16. A Matter of Courage
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A MATTER OF COURAGE
Monday morning was an official trustee day, but Darcy felt anything but official.
The day before, on the Promenade, Elizabeth Bennet had stripped off her gloves and taken his hand—right there, before the entire ton —inspecting his knuckles for scratches and declaring, with infuriating cheer, that she could not care less what anyone thought.
He hardly needed reminding. The impertinent Hertfordshire miss had never troubled herself with manners—tramping through mud, likely scaling trees, and dismissing marriage proposals as if they were invitations to tea.
But today was all business, and Darcy would dwell no more on Nettle causing carriages to veer off course on Rotten Row, Elizabeth’s laughter, Mary and Georgiana’s giggles, and that cloud Charles Bingley and Miss Jane Bennet appeared to have walked on—oblivious to the barbed gossip and glances of the most judgmental eyes in all England.
Perhaps he should not mind them either.
He picked up the note his cousin, Lord Coke, sent, consisting of three mocking words: A tree, Darcy?
The footman admitted him into Number 33, directing him to the drawing room rather than the study.
Elizabeth was already ensconced by the window, curled in a leather armchair with a novel and one slipper tucked beneath her.
Lady Sophia presided by the fire, her own book open, chocolate cooling at her elbow.
Elizabeth’s morning dress was a pale green that made her look almost demure—if not for the ink smudge on her finger.
Nettle noticed him first, jumping up with a bark of greeting. Lady Sophia smiled indulgently at him, as if he were the pet dog, rather than Nettle, and Elizabeth’s expression was warm, eyes lighting with a smile before her usual discipline intercepted it.
“Mr. Darcy,” she said, closing her book. “You are early.”
“I am precisely on time. The clock is currently striking eleven.”
“Time must have gotten away from us,” Lady Sophia said, closing her book with a snap. “You are just in time, for we were discussing Burney’s Cecilia , and you might settle a minor dispute between us.”
“I would not qualify myself for that duty.” Darcy spread his hands and took the third chair, petting Nettle, who had dropped her leather ball at his feet.
“Are you familiar with Fanny Burney?” Elizabeth asked.
“I have heard of Burney,” Darcy noted. “She wrote with far more intelligence than the sensationalists who followed her.”
“High praise from a man who reads Parliamentary reports for amusement.” Elizabeth’s eyes flashed with that bright, teasing challenge that had been his undoing since Hertfordshire.
She made no effort to sit up or smooth her skirts; her foot remained tucked beneath her, and somehow that careless comfort felt more intimate than her bare hands on Sunday.
“I do not read Parliamentary reports for amusement,” Darcy said. “I read them for information. The amusement is incidental.”
“You see, Lady Sophia? He admits to finding Parliament amusing. The man is beyond help.”
“Not beyond,” Lady Sophia murmured. “Merely requiring considerable effort. Like Mortimer Delvile.”
The name landed with all the subtlety of a pebble in a bowl of soup. Elizabeth’s lips curved, and Darcy recognized the unmistakable scent of ambush.
“And who is Mortimer Delvile?” he asked, because retreat was no longer possible.
“The hero of Cecilia.” Elizabeth lifted her novel, showing him the spine. “Or perhaps I should say the eventual hero. He takes rather a long time to earn the title.”
“A thousand pages,” Lady Sophia added. “An extraordinary amount of paper for a man to waste on his own pride.”
“You make him sound insufferable.”
“He is insufferable. That is rather the point.” Elizabeth tucked her feet more firmly beneath her, settling in for what promised to be a thorough dissection. “Mortimer Delvile is the heir to an ancient family with more ancestors than sense. He meets a young woman of wit, beauty, and fortune?—”
“The fortune is important,” Lady Sophia interjected. “Cecilia has ten thousand pounds of her own, and an income of three thousand, which back then ought to make her acceptable to any family in England.”
“But not to the Delviles,” Elizabeth continued. “Because Cecilia’s fortune comes with a condition. Whoever marries her must take her surname. And the Delviles have spent eight hundred years being Delviles, and they cannot possibly allow their precious heir to become a mere Beverley.”
“The family name,” Darcy said. “I begin to see.”
“Do you? Then you are already ahead of Mortimer, who spends approximately six hundred pages pretending he does not love Cecilia because loving her would require him to choose between his family’s expectations and his own happiness.”
“And the rest of the pages?”
“Ah.” Elizabeth’s eyes sparkled with the gleam that preceded her most devastating observations.
“Devoted to Mortimer, loving Cecilia quite desperately while convincing himself that he cannot possibly act upon it. He watches her from across crowded rooms. He finds excuses to be in her company while maintaining a careful distance. He tells himself that his restraint is noble and honorable, when in fact it is merely cowardice dressed in evening clothes.”
Darcy’s collar felt suddenly tight. “The man sounds like an idiot.”
“He is an idiot,” Lady Sophia agreed. “A well-meaning, honorable, deeply stupid idiot who nearly destroys the woman he loves because he cannot bring himself to defy his family.”
“But he does defy them eventually?”
“After hundreds of pages, in three volumes, mind you, of agonizing vacillation, yes. He finally realizes that his pride and his family’s expectations are worth precisely nothing compared to Cecilia’s happiness.
He proposes. She accepts. They marry. His family name survives the catastrophe of becoming Beverley, and everyone lives tolerably well ever after. ”
“Then the ending is satisfactory.”
“Yes, barely,” Elizabeth said. “However, the journey is excruciating with considerable suffering on both sides and a resolution that arrives rather later than the heroine deserved.”
She was looking directly at him now, and Darcy found he could not look away.
“Does this species of stubbornness remind you of anyone, Fitzwilliam?” Lady Sophia’s voice was deceptively mild.
Unwarranted heat climbed Darcy’s neck, spreading toward his ears. He was acutely aware that both women watched him with expressions of perfect innocence that fooled no one.
“I cannot imagine I am acquainted with anyone by the name of Delvile,” Darcy denied.
“Besides, the parallel fails entirely. Mortimer had a quite distinct and valid reason for his hesitation, as his esteemed mother was still alive to object to the match. A gentleman cannot simply override a maternal command without a severe breach of filial honor.”
The words left his lips, and Darcy wasn’t sure why both women stared at him as if he had sprouted antlers.
Elizabeth’s eyes went wide, her lips parting in a small, breathless circle of sheer astonishment. Beside her, Lady Sophia slowly lowered her chocolate cup to its saucer, a slow, predatory smile dawning across her ancient features.
“Oh, Mr. Darcy,” Elizabeth whispered, her voice vibrating with uncontained delight. “You have read it.”
Darcy froze. A dark, violent flush rushed up his neck, burning his ears a brilliant, undeniable crimson.
“Not entirely,” he stammered. “My sister read the volume last winter and… she was remarkably vocal regarding the plot. I merely recall a few names and particulars.”
“How very attentive of you.” Elizabeth’s voice was honey and thorns. “To remember the specific maternal objections of a fictional hero based entirely on a sister’s casual review. You must have an extraordinary memory for… rigid families.”
“The question,” Lady Sophia said, her voice soft but pointed, “is whether a man can learn from Mortimer’s example. Whether he can recognize the pattern before a thousand pages have elapsed and choose to act while there is still time.”
Darcy looked at Elizabeth. She was watching him with an expression he could not quite read—challenge and warmth and maybe hope, but carefully guarded. If she and Lady Sophia were needling him about their failed romance, he would not take the entire blame.
He drew himself up and strode to the window, his shoulders blotting out the light and casting a shadow across her book.
“No sensible gentleman I know requires instruction from a novel designed merely to entertain the impressionable. The comparison fails entirely.”
“Is it?” Elizabeth arched an eyebrow, though her fingers tightened against her book. “In what way?”
“In every way that matters,” Darcy countered.
“A man who is bold enough to step forward and offer a proposal of marriage should not be compared to such a vacillating character. Whatever his faults, a man who declares himself openly demonstrates a courage that demands serious consideration—not the ridicule one reserves for a fictional idiot. If a lady refused the man, the ensuing misery cannot be laid at the gentleman’s door.
I ask you, did Cecilia refuse this Mortimer? ”
Elizabeth’s breath caught. The mockery vanished, replaced by a flush that rivaled any rose. The trap she and Lady Sophia had set had snapped shut—on her.
“No,” Elizabeth was forced to admit. “She did not refuse him because he never made a declaration. She spent hundreds of pages weeping in the dark because his pride kept him silent while her heart was entirely his for the asking.”
“In this, we see clearly the fiction that this man was even a hero.” Darcy was aware he stood over her, looming and unyielding, keeping his eyes fixed on her lest she dispute the verdict.