Page 59 of Knowing Mr. Darcy
She would have liked to think that she wouldn’t be so badly attracted to a person like that, but she barely knew Mr. Darcy, and here she was. She could not guarantee that she even had the presence of mind to evaluate his character.
Furthermore, what sort of wife would she be to him? Did she know anything about being part of his social strata? Could she host the sorts of dinner parties that he would wish a wife to host? Would she know how to buy the right sorts of clothes? Would she be hopelessly and wretchedly out of her depth if she married him?
Sometimes, and this happened often at night, she would be lying in her bed and staring at the ceiling and she would think about that awful thing that Mr. Bingley said, that word he’d used.Cuckold.
If she didn’t have a husband, she couldn’t cuckold him with anyone, of course, but what if Mr. Darcy only wanted her for… forthat.
She was very frightened she would agree to it.
Shewantedhim.
She didn’t even know what she wanted. She knew very little about any of it. But her body seemed to know, seemed to understand it all with a knowing sense of instinct that was steering her down a path toward this man. She was only frightened she was going to collide with him and they would both go up in flames.
He’d come out of it fine, of course. He was a wealthy man. She would not. And if he asked her, if he offered her, she’d not have the presence of mind to deny him. She was entirely dependent on his sense of honor, she was afraid. She could notspeakin this man’s presence. That was how badly he unsettled her.
One morning, Mr. Darcy did not appear on their walk, and it was only her and Jane with the colonel.
Except Jane’s shoe got torn and she left them to go back tothe parsonage. It was a long and involved argument, Jane insisting they walk on without her, and both of them loudly insisting that they must accompany her back to the parsonage, and it went on and on, but somehow, in the end, Jane prevailed.
Then, it was only Elizabeth and Colonel Fitzwilliam.
He smiled at her, his expression easy and relaxed. “I don’t know that I’ve heard you say nearly so many words as you have this morning. So, it is my cousin who stills your tongue, is that it?”
She felt embarrassed and idiotic and settled on patently denying such a thing, even though it would ring falsely. “Certainly not!”
The colonel chuckled. “And your feelings toward my cousin? They are as fond as his are in regards to you?”
“I have no notion what your cousins feelings are in regards to me,” she said. “If he has them, he has never said so. In fact, I should think he rather dislikes me. The faces he makes in my presence would seem to indicate it.”
Now, the colonel laughed heartily. “Oh, dear, he was right about you, after all. I have been so flummoxed. ‘Her wit, her wit,’ he said over and over. ‘To hear her speak, you will be dazzled.’ And then, here you are, and no sign of this much-lauded wit anywhere.”
“He saidthatabout me?” She felt her heart squeeze painfully.
“Oh, dear, Miss Bennet, I rather begin to wonder if you evenlikemy cousin.”
She scoffed, unable to make an answer to that.
“Don’t you, then?” The colonel leaned in, lowering his voice as if they were entering into a conspiracy together. “I shall tell you that I am most used to giving him his way. He always gets his way, you see, Miss Elizabeth, always. It is the way of rich men, after all.”
“Youare not a rich man?” she said, eyeing him.
“I’m a second son,” he said. “I’m poor as a church mouse.”
“Oh, yes, indeed, so very poor,” she said. “Seriously, sir,what have you known of self-denial or true dependence?”
“Oh, home questions,” he said, clutching his chest. “Well, it is not likely that I can marry where I choose, of course.”
“No?” She raised her eyebrows.
“No, indeed. I have nothing myself to offer a lady.”
“I suppose it would depend on what the lady considered nothing,” she said.
“True,” he said, and he looked away, smiling very widely.
She continued, in the same manner, “But I suppose it is not about the lady, really, it is about you needing her dowry to be kept in the manner you are accustomed. Pray, what is the going rate of the son of an earl these days, anyway? Fifty thousand pounds?”
“My, I’m expensive,” he said, turning to look at her, his smile sliding away. “Do you like him, Miss Elizabeth, truthfully, do you?”
