Page 91 of When Elizabeth's Cat Chose Darcy
Bingley and I looked at him.
“I was in the card room, and at no time did I crumpleand scatter sheet music on the floor or hide pages behind books. I wish that entered into the record before anyone begins assigning blame.”
“Noted,” I said.
“However, and I say this as a man with no stake in the outcome beyond the preservation of my port supply. Now that it’s happened, Bingley, you must consider this. A match between you and Miss Darcy would not be without advantage for either party. Thirty thousand pounds and the Darcy connection, paired with your income and your amiability—it is not the worst pairing a family could construct.”
“She is achild,” Bingley said.
“She is seventeen and will be presented next Season. In the eyes of theton, she is eminently marriageable, and a dalliance at a country house carries implications that a timely engagement would neutralize entirely.”
“The door was open.”
“Barely ajar is the version Lady Lucas will carry to the neighborhood.” Hurst carried the gravity of a man offering counsel. “No scandal will be attached by thetonif you were to announce an engagement. And any gossip from Meryton can be dismissed as country rumor, invented by local nobodies with ambitions above their station.”
I crossed the room and stood within a foot of his face, close enough for him to understand that the distance was deliberate and the intention behind it was not amiable. “They are not nobodies. Lady Lucas is the wife of a knight. Mrs. Long is a gentlewoman of independent means. The Bennets have held Longbourn for five generations. And I will not hear them dismissed by a man whose greatest exertion is selecting a vintage before noon.”
Hurst blinked. To his credit, he did not retreat. “I meant no offense. I merely point out that the ton would not regard the testimony of?—”
“Neither Mr. Bingley nor I will be coerced into marriage by the machinations of his sisters.” I held Hurst’s gaze until he looked away. “My sister’s reputation has been placed deliberately at risk by women I permitted into her society, and I assure you, I will not make that mistake again.”
Bingley crossed his arms. “Since your wife and my sister have been so industrious in their campaign to return to London, I suggest they make good on that ambition. Tomorrow. The carriage will be readied at first light. And since you are responsible for Mrs. Hurst’s behavior but saw fit to come to me and Mr. Darcy to force us into a resolution, you, too, will depart in the morning. The three of you are no longer welcome in my presence or that of the Darcys.”
“Charles, you cannot simply dismiss us.”
“I can and I will. This is my house. I pay for it and employ the servants, and I am asking you—firmly and with regret, because I have always liked you, Hurst, rather more than you have liked being awake—to take your wife and go.”
The door opened again, revealing Caroline, a woman who listened at doors the way other women embroidered cushions.
“Gentlemen, I could not help but overhear—the raised voices, you understand—and I felt it only right to explain.” She entered with her hands clasped in front of her, as if either beseeching or full of concern. “I have just been upstairs comforting poor Georgiana, who is terribly distraught. The child is beside herself, Mr. Darcy. She believes herself ruined, and I have been reassuring her that nothing of the sort has occurred, that the situation, while unfortunate, is entirely manageable.”
“You will not speak to my sister again,” I warned, but Caroline turned to her brother.
“Charles, poor Miss Darcy wishes to have her position clarified. As she has now been compromised in the eyes of Lady Lucas and Mrs. Long, will you alleviate her distress by offering for her hand? You are the only gentleman who can repair what has been done.”
“I will not,” Bingley said, his spine straightening. “Miss Darcy’s reputation does not require repair because you andLouisa orchestrated this entirely, and when word gets out, no one in society will have anything to do with the two of you.”
Caroline’s expression did not purple so much as calcify, her jaw dropping as she turned her attention to me. “Surely you cannot blame me when the entire episode was encouraged by Lady Lucas herself. She was quite pointed about John Lucas’s qualities during tea—his prospects, his height, his education. One might almost think she invited herself to Netherfield expressly to create a situation in which Miss Darcy’s reputation would require, shall we say,rescueby a respectable local family. The Lucases would profit enormously from a connection to the Darcys, and any hint of scandal would make the match appear necessary rather than ambitious.”
What I just watched was a master of pivoting strategies.
“Miss Bingley.” I used the voice Georgiana had once described as the one that put people in boxes and closed the lid. “You are not welcome in my presence.”
The concern froze. Not extinguished—Caroline’s expressions did not extinguish; they recalibrated. Mrs. Hurst had entered the room, her presence no doubt a bolster to Caroline’s schemes. And then, Caroline’s face hardened, and she narrowed her eyes.
“If we are speaking of reputations,” she paused, staring at me meaningfully, “perhaps we should speak of Miss Darcy’s. Because thetonhas whispered for two years about what happened at Ramsgate—about a girl who was set to elope with an older man, a friend of her brother’s. The whispers are vague, but they exist. And they point, Mr. Darcy, toward a man who was present at that seaside town. And I, as well as several local merchants, happen to know that my brother was there.”
“I never met Miss Darcy in Ramsgate,” Bingley said, very clearly. “I was there with you and Louisa, and our aunt Octavia, who required the baths for her aching joints. You managed my social calendar yourself, and any suggestions otherwise are pure fabrications.”
But Caroline was not finished.She pointed a finger at me, “Mr. Darcy, you cannot deny your sister was not at Ramsgate two years ago, and she was rumored to have promenaded with one of your bosom friends, a man as close to you as a brother. Having thetonsuppose it was a man as honorable as my brother, Charles, is immensely preferable, wouldn’t you say? And as a sister to dear Georgiana, I would be bound to keep her secret. And should I take the Darcy name, I would, naturally, protect the family’s honor.”
“You will never sully the Darcy name.” My voice had turned to stone. “Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst. Should any account of Ramsgate appear in any London drawing room, any gossip column, anywhisperthat connects my sister’s name with scandal, I will know its source, and I will respond—not with denial or silence, not with the dignified retreat you are no doubt expecting—but with the full weight of every connection the Darcy name commands. I will see to it personally that you will never be received by anyone in London ever. Do you understand me?”
“Mr. Darcy?—”
“Do you understand me?”
Caroline looked at Bingley, the oldest reflex she possessed—the appeal to her brother, the request for Charles to come to her aid. But Bingley looked back at her with an expression I had never seen on his face.
