She smiled at me. “Yes, indeed, you do not deserve me. You worked quite hard to make sure you would chase me away.”
“But I did not.”
“No,” she said, running her fingers through my hair, gazing at me with affection writ on her features. “No, you did not.”
“You know I am yours,” I said. “Quite utterly. I should do anything for you. Please do not think that I should order you about or force you into things that you find abhorrent. I am not that sort of man.”
“You wish to please me,” she said.
“Your pleasure commands me,” I said in a rough voice.
She kissed me again. “I trust you, Fitzwilliam.”
“Silent?” said Richard, shaking his head. “Absolutely not.”
The three of us were gathered in the sitting room in my London house. Richard had come to call to discuss the upcoming ball, because he and Elizabeth had decided to scheme what sheshould be doing based on the fact that he was the spy on his mother and her opinions of Elizabeth.
“You do not think so?” said Elizabeth.
“Georgiana did describe her as loud,” I said.
“When?” said Elizabeth, turning on me with worry in her eyes.
“Oh, in a letter,” I said. “I personally do not think you are loud. And if you are loud, I like it, so I do not care, but if you are up against such an accusation, perhaps you wish to know.”
“If she is quiet, it gives them the chance to interpret her behavior however they like,” said Richard. “They will say she is too good to speak to anyone, or that she is too ill-bred to know to engage in conversation, or anything in between. Silence is not the way.”
“What is?” said Elizabeth, biting her bottom lip, but this time in a way that indicated her own nervousness. “I do not wish to cause difficulty for my husband or to drive a wedge between him and his family.”
“Oh, you do not,” I said. “Definitely not.”
“Yes, the wedge is quite already there,” said Richard.
“To the devil with you,” I said to him, but I was smiling.
“I have a wedge as well,” said Richard, chuckling.
“While we’re on the subject,” I said to him, “why are you helping with this?”
Richard shrugged. “No reason, really, other than it gets me out of everyone harping on me to go to Rosings. I shall put that off until March if I am able.”
But I noticed neither of them looked at each other after I asked that. I rubbed the side of my neck and looked back and forth between them.
I was not imagining this.
He was assisting in this because he cared about Elizabeth, not because he cared about me. He had an attachment to her ofsome kind, and she was attached back. They had an ease with each other, a connection, something, and they both noticed, and they both felt guilty about it.
What was I to do with that?
Richard was talking again. “Here is what you need to do, Elizabeth, and that is to be the vivacious self you were at that dinner. You need to be alert and alive and everything out of your mouth must sparkle with your wit. You are something to behold, you see, and if they behold you, they will not be able to dismiss you.”
“No, I am not that way all the time,” said Elizabeth, shaking her head.
“It’s you,” I said softly. “Richard, you set her up perfectly. You give her a platform to stand upon. The two of you, together, there’s something there.”
They both looked at me in something like horror.
“So, I think you must be with him at the ball,” I said. “Most of it, anyway. I shall be there, too, obviously, but I shall be silent. I always am when Richard is around. He is quite a talker, and I am not. That is the way we should do it.”
