“A week!” Kitty cried, “What could she be doing?”
“Buying, not doing.” Bingley corrected with the long-suffering wince of the one paying the bills.
“It will be the journey, not the shopping, which will demand her time.” Mary pointed out to Kitty with her usual early-morning sourness. “I assume she thinks herself too good for the local selections. Lambton is, I believe, as well-stocked and staffed as anyone might wish for. I am surprised that the high-and-mighty Miss Bingley did not see the need to go to London and leave us all in peace for a month, not a week!”
“Mary!” Jane scolded. “How sharp you are!”
“The ball is sooner than a month, and she will not miss it.” Kitty replied, her eyes shining, “Oh, the gown she is to wear is beautiful! Lydia, have you seen it?”
Lydia, nose-deep in her porridge, grunted. Kitty bristled at this. “Are you upset because she did not ask you to join her? Is she finally sick of you fawning over her?”
Lydia rolled her eyes and spooned another mouthful of porridge between her lips. Apparently, her appetite was stronger than her temper this morning.
“You can go into Lambton, girls, if you wish it.” Elizabeth offered, finally surfacing from whatever reflections had made her cheeks go pink. “You still have some pin money, and we can give you the carriage.”
“Oh!” Kitty beamed with delight and nudged her younger sister with her elbow. “Wake up, Lyddie! We can see if they have any yellow ribbons. They will go so nicely with that new hairstyle you wanted to try, don’t you think?”
“Yes.” Lydia mumbled like a sleepwalker. She wiped her mouth, shot a single distressed look at Elizabeth, and then hurried after her sister.
Elizabeth was too distracted to notice her sister’s unease but wondered if she was unwell. It was most unlike her to be offered a shopping trip without a loud squeal of pleasure.
“What of you, dearest?” Jane asked Mary with a maternal smile, “Would you like to join them?”
“Must I? I have plenty of ribbons and would prefer to stay here.” Mary replied with a wince.
“Of course you can stay.” Elizabeth said gently, “Would you like to join our walk this morning? Then you can sit with Jane in the afternoon.”
“You are so organised! I would not have thought it of you, Lizzie. You were always so muddled in Meryton.” Mary cried and then saw the odd look her sisters exchanged. “Oh, I did not mean to offend you. I meant it as a compliment.”
“I am not offended.” Elizabeth made her voice sound calm and reassuring. Inside, she was seething. She had as much as confessed that there was an unusual routine that the house followed, and that Jane was a part of it! Even worse, she had done it in front of Mary, who rejoiced in discovering details.
But Mary’s curiosity seemed somewhat subdued. She did not ask any more questions. Indeed, now that she had been invited on the walk it was as if everything else was irrelevant.
Elizabeth saw her sister’s eyes move tenderly towards Colonel Fitzwilliam, who caught them with a dashing smile.
Ah.
When everyone finished their breakfast and went to ready themselves for the day ahead, Elizabeth drew her husband aside and lowered her voice.
“I do not think you need to worry about Fitzwilliam flirting with me. It looks like he is concentrating his efforts on my sister.”
“Be more specific.”
“Mary. She has been staring at him all morning.”
“Very well, I shall tell him to stop.”
“Oh!” Elizabeth bit her lip, feeling churlish and wishing she had held her tongue, “Must you?”
“The scoundrel promised that he would behave himself. Seducing your sister runs rather counter to that. You know as well as I do that he has no intentions towards her, but Mary has no such insight. She will be hurt when he moves on to the next pretty girl, and I shall not have it.”
There was a grim note in his voice which made Elizabeth pause. He spoke with the bull-headed protectiveness of an olderbrother, but Mary was a stranger to him. For him to be so roused so quickly in her defence was very strange. Still, Elizabeth pressed on.
“Mary is naive, but she is not a fool. I shall not embarrass her by interfering, and nor shall you. Let them be, Darcy.”
His eyes narrowed. “I am not in the habit of being ordered around in my own house, madam. I trust it shall not re-occur when we are in public.”
“Indeed, sir - if you make the same promise to me.”
