“However, I know she is entertaining Mr. Wickham,” I said.
“How do you know this?” said Richard.
“Her brother came to speak to me last night,” I said.
“Her brother came to speak to you at night in secret?” said Richard. “Why?”
“To discuss Miss Bennet, primarily.”
“And whatever secret that you have about him that you don’t wish to tell me,” said Richard. He tapped his fingers on his knee. “Iamgoing to guess.”
I let out a huff of air.
“I think that he had some inappropriate relationship with a woman, maybe a woman of high breeding, and—”
“No,” I said. “Why would you think that?”
“Well, I don’t know, I am just trying to think of what sort of things a man might like concealed, that is all,” said Richard. “I think it has something to do with Bingley, because he spoke of him in a way—or, no, you spoke of Bingley, said something about Bennet being too trustworthy.”
“Perhaps they are both too trustworthy,” I muttered, “but for different reasons.”
“They have some dreadful card debts?” Richard said. “No, that doesn’t account for it. It’s something worse than that,something prurient. I guarantee it has something to do with sex.”
I glared at him. “Why do you guarantee that?”
“Something about the way you both are about it,” he said. “Have the two of you both had congress with the same woman?”
“No,” I said.
“No,” he said. “I knew it wasn’t that.” He sighed. “Why is it that we are here again? It’s so that you can marry this Bennet woman?”
“I cannot marry her!” I exclaimed.
“Right, we’ve chased her here and are following her around so that you’ll forget all about her,” said Richard with a little laugh.
“It was your idea,” I said. “You said—”
“Yes, I’m well aware,” he said. “She is very pretty. You were right about that.”
I huffed again.
“You know,” he said, “she may not be the sort of girl that you could marry, but I could, I think, if she’s going to inherit Trawlings.”
I sat up straight on the other side of the carriage. “No, you could not.”
“I think I could,” he said. “If she had an estate and some income, then I could.”
“If you could marry her, I could marry her,” I growled.
“Well, you, Darcy can marry positively anyone you like,” he said, grinning at me.
I sagged back into the carriage seat. “You dragged me into that.”
“Oh, you walked into it yourself,” said Richard. “You do wish to marry her, so just ask for her hand and let’s be done with it.”
“I cannot ask for her hand,” I said. “I cannot marry her. I do not even wish to be married. I am but eight and twenty. I havetime to see to all of that, quite a bit of time.” A pause. “Besides, if I were going to ask for her hand, I would have had to have spoken to her more often than I have. I barely know her.”
“Well, to get to know her, we are going to have to call upon her, which was what I said from the beginning, that we must call at the Bennet household and you said that we could not, but here we are.”
