Chapter Sixteen
As it happened, I need not have worried about the ball invitation, for it came from my aunt herself, who barreled back into our household and sat her very round form down and lectured us from her open notebook, where she had written down a number of notes on what she wished to say to us both.
“It is imperative,” Lady Matlock said to my wife, “that you are mostly silent.”
Elizabeth raised her eyebrows and said nothing.
“You are saying nothing,” said Lady Matlock.
“I am attempting to be mostly silent,” said Elizabeth in a beatific voice.
“I do not mean now,” said Lady Matlock. “I mean at the ball at Lady Feasington’s, obviously.
At the ball, which I have procured invitations to for you both, Mrs. Darcy must be mostly silent.
Getting these invitations was not easy, mind you, Darcy, for everyone has heard of what happened and no one wishes to be the first person to host you and your ankle-breaking siren of a country miss, but Lady Feasington can be prevailed upon if one knows how to talk to her, which I do, and so I have brought all this about. You could be grateful, of course.”
“Thank you, Lady Matlock,” said my wife with a perfunctory smile.
“No, not like that,” said my aunt. “Are you incapable of sounding genuine, my dear?”
“We’re ever so grateful,” I said.
My aunt let out a huff of frustration. “Oh, you are much worse, Darcy! You sound devoid of any actual feeling.”
“Apologies,” I said.
“You do not sound sorry,” said my aunt.
I shrugged, attempting to look regretful. What more did she want from me, truly?
She huffed again, turning back to Elizabeth. “Certainly, you must not tell jokes, not the way you did at the dinner at my house.”
“Yes, I have been told that I was far too funny,” said Elizabeth in a grave voice.
My aunt’s nostrils flared. “You see, there, what you’re doing, you are poking fun at me.”
“Certainly not,” said Elizabeth. “I would never do such a thing.”
My aunt narrowed her eyes.
Elizabeth remained expressionless.
“This is why you must remain silent,” said my aunt. “I cannot tell if you are serious or sarcastic, and it is very unnerving.” She glared at us both.
I wanted to start laughing. I managed to school my expression and to keep the laughter in.
“I was going to give you some pointers on what little conversation you could engage in, but I think it better that you do not. You are newlyweds, and so you will be forgiven for dancing only with each other. Do that. Do not dance with others. Do not speak with others. Smile, and answer questions with one or two words. Do not stay longer than an hour. Arrive late. Leave early. Be only pleasant.” She sighed, shaking her head at us. “Have I made myself plain?”
“Oh, entirely,” said Elizabeth.
“Good,” said Lady Matlock, getting to her feet. “Now, let us go and look at your wardrobe. If you haven’t got anything appropriate, we shall have something else made up or altered.”
“You will not wear the dress she picked out,” I said, standing in the doorway of Elizabeth’s bedchamber.
She looked up at me, giving me a small, mischievous smile. “No?”
“Definitely not,” I said. “It will be our first message to her. And you definitely will not be silent.”
“So, then,” said Elizabeth, tipping up her chin, “what should I wear?”
“I don’t know,” I said, coming across the room to look through her wardrobe. “Did I buy you anything scandalous?”
She pressed into me. “You certainly did not. You would never parade your wife around wearing something scandalous, after all. You are Mr. Darcy, the man who always does only what is expected.”
I laughed. “What about this? I like you in blue.”
“Do you?” She was smiling at me.
I kissed her.
She wrapped her arms around my neck.
I slid one hand against her back, the other to the curve of her hip. I deepened the kiss.
She moaned against my mouth.
“Maybe,” I said, pulling away, a little breathless, “you need to try it on.”
“Do I?” she said. “Well, if I were going to do that, I would have to take what I’m wearing off, I suppose.”
“Oh, you would,” I said. “You quite would.”
“You like looking at me when I’m wearing less clothes, of course.”
“Anyone would,” I said, sliding my hand over her hip to her waist and then back down to her upper thigh. “You’re exquisite under all this.”
She captured my lips with her own, pressing her body against me, writhing against me.
I started working on the buttons of her dress.
After, we lay on her bed, sweat cooling on our bare skin. She fit perfectly against me, her head on my shoulder, her body curving around mine like it belonged there. I clutched her against me, nose in her hair, perfectly happy in that moment.
Nothing could be wrong with the world, not if Elizabeth was in my arms and neither of us were dressed.
“I wonder if we should take your aunt’s advice,” she said, cheek on my chest.
“Do you want to?” I said.
“Well…” She shrugged against me. “On principle, I suppose I wish to do the opposite of everything that your aunt tells us to do, but I have to admit that may not be very intelligent, in the end. There may be longterm consequences.”
I scoffed. “Oh, what do you think they would be?”
“Well, I could offend positively everyone and we could never be invited to another ball again, and then we could be roundly shunned by absolutely everyone.”
“Perhaps,” I said. “But I don’t like balls anyway.”
She laughed, squirming against me. “Tell the truth, Fitzwilliam, are you encouraging me to sabotage my first London social event so that we shall never have to go to another one?”
“Of course not,” I said, tightening my grasp of her. “But you don’t wish to play their game, do you?”
“I do wish it,” she moaned. “I simply do not seem to be capable of it.”
“Well, you will do as best you can, then,” I said. “If you wish to stay silent and you wish to wear the dress she thinks you should wear, you will. And if you cannot manage it, you cannot. And no matter what, you will have me with you, and I shall defend you to the ends of the earth.”
She looked up at me, searching my gaze, biting her bottom lip in that way of hers, the way that stirred me. If I had not already been sated, I should have wanted her then, badly wanted her.
“How can this be?” I whispered. “How can you be my wife? How could I have ever been so fortunate?”
She smiled at me. “Yes, indeed, you do not deserve me. You worked quite hard to make sure you would chase me away.”
“But I did not.”
“No,” she said, running her fingers through my hair, gazing at me with affection writ on her features. “No, you did not.”
“You know I am yours,” I said. “Quite utterly. I should do anything for you. Please do not think that I should order you about or force you into things that you find abhorrent. I am not that sort of man.”
“You wish to please me,” she said.
“Your pleasure commands me,” I said in a rough voice.
She kissed me again. “I trust you, Fitzwilliam.”
“Silent?” said Richard, shaking his head. “Absolutely not.”
The three of us were gathered in the sitting room in my London house. Richard had come to call to discuss the upcoming ball, because he and Elizabeth had decided to scheme what she should be doing based on the fact that he was the spy on his mother and her opinions of Elizabeth.
“You do not think so?” said Elizabeth.
“Georgiana did describe her as loud,” I said.
“When?” said Elizabeth, turning on me with worry in her eyes.
“Oh, in a letter,” I said. “I personally do not think you are loud. And if you are loud, I like it, so I do not care, but if you are up against such an accusation, perhaps you wish to know.”
“If she is quiet, it gives them the chance to interpret her behavior however they like,” said Richard. “They will say she is too good to speak to anyone, or that she is too ill-bred to know to engage in conversation, or anything in between. Silence is not the way.”
“What is?” said Elizabeth, biting her bottom lip, but this time in a way that indicated her own nervousness. “I do not wish to cause difficulty for my husband or to drive a wedge between him and his family.”
“Oh, you do not,” I said. “Definitely not.”
“Yes, the wedge is quite already there,” said Richard.
“To the devil with you,” I said to him, but I was smiling.
“I have a wedge as well,” said Richard, chuckling.
“While we’re on the subject,” I said to him, “why are you helping with this?”
Richard shrugged. “No reason, really, other than it gets me out of everyone harping on me to go to Rosings. I shall put that off until March if I am able.”
But I noticed neither of them looked at each other after I asked that. I rubbed the side of my neck and looked back and forth between them.
I was not imagining this.
He was assisting in this because he cared about Elizabeth, not because he cared about me. He had an attachment to her of some kind, and she was attached back. They had an ease with each other, a connection, something, and they both noticed, and they both felt guilty about it.
What was I to do with that?
Richard was talking again. “Here is what you need to do, Elizabeth, and that is to be the vivacious self you were at that dinner. You need to be alert and alive and everything out of your mouth must sparkle with your wit. You are something to behold, you see, and if they behold you, they will not be able to dismiss you.”
“No, I am not that way all the time,” said Elizabeth, shaking her head.
“It’s you,” I said softly. “Richard, you set her up perfectly. You give her a platform to stand upon. The two of you, together, there’s something there.”
They both looked at me in something like horror.
“So, I think you must be with him at the ball,” I said. “Most of it, anyway. I shall be there, too, obviously, but I shall be silent. I always am when Richard is around. He is quite a talker, and I am not. That is the way we should do it.”
Elizabeth swallowed. “F-Fitzwilliam, I hesitate to bring this up, but you did tell me you spoke to him about it, so I suppose we are all apprised, so, perhaps it is all right to say aloud, but if you are feeling, erm, jealous, should we have him so close?”
“You told her that?” said Richard to me.
“It’s better to have it in the open,” I said, and it was. “I have no reason to be jealous, correct?”
“No,” they both said, at almost exactly the same time, quite quickly.
I blinked at them. “Well, then.” I shrugged, spreading my hands. “It’s settled.”