Chapter Fourteen The Frostbitten Romance #2
Suddenly, a shadow fell over the table.
Robert Fitzwilliam rose.
He did not jump up. He unfolded himself from his chair with a slow, predatory grace that Darcy had rarely seen.
The smile was gone. The twinkling eyes were gone.
In their place was Viscount Keathley—heir to an Earldom, a man who had faced down creditors and duellists, and a man who was currently looking at Charles Bingley as if he were a particularly offensive insect.
"Bingley." Robert's voice was soft, but it carried a blade. "Release the lady's hand."
Bingley blinked, looking up at the towering figure of the Viscount. "I beg your pardon?"
"You are distressing a lady I am accompanying," Robert's voice was smooth like velvet and sharp like a sabre. "And you are touching her without permission. Remove your hand, sir. Before I remove it for you. From you, entirely."
Bingley snatched his hand back as if he had touched a hot stove. He stumbled back a step, colliding with his sister.
"Lord Keathley!" Miss Bingley gasped, trying to salvage the situation by pivoting to flattery.
"Surely there is no need for... Charles was merely renewing an acquaintance with an old neighbour.
We are all friends here, are we not? Although one wonders at the company one keeps in such public places...
" She cast a sneering look at the Gardiners.
Robert turned his gaze on her. It was a look of such haughty, aristocratic disdain that Darcy almost felt sorry for her. Almost.
"Miss Bingley," Robert drawled. "You wonder at the company? I confess, I am wondering the same. I am currently seated with the daughters of a gentleman, the daughter of a solicitor who served my family, and my own cousin. You, however, appear to be obstructing the waiters."
Caroline's mouth opened and closed like a fish.
"You will excuse us," Robert continued, his voice leaving no room for argument. "We are enjoying a private family celebration. And we do not wish to be disturbed by acquaintances."
He turned his back on them. He sat down and took Jane's hand—the one Bingley had touched—and raised it to his lips, kissing the glove with a reverence that was a deliberate, public claim.
"Are you well, my dear?" he asked Jane, loud enough for the Bingleys to hear.
"I am perfectly well, my Lord," Jane smiled at him, ignoring the existence of Charles Bingley entirely.
Behind them, Darcy saw Bingley's face crumble. He saw Caroline flush a deep, mottled red.
"Come, Charles," Caroline hissed. "We are leaving."
They fled. There was no other word for it. They retreated from the tea shop like beaten curs.
Darcy let out a breath. He looked at Elizabeth. She was watching Robert with an expression of profound approval.
"Remind me," she whispered to Darcy, "never to cross your cousin when he is defending his territory."
"He is a Fitzwilliam," Darcy said with a hint of pride. "We are slow to anger, but we are thorough when we arrive."
"I think," Mrs Gardiner noted, calmly stirring her tea, "that the Viscount has just earned himself an extra slice of cake."
"He has earned," Elizabeth agreed, looking at her sister's shining eyes, "a great deal more than that."
The thirtieth of December was a day of domestic absurdity. The weather had turned foul again, confining the party to the Gardiner drawing room.
Robert, however, was undeterred by rain. He had decided that Jane's artistic talents—she had mentioned a fondness for sketching, ONCE—needed a muse.
"I shall pose," Robert announced, stripping off his coat and loosening his cravat. "I have excellent bone structure. It is often remarked upon."
"By whom?" Richard asked from the armchair, where he was reading a newspaper. "Our mother?"
"By artists. Sculptors. The general public." Robert grabbed a tablecloth from the side table and draped it over his shoulder. "I shall be Julius Caesar. Crossing the Rubicon. Miss Bennet, capture my resolve."
Jane, who was seated with her sketchbook, was trying very hard not to giggle. "I shall do my best, my Lord. But Caesar was bald."
"Artistic license," Robert declared. He struck a pose—one foot on a footstool, hand thrust into his waistcoat (the tablecloth), chin lifted to a heroic angle. "There. The conqueror."
"You look like you have a stomach ache," Henry Gardiner observed from the floor, where he was building a tower of blocks.
"It is the burden of leadership, Master Henry," Robert said without breaking character. "Uneasy lies the head that wears the laurel."
"You are wearing a tablecloth," Alice pointed out.
"It is a toga of the mind, Miss Alice. Use your imagination."
Darcy stood by the window with Elizabeth, watching the scene.
"He is ridiculous," Darcy murmured.
"He is in love," Elizabeth corrected. "Look at Jane."
Jane was sketching, her charcoal moving quickly over the paper. But her eyes were fixed on Robert's face with a tenderness that had nothing to do with art. She was not just drawing him. She was memorising him.
"Is that what it looks like?" Darcy asked quietly.
"What?"
"Love. Making a fool of oneself in a drawing room just to make a lady smile."
"I think," Elizabeth said, turning to him, "that love looks different on everyone. On Robert, it is loud and joyful. On Jane, it is quiet and radiant."
"And on us?" Darcy asked. The question hung in the air, heavy and sweet.
Elizabeth looked at the man who had ridden through snow, who had bought her books, who stood beside her now with his heart in his eyes.
"I think," she whispered, "on us, it looks like a truce that became a victory."
"Mr Caesar!" Miss Ruth Gardiner toddled over to Robert and tugged on his tablecloth. "I want to be a Roman too!"
"Excellent!" Robert broke his pose, scooping the little girl up. "You shall be Cleopatra. We shall rule the Nile together."
Jane laughed, a free, happy sound. Robert watched her over the child's head, his expression softening into something raw and beautiful.
"Capture that," Darcy said softly. "That is the real picture."
"I think she already has," Elizabeth replied.
*
While the Romans conquered the rug, a quieter alliance was being forged in the corner of the room. Mrs Gardiner sat on the sofa, sorting through a basket of wool. Georgiana sat beside her, helping to wind a skein of blue yarn.
"You seem pensive, Miss Darcy," Mrs Gardiner noted gently.