Page 21 of Her Whole Heart
Fitz poured himself a second glass of brandy. Darcy had hardly noticed his cousin drinking the first. “You know, Darcy, you have been rather a blue-devil of late.”
“I beg your pardon?” Darcy asked.
Bingley chuckled.
“Do you have something to say, Bingley?” Darcy asked coolly.
His friend did not like confrontations. “Of course not, Darcy.”
Darcy turned to answer his cousin, but to his surprise, Bingley was not done.
“It is only that Miss Bennet and Miss Elizabeth have been a breath of fresh air in this staid pool where every movement is regulated. If I blink, I must be winking at the widow Brandon, or if I pour a glass of punch for a lady who is standing right beside me and waiting for one, I must of course be interested in her daughter.”
“Or her,” Fitz said wryly.
“Precisely. The Bennet ladies have no pretence. They are here to find husbands, to be sure, but they are not throwing themselves at the heads of the first wealthy man they meet. Unlike some of the so-called ‘quality,’ there is no flaunting of . . .” Bingley’s cheeks reddened. “I only mean that any man would be fortunate to ally himself with ladies who are as proper and unaffected as they.”
“You dislike the season so much in general, Darcy,” Fitz said when Bingley had stopped. “You might do worse than to converse with the Bennet ladies, dance with them, escort them to dinner—and since Bingley has already decided to see to Miss Bennet’s comfort, you could do the same for her sister."
Darcy peered over at Fitz with suspicion, but his cousin gave no more idea of knowing about his charge than Bingley had.
“As for the falcon,” Fitz continued, “there is more than one wealthy man I have heard of who uses pigeons to carry important messages. It is not so different, is it?” He sipped his brandy. “Homing instincts are astonishing. British Army ought to use them.”
“We are not speaking of pigeons, Fitz,” Darcy said impatiently, then closed his eyes to regain his temper. “Miss Elizabeth is a relative unknown in town, and it will do her no good to be seen making friends with Miss Torrington.”
“How do you know?” Fitz asked quietly.
Darcy frowned. “What do you mean?”
“How do you know that making friends with ladies such as Miss Torrington will do her no good?”
“I should like to hear his answer for that,” Bingley said agreeably.
“You must be in jest.” Why were they goading him? “You both know precisely what I mean. There is no harm in Miss Torrington, but she spends every ball without a partner, every dinner party as the woman no one wishes to sit next to. If Miss Elizabeth is here to make a match, she cannot spend her time with every soon-to-be spinster.”
“Darcy, that is unkind.” Fitz tipped his head to one side and studied him. “What is the matter with you?”
He wanted nothing more than to hole himself up in his chambers with a bottle of brandy. He rubbed the back of his neck. Fitz was right, he was not himself.
Despite having made his appearance for the season at the command of his uncle, Darcy had hoped to enjoy himself. There was a part of him that longed to give up all the responsibilities he had taken on these past years, to regain some of the youth he had lost to duty. But he could hardly say as much to Fitz, whose duties were far more onerous and had more than once put his very life at risk.
After years of being his own master, Darcy loathed being forced to do anything, let alone being chained to a woman who had no idea how to comport herself in London society, or what it was like to carry the sort of burden he did. So many people relied upon him already: his sister, the servants, the tenants. The rest of his family too, for was he not here, searching for a wife at the insistence of his uncle? It angered him that Lord Carlisle had dropped yet another responsibility on his head. It angered him that he could not simply decline.
His life had changed irrevocably when his father died. Once word of George Darcy’s death became common knowledge, Darcy had been inundated with requests for money—accounts that his father had never opened, debts of honour he had never incurred, bequests he had never made. He had learnt to trust the men his father had appointed, but then caught one of them embezzling funds because he thought Darcy too green a boy to detect it. He now trusted people only so far, and his own heart not at all. Being in town, searching for a wife—it required a sort of bravery he had thought himself equal to, but perhaps he was not.
Both Fitz and Bingley were watching him with apprehension, so he finished his brandy and shrugged. “I am not well suited for courting a lady, I suppose.”
Bingley actually snorted.
Fitz chuckled and took a drink of his brandy. “You do not say.”
Soon thereafter, Bingley excused himself, and Fitz leaned back in his chair. They sat in silence until Fitz startled Darcy by speaking. “I have been puzzling on your dark mood of late.”
“Still?”
“What is the date, Cousin?”
Darcy sighed. “February the third. I know where you are headed with this, Fitz, but it has been years now.”
