Chapter 8
Eight
As Fitzwilliam lined up his shot, he casually commented, “Your sister is worried about you.”
Darcy sighed and rolled his eyes up towards the ceiling, praying for patience. The accompanying exasperated sound was covered by the crack of the colonel’s ball striking Darcy’s, which ricocheted into the red target ball and sank it. A perfect canon.
Darcy replaced the red ball on its starting point, striving for a casual tone as he said, “She only imagines that there is something wrong with me. I am as hale and healthy as I ever was.”
Keeping his eyes trained on the table as he circled it to choose his next angle, Fitzwilliam replied, “No one is accusing you of having the sniffles, Darcy. She thinks you beset by the doldrums.”
“I am no such thing.”
“Oh?” Fitzwilliam bent over and aimed his cue, sending his cue ball careening into the red with admirable precision. It obligingly rolled into the corner pocket. “Then why are you so Friday-faced?”
“My face always looks like this.”
“You are as unreasonably pretty as ever, I shall grant you, but your expression is downright menacing. You are frightening the servants, who scurry out of your path when they see you coming, and Georgiana is convinced that you are angry with her.”
Darcy frowned at his cousin, realised what he was doing, and tried to soften his mien to no avail. His features simply would not be compelled into a friendlier configuration.
“There! You see?” Fitzwilliam guffawed, causing him to miscalculate his next shot and ending his turn in a losing hazard. He then stood up, leaning on his cue for support. “I begin to believe it is stuck that way. Ought we to call for the physician?”
“Shove off,” Darcy muttered, shouldering his cousin out of the way to take his turn at the table. Fitzwilliam stumbled to the side, still laughing, while Darcy attempted to focus on the angle at which he should strike.
“In all seriousness,” Fitzwilliam said, wiping a tear of mirth from one eye, “what bothers you? Is Bingley still upset with you over that business with Miss Bennet?”
“No, Bingley has generously forgiven me my trespasses.” Darcy bent over the table and took aim at the spotted cue ball.
“Then you must be at sixes and sevens over Miss Elizabeth.”
Hearing Elizabeth’s name sent Darcy’s cue veering off course, and he missed the ball entirely. Knowing his cousin had likely waited until that precise moment for exactly that result, Darcy stood and threw a heated glare at Fitzwilliam’s smugly grinning face. “You did that on purpose.”
Fitzwilliam only laughed at him and took up his own striking stance. “Strategy.” His ball sank the red handily into one of the middle pockets.
“Cheating, more like.”
“Strategy, old man, and one I daresay would not have worked if I had been wrong. So, what about the lovely lady has you tied in knots?”
Darcy meant to staunchly deny any sort of turmoil related to Elizabeth and his romantic aspirations, but he honestly did not have the energy to go round and round with Fitzwilliam on the subject all night.
His cousin was relentless when he believed himself to be onto something, and putting him off was exhausting.
Besides, it might be a relief to speak of it to someone, and Fitzwilliam was likely his only choice of confidant with Bingley being too close to the situation and Marbury being… Marbury.
With a wearied huff, Darcy reluctantly replied, “She detests me.”
“Detests you?” Fitzwilliam glanced up from his shot a moment, his expression quizzical. He successfully scored another two-point shot before remarking, “That sounds a mite overwrought. Surely she likes you at least a little.”
“If she does, it is only because I brought Bingley back to her sister. She admitted to my face that she has loathed me ever since the beginning of our acquaintance.”
“What could have occasioned such brutal honesty?”
Darcy’s shoulders slumped, and he leant more heavily on his cue. “She believes that I dislike her in return and so proposed a truce between us. Apparently, she is inclined to forgive me my past transgressions out of gratitude for my ‘great service’ of reuniting Bingley with her sister.”
Fitzwilliam, apparently confounded enough by the conversation to forget their game, stood and peered at Darcy with a furrow between his brows. “Did she say why she disliked you so much? And why she suspected you of despising her in return?”
Darcy could feel his ears reddening, a humiliating announcement of his embarrassment. His response was a shamed murmur. “I might have called her ‘tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me’ and refused to stand up with her when we met.”
Even as he shook his head, Fitzwilliam laughed heartily at Darcy’s expense. “How do you manage to get yourself into such incredible scrapes? Insulting a woman only to later fall in love with her and realise that she rightfully holds a grudge is the stuff of novels. Excessively ridiculous ones.”
Through his clenched teeth, Darcy growled, “It is not funny.”
His conspicuous ire did nothing to abate Fitzwilliam’s glee. Between gasping laughs, his cousin replied, “I am afraid we shall have to agree to disagree on this point.”
“I am glad you find my hardship so amusing.”
Fitzwilliam’s mirth, having settled into lighter chuckles, faded entirely away at Darcy’s caustic rejoinder. He even sounded regretful when he said, “I do not mean to ridicule your difficulties. I simply do not understand how you could deem that enchanting woman unhandsome.”
“Bingley was pestering me to dance at an assembly where I knew no one and my income was spread about the room within minutes of our arrival.”
“Ah, it becomes clearer now. You were trying to put her off.” Fitzwilliam’s face began to stretch oddly, and Darcy knew he was attempting to suppress a smile. “I daresay you were successful.”
“Yes, thank you for that.”
“Apologies again. You know how incorrigible I am.”
Oh yes, Fitzwilliam’s penchant for teasing was legendary.
Darcy generally enjoyed a jocular back and forth, but the subject of Elizabeth was a tender one.
He distractedly stroked the green baize on his side of the table as an image of her face, mouth curled up impishly, clouded his mind’s eye.
It seemed he was drawn to the sort of people who encouraged him out of his reserve with genial raillery.
In Elizabeth’s case, Darcy had misunderstood her critical observations for the same sort of playfulness his friends employed, and it hurt to realise that she had never thought fondly of him.
After several long seconds of uncomfortable silence, Fitzwilliam walked round the table to slap Darcy on the shoulder.
“Do not be so glum. She might not have liked you before, but your interference on behalf of her sister has likely earned you at least some measure of redemption. You now have a chance to begin anew and on a better footing. Take it and show her the good man you are underneath all that haughty pride.”
Frustrated, Darcy shrugged off his cousin’s grip and stalked away, tossing his cue on the table.
If he could not escape Fitzwilliam’s inquisition, he would escape the room.
“I do not require your placatory nonsense. She made her longstanding dislike of me clear, and I will not have merely her gratitude in place of true esteem.”
“If you would take the trouble to woo her properly, she might change her mind,” Fitzwilliam called after him. “She thought you disdained her before, so prove her assumptions wrong!”
Darcy halted at the door, bracing himself within the frame. His knuckles were turning white with the strain as he countered, “And what happens when she discovers that I was the primary means of dividing Bingley from her sister?”
“Do not tell her.”
Whipping round to glower at his cousin, Darcy bit out, “Your grand idea is for me to indulge in further deception? Were you not the one who encouraged me to be honest with Bingley?”
“I do not suggest that you keep the truth from her forever,” Fitzwilliam replied calmly, leaning back against the table with his arms crossed, “only do not mention it until she likes you well enough to overlook it. It will come as no shock to her that you are less than perfect, and should you gain her esteem, she is more likely to understand your reasoning and forgive you.”
“Or send me off with a flea in my ear.”
Fitzwilliam raised a brow. “Is winning her heart worth the risk?”
“Yes,” was Darcy’s immediate, if churlish, response. He paused a moment, staggered at the truth of how far he would go to win Elizabeth, before quietly concluding, “I would do almost anything to gain her affections.”
“Then you would do well to take my advice.”
Darcy’s shoulders sagged in surrender. “Very well. What do you suggest?”
“First, you must declare your intentions to court her openly—leave no more room for ambiguity in your pursuit. A bold gesture would do nicely.”
“What sort of gesture?”
“Well, Valentine’s Day approaches…”