She continued for several paces and then turned around to look at me. “Mr. Darcy?”
“No, sorry,” I said. Had I been blessed with Elizabeth, or was it that I had taken the time to learn her body and what pleased her and she had felt comfortable enough to teach me? I caught up to her. “I do not know what to say about that, I am afraid.”
“Because your wife enjoys it?”
“That,” I said, feeling my face heat up, “is not something I am going to discuss with you.”
She sighed heavily. “I must say, then, sir, I’m doubly disappointed your answer is no.”
“We must cease to talk of this travesty,” I said. “And you must be careful. You cannot go about asking other men to—”
“Do you see any other men?” she said, annoyed. “And anyway, as I said to you, there are only certain men who know. I cannot go around asking just anybody. It might endanger James and Charles!”
She was right, I supposed. “I’m terribly sorry, Mrs. Bennet,” I told her. “I do wish this had not happened to you. But you did choose to marry him knowing he was in love with your brother.”
“Yes, I did,” she said. “I just did not expect to feel thus about it, I suppose.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
It was not truly my problem what had befallen Caroline, and I could not say that she was not a bit of an annoying sort of person, but I did feel sorry for her, I supposed.
And it was later that day that I remembered someone else who knew about her brother and her husband, someone who had heard a similar proposal to the one she had made me and had been eager for it.
My cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam.
But I was not entirely sure where he was. However, Georgiana told me that he was in London on leave, that the last letter she’d had from our aunt had mentioned this.
So, I wrote to him. I could not put something so sordid down in a letter, of course, but I hinted broadly around the entire issue, and he did not even write me a letter back, he just arrived on my doorstep five days after I had sent the letter in the first place, which was a rather quick turnaround, I had to say.
He had just ridden from London on horseback, and he was dirty from the road and I said he would like to have a bath and settle in, and he said that we should go to my study and have a brandy.
Once we were behind closed doors, he said, “What is this about?”
I said, “Do you remember Caroline Bingley?”
“No,” he said.
“Mr. Bingley’s sister?” I said.
He thought about it. “Maybe.”
“She…” I considered her. “She is pretty enough, I suppose, but she often mars this by talking endlessly and chattering inanely about all manner of things. Do you find that once a person shows you that they are not very intelligent, their attractiveness diminishes in your eyes?”
“No,” he said. “No, I cannot say that I do.”
“Hmm,” I said. “Well, I suppose that is only me, then.”
“I barely remember this woman,” he said.
“She is married to James Bennet now,” I said.
“Oh,” he said. Then he nodded. “This is why you were referencing that conversation, the one where I called you a lucky blackguard, then. But this is not about Elizabeth.”
“Have I ever given you leave to call my wife by her first name?” I said, glaring at him.”
“She has given me leave,” he said.
“When?” I said. “When were you talking to her?”
