Page 64 of When Elizabeth's Cat Chose Darcy
I glanced at Darcy, not for rescue, but deference. After all, they attacked his decision to retain me for his sister.
He set down his book and fixed each of Bingley’s sisters with a pointed look. “Miss Bennet’s position in this household was established by contract, with my explicit approval. The terms of her engagement are not a subject for drawing room entertainment.”
“I meant no offense, Mr. Darcy,” Mrs. Hurst simpered. “I merely observed?—”
“Miss Bennet’s programme for my sister has my full confidence.”
Caroline received this with a smile that concealed whatever recalculation was happening behind her eyes. “We are all of us concerned for dear Georgiana’s progress.”
“Miss Darcy’s progress,” Darcy said, with a glance at his sister that softened his expression by a degree visible only to those of us who had been observing his expressions with unauthorized attention, “is considerable, and it is proceeding under competent supervision.”
Competentsounded too much like tolerable.
“Thank you, Mr. Darcy,” I said, and the formality tasted like chalk. Mrs. Hurst, no doubt offended by the rebuke, rose and opened the drawing room door, taking her embroidery with her.
Cinnamon arrived through the doorway the way cats did, through even the tiniest of openings. She padded across the carpet, ignoring me entirely, past Bingley and the sleeping Mr. Hurst, did not even deign Caroline a sniff or a hiss, and jumped onto the arm of Darcy’s wingback chair. She had chosen her human and saw no reason to apologize for her choice.
Caroline’s sneeze was immediate, violent, and magnificent—accompanied by a watering of eyes that no amount of social engineering could conceal. She pressed her handkerchief to her face, and the second sneeze followed the first with the inevitability of cannon fire.
“That creature!” Her voice emerged, strangled between the third and fourth detonations. “Charles, I have borne thisinfestationsince the day she arrived. My eyes stream. My throat closes, and I cannot draw breath in my brother’s home.”
Bingley, ever the peacemaker, attempted to intervene. “Caroline, perhaps if you moved to the far side of the room.”
“Charles.” Caroline’s voice, between coughs, took on the raw edge of a woman who has reached her limit. “This is your house, Charles. You are the master of Netherfield Park.” She fixed Bingley with a look that was equal parts suffering and command. “It is the cat, or it is me.”
Darcy’s hand stopped in the middle of petting Cinnamon. And Bingley looked at Darcy, stricken by the necessity of defending a female in his family, and I couldn’t help noting, in the interest of Jane, whether such a pleasant man could put out a cat.
Darcy opened his mouth, whether to defend the contract or Caroline, I could not tell, because I didn’t let him speak.
“Miss Bingley is correct.” I rose with the smooth, controlled movement of a woman who will act rather than be acted upon. Crossing to Darcy’s chair, I gently lifted Cinnamon from her perch. She protested with a small mew, but I gathered her against my chest and addressed the room. “Miss Bingley’s comfort in her brother’s home should not be compromised by my cat. I shall remove Cinnamon from the common rooms. You need not trouble yourself, Mr. Bingley.”
“Miss Bennet—” Darcy began.
“Mr. Darcy.” Our eyes met briefly; the exchange contained everything I could not say aloud in a room full of people. “I thank you for your defense of my position. It was generous, andit was noted. But this is a separate matter, and I am capable of resolving it myself.”
Georgiana stared at me with the wide, uncertain eyes of a girl watching the only adult who has ever encouraged her to be loud, prepare to leave the room.
“The sonata sounds beautiful, Miss Darcy,” I assured her. “You will no doubt shine at tomorrow’s dinner.”
Even as I spoke, I saw Caroline’s hand find Georgiana’s shoulder—a gentle touch, an anchoring touch, the gesture of a woman reclaiming territory. “Play the adagio, dearest. So much prettier than the allegro, and it suits your temperament so much better.”
With Cinnamon in one arm, I walked out of the drawing room with whatever dignity remained to me after being described as merely competent by the man who had called my first name across a dark library and asked me to dance.
Mrs. Jolliffe was banking the kitchen fire when I came through the servants’ door. She took one look at my face and said one word.
“Biscuits.”
“Yes,” I agreed.
She reached for the flour without further discussion and set out the sugar, eggs, and butter.
“Shrewsbury or ginger?” she asked.
“Ginger,” I replied. Because ginger required more exertion—the pressing, kneading, and vigorous motions that released my inner turmoil.
I set Cinnamon on the warm flagstones near the hearth, where she settled with the philosophical acceptance of a cat who has been displaced from the drawing room but has found something nearly as good. I rolled up my sleeves and began working the butter into the flour, and the working was not gentle, because gentleness was not what the evening had left me with.
Country manners are not London manners.
