CHAPTER FOURTEEN
My day of reckoning had come. I had been too careless in my attentions, and as my heart pounded in dread, I marvelled at how fate had announced itself—a thunderclap of doom that was both foreordained and entirely unexpected. Why was it that retrospection is so damnably clear? I should have seen this coming.
I tasted ashes in my mouth and felt the colour drain from my face. “Excuse me, Bingley,” I said, putting my napkin down and pushing away from the breakfast table. “I have some business to attend to.”
I saddled my own horse out of the need to be alone, and in a sober state, I rode to Longbourn.
Miss Bennet welcomed me with an open smile. She sat with Miss Mary, but Miss Elizabeth was not in theroom. After the ritual of greetings, I excused myself and went to Mr Bennet’s library.
“I am afraid I have done your family harm, sir,” I said almost immediately.
“Oh? How so?” he asked in surprise. “Will you not sit? Shut the door, and tell me what is amiss.”
“I have raised the expectations of the neighbourhood that I will offer for your eldest daughter.”
Mr Bennet looked placidly at me. Some spark of his erstwhile cynicism shone out in that look, and he said, “I have never cared one whit for the opinion of my neighbours. You need not do anythinghonourableif you are on the verge of doing so.”
“But—”
“I would not grant my consent in any case.” As I stared at him in disbelief, he shrugged. “My daughter holds you in esteem, but she does not love you, sir. And—correct me if I am mistaken—I do not detect in you anything warmer than respect for her.”
“I admire Miss Bennet greatly.”
“A tepid reason to marry if I may say so. In my youth, I would have considered that sufficient, but I have come to regard the married state as a challenge that requires a great deal more substantive cause to justify entering it. My answer is simply no.”
“Perhaps I did not make myself clear, Mr Bennet. The matter is already a subject of gossip?—”
He waved his hand, dismissing my explanation before I had even finished stating it. “You must submit yourself to the humiliation of being considered a scrub, Mr Darcy. The phenomenon should last somewhere around forty days, and then it shall be forgotten. In the meantime, I hope you continue to visit us, secure in the knowledge you will leave here without a wife. My daughter will not be injured, and in the wake of your so-called desertion when you do leave here, we shall enjoy a better-behaved dog.”
“I have not been entirely successful with him, sir,” I said to no purpose, perhaps because I was stunned into stupidity by both my situation and Mr Bennet’s response to it.
“You are young yet. You will one day realise that you will never be entirely successful in anything you do. But you need not take my word for it, for I am speaking from the lowly position of having made many mistakes.”
“But what of Miss Bennet?” I asked, unwilling to accept his judgment. “Are you certain I will not injure her? At the very least, I will have damaged my own reputation, not to mention hers.”
“You will both survive,” he concluded drily. Clearly, his mind was made up.
“Should I not at least speak to her? Apologise…or prepare her for the hints and teasing she will likely suffer?”
“By all means speak to her. If anyone can put you at ease, my Jane can.”
Of course,Jane Bennet did exactly that. Miss Mary went ahead of us with Bandit, and we fell behind, since I had begun to walk slowly—the universal sign between perambulators that something private must be said.
“I am afraid I have set the neighbourhood to talking of you,” I said.
“Oh?”
“There is a general expectation?—”
“Oh, that. I do not know why it is, Mr Darcy, but my marital expectations are always a subject of interest when any man bespeaks a set with me. Do not regard it, I beg you, for I certainly do not.”
“I would not injure you for the world.”
“And you have not! You are my father’s friend, and we rejoice to see him recover some of his former—well, I do not know how to classify his style.”
“If you mean his mind is sharp, and his manner of address is perhaps too piquant to be comfortable, then perhaps I know what you mean. He showed me a little of that this morning.”
“Did he? But how wonderful!”
