I would have protested, but he had said that thing, during tea, about repeating Thursdays. And there was the fact that he was the one thing that wasnotrepeating. He had not proposed to me, not yesterday, not today, though everything else about each day had been exactly the same.
I was curious, I had to admit.
So, I allowed him to pull me into a sitting room and shut the door. He lit a lamp, because the daylight was fading outside, and the room was growing dark. He shook his head at me. “How long?”
“How long what?”
“How long for you?” he said. “This is my thirty-second Thursday or thereabouts.”
I gasped. “What? You can’t be serious! That many days in a row? Always the same?”
He eyed me. “So, I assume it’s been less for you, then.”
“Quite,” I said. “This is only the third time.”
He furrowed his brow. “That’s odd. I wonder if somehow I triggered something for you.” He darted out of the room.
I went after him.
He sprinted down the hallway, and I watched him in a discussion with Maria Lucas, who drew back from him, shaking her head, looking quite confused, protesting in the negative again and again.
He came back to the room and looked me over. “If Anne had been affected, I’m certain I would have noticed. She was not. So, it didn’t happen because I asked you to marry me.”
“You remember?” I said. “What are you doing, anyway, simply asking different women to marry you each day?”
He shrugged. “It’s frightfully boring living the same day again and again, Miss Bennet. You’ll see what I mean. I suppose it’s audacious, but I didn’t think it would matter. Every day it resets, so I didn’t think…” He scratched the back of his head. “Well, you do remember, so Iamsorry. Please, really. Forgive me.”
I smoothed out my skirts. Well, this all made sense, didn’t it? “You did it out of boredom.”
“Indeed,” he said. “You can’t imagine it. Everything is the same. It’s maddening. On the third day, you haven’t quite gotten there, but trust me, within a week or so, you will be out of your head with it.”
“You aren’t actually in love with me.”
“Oh,” he said, giving me an apologetic look, “no, of course not. As I said, I’m sorry.” He tilted his head to one side. “Maybe it’s because you refused me.”
I folded my arms over my chest. “I take it no one else has?”
“Well, no,” he said with a laugh, that stupid smile on his face conveying exactly what he thought of himself, that no one would dare to ever refuse him.
I narrowed my eyes at him. I hated Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy with a fiery passion, and I would have hated him even if he hadn’t prevented my sister Jane’s every happiness with Mr. Bingley. I would have hated him even if he had not preventedMr. Wickham—poor, very handsome Mr. Wickham—from getting the inheritance he was meant to have from Mr. Darcy’s late father. I would have hated him even if I had not overheard him refusing to dance with me because I was merely “tolerable” and not handsome enough to “tempt” him.
I would have hated him, because of this.
That arrogant look on his positively stupid face.
I seethed.
“I shall simply try harder to be refused, perhaps,” he said. “Or! No, I’ll ask someone who cannot marry me, shall I?” He went back out of the room.
I shook my head, still seething.
“Mrs. Collins!” He was yelling at the top of his lungs. “Leave your husband and marry me instead, would you?”
“What?” came Charlotte’s voice. She was laughing. “Your aunt is right to think something has gotten into you, Mr. Darcy, sir.”
“Say yes. Be my wife,” he declared in a loud voice.
“Stop that,” said Charlotte. “Of course I can’t marry you, Mr. Darcy.”
