“Would this instant be too soon?”
“On the contrary, it will be most convenient.”
“But…perhaps your sister would not like the idea of our coming.”
We walked a few steps in silence before I said, “What other reservations might you now be entertaining? Let us dispense with them all at once.”
“I hope Auntie will tolerate such a shift.”
“Hmm.”
“And I do not know what to do about the servants. I can hardly send the girls home. They are a burden on their families. But I do not like leaving them alone. And then there is the cook and when to pay them, and how to keep the house running.”
“And…?”
“I shall want to stay in the same room as Mrs. Jennings so she does not take fright, and I doubt we shall be fit to sit down to dinner today, or any day for that matter, since I do not believe Auntie owns any finery at all, and I have brought with me but one good dress. But how strange to descend upon your house, closet ourselves in a room, take our supper on trays, and otherwise act as though we have escaped some sort of domestic disaster—which, in truth, would be the case.”
“I see. What else?”
“Oh, well…beyond these immediate concerns is the anxiety of writing to my uncle, explaining why I had not said anything before now, and awaiting his decision. And then, to put a cap on it, Mrs. Burke—”
“Who?”
“Mrs. Jennings’s housekeeper. She will return from her furlough and find things in total disarray, her mistress displaced, and her servants all left to shift for themselves.”
“I do not understand why her opinion is of any interest to you.”
“Perhaps you should know that, upon my arrival, she looked me up and down as though I was no better than a stupid girl, and I have nursed a strong inclination to show her otherwise with my stunning management of Mrs. Jennings’s house.”
“My, but you are a proud one,” I remarked with a wink. In defense of my uncommon attempt at flirtation, Iwasstaggering from fatigue.
She did not seem to mind my teasing, however, and replied with the dawning of a twinkle in her weary eyes. “And now the pot calls the kettle black, I take it?”
“We have had this debate once already. Have I not said that pride, if under good regulation, is never a fault?”
She gingerly shook her head in dismay. “Oh, well, if we are going to glorify our faults, then by all means, congratulate me for my schemes with regard to Mrs. Burke.”
We were approaching the gutter outside Mrs. Jennings’s house, and I slowed to a stop. “Have you talked yourself out of visiting Pemberley, then? Or, would you allow me to manage your trifling concerns.” I spoke in a tone of impartiality I did not feel. “Aside from the matter of your only having one good dinner dress—which, forgive me, is the silliest concern I have ever heard—and aside from whatever your uncle may have to say to you, you have presented me with no great challenges.”
The exertion of walking may have sent a flush to her cheeks, or perhaps she was blushing. In any case, her pallor had been replaced by a pink glow, and she spoke with rare, shy, sweetness.
“I am in your hands, Mr. Darcy. Or at your mercy. Or perhaps simply in surrender to your overpowering urge to make me comfortable?”
The mere mention of anoverpowering urgeand hersurrenderin the same sentence inevitably aroused in me a masculine thrill. I do not know whether I, too, blushed, but Keller’s discreet cough alerted me to the fact that we stood staring into one another’s eyes again. Miss Bennet and I then retreated into embarrassed formality as I helped her across the gutter and up the steps; once inside, she escaped me and went to Mrs. Jennings.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Upon returning to Mrs. Jennings’s house, I wasted no time in the execution of my plan. I motioned for my sister to join me, and we stepped to the window so as to be out of hearing of Miss Bennet and her great-aunt, who were commiserating over Georgiana’s sketches at the little table at the other end of the parlor.
“Miss Bennet had a bit of a fright, love, and is not terribly comfortable here. Might we invite them to Pemberley?” I murmured.
“May we?”
“Would you enjoy that?”
“I find them very comfortable,” she said, almost in a tone of surprise. “And Mrs. Annesley will help me if I cannot think of how to entertain them.”
“They will need very little entertainment. I believe some respite from such a cheerless scene and a little rest will be all that is required. They will neither of them expect or even want formality from us. Might you arrange it?”
