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He shook his head to clear away such thoughts. As though trying to bolster his own resolve that he was simply going along with the scheme for his father’s sake, he voiced aloud, “It is not as though either of the two women will likely garner my affection.”

Turning away from the window, Darcy watched as his cousin wandered into the room. The colonel looked like he wanted to say something and did not know where to start. He marched around the room with his hands clutched behind his back.

“Why do I fear I am about to be subjected to a severe rebuke?” Darcy inquired.

His cousin gave him a stern look. “The fact that you would say such a thing is a strong indication that you are aware your behavior was beyond the pale earlier today.”

Darcy shrugged. “If you are referring to my tardiness in arriving to greet the Bennet family, it simply could not be helped.”

“Indeed, you were noticeably late, which I wager was more by design than not.”

“By design?” Darcy repeated, his brow arched.

“No doubt you meant to suspend your would-be bride’s pleasure in beholding you for the first time.”

“On the contrary, for I am not one who enjoys toying with a young woman’s sensibilities.”

“Then how exactly would you explain your unabashed fascination with her younger sister?”

“I solemnly declare I meant no offense.”

“Are you quite certain?”

“In all honesty, my reaction took me by surprise as well. I shall endeavor to make amends to Miss Bennet when next we meet. I believe it is the least I can do, what with her being the eldest daughter and the guest of honor of sorts.”

“Capital,” said the colonel. “And I shall endeavor to see that Miss Elizabeth Bennet is agreeably diverted as well.”

Hearing his cousin speak those words took Darcy slightly aback, but he dared not voice his discomfort aloud. He knew his cousin well enough to know that Miss Elizabeth would be perfectly safe with him what with the colonel being a second son as well as a gentleman. Not that the colonel did not have a way with women, but Miss Elizabeth was not just any woman.

She is a gentleman’s daughter. Indeed, a gentleman with no fortune. Nothing that would tempt my cousin.

Would that I might say the same of myself, Darcy silently considered as the image of Miss Elizabeth Bennet lingered in his mind: her light and pleasing figure and the beautiful expression of her bewitching dark eyes, which rendered her face uncommonly intelligent.

Changing the subject, the colonel remarked on his uncle’s demeanor prior to the Bennets’ arrival. It was sufficient diversion, indeed, albeit in an odd sort of way in Darcy’s view. But anything to escape talking about the second eldest Bennet daughter was deemed a welcomed reprieve.

“I could not help noticing that my uncle has not quite been himself of late. Surely you must have noticed it too.”

Darcy ran his fingers through his hair. As much as he wanted to confirm his cousin’s suspicions with a detailed accounting of all he knew, he could not.

My father’s secret is not mine to tell.

“Perhaps you have a point. I shall keep an eye on things.”

No doubt he would. Thoughts of his father’s ailing health had become Darcy’s near constant companions since he learned of it some months ago. What would it mean for Pemberley as well as the leagues of people who depended on its current master for their very livelihood?

These were not inconsequential matters to ponder, and thus, Darcy had grown more pensive, even reclusive, of late, trying to sort through them. How he wanted to discuss these daunting questions with his father, but how could he without betraying his knowledge of a closely held secret that his father meant to keep to himself?

Darcy prayed the time would come when his father elected to take him into his confidence. Until such time as his father chose to do so, Darcy spent prodigious time familiarizing himself with each and every aspect of the estate.

All of these things mattered. But most of all, Darcy worried about what the loss of their dearly beloved father would mean for his young sister, Georgiana, whom he adored. Having spent most of his youth as an only child, Darcy had been given good principles to follow, but he had also been reared to think very highly of himself especially in relationship to others. As an only child, he was no doubt the apple of both his parents’ eyes - a golden child who could do no wrong. People far and wide revered him for he was the young master of Pemberley—its heir-apparent and the person whom so many of them would one day refer to as their master.

It was true that such accolades meant something to him. It was no small honor that he wore proudly every day for so long as he could remember, but he wanted more—something his parents had not given him during the first decade or so of his life, and that was a sibling. Save the son of his father’s steward, Darcy had no one of his own age with whom he might spend time. There were his cousins, of course – two male cousins: Lord Robert Fitzwilliam, the elder son and future Earl of Matlock, and Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam, the earl’s second son and Darcy’s closest friend, but Matlock was not so close in proximity that Darcy and his cousins saw each other on a regular basis. He had his two female cousins as well: Lady Charlotte Fitzwilliam, the earl’s only daughter, and Anne de Bourgh. Darcy was not particularly close to either of them.

His baby sister was born at a time when Darcy and his parents, he suspected, had given up hope. What a blessing she was, and her older brother practically doted on her as much as an older brother by more than ten years could be expected to dote on a younger sibling.

Am I ready for the task of rearing my young sister?

For the first time in his adult life, a part of him also wondered if he indeed ought to begin entertaining the idea of taking a bride. A sister for Georgiana would be perfect.