“What I cannot comprehend,” Mrs. Bennet huffed a fortifying breath, “is how any girl with sense could refuse ten thousand pounds when her family is in such desperate circumstances. Jane sits there with her heart in pieces over Mr. Bingley—oh, do not shake your head at me, Jane, a mother knows—and Mary has no prospects at all.”
Mary struck a chord. It was emphatic and dissonant.
“And Kitty is pale and coughing and will need a warmer climate before the year is out. Lydia is upstairs feigning a headache because she cannot bear another day without something to amuse her. All of this, every bit of our misfortune might have been prevented if Elizabeth had only said yes to Mr. Darcy and his ten thousand a year!”
“And what of Mr. Darcy’s manner of proposing, Mamma?” Elizabeth’s voice held a bite. “Shall we discuss that?”
Her sisters shrank further, having heard this argument before, but Nettle growled in sympathy, her stubby tail wagging.
Elizabeth took a breath as fortifying as her mother’s. “Shall we discuss the way the proudest, most arrogant, most thoroughly insufferable man in all of England stood before me and declared that he loved me against his will, against his reason, against his character—as though loving me were a disease he had contracted through some regrettable lapse in hygiene, and for which he expected me to provide the cure?”
Mamma’s eyes bulged, her hands firmly on her hips. “Who cares how he proposed? When ten thousand a year is at stake, he could have delivered his offer whilst standing on his head in a pig trough, and any sensible girl would still have accepted! You foolish, headstrong child! Do you not see that with such a fortune, his pride would be but a trifling matter, no more bothersome than a fly at a picnic?”
“He proposed to me,” Elizabeth stated, the words faster, “as though I were a scruffy little stray he had discovered shivering ina rain puddle—a bedraggled, mud-caked mongrel who had gazed up at him with such pathetically adoring eyes that he simply could not resist.”
Nettle’s hackles rose, barking in perfect solidarity.
Elizabeth’s breath came faster. “Though I assure all of you, I have never in my life gazed at Mr. Darcy with anything remotely resembling adoration.”
Jane set down her needlework. Mary’s hands hovered motionless above the keys, and Kitty’s bonnet ribbon dangled forgotten from her fingers.
“And having committed this impulsive act of charity—having installed this soggy, unpedigreed little beast upon the velvet cushions of his magnificent equipage—he discovered, to his evident horror, that she had muddied his upholstery, shed liberally upon his impeccable coat, and infested him with fleas for his trouble. That is how Mr. Darcy proposed.” She stomped her feet for emphasis. “He did not offer me his heart, Mamma. He apologized for having one. He informed me, at extraordinary length, that my family and connections were so thoroughly degrading that he ought never to have stooped so low as to notice me, and yet here he was, despite every rational objection, condescending to offer me the incomparable honor of his hand.”
She was trembling, which was inconvenient, so she clenched her fist for better emphasis. “So yes, Mamma. I refused him. I will not be any man’s charity case, and I will not be loved as one loves a flea-ridden puppy one ought to have left in the gutter. Not for ten thousand a year. Not for a hundred thousand.”
Her indictment of Darcy silenced even her mother, who prostrated herself on the couch, while Kitty fanned her and Jane offered lemon water. Nettle, however, growled her approval, charging toward the door where Hill stood, her cap askew.
“Pardon me, ma’am,” the servant said. “Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley calling for Miss Elizabeth Bennet.”
The blood drained from Elizabeth’s face so swiftly she gripped the back of a chair to steady herself. Of all the moments for him to call.
Darcy stood on the threshold with a leather portfolio under his arm and a deeply furrowed brow. The door had been ajar. How much had he heard? His expression offered no answer she could safely draw.
“We are saved!” Mamma’s fan fluttered weakly, although she could not rise from her stricken position. “Lizzy, offer him tea. Coffee. Oh, is it truly Mr. Darcy? Hill, the good tea.”
But Nettle didn’t wait for tea. She growled a warning and lunged at Darcy’s trouser leg, her sharp little teeth finding the hem and shaking as if she’d caught a rat.
“Nettle! Release him this instant,” Elizabeth commanded.
The terrier obeyed, but not before leaving a ragged tear in very fine broadcloth. Elizabeth, who could not growl at Mr. Darcy without forfeiting what remained of her dignity, felt an ignoble and unhelpful kinship with the dog.
“Mr. Darcy,” said Mr. Bennet, emerging from his library. “This is an unexpected pleasure. Or an unexpected something, at any rate. You must forgive the dog. She was a hedge rescue herself, and takes the subject rather personally.”
“Mr. Bennet.” Darcy bowed to her father, then to her mother, then to her sisters, and finally, as if wrestling with demons, to Elizabeth herself. Although his gaze was so critical that her cheeks burned as if brushed by hot candle wax.
“I apologize for the intrusion,” Darcy said. “I come on a matter of some urgency, in my capacity as trustee to Lady Sophia Mottistone.”
Elizabeth had never heard the name before. From the blank look on her mother’s face, neither had she. But Mrs. Bennet sensed advantage as surely as a hound scented a fox. She rose from the sofa with the speed of a woman suddenly revived.
“Lady Sophia Mottistone, you say? How very interesting. Hill, do bring us some tea—the good china, mind you. Mr. Darcy, pray make yourself comfortable. We are most eager to hear about this urgent matter.”
“My errand is brief,” Darcy said, remaining standing. “It concerns Miss Elizabeth Bennet.”
“What could you possibly want with me?” She had not yet recovered her composure, not with his words from six weeks ago still echoing in her ears.
“This is a professional matter, Miss Bennet.” He did not look at her; his entire focus was on opening a leather portfolio and withdrawing several sheaves of paper.
“Lady Sophia Mottistone is the daughter of the Duke of Lennox. She was also my late mother’s dearest friend, and I have served as her trustee for the past ten years. Lady Sophia has recently executed a legal conveyance naming Miss Elizabeth Bennet as the sole beneficiary of aninter vivosgift, that is, a gift made during the donor’s lifetime, as distinct from a bequest.”
