CHAPTER THREE
THE JOY OF WOOING
The steward’s cottage was considerably worse than a gentleman of Pemberley had any right to endure, though Vernon, Darcy’s valet, clearly regarded it as a personal insult engineered by the devil.
The poor man had spent a decade and a half maintaining the pristine standard of Derbyshire’s finest estate, only to find himself pressing a superfine wool coat in a stone chamber that smelled aggressively of damp sheep and rodent habitation.
To Darcy, this water-stained, vermin-infested cottage reflected the ruin his adopted family had come to.
The Bennet and Darcy patriarchs had been best of all friends, and so, Darcy’s great-grandfather had been given an honorary position as second son to old Thomas Bennet.
Who could have guessed that the line from the elder son would run out of men after Mr. Collins’s death?
And so, Darcy was here as the dutiful heir. It simply would not do to allow Longbourn to languish under such neglect—starting with the thatch roof and leaking windows.
Mr. Bennet himself dropped by the second afternoon, bearing an invitation from Sir William Lucas.
“Now that the entire county is aware you are my heir, I suggest you drag yourself out of this hovel and get reacquainted with polite society. The neighborhood is agog, and please, this time, try not to insult any young ladies as beneath your notice.”
Darcy looked up from the ledger, his gaze sweeping over the damp-stained walls before fixing upon Mr. Bennet.
“I am quite capable of conducting myself in society without your instruction, sir. Though I should imagine the neighborhood’s curiosity is less taxing than the prospect of enduring an evening of Sir William’s tales.”
Mr. Bennet merely chuckled. “Oh, Lucas is harmless. He only wishes to congratulate himself on breathing the same air as ten thousand a year.”
Darcy didn’t crack a smile. He closed the ledger with a sharp snap. “Since we are upon the subject of the neighborhood, have you spoken to Miss Elizabeth regarding the matter we discussed?”
Mr. Bennet let out a low, gravelly chuckle, his shoulders shaking as he tapped the ash from his pipe into an empty grate. “Mention it? To my second daughter? My dear Mr. Darcy, I value the integrity of my study walls far too much to hazard such an experiment.”
“You have not spoken to her?”
“Good heavens, no,” Mr. Bennet said, his eyes glinting.
“I have no desire to follow Mr. Collins so swiftly to the family vault. Poor William, as you recall, managed to survive his wedding morning only to take a fatal tumble before his wedding night. Had Lizzy been his bride, I am quite certain the horse would have required no assistance from a rutted road to be rid of him.”
“I am not Mr. Collins.”
“No, indeed,” Mr. Bennet murmured, turning toward the threshold with a dry, parting smile.
“I merely suggest that if you intend to provoke my Lizzy into matrimony, you must endure the tedious, old-fashioned drudgery of winning her affections yourself, leaving me quite out of the line of fire.” He paused at the door, his hand resting upon the warped wood with the air of a general abandoning a doomed outpost. “Woo her, Mr. Darcy. Flatter her, chase her across the muddy fields, or whatever it is gentlemen of ten thousand a year do when they wish to make themselves agreeable. Once her temper is sufficiently softened, you may come to me for my blessing.”
“I believed you possessed the authority to determine your daughter’s future.”
“I do, Mr. Darcy.” Mr. Bennet poked at a rotted beam with his walking stick.
“But I happen to like you and mean to keep you alive until the repairs are made. In the meantime, should you prefer another one of my daughters, I leave the option open. Now, I trust you shall be gracious to my neighbors and inform Sir William to expect you. Do try to look less as though you are being marched to the gallows, Cousin. Especially if you intend to settle at Longbourn after my demise with my Lizzy as your wife. Although on my part, I shall never understand why a man blessed with all of Derbyshire would deliberately choose a wife who regards him with the specific warmth usually reserved for tax collectors. Still, the match promises to be vastly entertaining, and I should hate to miss a single act.”
With that final, cheerful observation, Mr. Bennet tipped his hat, ducked under the sagging doorframe, and stepped out into the December mud, leaving the master of Pemberley to contemplate the dubious pleasure of wooing Elizabeth Bennet—if pleasure was the word for it.
Darcy tried to keep the scowl off his face as he stepped inside Lucas Lodge. He could not quite manage a smile, but as Bennet pointed out, these rustic and backward oafs would be his neighbors if Elizabeth should choose to live at Longbourn rather than Pemberley.
Indeed, Sir William Lucas was as tedious as he remembered, meeting him at the door with effusions that bordered on the excessive, invoking St. James’s Court no fewer than three times before they had crossed the entrance hall.
“Mr. Darcy! Such an honor! When I had the privilege of being presented at St. James’s—but of course, you are no stranger to court, sir, a gentleman of your standing. Do come in, do come in; the company is most eager—”
The company, as it transpired, consisted of every family of no consequence within a five-mile radius.
They had assembled in the drawing room like spectators at a show, and every head turned toward Darcy as he entered.
Ten thousand a year, he could almost hear them calculating.
Pemberley in Derbyshire. And now Longbourn as well.
“Mr. Darcy, allow me to present my eldest, Charlotte—Mrs. Collins, that was—recently returned to us.” Sir William propelled him toward the young widow, still in half-mourning, her marriage having lasted scarcely longer than the wedding breakfast.
She curtsied with none of her father’s effusion. “Mr. Darcy. I understand you have taken the steward’s cottage.”
“I have.”
“Mr. Collins had ambitions for it as well,” she said, with a quality of observation so neutral it took Darcy a full three seconds to feel the sting. “Though his improvements ran more to chimneypieces than drainage.”
Darcy glanced around to see if anyone noticed her comparing him to Mr. Collins, and indeed, Miss Elizabeth was glaring at him as if he were a mouse evicted from the cottage itself.
“Cards!” Sir William announced, clapping his hands. “We are playing Commerce this evening—penny stakes, nothing alarming—and I believe we are in want of a fourth at the far table. Mr. Darcy, perhaps you would oblige?”
Sir William, undeterred by any hint of reluctance, deposited Darcy into the vacant chair opposite Elizabeth.
She was not, for once, adorned in mud or trailing the local flora.
Her hair was suspiciously tidy, and her gown, a deep green, lent her complexion a quality Darcy found himself unwilling to scrutinize too closely yet unable to look away.
“I should be delighted with a round of spirited play,” Darcy heard himself say as Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed at his invasion.
“Mr. Darcy,” she said, her voice perfectly pleasant and entirely without warmth. “How entirely fortuitous, although my first instinct upon seeing you head this way was to check whether you had miscalculated the change in your pocketbook upon being informed of our dizzying penny stakes.”
“I should hardly need to worry over the contents of my pocketbook, Miss Elizabeth,” he replied, his voice dropping into a register low enough to ensure only she heard the crisp, aristocratic bite behind it, “when your disposition provides quite enough miscalculation for one evening.”
“How reassuring.” She gestured at the other two at the table, Mrs. Long and Mrs. Goulding. “I trust we three ladies will not prove too taxing for your vaunted composure? Be forewarned, sir, for our calculations are legendary.”
Cards were dealt, the stock was turned, and the quiet rustle of pasteboard filled the air as the players swiftly exchanged their unfortunates and built their rounds.
While Darcy contemplated his options, or lack thereof, Elizabeth claimed the first hand, revealing a flush.
“Fortunate hand,” Darcy observed.
“Fortune, Mr. Darcy, is merely an excuse invoked by gentlemen who cannot endure a run of bad luck,” Elizabeth replied smoothly, scooping up her copper winnings. “I read faces.”
“Indeed. And what does mine tell you?”
Elizabeth’s gaze met his across the card table. Her eyes were darker than he remembered from the assembly—or perhaps he had been too busy being offensive to notice them properly.
“That you are accustomed to buying whatever outcome you desire,” she said, her voice dropping into a soft, lethal drawl, “and you are profoundly discomposed to find yourself losing to a woman at a penny-stakes table in Hertfordshire.”
“You read all of that in a glance?” Darcy didn’t blink, turning his head toward Mrs. Long and glancing at Mrs. Goulding across from her.
“Ladies, Miss Elizabeth fancies herself a physiognomist of exceptional skill. She believes I am about to suffer an apoplexy upon losing a few coppers. Do you concur, madams, or should I summon a physician to examine my steady pulse?”
“Oh, Mr. Darcy, to be sure, you look quite composed to me,” Mrs. Long simpered. “I have two beautiful nieces, quite single they are, who would concur. Wouldn’t you agree, Mrs. Goulding?”
“Yes, yes, Mrs. Long’s nieces lose beautifully at Commerce, but they are well pleased with the attentions bestowed upon their pennies.”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “Deal the cards, Mr. Darcy. You may find my next calculation considerably less hospitable.”
“I do believe your attention is well worth the low stakes.” He flashed her a wink, which flushed her cheeks with anger or sentiment; he could not be sure and did not care.
And then her mother fluttered over, beckoning to her eldest daughter.