“What?” I said.
“What if it is entirely the same?” she said, raising her eyebrows. “Which women are at the top of the social hierarchy, after all? The ones connected to men with the most wealth and status, which can purchase strength.”
“No,” I said. “We are not so barbarous. I refuse to believe it.”
She sighed. “Yes, so do I. After all, if that were the case, since I have become connected to you, I should be accepted, but I am not accepted, not at all.”
“True,” I said.
“And you wish I was,” she said to me, her expression sad.
“Honestly, I wish we could just go to the country and live out our lives and never worry about other people again,” I muttered.
“Oh, you do not,” said Elizabeth. “You may have difficulty in the presence of other people, but you are just as gratified by company as anyone, at least when you feel comfortable, that is.”
“Perhaps,” I allowed.
“Anyway, Richard is going to help me,” said Elizabeth.
I raised my eyebrows at my cousin. “Is he.”
“We spoke about it, and he said he could be a spy, could go and infiltrate whatever is being said about me, and that we could then make a strategy to work around it in some way,” said Elizabeth brightly.
Richard cleared his throat again. “I will assist in any way I can, madam. But I think I must speak to your husband alone.”
Elizabeth gave me an odd look.
“I don’t think we have anything to speak of,” I said, and I was embarrassed because my voice sounded sulky.
“Oh, we do,” said Richard.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
We went on a walk together, he and I.
He went right down to it. “You cannot think that I would be that way with her if I were planning on making you a cuckold. Give me some credit. If I were going to do things with your wife, I should behave in public as if I were indifferent to her.”
“This is your defense?” I was all agog. “You are an absolute fiend, I think.”
“I only want you to stop,” he said. “I cannot bear it, and she might, in fact, need me right now, so I think that you must allow me to assist you both, and you must not feel threatened, because there is no threat.”
“I am not threatened,” I muttered. “I never communicated to you—”
“You did not need to,” he said. “I could read it all over you. Darcy, you may think you conceal your emotions from others, but you are terrible at it.”
I winced. “Terrible? Really?”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “Now, sometimes, I think you do not even know what you are feeling. I shall say to you that you must not feel a way that you are obviously feeling, and you will say that you have not felt that at all, and will be affronted that I should say such a thing, and then will insist you did not feel that way—”
“I do not know what you are speaking of!” I said, glaring at him. “You have brought me on this walk to scold me, but I have not done anything wrong, and you have been brazenly flirting with my wife since the moment you met her.”
“I have not. This is the way I talk to positively everyone,” he said.
I was about to protest, but then I realized it was actually true. He was a horrible flirt, and he flirted with everyone—married women, widows, grandmothers,everyone.
“I have this, you see.” He pointed to his face. Richard was not handsome. There was nothing to point out in his countenance that was exactly unappealing, but it was sort of a matter of all of the parts not really working together in harmony. His teeth might have been too big? Or perhaps it was only that his nose was too small? “People are not naturally drawn to me, so I must work hard to make them like me. You would not understand, because you have every advantage and it is a good thing, too, because you put exactly zero effort into making people like you, and yet, they like you anyway.”
“I put in effort,” I said. “You have no idea.”
