Page 9 of Darcy's Guarded Heart
“I am. Have you been out here a while?”
Thomas shrugged, his dark brown hair looking almost black in the dark of night.
“A few minutes. I felt rather uncomfortable inside after Mr Darcy drew attention to our misunderstanding regarding my standing. One might think he had exposed some great fraudupon the nation, the way he carried on,” he shook his head but didn’t appear terribly upset.
“He sets himself at such a height that it is a wonder he does not faint from the want of air,” she said and crossed her arms. “I overheard him speaking to his sister. He thinks our entire family beneath his notice and suspected that Jane only wished to dance with Mr Bingley for his money.”
“Jane? Calculating?” Thomas chuckled and stepped beside her. The two leaned against the railing, the moon high above them in the sky. “Our Jane could never wish to trap a man into marriage if she tried. Not that it would occur to her. Now your mother—”
She raised a hand. “You need not remind me. I know she wants us all to catch a husband. Before tonight I would have thought she’d have liked us to bring both Mr Bingley and Mr Darcy home before long as future husbands.”
“Ah yes, but no more. Now her focus is solely on Mr Bingley as she finds Mr Darcy as impolite and rude as you do. He has rather wounded her pride when he refused to dance with you,” he said and raised an eyebrow as he waited for her reply.
“He has quite wounded my pride as well, but that is not my concern. He will attempt to get between Jane and Mr Bingley, if there is to be something between them,” she said.
“Of course there will be. It is evident how much they care for one another already. Even while he was dancing with Miss King he had eyes only for Jane,” Thomas reported.
“I am pleased to hear it for her, but what shall we do about his insufferable friend?”
“I do not think he is quite as bad as you make him out to be, Lizzy,” Thomas said, taking Elizabeth entirely by surprise.
“You would speak up for him when he acted so rudely towards you?”
“Do not mistake me, Lizzy, I do not claim Mr Darcy was in the right. But I have seen how men will defend their pride when they fear they have erred. I suspect he is not half so sure of himself as he would like us to believe,” Thomas said and easily pushed himself onto the railing while Elizabeth stood and leaned against it.
“Besides, Mr Bingley appears very fond of him and we can agree that he is an affable sort of fellow, much similar in character to our Jane, at least from what I have experienced of him on the two occasions I’ve now met him.”
“He does appear that way, yes,” Elizabeth conceded.
“Would Jane ever be friends with someone insufferably rude, without any redeeming qualities? Would she become so close to them as to invite them on a month’s long stay in the country where she’d have to be around that person night and day?”
Reluctantly, Elizabeth shook her head. “I believe not.”
“Well then, we must give Mr Bingley the benefit of the doubt, and in turn, Mr Darcy. I am certain we can charm him still and show him how mistaken he is about Meryton and all of us,” Thomas said with a smile.
Elizabeth took a deep breath as music continued to spill from the ballroom. “I only wish Cousin Morton had not worsened matters.”
“Mr Phillips’s sister, you say? Why, what has she done?”
Elizabeth drew in a deep breath and recounted all she had overheard from Mr Darcy and Miss Bennet’s conversation. Thomas rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to speak but closed it again when the door opened, and two young ladies walked out. He lifted his hat and nodded once.
“She dislikes me and by extension, the entire family.”
“That is not the reason why she and Mother fell out; you know it.”
“It did not aid the situation,” he said, and Elizabeth could not deny it. While her aunt and uncle Gardiner, as well as her aunt Phillips and her husband, Clark, had been supportive when Thomas first arrived in the family, Mr Phillips’s family had been less enthusiastic. The idea of having a child born out of wedlock, brought up by a gentleman’s family, struck them as wrong, as it did not uphold the family in the eyes of society.
If Thomas had been an orphan, entirely unrelated to the family, it might have been one thing, but for him to be a true Bennet, and one born under such shameful circumstances, was deemed unacceptable. A child out of wedlock with the same name? The Phillips family had been most upset. But that had not caused the rift. No, it was a progression quite natural, as both Mrs Morton and Mrs Bennet were headstrong characters who found it difficult to accept no for an answer.
That the dislike ran so deep as to cause Mrs Morton to speak so out of turn still shocked Elizabeth.
“I do worry at times that my presence in your family causes more harm than good,” Thomas said then, drawing her from her reverie.
“Do not say such things. You are adored by the entire family. Father sees you as the son he never had, and Mother does the same.”
“And yet, I remind them that they never truly had a son. I am a burden, I feel. I…”
Elizabeth stepped forward and looked at Thomas with concern. Was it Mr Darcy’s comment that had made him so suddenly sullen, despite his vows that it had not bothered him?
