The Pemberley Picnic (The Rom Com Collection #8)

Chapter 1

Fitzwilliam Darcy had not caught a single fish all morning, which should have mortified him exceedingly.

Instead of being vexed, however, he stood on the gravel shallows below the footbridge, his line slack in the current.

The sun lay bright on the water, the breeze cool and steady down the valley.

Mr. Gardiner, a little upstream, had just landed his third fish of the morning.

The man fished a great deal better than his London coat would lead anybody to suppose.

“You will forgive me, sir,” Mr. Gardiner called, without turning, “if I do not pretend to be sorry for you. A man cannot be both this fortunate and decently sympathetic at the same moment. Should you like to exchange places?”

“I would not ask it of you,” Darcy said with a small smile. “Pemberley’s fish must first be for its guests. It is a point of hospitality.”

Mr. Gardiner laughed and bent to his line again.

Further down, Bingley conducted a cheerful, losing negotiation with a willow branch, Hurst was making short work of a meat pie, having abandoned fishing altogether, and some way beyond them both Richard reclined on the bank with a rod he had never had any intention of using at all, his hat tipped forward over his eyes.

Darcy had spent many mornings beside this river and, despite his ill luck today, could not recall when he had enjoyed one more.

A footman appeared at the top of the bank, carefully picking his way down the slope to protect his clean livery on the uncertain ground.

“Mrs. Reynolds’s compliments, sir.” The footman’s eyes went, very correctly, to a point just past Darcy’s shoulder. “She said you wished to be informed that the ladies have come up from Lambton to wait upon Miss Darcy. They are with her now in the saloon.”

For a moment Darcy did nothing at all. Then he was aware of having handed his rod to the footman, which was not the reason the man had come down the bank.

“I will come directly,” he said.

Mr. Gardiner heard. “My wife and my niece are arrived? Good, good.” He went on casting.

“Do you wish to come up?”

“To sit in a saloon and be useful to no one? Not at all. Give Mrs. Gardiner my compliments, and tell her that despite her teasing, I have not yet fallen in.” He peered up at the sun. “I will ride back to the inn shortly and will see them there.”

None of the others were paying him any mind, and so Darcy went alone, which was, to be truthful, what he had desired all along.

Mr. Leeds met him in the hall. Darcy could see the man taking him in—the old coat, the damp cuffs, the boots that had been in the river—evidence of a gentleman who had quitted the bank in haste.

Leeds had served the family thirty years and seen the present Darcy through a christening, schooling, and many returns from London, including his rather inauspicious arrival earlier this week.

“The ladies are in the saloon, sir,” he said. “With Miss Darcy and the London ladies. Shall I say you are dressing?”

“No.”

“Very good, sir.” He paused. “The grey coat is to hand.”

It was discreetly done, Darcy had to admit.

He submitted to the grey coat, which Leeds had evidently been keeping in reserve for just such an occasion, and to a brisk removal of something from his sleeve.

There was no help for the boots, and he nearly slapped poor Leeds’s hand away when the man attempted to arrange his neckcloth.

He crossed to the saloon door and reminded himself that he was about to walk into a perfectly ordinary morning call. There was no need to be anxious about it.

The saloon faced north, which made it the coolest room in the house and the pleasantest in summer.

Its long windows offered a view of the lawn, the light reflecting green off the Spanish chestnut trees, and a steady draught of fresh air that stirred the curtains.

Beyond the lawn the wooded hills rose up lush and verdant.

Darcy took in the room in the half-instant before anyone could mark that he had entered.

On the side table were cold meats and cake. Two pyramids of grapes, nectarines, and peaches sat on either end of the table, banked up handsomely enough for the king himself.

Georgiana sat near the centre of the group, upright and a little too still, with Mrs. Annesley placed sensibly at her side.

Across from them Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst had the better part of a sofa, Mrs. Hurst angled away from the open window.

Mrs. Gardiner sat composed and easy, a woman wholly equal to a fine room.

And beside her, in a pretty sprigged muslin with the morning light coming over her shoulder, sat Miss Elizabeth.

He had looked his fill when they met on Tuesday, shortly after his arrival. Or, rather, he believed that he had. One glance now corrected the error. Lovely, he thought.

Miss Elizabeth caught him watching. She did not glance away, but neither did she seem quite certain what to do with his attention. The smile she gave him was genuine but a little tentative, and the one he returned was no steadier. Then he made himself turn to her aunt and bid her welcome.

Three days they had been at this careful business of beginning again—the short visit on Tuesday, when he came upon Miss Elizabeth and her relations touring the house, his sister’s visit in Lambton on Wednesday to invite them all to Pemberley, and now, on Thursday, the call itself.

He was not yet sure of the ground, and he suspected that Miss Elizabeth was not either.

Darcy had resolved to be perfectly at his ease when he came to greet Miss Elizabeth and her aunt. The resolution proved easier to form than to keep. He bowed to the room.

“Mrs. Gardiner, Miss Bennet. You are very welcome. I hope you are enjoying yourselves.”

“We are, Mr. Darcy,” Mrs. Gardiner replied.

“Your sister is a charming hostess, and we have been admiring your prospect.” She held out her hand and he bowed over it.

“I was reminiscing about the harvest festival your mother used to host when I was living with my aunt and uncle in Lambton, and we were permitted onto the grounds for the celebration. I remember being very impressed by the house, but much more impressed by the cold pies.”

He chuckled. “I cannot fault you for that. I recall those cold pies with great fondness.”

“And the river,” she said. “When the weather allowed it, everyone carried their plates outside and sat upon cloths on the lawn above. I thought it the height of elegance.”

Darcy glanced at the windows and then back at her with some amusement. “Eating on the grass?”

“Eating on the grass at Pemberley,” she corrected him with a little laugh. “Do not forget that very important distinction.”

For the first time since entering the room, his smile came easily. “It is indeed.” He turned then to Miss Elizabeth, suddenly conscious both that he had bowed again and that his bow came out a fraction lower than he had intended. Well, he could do nothing about it now.

“Good morning, Miss Bennet.”

“Good morning, Mr. Darcy.”

That was all she said, but the colour that came up in her cheek did not seem to be that of a woman who was merely being civil. He resolved not to read anything into it.

All the while, he remained conscious of Miss Bingley, sitting upright and silent, her fan moving with measured regularity as she watched him cross first to Mrs. Gardiner, then to Miss Elizabeth. The smile with which she sought to disguise her attention did not deceive him.

He gave her a bow of the depth civility required and not an inch more. “Miss Bingley. Mrs. Hurst,” he said, and sat down beside Georgiana.

It was not handsomely done, and he knew it.

There had been a time he would have stood by and allowed Miss Bingley to arrange the conversation to her liking.

He had done a great deal of that at Netherfield.

Miss Bingley had been his hostess then, and he had let that fact excuse too much.

Here, under his own roof, the shame of it made him less willing to overlook her ill manners.

It was Mrs. Annesley who kept things afloat, as she generally did, drawing Mrs. Gardiner out on the country they had travelled and the places they meant yet to see, and proving herself by the ease of it one of the most well-bred women in the room.

Mrs. Gardiner met her halfway and more. Between the two of them the conversation found its feet, which left Darcy free to speak to Miss Elizabeth, and since it might be unmannerly to speak with her and not others, he set himself the next best office—bringing her and his sister together.

“Georgiana was telling me of the new music she had brought from town,” he said. It was true, though the conversation had been brief and he had not thought much about it until now.

His sister coloured. “There is a set of Italian airs that I have been learning. They are not very difficult.”

“You will find me easily pleased,” Miss Elizabeth said, so kindly that Georgiana’s shoulders dropped an inch. “I am a sad, idle performer myself, Miss Darcy, which makes me a most appreciative audience. There is nothing so comfortable as listening to somebody who has actually practised.”

Georgiana laughed, surprised but delighted. Darcy cast his eyes down at the carpet so that no one should see the smile on his face. He was not entirely successful, and he could see out of the corner of his eye that Miss Bingley had noticed.

“We have been so fortunate in Derbyshire,” Mrs. Gardiner said, “that I confess I begrudge every day that brings us nearer the end of it. But Mr. Gardiner’s business will not spare him much longer. We are for the south again on Monday if the roads are kind.”

“How very unfortunate,” said Mrs. Hurst, though she seemed to bear the disappointment well. “Derbyshire must seem quite a hardship to leave.”

“And yet business must be addressed,” Miss Bingley added, with a light emphasis on the word business and a smile of perfect civility. “You must be pleased you have been able to see so much of Pemberley before duty recalls you.”