CHAPTER 1 A WOLFHOUND CHOOSES #2
“Not at all, unless stick figures count among the fine arts.”
“Speak French? Italian? Work a screen?”
I nearly professed a talent for teaching swans to curtsy, merely to see Lady Catherine attempt to improve upon it, but restrained myself. “I read a great deal. And I walk. I am, in fact, an excellent walker.”
Beside me, Colonel Fitzwilliam—Darcy’s cousin, a man as affable and warm as his relations were imperious and cold—let out a poorly disguised snort of laughter. “A rare accomplishment indeed, Miss Bennet. I am told it requires putting one foot in front of the other in rapid succession.”
“The very same, Colonel. Though I have refined the technique over many years of dedicated practice and considerable natural aptitude.”
“And I suppose you think this amusing.” Lady Catherine’s voice could have frozen the midsummer Thames. “Education is entirely wasted on young women who do not take it seriously.”
“On the contrary, ma’am. I take walking very seriously indeed. One never knows when one might need to escape an unpleasant situation with all possible haste.”
Under the table, Caractacus’s tail thumped against my ankle in rapturous canine approval.
I risked another glance at Darcy and found his mouth pressed into a thin line that might, if one were feeling particularly generous, be interpreted as suppressed amusement—or perhaps indigestion.
One could never tell with Mr. Darcy, a man whose expressions seemed limited to “severe disapproval” and “slightly less severe disapproval.”
The evening crawled toward its conclusion with agonizing slowness.
When Lady Catherine commanded me to demonstrate my musical abilities, I obliged with the promised lack of skill, enduring her pointed critique of my fingering, posture, and the woefully inadequate instrument at Longbourn, which had clearly stunted my musical development beyond all hope of redemption.
Darcy stood by the fireplace and said almost nothing, a posture so familiar from Netherfield that I wondered if he practiced it before a mirror.
He watched, though. I could feel the weight of his attention like a warm hand pressed between my shoulder blades, unsettling and impossible to ignore.
Every time I turned, his gaze was elsewhere—fixed on the fire, his aunt, the window—but the sensation persisted with maddening consistency.
I had felt it at Netherfield too, that peculiar awareness of being observed, and had dismissed it as the natural consequence of being studied like an unfamiliar species of insect.
Now I was less certain.
“Miss Bennet.” His voice at my elbow made my fingers stumble on the keys. “I must apologize for Caractacus. He has quite forgotten his manners.”
The wolfhound had once again draped his massive head across my feet with lordly presumption, making the pedals inaccessible. I looked down at the great grey head and felt something soften in my chest.
“I believe he has impeccable manners, Mr. Darcy. He has done nothing but demonstrate affection and loyalty all evening. If that is forgetting oneself, I wish more creatures would suffer such lapses.”
“You are too generous in your assessment. He has made an absolute nuisance of himself.”
“He has kept my feet wonderfully warm and provided excellent company.” I met his eyes directly, finally, and felt a spark of fire in my chest. “Better company, I might argue, than some humans of my recent acquaintance.”
Darcy’s breath caught. Just slightly, just enough for me to notice the brief hitch in his customary composure. “Miss Bennet—”
“Darcy!” Lady Catherine’s voice sliced through whatever he had been about to say. “Come and settle this matter about the parish boundaries. Mr. Collins has got some ridiculous notion into his head that must be corrected immediately.”
He held my gaze a moment longer. Something in his expression—but no. I was imagining things. I returned my attention to the keys, playing the same measure three times before finding my place again in the simple country air.
When the Collins party finally departed Rosings, Caractacus followed us to the carriage and had to be physically restrained by two footmen.
I watched from the carriage window as Darcy led the dog back toward the house, one hand firmly on the beast’s collar.
The wolfhound kept turning, straining against his master’s grip.
In the silver moonlight, his eyes seemed to shine with the particular tragedy of thwarted devotion.
“Well,” Charlotte said carefully as our carriage pulled away from the grand house. “That was decidedly unexpected.”
“The dinner? I found it precisely as tedious as anticipated.”
“The dog.” Her voice held an edge that made me turn. “And its master’s reaction to the dog’s behavior.”
“Mr. Darcy was embarrassed. As any man would be, when his pet behaves so peculiarly.”
“Is that truly what you observed?”
I did not answer. I thought of Darcy’s face when Caractacus had first pressed against my skirts—that flicker of something I could not name.
I thought of his voice, low and oddly intimate: Neither have I.
And I thought of the wolfhound’s great head resting on my feet, warm and steady, as if I were worth guarding.
“I saw a dog with decidedly odd taste in companions,” I said at last, my voice deliberately light. “Nothing more significant.”
Charlotte’s silence spoke volumes that echoed through the darkened carriage all the way back to Hunsford.
End of Excerpt: To read more, go to What Darcy’s Dog Knew: A Pet Matchmaking Romance