Page 63 of Her Whole Heart
“As Amelia would say, that is doing it a bit brown,” Miss Elizabeth said, quietly amused. But there was something in her eyes that softened, and Darcy hoped his reassurance had done it.
“I mean what I say.”
“Thank you, Mr. Darcy. Your willingness to be a confidant means a good deal to me, for I rarely speak of my parents. It is too hard.”
Every child wanted to know that he or she was loved. It bothered him immensely that Miss Elizabeth had been made to feel herself unworthy of that basic emotion. The fault was clearly in her parents, not her.
“I am honoured that you would trust me with something so important,” he said. “And I promise you, Miss Elizabeth, that I will do everything I can to ensure that you never feel unprotected or unvalued again.”
Her expression was more confused than he would like, but he heard footsteps in the hall and removed his hand from hers. Miss Elizabeth stared at where it had been.
“I am ready, Brother!” Georgiana called. “I shall see you in a few days, Lizzy. Please practice your flute?”
Miss Elizabeth chuckled. “I promise, I promise.”
As Darcy turned to follow his sister, he caught Miss Elizabeth’s gaze, and though she still seemed to regard him with a puzzled expression, there was something poignant in the air between them. She had confided in him when she did so with almost no one else. It was a treasure she had given him—her trust—and he felt all the weight of it.
As the ripples from the theatre incident spread though the ton, the focus of the gossip began to shift. Whispers of Miss Darcy’s weak nerves and Mr. Darcy’s uncommon care for Miss Elizabeth gradually gave way to murmurs of incredulity at the crassness of Miss Amberley and the temerity of Mr. Loughty. In some drawing rooms, there was even talk of how cruel Lady Henrietta had been, and to her own cousin.
“To think, driving a young girl to such distress with their callous remarks,” one lady clucked to her companion as Elizabeth and Cordelia strolled behind the two matrons in Hyde Park one unusually warm March morning. “And with their family friendship! What a betrayal. It is a wonder that Miss Darcy did not suffer a complete collapse, poor thing!”
Cordelia smiled at Elizabeth.
The lady’s friend nodded sagely. “All due to some petty slight or imagined rivalry, I suppose. They never have liked Miss Elizabeth, though her sponsorship by the Carlisles speaks highly of her.”
“Shameful behaviour, truly.”
Elizabeth was tired of hearing about it. She wished people would find something new to speak of. As much as she did not care for Lady Henrietta, she was a Fitzwilliam, and she did not wish for that family’s reputation to suffer to protect her own. And Georgiana’s, of course.
She was accompanying Georgiana at a musical soirée when two ladies sidled up to the girl with sly smiles. Elizabeth was half-listening as Colonel Fitzwilliam and Cordelia conversed with great energy about her falcons. She had spoken politely to several men she had danced with or been introduced to in the past weeks while she watched for the return of Mr. Bingley, Jane, and Amelia. However, she did not miss her friend’s fleeting grimace.
“Miss Bingley, Mrs. Hurst,” Georgiana said.
“Georgiana, dear,” Miss Bingley crooned.
Elizabeth glanced over. Mr. Bingley was an amiable man and always very well dressed, but part of that was due to him choosing items that were flattering to him in colour and style.
His sisters had evidently not received the message that fashion was meant to be altered to the individual and not the other way around. Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst were indeed fashionably attired, but in a manner that prioritized ostentation over true elegance. Their gowns were made of very fine silk, but the woman Georgiana had greeted as Miss Bingley had chosen such a vivid shade of orange it was almost painful to look at directly. She recalled Amelia’s book with the illustration of a pumpkin and marvelled at how apt the comparison had been. The bodice was adorned with ruffles and lace to the point where it was difficult to discern between them, which made Elizabeth think briefly of her mother. Both women would likely be insulted by the comparison.
Not to be outdone, Mrs. Hurst was wearing a gown of an equally eye-watering hue, a green that reminded one less of nature and more of the sort of mould that grew on old vegetables. Her neck and shoulders were rather too exposed for a daytime musical recital, and the jewels that adorned her throat were as gaudy as the spoils of a fantastical pirate raid.
Both had fixed cunning little caps atop perfectly coiffed hair, but then had festooned them with such an array of feathers that it was a miracle they could keep their heads up under the weight.
Together, they resembled a pair of tropical birds that had somehow found themselves trapped in an English drawing room.
Despite her amusement, it occurred to Elizabeth that Miss Bingley was rather forward to call the girl by her Christian name. She had not thought, from Georgiana’s mention of them, that they were in any way intimate, and her protective instincts were engaged.
“It is wonderful to see you out and about,” Miss Bingley said, kissing the air on either side of Georgiana’s cheeks. “We were concerned for you after hearing of your ordeal.”
Mrs. Hurst nodded, her eyes wide with clearly feigned sympathy. “It must have been so distressing for you.”
Georgiana simply lifted her chin, her expression calm and self-assured. “I am quite well, I assure you. You ought not credit such gossip, for the entire incident has been wildly exaggerated.” She turned to Elizabeth. “Miss Elizabeth Bennet, may I introduce Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst? They are sisters to Mr. Bingley.”
The women blinked, startled to have been given lesser precedence than Elizabeth. Surely they were aware that as a gentleman’s daughter and a guest of the Carlisles’, Georgiana had the right of it.
“My goodness, the famous Miss Elizabeth,” Miss Bingley said, though her voice was now rather strained. “How fortunate a meeting.”
“I am well acquainted with your brother. He is an amiable man,” Elizabeth replied, thinking that Mr. Bingley was the only conversational topic she could use with them—they seemed to be just the sort of women she did not wish to know.
