pleaded. “She has kept company with me nearly every morning that you were away.”
“Then she ought to know, by now, what little strength you have.”He turned to scowl at Miss Bennet. “Can you not see how ill Miss Darcy is?”
“I can, and I also see that a little exercise will do her good. She chose to come out. A walk in the garden is not so violent or so long as to create exhaustion. And if she wishes to rest, she need only say.”
“If she wishes to rest or to walk, she has no need ofyourcompany. Good day, Miss Bennet.”
To his lasting shock, Miss Bennet did not return his curt bow with a curtsey and leave. She crossed her arms, arched an eyebrow, and her dark eyes struck him with a cold glare. “If exercise is solitary, it is generally attended with less advantage than when enjoyed withpleasantcompany—and your sister has assured me that she enjoys my companionship. I will not leave unless Miss Darcy sends me away.”
He looked at his sister, at her sunken eyes and pallid skin, but she was looking at Miss Bennet with an expression of longing he did not understand. “Georgiana, you cannot wish to suffer the disagreeable presence of this stranger?”
“Mr Jones said exercise should be out of doors and as regular as I can manage, and ... and my spirits kept high, and being with Miss Bennet is a pleasure, not a task. Please, Fitzwilliam?”
While his jaw slackened, the interloper added, “Andyouhave been gone for a week and left your sister friendless and abandoned.”
“I am returned now, and when Miss Darcy wishes to walk, she will do so with me.”
“And so Miss Darcy must forgo the advantage of fresh air and exercise when her brother is engaged or away on business or does not feel in the mood? I enjoy my conversations with?—”
“Conversations! What empty, noisy, trivial chatter can the sister-in-law of a man too dull-witted to play whist and worth less than two thousand a year provide to Miss Darcy?”
“You do not improve on further acquaintance!”
“I do notwantto further our acquaintance!”
“Your arguing fatigues me,” a voice murmured. “I should like us to return to the house.”
They turned in unison to look at Georgiana, and then back at one another. Her sharp eyes stayed on his, and Darcy did not so much asblink. An argument of a thousand words took place in a silence of two seconds. They would tend to Georgiana with all appearance of amicable friendship, but their dislike was mutual.
Darcy glared at Miss Bennet, even after his sister linked their arms so the three of them entered the house together. He seethed in silent annoyance as he watched this woman settle his sister into a chair, ring for more of the draught for her cough, bring her a footstool, and then sit by her side and offer to read.
“No, I will fall asleep if you read to me now. Perhaps I could attend to your conversation.” Her voice lifted hopefully. “Fitzwilliam has just returned home, and he is a great reader. You could talk of books or travelling or staying at home. Anything would interest me.”
With a conscious look and a flat tone, Miss Bennet asked him if his business had been concluded to his satisfaction, and Darcy replied in a voice of forced politeness that it had. After a pause, and a smile that was for his sister’s benefit, she asked if he intended to renew his lease on the lodge. “It is always preferable to have a family firmly settled in a neighbourhood.”
“My plans are not fixed.” Miss Bennet made no answer and appeared to leave the trouble of finding a subject up to him. He could take the hint, however much he disliked it. “You cannot have a strong attachment to this neighbourhood and Hertfordshire. I understand you spend the winter in town with your sister.”
Her reserved smile warmed slightly. “Jane married young, and for the past six years I have spent each winter, and her every lying-in, in Gracechurch Street. I also pass some time with my uncle and aunt who live not far from Jane.”
Darcy drew back. “Your relations are in thecity?”
“Yes, my sister married a man who trades on the Exchange and purchased a house near to it. My uncle is a respectable man of business and also lives in Gracechurch Street. He and my brother-in-law have mutual friends, and that is how Mr Cuthbert met my sister. My uncle and his family are pursuing a venture in Montreal, and I have not seen them since last year.”
“I thought you were fixed in town, not the city.” He had notrealised Miss Bennet was so far beneath him. “You said that you attended the opera and evening parties amongst people of fashion.”
“Mrs Cuthbert, my sister’s mother-in-law, is a gentleman’s daughter who did not marry as her family expected. It was a happy union, as I understand, and she still has some connexions in a different part of town. Nothing pleases Mrs Cuthbert more than a card party in Hanover Square or a dinner in Harley Street.”
They were better than Cheapside, but Harley Street was filled with parvenue and Hanover Square was too far from Hyde Park for anyone with taste and wealth. “Your connexions were not what I expected.” Perhaps that would be to their benefit. A fortuneless Miss Bennet with relations in Cheapside was unlikely to have made the acquaintance of anyone who knew the Darcys.
“Have you an aversion to Cheapside?”
Her tone showed she thought his feelings not so enviable on this occasion. Did she expect him to rejoice to know his sister’s only friend had relations in trade and who lived in the city? “Only a man engaged in trade—it is not an area of London in which I have passed considerable time.”
“You are surprisingly arrogant to think I am not grand enough to be a friend to your sister when you live as modestly as you do, and do not live in town at all.”
