Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
TRAPPED BY HIS WORDS
Darcy
I spent the morning at Netherfield much as I spent mornings at Pemberley—reviewing ledgers, assessing the steward’s proposals, and performing the general service of ensuring that Bingley’s ascent into the gentry did not founder on the rocks of his misplaced enthusiasms.
Bingley’s father had offered to purchase an estate for him. No doubt, marriage to an appropriate gentlewoman would complete his transformation as he produced sons to inherit and daughters with well-provisioned dowries.
In addition to furnishing Bingley’s gentry ambitions, my greatest responsibility lay with the improvement of my seventeen-year-old sister, Georgiana, whose preparation for her future role as mistress of a great estate required far more vigilance than I had initially assumed.
The Ramsgate incident had taught me that much, a lesson etched painfully into my memory.
Scarcely two summers past, while visiting the seaside under the care of her then companion, Mrs. Younge, Georgiana had nearly eloped with George Wickham—a man I had once counted as a friend, the son of my late father’s steward.
Wickham, having squandered every advantage bestowed upon him, had turned his considerable charm towards darker purposes.
He and Mrs. Younge had conspired together: Wickham seeking Georgiana’s substantial thirty-thousand-pound dowry and whatever revenge he could extract against the Darcy name, while Mrs. Younge pursued her share of the ill-gotten gains.
Had I not arrived earlier than expected, Georgiana would have been irretrievably ruined.
When I had asked Georgiana, afterward, how she could have been so nearly persuaded, her answer had cut deeper than any accusation.
She had spoken of loneliness after the deaths of our parents.
I was her guardian, her brother, and her father in all but name, and yet affection was something we had both mislaid in the years of grief.
The knowledge sat in me like a stone I could neither swallow nor expel, informing every decision I made regarding her care—including the now-vacant position of companion, which I intended to fill with someone whose character I could personally verify.
While Bingley’s maiden sister, Caroline, sought to influence my sister with fashion, flattery, and a similitude of friendship, her true aim was an alliance between our families with Pemberley and me as her prize.
Bingley’s cheerful humming drew me back to the task at hand. Instead of reviewing the surveyor’s reports as he ought, he was gazing out the window, as if expecting the angelic Miss Jane Bennet to descend from the clouds to bless him with her presence.
I cleared my throat markedly, more to dislodge the lump. “I would recommend rerouting the drainage from the low fields before they become a swamp.”
The sound of carriage wheels on gravel brought him upright with an alacrity that the drainage discussion had entirely failed to produce.
“Oh, we have callers,” he exclaimed, peering more firmly through the window.
“Were you expecting anyone?” I raised my eyebrow, but could not resist glancing out the window.
The carriage was modest and bereft of a crest, and its pair of mismatched horses appeared more suited to plowing.
“I say, is that the Bennet carriage?” Bingley was already straightening his cuffs. “Capital! Perhaps Miss Jane Bennet has come to call. Do you think Caroline invited her? I should change my waistcoat. Do I appear respectable?”
“Your waistcoat is irreproachable,” I said, though in truth I had stopped attending to Bingley’s concerns the moment I recognized the carriage as the same one conveying the Bennets at the assembly.
Mrs. Bennet alighted first, wearing a dark, purposeful dress. She marched toward the door as if on a mission, not of mercy. Behind her, a compact gentleman I did not recognize stepped down and offered his hand to a third occupant—and my stomach performed a complicated dance movement.
Miss Elizabeth Bennet emerged.
She was wearing a cream muslin and a sun bonnet with green ribbons, and she carried a cat. What gave her the right to be so alluring when she had insulted me with that comment on thick coats? As if I required armor in her most indelicate presence.
Bingley stood beside me, clearly expecting the footman to hand down her elder sister, and when he instead closed the door, his countenance sagged. “Why, I believe that Miss Elizabeth Bennet is carrying a cat.”
“I can see that.”
“Into our house.”
“Your house, Bingley. I am merely a guest.”
“Yes, but you’re the guest who—” He stopped, and I watched the realization travel across his features like weather across an open field. “Darcy. What precisely did you say at the assembly? That we required a mouser?”
I did not answer. I watched Miss Elizabeth Bennet cross the gravel with elegant grace, coupled with a barely contained fury of a recalcitrant mare refusing the bit.
“Bingley, have they sent calling cards?” I asked, but Bingley only scratched his head.
“Perhaps, Caroline issued an invitation. We’d better meet them in the drawing room.”
“I fail to see why we gentlemen would be required for a lady’s call.” I should return my gaze to the ledger, but the sight of the cat in the crook of Miss Elizabeth’s arm, riding like a small furry empress on a palanquin, had me mesmerized.
I stared a moment too long, failing to remove myself from the window when Miss Elizabeth raised her eyes and caught me. Her brows furrowed viciously as her vibrant eyes narrowed. I daresay this was not to be a pleasurable visit.
“Come, Bingley, let Caroline entertain her guests.” I drew the curtain, blocking out the vision of mother and daughter, along with a gentleman carrying a leather case. “I wonder what need Miss Bingley has for a solicitor.”
Bingley shrugged, straightening his perfectly acceptable waistcoat. “You don’t suppose she’s come about the drainage? Do the fields in question adjoin Longbourn?”
I did not dignify this with a response. Instead, I poured myself a brandy and settled in a leather chair in front of the plot maps.
Whatever I had thought to pursue was interrupted by a sharp knock, followed by Bingley’s butler appearing in the doorway. “A Mrs. Bennet, a Mr. Philips, and Miss Elizabeth Bennet to see Mr. Darcy, sir.” He presented the card on the silver salver. John Philips, Solicitor, Meryton.
“To see me?” I took the card.
“Yes, sir. Shall I show them to the drawing room?”
“Please.”
Bingley was at my elbow before the butler had cleared the doorway. “I’m coming with you.”
“You are not.”
The butler vanished with evident relief, and Bingley studied me with the expression of a man attending a theatrical performance whose plot he had not yet grasped but was thoroughly enjoying.
“Mrs. Bennet,” he said. “Calling on you with a solicitor? What on earth did you do at that assembly, Darcy?”
“Nothing that warrants legal counsel,” I said, though even as the words left my mouth, I was no longer entirely certain.
I had replayed the assembly a dozen times and had counted my offenses, but the remarks about Miss Bennet’s tongue while ill-considered were defensible.
The observation about her suitability as a companion was considerably less so, but hardly actionable.
And Mrs. Bennet’s response had landed with the precision of a woman who knew exactly where to place a blade.
One hates to think of clever girls discarded once their usefulness fades.
“Then you had better have me witness this,” Bingley said. “Whatever this is, it’s clearly going to be fascinating, and I refuse to hear about it secondhand from Caroline.”
The mention of Caroline produced a secondary concern I had not yet had time to contemplate, but before I could address it, the lady herself appeared in the corridor.
“I heard callers,” she announced. “Who on earth arrives at Netherfield without prior arrangement?”
“Mrs. Bennet and her daughter.” Bingley moved toward the staircase with the irrepressible enthusiasm of a spaniel who has caught an interesting scent. “And a solicitor.”
“A solicitor?” Caroline’s voice achieved a register that suggested she found the concept of legal professionals calling at country houses roughly equivalent to discovering vermin in the larder. “Whatever for? Has someone died?”
“Nobody has died,” I said, though I was beginning to wonder if my reputation might be the first casualty.
We entered the drawing room with as much dignity as an unexpected call deserved.
Mrs. Bennet stood at the window, her appraising gaze sweeping over the room.
Mr. Philips, a compact and astute-looking man, occupied a chair near the door, exuding the watchful calm of one whose profession thrived on anticipating and profiting from trouble.
And there, near the fireplace, stood Miss Elizabeth Bennet, the cat still in her arms. Oh, she was furious, that one, but there was something else in her expression, wounded pride and another quality, as if she had accepted a wager she considered beneath her but intended on collecting or at least drawing first blood.
The cat regarded me impassively.
“Mrs. Bennet.” I offered a bow that satisfied propriety without extending warmth. “Miss Bennet. Mr. Philips. I confess your visit was not anticipated.”
“Was it not?” Mrs. Bennet turned from the window, and I was struck again by the intelligence in her eyes—that steady, patient shrewdness I had glimpsed at the assembly. “I should have thought a man of your perception would have anticipated it.”
There are sentences that function as both greeting and opening sally, and Mrs. Bennet had delivered one with the economy of a woman who had no intention of wasting powder on warning shots.
“I am not certain I follow,” I said, which was untrue. I was beginning to follow with terrible clarity. They were here to either press imaginary charges or to extort a gentleman for a perceived slight.