Page 58 of Elizabeth and Caroline
Caroline laughed. “We are much in need of an introduction, I must say.” She tilted her head to one side. “But I don’t understand why you would not be wanted by prospective wives if you are… you’re the son of an earl, are you not?”
“Yes, but with no title, no income, no property, nothing at all! Who would marry this?” He gestured. “You… Bingley, Bingley… hmm. Doesn’t ring any bells. Shall I be frightfully gauche and come out with it?” He raised an eyebrow and she only smiled, so he pushed on. “Trade?”
“Silks,” she said.
“Silks.” He nodded.
“Some tobacco, some spices, also.”
“Yes, yes,” he said. “You have a dowry, don’t you?”
She flushed.
“But a girl with a dowry is looking for a title,” he said. “Which I do not have, not unless I murder my brother.”
“Oh,” she said. “No, I’m not so nakedly ambitious, you mustn’t—”
“I have thought about murdering him, of course. Have you ever considering murdering your sister?”
She laughed. “Hasn’t everyone with siblings fantasized about killing them?”
“Just so,” said the colonel. He smiled at her. “I am utterly overcome by the fact you have not run away. I can think of twenty things I have said and done in this conversation which would have warranted your expedient exit.”
“You are a bit rebellious, aren’t you, sir?” she said,looking him over, thinking that he actually was handsome, very handsome in a rough and tumble way that was stirring her somewhere.
“Rebellious? I like the sound of that,” he said. “No, no, I’m just honestly a mess. Can’t get myself together even if I wish to, you see. You don’t truly have to dance with me, you know. I didn’t rightly ask, did I?”
“I would love to dance with you, sir,” she said, smiling at him.
How was this happening? Why was he so easy to speak to? Why was he interested in her? “You should know my dowry is not so very impressive as all that,” she said.
“No?” he said. “Well, drat. I suppose I shall have to make a number of surreptitious inquiries about that, while we are waiting to dance.”
“You don’t have to dance with me if you don’t wish to,” she said. “You wouldn’t have even spoken to me if you hadn’t misplaced your snuff tin.”
“I very much wish to dance with you,” said the colonel. “I am not so mercenary as all that, in the end, you know?”
“Are you not?”
“No,” he said. “You and me, we are very pure in spirit, I can tell. You are not ambitious. I am not a mercenary. We are drawn to each other on pure regard for each other’s wit, you see. It’s a kind of clean burning attraction, the fuel of the truest kind of admiration, in the end.”
No one would call her witty, of course, but it was easy to be witty around this man. He made her feel at ease in a way that almost no one did, except perhaps Elizabeth.
“Quite pure,” she said, grinning widely.
“Incredibly pure,” he said.
By the time Elizabeth had arrived, the dancing had begun, and she and the colonel were on the dance floor. The conversation had flowed easily between herself and the colonel, and she was feeling happy and pleased, almost radiant.
She was sad that their two dances would end, but when they did, he stayed with her, walking alongside her as theyleft the dance floor.
When she and the colonel approached Elizabeth, the woman was alone.
“Mrs. Darcy,” said the colonel. “Here you are, then. I believe I claimed a dance with you.”
It took Elizabeth a moment to look up at the man, and to smile. It was only a moment, but it was enough that Caroline caught it. Something was bothering her friend.
“Oh, yes, of course, sir,” said Elizabeth. “I did agree to a dance, did I not?”
