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“Your silence on this matter simply will not do.”

“Surely as intimate as you are with the gentleman, you will have no hesitation in appealing to him directly,” Elizabeth responded.

“On behalf of Miss Eliza as well as myself, I insist you elaborate further on our supposed motives, sir.”

“Indeed. You either chose this method of passing the evening because you are in each other’s confidence, and you have secret affairs to discuss, or you are conscious that your figures appear to the greatest advantage in walking. If the first, I would be completely in your way, and if the second, I can admire you much better from here.”

“How shocking!” cried Miss Bingley. “I never heard anything so abominable. How shall we punish him for such a speech?”

“Tease him. Laugh at him.” Elizabeth shrugged. “Again, as intimate as the two of you are, you must know how it is to be done.”

Aghast, the young lady said, “If you suppose that laughing at Mr. Darcy is the best thing to do, then you do not know him so well as I had suspected.”

“Mr. Darcy is not to be laughed at!” cried Elizabeth. “I truly hope you are speaking in jest, for it would pain me deeply to suffer such an acquaintance. I dearly love a laugh.”

“It appears, Mr. Darcy, that Miss Eliza has identified what she perceives as a defect in your character—one that renders you wanting.”

“I am afraid you have attributed sentiments to me that are wanting. Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies, do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can. However, I hope I never ridicule what is wise and good.”

The gentleman regarded Elizabeth intently—as though she was the only person in the room. “There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil—a natural defect which not even the best education can overcome. My own defect is not that I am not to be laughed at, but rather my inability to forgive someone who has used me poorly. My good opinion once lost, is lost forever.”

“You have chosen your defect wisely, sir.”

He approached her directly. His eyes pored over her from head to toe. “And now it is your turn. Pray, what is your defect, Miss Elizabeth?” he inquired. “I dearly hope it is not a willingness to misunderstand, for I should hate to find myself in the unenviable position of having garnered the disapprobation of a young lady of your discerning taste.”

Fearing every eye in the room was trained on the two of them, it was Elizabeth’s turn to be amazed by the gentleman’s speech, for what could be his purpose in declaring such a bold assertion in front of the entire party?

“Shall I play something for you, Mr. Darcy?” Miss Bingley intervened, no doubt, tired of a conversation in which she had no share. “Louisa, you will not mind my waking Mr. Hurst?”

“I shall not put forth the smallest of objection. A little music is exactly what this evening lacks,” replied Mrs. Hurst, standing and crossing the room. “In fact, I should like very much to accompany you.” With that, Miss Bingley sashayed away, and the instrument was opened.

Whatever was Fitzwilliam Darcy’s opinion on the deliberate diversion on the part of Miss Bingley, Elizabeth could not say. As for her own sentiments, she was not sorry for it, for she did not only see but she also felt, deep inside of her, the danger of teasing such a man, especially while in the company of others.

CHAPTER 14

HANDSOME GENTLEMAN

Elizabeth folded her latest letter from home and placed it in the top drawer of her writing table along with all the others she had received since arriving at Pemberley. The letters from her younger sister Mary, more often than not, were filled with platitudes and an abundance of multiple syllable words that flowed well and evidenced her sister’s dedication to the art of composing letters, but did not do very much to satisfy Elizabeth’s curiosity about what was happening in Meryton among their friends and neighbors. At least Mary wrote, which was more than she could say about her two youngest sisters, Kitty and Lydia. Not that Elizabeth expected it for the two of them could rarely be bothered by anything that did not directly affect their own chances for gaiety. Then there were the letters from her mother remarking upon every word that Elizabeth had written to her that had anything in the slightest to do with the members of the Pemberley party.

“What is Lady Catherine de Bourgh really like?

“Are the aristocrats all that different from the rest of us?”

But even more than that, her mother wanted to know more about the single gentlemen. Of Jane’s ability to secure the younger Mr. Darcy’s affections, Mrs. Bennet had no doubt for she always was certain that her eldest daughter could not have been so beautiful for no reason. But what of the handsome gentleman from the North, whom apparently Jane had also mentioned in her letters?

“Is he as rich as Mr. Darcy will one day be with the passing of his father?

“Is he engaged to another, or is he in want of a wife?”

Her mother would further decry that if the gentleman was not single, what difference did anything having to do with him matter? And if he is in want of a wife, which was indeed her hope, then Elizabeth must do everything in her power to garner his notice and, eventually, his affections.

Mrs. Bennet’s desire to know more about Mr. Darcy’s cousin was equally heightened. The son of an earl, even a second son, was no small prize. He, after all, was wise enough to have obtained a commission in the military, which was really something in Mrs. Bennet’s way of thinking.

“Is he handsome?” she had asked in her first letter. “Oh, what did that matter?” she had subsequently responded and further amended by way of a question in the very next line: “More importantly, is he single?”

The occasional citation of how it might have been so much better if her Lydia had gone to Pemberley in Elizabeth’s stead had to be mentioned, for surely she would know how to act in the company of a young man in want of a wife. There were detailed instructions on how Elizabeth should comport herself toward that endeavor, which always completed her mother’s missives. By the third or fourth letter, Elizabeth comfortably skipped those parts having committed her mother’s not always so helpful advice fully to heart.

What would she do without Charlotte was always Elizabeth’s question to herself upon finishing letters from her mother? Charlotte’s letters, she always saved for last and upon occasion read them more than once. Such sensible correspondence could also be relied upon from her aunt in London, a Mrs. Madeline Gardiner, who was the wife of her mother’s brother. A fashionable woman of education and intelligence, she was one of the few people in her family of whom Elizabeth could only find reasons to admire, which was really saying something for despite their share of faults, Elizabeth was not wont to criticize her relations, at least not aloud. She could only imagine how her aunt would regard the Pemberley party, especially the Bingley sisters.