5. The Pink Ribbon #2
Darcy, who followed Elizabeth around like a vulture circling a diseased rabbit, bent lower to whisper, “So, you see? Your sisters are delighted. Your mother is transported over the prospect of Almack’s and your father approves.
I wonder, which of the masters will you engage with?
Perhaps the dancing one? We do not favor mere country dances in London, but a mixture of the cotillion, quadrille, and oh, I hear the waltz is all the rage. ”
“You may spare me your raging fads, Mr. Darcy. I happen to delight in country dances, where one actually breathes and converses normally rather than mincing about like a mechanical doll. Furthermore, I do not aspire to an Almack’s invitation, nor do I care a straw for speaking in anything other than the King’s English. ”
“The Bingley sisters speak excellent French and Italian,” Darcy said, in the same level, infuriating tone he might use to observe that the roof was leaking.
“Caroline and Mrs. Hurst toured the Italian lakes last spring. Their ability to converse easily in a second language is considered essential in the circles where the Darcy and Fitzwilliam families move. I should not wish the Miss Bennets to feel at any disadvantage. However you may protest now, your sisters will thank me eventually.”
“My sisters will do nothing of the kind. And I—” Elizabeth drew herself up to her full height, which was unfortunately several inches shorter than his chest. “I will not be subjected to Mrs. Beaumont’s instruction on how to carry myself.
I will not flick a single fan, nor will I fling watercolors across an expensive easel. ”
Darcy’s eyebrow rose in measured degrees, climbing higher with each “not” she hurled at him.
“I will stick to country dances, and I will not touch the smallest black key on the pianoforte.”
“Neither will I pick up any of the French grammars, or stick a paintbrush anywhere except in your eye.”
Amusement touched Darcy’s mouth at her litany of refusals, which only encouraged her to persist, if only to wipe that smirk from his face.
“I will never accept your interference in our family. And I will never, under any conceivable circumstances, marry you.”
Darcy’s expression remained maddeningly unchanged. No flinch, not even the decency to look surprised. He only tilted his head, his dark eyes glittering with wicked, unbearable satisfaction.
The blood drained from Elizabeth’s entire body when she realized what she had said.
“Marry me?” he repeated with apparent relish. “Miss Elizabeth, wherever did you conjure up such a peculiar notion? I do not believe I had ever proposed.”
Elizabeth’s gaze darted around the crowded drawing room, hoping no one had heard.
Lydia was still begging for gowns and ribbons for the dancing lessons, Mrs. Bennet invoked Almack’s with religious fervor, and Mary had begun her ponderous scales on the piano while Mr. Moretti wound the metronome.
Jane conversed dreamily with Mr. Cecil, and Kitty had a ruler stuck down her back by Mrs. Beaumont and appeared to be walking with yarn tied between her feet.
But her father was watching. He lifted his newspaper when she opened her mouth to what—what could she say?
Darcy crossed his arms, his dark, brooding eyes regarding her with barely repressed amusement. He tilted his chin. “Your father is close by. Shall we?”
“No!” Elizabeth insisted, then drew a veil over her consternation with a smooth, slow breath. “I misspoke. I merely assumed, given your interest in improving my family, that you must have had some ulterior purpose.”
Darcy quirked an eyebrow at the activity around the room. “You sincerely believe I have engaged music masters and drawing instructors as part of a scheme to secure your hand in marriage?”
“It would not be the first time a gentleman has attempted to purchase a wife through the improvement of her relations.”
“Indeed? And how many gentlemen of your acquaintance have attempted this particular strategy?”
“None, but—”
“Then I am flattered to be considered so original.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew a handkerchief—a fresh one, untainted by mud—and offered it to her with a slight bow. “You seem rather flushed, Miss Elizabeth. The exertion of forming unfounded conclusions, perhaps?”
Elizabeth snatched the handkerchief and immediately regretted doing so, as it meant she was now holding something of his and could not simply storm away without returning it.
“I have formed no conclusions, unfounded or otherwise. I have merely observed that your behavior since arriving in Hertfordshire has been consistent with a man who believes he is entitled to—”
“To what, Miss Elizabeth?”
She could not say it. Not again. Not when he was looking at her with that insufferable composure, as though she were a child who had made an embarrassing accusation and must now be gently corrected.
“To whatever you desire, without the inconvenience of being refused,” she finished lamely.
He inclined his head in that annoying angle that made her dig her fingernails into her palms. “I shall take that as a compliment to my ambition, if nothing else.”
Then he walked away, leaving her stranded with his handkerchief—entirely inappropriate. She stuffed it into her pocket just as he clapped his hands, summoning the attention of the instructors and her sisters.
“I am so very pleased with this arrangement for the benefit of my esteemed cousins,” he announced, his gaze fixed on Elizabeth. “Five extraordinary young ladies who shall have the finest finishing in all of the arts and accomplishments a high-bred young lady should require.”
Her mother almost swooned at his use of “high-bred,” not having an inkling he could have been speaking about horses at Tattersalls.
Darcy calmly reached into his coat pocket for a set of narrow silk ribbons. “I have taken the liberty to procure page-markers for each of my dear cousins’ lesson books. A different color to mark each young lady’s accomplishments.”
He laid them on the table amongst a set of elegant journals.
“Miss Mary has blue. Miss Catherine, yellow. A red one for Miss Lydia, and white for Miss Bennet.” He paused, and his gaze found Elizabeth’s with an expression of such perfect, studied innocence that she felt her heartbeat stammer.
“And Miss Elizabeth, a rosy pink.” He held the ribbon out for all to see. “The color suits her.”
It was precisely the shade of her pink bonnet, the very one she had worn while eavesdropping beneath her father’s draughty study window. Elizabeth refused to acknowledge the ribbon, though its presence sent her pulse skittering with a fresh indignation.
And then, her mother reliably broke the awkwardness. “Mr. Darcy, what about my ribbon? I should like to mark my many accomplishments, too.”
“Ah, excuse me for the oversight.” Darcy pulled a pale-green ribbon from his pocket, glanced at Elizabeth, and bestowed it on her mother. It was the exact shade of green she had worn to the Meryton Assembly where he had deemed her barely tolerable and not handsome enough to tempt him.
With that, he turned and joined her father, the two cousins retreating to the library, the door closing behind them.
The pianoforte pounded chords of doom. Kitty paraded her posture across the room.
Jane held a sketchbook, Lydia argued with the dancing master, and Mrs. Bennet parlez vous-ed with abandon, leaving Elizabeth standing alone in the dusty corner, her fingers trembling with a rage so exquisite she could have died on the spot and counted it a mercy.