“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” she said.
“It does matter,” I said. “What did he say?”
“No, it only proves you are correct, and I am incorrect,” she said. “The servants are clearly not capable of allowing us to sleep in each other’s rooms all night without noticing.”
“What did he say?” Now, I was livid.
“Mr. Darcy—”
“Mrs.Darcy, you are my wife, and he has no right to speak to you about anything of that nature, none at all. What did he say?”
“He said,” she whispered, “that he supposed I was very concerned about your pen needing mending if I had to go to your room myself instead of your visiting me. And that since I stayed all night, it must have needed mending numerous times.”
I slammed my hand down on the desk. I could not breathe. I had never been quite this angry in my life, I did not think. I stalked out of the room, hands clenched in fists and went up and down the hallways, until I found the footman in question.
“I could have you dismissed,” I said to him.
His eyes widened.
“Do not speak to my wife,” I said. “Do notlookat my wife. Do not think toimaginethings about my wife.”
“I—sir, it was only a jest. I meant nothing—”
“You meant to make her feel uncomfortable and to make her feel ashamed. You meant to impose yourself over her and to feel some rush of power from that, small as it may be. You meant to make yourself large and her small.”
“I swear I did not,” he said.
“Regardless, you will never do anything like that again.”
“I shall apologize.”
“No,” I said. “You will not speak to her again. Have I not just finished saying that? You will never do a thing to cause her any distress ever again.”
He bowed his head. “Sir.”
I turned and stalked off, back to the sitting room where I found Elizabeth writing a letter as if nothing had happened.
I was still too angry to do anything other than pace.
“I think,” she said, looking up from her letter, “that there is a difference between you and me, and it is why you are so hard on yourself and why you convey those same strictures to me. It is because you have been looked at your whole life. Everyone looks to you. You are Mr. Darcy, you have such position and such wealth, and I am not used to it, because I have spent my life going unnoticed.”
I stopped pacing.
“At any rate,” she said, “we might as well take better care. We do not need to spend the entire night—”
“Nonsense,” I interrupted.
She sat back in her chair, startled at that. “Excuse me?”
“We cannot simply not live our lives because we are worried about how other people are going to react to it.”
She lifted a shoulder. “Well, yes, this is what I have been saying, but I have to say that I’ve been saying it from theperspective of someone who has never had much in the way of a reaction to anything I’ve done.”
“If we wish to sleep in each other’s bedchambers, we shall,” I said. “We are married, for God’s sake.”
She gave me a small smile. “All right.”
“And if any of the footmen, or any other servant, says one thing to you again, you will come to me, and I will take care of it.”
