CHAPTER THREE #2
“Jane, dear… Jane, sit nearer to Mr. Darcy. Lizzy, you must not crowd the entire card table.”
“I cannot vacate my chair, Mamma, without forfeiting the game. And I am currently relieving Mr. Darcy of his pennies far more efficiently than Jane could relieve him of his bachelorhood. Surely that is what you wished for?”
“Oh, do not be ridiculous. There is no distinction when a young lady ought to be making way for her elder sister, who is far more… Jane, come here!”
Mrs. Bennet’s fan struck the edge of the card table hard enough to scatter pennies.
Mrs. Long steadied the rolling pennies, protesting, “Oh, but Mrs. Bennet, if Miss Elizabeth vacates her chair, I shall have no one to lose to. My nieces play so cautiously and ladylike,” she glanced significantly to the other table, no doubt hoping to draw Darcy’s attention, which he fixed solely on Elizabeth, “it is refreshing to see a young lady with… appetite.”
Indeed, Darcy thought to himself, and was rewarded by a becoming blush emanating from the delightful penny-pincher.
Fortunately for the harmony of the table, Jane did not move from the window, and Mrs. Bennet, recognizing a daughter who would not be deployed, redirected her heavy artillery toward Darcy.
“Mr. Darcy, you must tell me. Do you prefer dark hair or fair? Because Jane’s complexion is universally admired, and I will not have Lizzy frightening you away with her sharp tongue before you have had the opportunity to—”
“Mamma.” Elizabeth’s voice could have frozen the punch bowl. “Mr. Darcy’s preferences in hair color are his own concern.”
“I believe, Miss Elizabeth, it is your turn to deal,” Darcy said, passing her the deck as Mrs. Bennet departed with a huff.
She shuffled the deck with an ease that spoke of long practice, the cards flowing through her fingers like water, and dealt with efficiency, not once glancing his direction, which he supposed suited his purpose as he could look at her with leisure.
Mrs. Goulding sniffed at her hand. “Mr. Darcy, I begin to think Hertfordshire agrees with you less than Derbyshire. The air here seems to affect your cards most peculiarly.”
“Indeed,” Elizabeth said. “As it does the game, which I believe is mine.”
She laid down her cards. Another flush, and Darcy had not even studied his hand.
“Another penny, Mr. Darcy.” Elizabeth swept the coins toward her pile with undisguised satisfaction. “Commerce can be a cruel mistress.”
“I find it no harsher than an unkempt estate.” Darcy fanned his losing hand on the table. “Though I suppose a lady must practice her governance somewhere—if only on a three-penny board before attempting an entire estate.”
Elizabeth regarded him with an expression of gentle concern—so solicitous, so kind, that Darcy felt the hair rise on the back of his neck.
“You seem distressed, Mr. Darcy. Shall I send for a smelling bottle? Your nose has been in such a perpetual state of elevation this evening, I feared the altitude might be affecting your constitution.”
Mrs. Long’s giggle escaped before she could trap it behind her fan. Mrs. Goulding pressed her lips together so tightly they disappeared entirely. And somewhere across the room, Darcy heard a sound that might have been Sir William choking on his punch.
Darcy held his nemesis’s gaze for a long moment—longer than was wise, longer than was proper—to show her he would not be cowed by ill manners.
Mrs. Long next took her turn at dealing, but she dealt the first card face up on the baize.
“Oh! Oh dear! A foul, I must re-deal… so sorry, so very—” She scrambled to collect the exposed card, a queen of hearts, and began again, though her attention remained fixed on the combatants rather than the cards.
“You play with remarkable… enthusiasm, Miss Elizabeth,” Darcy observed, watching Mrs. Long misdeal a second card into Mrs. Goulding’s teacup.
“I play to win, Mr. Darcy. A quality I suspect you find unfeminine.”
“I find it unexpected.”
“Then you have not been paying attention. I have been playing Commerce with my father since I was twelve. He taught me that the secret is not in the cards but in the people who hold them.”
“A philosophy that has served you well, it seems.”
“It has taught me to recognize when a gentleman believes he has the winning hand.” Her eyes met his, dark and unreadable. “And when he is merely hoping no one will notice that he does not.”
Candlelight traced the line of her jaw, the curve of her smile, and the intelligence in her eyes—so vivid that every other woman in the room faded into the wallpaper by comparison.
He looked away first, to his own mortification. The great Darcy, admired and coveted by every eligible woman and her mother, found himself undone by the only lady in England who regarded him as a thoroughly pompous nuisance.
Mrs. Long laid down her cards with an air of defeat. Mrs. Goulding followed. Elizabeth, naturally, revealed another flush—her third of the evening—and swept the pennies toward her pile with the quiet satisfaction of a cat who had caught the canary and intended to keep the feathers as a trophy.
Mr. Bennet chose that moment to sidle over with a glass of port.
“Ah, Mr. Darcy. I see my Lizzy has taken you in hand. She does enjoy a game of Commerce. I taught her myself, which I confess was a tactical error, as she now takes my money with as little ceremony as she takes everyone else’s.”
“Miss Elizabeth plays with considerable skill,” Darcy said, which was the most neutral formulation he could devise for what he actually meant.
“Yes, I suppose she does.” Mr. Bennet settled himself against the sideboard.
“She has a talent for managing things, does Lizzy. The household accounts, for instance. The quarterly rents. The tenant disputes, the Turners’ well and the Miller boy’s apprenticeship fee.
The drainage, which I gather you have already inspected. ”
Darcy’s hand stilled on his cards. “You permit a young lady to manage estate business?”
Mrs. Goulding’s fan froze mid-flutter, and Mrs. Long leaned forward, licking her lips to relish the retelling.
Mr. Bennet’s eyebrows rose. “My dear Mr. Darcy, I do not permit Lizzy to do anything. I have not successfully permitted or forbidden that child since she was nine years old, when she informed me that my Latin translations contained six errors. She was correct about five of them.” He took a meditative sip of port.
“We have not had a steward at Longbourn for some years. I found the expense difficult to justify when I had a perfectly capable daughter who could argue with tenants and balance a ledger with rather more precision than old Mr. Whitmore ever managed.”
Darcy could not countenance the horror of such neglect.
“You would impose an estate of this scale, admittedly small, on a delicate young lady. Mr. Bennet, I believe you require the oversight of a competent man to handle tenant grievances and budget for repairs. I should not have been surprised to discover the state of the drainage of the lower fields.”
Elizabeth turned on Darcy, her dark eyes flashing with the bright, dangerous clarity of drawn steel.
“Pray, do not strain your delicate sensibilities on my account. I assure you, my constitution survived the burden of our ledgers long before you arrived to inspect our mud with such professional horror.”
She leaned across the green baize, her fingers resting lightly over her stack of copper winnings as if ready to hurl them at him.
“And as for requiring a competent man to manage our affairs,” she continued, “Longbourn has managed quite well without one. If such gentlemen are so easily undone by a cracked tile and a fallen tree, it is a wonder Derbyshire hasn’t slid entirely into the Trent.”
Mrs. Long could contain herself no longer.
“Oh, Miss Lizzy is wonderfully capable, Mr. Darcy. Quite the little steward. My nieces, of course, occupy themselves with more ladylike pursuits—needlework, watercolors, the pianoforte—but I have always said there is something rather charming about a young woman who understands field rotation.”
Mrs. Goulding nodded vigorously. “Indeed, indeed. And Miss Elizabeth is so very energetic. One sees her tramping across the fields at all hours. The exercise has done wonders for her constitution, though perhaps less for her complexion. Still, a sturdy wife is not to be dismissed, Mr. Darcy. Sturdy wives bear sons.”
Elizabeth’s cards hit the table with a snap that silenced both women.
“How fortunate,” she said, her voice pleasant as a paper cut, “that my qualifications are being so thoroughly measured for Mr. Darcy’s consideration.
Shall a competent man audit my ledgers? Perhaps a letter of reference from the tenants?
I should hate for Mr. Darcy to make an uninformed decision about my… sturdiness.”
Darcy’s eyes narrowed, a muscle jumping in his jaw as he stared at her. He had intended to reprimand her father’s laxity, not find himself pinned under the blistering fire of her competence.
Mr. Bennet merely took another slow, delighted sip of his port, watching his daughter lay waste to the proud master of Pemberley.
“You see, Mr. Darcy?” he murmured, entirely unbothered.
“She argues with tenants far better than I ever did. I suggest you tread lightly, or she will start billing you for your uninvited critique.”
Elizabeth rose from her chair and dropped a single penny on the table in front of Darcy’s glass of brandy. Clink.
“For your troubles, sir. I understand Commerce can be quite taxing for gentlemen unaccustomed to losing.”