“But… she is correct? You married her because you lusted after her, nothing more, because you do not wish her to be your wife? You are ashamed that she is your wife—”
“Why does everyone keep saying I amashamed?” I might have yelled it.
“Because you are hiding her—”
“It’s not about whatIthink, it’s about whattheythink,” I said. “Obviously, I think she’s wonderful, flawless, the epitome of everything a wife should be, the most lovely and delightful of creatures. Obviously, since the moment I saw her—well, since the moment with the hair and the mud and the—never mind. Obviously, once I fell for her, I have thought of little else than her. Obviously, I am devoted to her.”
“I’m so very confused right now.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter what I think. Society at large thinks something else.”
“Yes, but you disagree, so why would you behave as if you agree?”
“That is how one deals witheverythingin society, Richard,” I seethed. “I do not agree with much of anything society demands of me, but I must follow its dictates, you see?”
He stopped walking and considered that. “Yes, all right, I see what you mean.”
“Do you?”
“This is a thing where you side with your wife and tell them all to go stuff themselves, however,” he said.
I gave him a funny look. “What do you mean?”
“She’s your wife, Darcy. You married her. So, you do whatever makes her happy, even if there are consequences. That’s what makes a happy marriage, anyway. You can calculate the other way, please everyone else and not your wife. But none of them are willing to touch your prick, are they? So, it seems clear who you should put first.” He shrugged, making a helpless face at me.
I gaped at him for a moment, at his obvious vulgarity, and then I burst out in surprised laughter.
He laughed, too. “Sorry. I might have put that another way, I suppose, but—”
“No, that was very helpful,” I said, still chortling. I resumed walking. “Good talk, Richard.”
“I was helpful?”
“Quite.”
“We need to go to a ball,” I said to Elizabeth at dinner that evening. “You have dresses, after all, and nowhere to wear them.”
“You wish to be seen with me in public at a ball?” she said, eyeing me.
“You’re my wife, and I obviously wish to be seen with you. You’re breathtaking, or had you forgotten?”
She gave me a little smile. “Truly?”
“Truly,” I said. “I should apologize, Elizabeth, for the way I’ve been. I should have put you first, ahead of whatever they thought.”
Her lips parted. “Oh.” She was pleased.
Good. “It will be different in the future.”
“Well, we are not being invited to balls, Fitzwilliam. Perhaps you had noticed that.”
I had not noticed that, but it obviously made sense. “Well, if I can get an invitation to a ball, we shall go.”
“How are you going to do that?” she said, cringing a little. “I don’t know if we should foist me on people who do not wish me to be there, especially when they all seem predisposed to dislike me for reasons we have not even determined yet.”
“I thought I’d ask Richard for ideas, actually,” I said. “I could, of course, put pressure on someone to invite us to a ball, but I don’t know if that’s the right way of it. Could backfire, as you say.”
“What did you and Richard talk about?” she said.
