Page 41 of Elizabeth and Caroline
“I suppose you suspected I would drop it,” she said. “I know you don’t think matchmaking is even possible—”
“I am sorry about saying that,” said Mr. Darcy. “I think you are abundantly intelligent, vibrant, and delightful, my darling. I would never deny you anything that gave you pleasure. If you wish to be a matchmaker, by all means.” He gestured with both hands. “But I can’t say finding someone willing to marry Miss Bingley is going to be very easy.”
“No, I know this,” said Elizabeth, sighing. “And, of course, I don’t suppose I realized how much I was not going to be accepted in society myself, which only makes it all harder.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, Fitz,” she said, “do not pretend that you are ignorant of all of it. You have hidden me away to protect us both, and I will know this.”
“Hidden you away? Hardly. I’ve been, erm, preoccupied.” His face turned red.
She felt her own cheeks heat up and a smile tugged at her lips. “All right, well, granted.”
“Yes, I have had a number of letters from my sister,” he said. “She is less than pleased. She has her own household here in London, and she wishes us to visit her. She says she cannot write directly to you until you have been introduced, which is proper, of course, and it is my own fault for notintroducing you. My sister feels rather isolated, and I think she thinks I am punishing her—well, this is neither here nor there, of course.”
“Punishing her?” Elizabeth sat up straight. “For what?”
Mr. Darcy sighed heavily. “You will say nothing of it to her. Swear it to me?”
“Well, I don’t know what it—”
“Swear.”
“I swear,” she said.
“My sister was involved in a situation that doesn’t look entirely proper from the outside of it. I don’t think anything actually happened, but it is difficult to say. A man attempted to elope with her.”
“Isn’t your sister only fifteen?”
“Well, she was when this happened last summer,” he said. “She has lately turned sixteen.”
“Fitz, you missed your sister’s birthday?”
He winced.
“Did anyone go to her?” said Elizabeth. “Youarepunishing her.”
His lips parted. Then, he pressed them together. He said nothing.
“Did she encourage this man? I suppose he wasn’t an appropriate match for her?”
“This man is someone you know, actually, someone you have met, someone you spoke of to me.”
Suddenly, it all made sense. Elizabeth’s eyes widened as understanding crashed into her. “Mr. Wickham.”
“Quite.”
“He’s the son of your steward.”
“I well know this.”
“Did your father really wish him to be a rector in Derbyshire? Did you prevent this?”
“I didn’t prevent it,” said Mr. Darcy. “He didn’t want it.”
“Who didn’t? Your father?”
“No, my father wished it, of course. He would have liked Georgie Wickham settled and grateful and dependent upon him. I’m sure that if my father had been alive, there wouldhave been no questioning of it all. It would have been as my father wished. That was the way it always was with my father, you see.”
