“I applied for the supper dance, including the waltz,” Sir Geoffrey’s voice was full of bravado. “I say, Lady Sophia is getting addled at her age—assigning the decisions to a Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy—a commoner from Derbyshire.”
“Indeed!” Lord Leycester exclaimed. “A commoner, you say?”
The two men walked closer, and Sir Geoffrey spotted Darcy first.
“Darcy! The very man.” He feigned surprise and executed a bow that felt mocking. “We were just discussing your charming charge. You know Lord Leycester?”
“Lord Leycester.” Darcy inclined his head without rising, because at White’s, a man in his own chair was under no obligation to rise, and remaining seated conveyed a message about the degree to which the interruption was welcome.
“Mr. Darcy.” Leycester’s bow was shallower and easier. “I was just telling Sir Geoffrey that my mother has been singing Miss Bennet’s praises. The directness, she said. The wit. She compared her to Lady Hester Stanhope, which, from my mother, is approximately equivalent to canonization.”
“Miss Bennet’s qualities are well established,” Darcy said. “I am gratified that thetonis discovering them.”
“Discovering them and queuing for them.” Sir Geoffrey dropped into the chair opposite. Leycester took the settee. The three sleeping gentlemen remained, mercifully, asleep. “The ball tomorrow is the most anticipated event of the month, and not because of Lady Harewood’s punch, which is notorious. Miss Bennet’s card is apparently the prize of the evening.”
“Miss Bennet’s card was organized in consultation with Lady Sophia,” Darcy emphasized his godmother’s name drily. “Every dance is allocated.”
“All of them?” Leycester’s brows rose. “Already? Before the Season has properly begun? That is either extraordinary popularity or extraordinary management, and I suspect it is both.”
“Lady Sophia has complete confidence in my decisions regarding her goddaughter’s welfare. Should you wish to question her, she is at your disposal.”
He knew, of course, that Lady Sophia brought ducal weight to the table, trumping Lady Matlock’s earldom and Lord Geoffrey’s mere baronet status.
“Ah, the lady has found the one man in London who would not be tempted by Miss Bennet to manage her social calendar,” Sir Geoffrey said, grinning. “Rather like appointing a monk to guard the reliquary. His vows protect the treasure.”
“I had not realized Mr. Darcy had taken vows,” Leycester said, with a smile that suggested he found the metaphor delightful. “Religious or merely temperamental?”
“Hereditary, I believe. The Darcy standard is ducal—is that not the reputation? Old Mr. Darcy built Pemberley into a duchy in everything but title, and the heir is expected to marry accordingly. A country gentleman’s daughter fromHertfordshire would not, I think, meet the specifications, however intriguing her conversation.”
Darcy’s hands did not move on the newspaper. His coffee sat untouched. His voice, when he produced it, carried the temperature of a January morning at Pemberley.
“Miss Bennet’s father is a gentleman of independent means whose family has held the Longbourn estate for several generations. Her maternal uncle is a man of business in the City whose commercial acumen has earned him the respect of institutions that do not distribute their regard lightly. Her godmother is the daughter of a duke. I do not find that her connections require an apology.”
“No apology intended,” Sir Geoffrey said, raising his palm in the gesture of a fencer acknowledging a touch. “Merely observing the reckoning. Thetonadores a reckoning, Darcy. They cannot help themselves.”
“Theton’scalculation is none of my concern.”
“And yet you manage her dance card, and have put yourself in as a placeholder, so I’m told, for the supper waltz. Care to explain?”
The library door swung back, and Lord Coke entered. He did not look like a man seeking casual solitude, but he maintained the smooth, unhurried stride of a man bred to public life. He registered the occupants of the room instantly, his jaw tightening beneath his stiff linen collar.
“Coke!” Sir Geoffrey called out, leaning back in his chair with a lazy elegance that was entirely feigned. “You arrive just in time to witness a theological debate. We were just comparing your cousin Darcy to a vowed monk guarding the holy relics of Grosvenor Street.”
“Were you?” Coke paused, executing a polite, clipped inclination of his head. “Good afternoon, Hale. Leycester.”
“We hear the battle lines are drawn for Saturday night,” Leycester drawled from the settee, swirling the remnants of his glass. “Mother says Lady Matlock left Bruton Street looking as though she intended to dissolve the modiste’s shop in vinegar. Something about her eldest son being denied his rightful place on a certain country miss’s dance card.”
Coke’s eyes flashed, but he ignored Leycester’s prod, turning his full, demanding attention entirely upon Darcy. The polite façade dropped away as his shoulders squared in a coat that carried the unmistakable authority of the Matlock heir.
“Darcy,” Coke said, stepping directly into his space until the two cousins stood nearly chest to chest. “A word, if you please. In private.”
“Hale and Lord Leycester were just departing,” Darcy said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, gravelly register that left no room for misinterpretation.
Sir Geoffrey merely chuckled, making no move to rise. “Do not mind us, gentlemen. We are merely part of the library furniture today. And the calculation of the peerage is always so thoroughly educational.”
Indeed, the slumbering gentlemen appeared to be rousing, rubbing their eyes and gaping with avid interest at the ensuing duel.
“My mother returned from Bruton Street in a state of absolute indignation, Darcy. She ran into Miss Bennet and Miss Allegra at Madame Delacroix’s, and she came away with the distinct impression that you are intentionally withholding the supper dance from my application. She tells me you called the current allocation a temporary arrangement.”
