“I see them,” I said.
“That’s what you’d like, then, I suppose, Fitzwilliam? To keep me here, all alone, just for you? Perhaps I am like your doll? You dress me up, then you undress me?”
I flinched.
“The hell of it, of course, is that I don’t entirely mind.” She lifted her chin, daring me to comment on the fact she’d just said the word “hell.”
I did not. I just held her gaze. “Perhaps you wish to be undressed now.”
“I have letters to write,” she said in a lilting voice. “But later, I shall quite be at your disposal.”
Elizabeth dazzled at the dinner, but maybe that was due to my cousin, Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam, who seemed to be her faithful assistant, as if he were simply speaking to set her up to speak.
They met in the sitting room before dinner. He was his typical amiable, talkative self. No one much listened to me when Richard was around, but that was because he never let me get a word in edgewise, and I had come to appreciate it, actually. If I went anywhere with Richard, he would do the talking, and that took it off my shoulders.
“And this is the new Mrs. Darcy, of whom I have been speaking of positively constantly, with everyone in the household, for the past three weeks,” he said. “I daresay, she lives up to the talk.”
“Richard, truly, no one is talking that much of Mrs. Darcy,” said his mother witheringly.
“Oh, don’t listen to her, Mrs. Darcy,” said Richard to my wife as if they were sharing a secret, though he was proclaiming it loudly for the entire room, “she is ever so taken with you. You areallshe talks about. You, I would venture to say, are the most exciting thing to have happened to her in a decade.”
“Richard!” said Lady Matlock in horror.
“Well, I am all astonishment,” said Elizabeth, grinning an impish grin. “For I must say, I think of her ladyship often as well. I spent quite a bit of time wondering if she would approve of my dress this evening.”
“Iapprove,” said Richard, smiling at her.
I glared at him.
He pretended not to notice.
“I hear,” said Richard, “that you are some sort of countryside siren, but instead of causing men to shipwreck themselves on rocks, you cause them to break their ankles.”
“That was me, breaking my ankle,” said Elizabeth, laughing. “It’s your cousin’s fault, truly. You would not believe how absolutely dreadful he was at courting me. It’s amazing, really, that I assented to marry him.”
Richard laughed, but then, horrifyingly, so did everyone.
My uncle, the earl, spoke up. “Yes, we have worried that Darcy would never find anyone who could stand his taciturn and grim nature. You are not at all what we might have expected.”
Taciturn? Grim? This was what my family thought of me? I stiffened.
“He is a trial at times,” said my wife, looking askance at me. “He does not give a good first impression, I am afraid.”
“Darcy? Well, I can hardly believe that,” said my cousin, in a voice that meant entirely the opposite.
“We met in a ballroom,” said my wife.
I gaped at her. Was she going to tell everyone I said she was not handsome enough to tempt me?
“He would not dance,” she said with a shrug. “And gentlemen were scarce.”
I sputtered out, “You know that I am not at ease amongst people I do not know.”
“Yes,” she said, with a laugh, “and, as we all know, no one can be introduced in a ballroom.”
And everyone laughed again.
The evening went like that, mostly, but—thankfully—not all at my own expense. However, Elizabeth and Richard dominated the conversation. He prodded her, she said things, everyone laughed.
