Page 79 of Colour My World
“If that does not make a man question his choices, nothing will. Although you did something rather extraordinary. You apologised.”
“Was that not enough?”
“I find it unprecedented.” Bennet tilted his head. “A man like you, who stands upon his pride as though it were a birthright, stooping to offer words of regret?” He exhaled. “Forgive me if I struggle to determine whether I should be impressed or deeply suspicious.”
Darcy pressed his lips together.
Bennet folded his arms. “What precisely do you wish to accomplish this evening?”
“Nothing.”
Bennet’s smile vanished. “Come now, young man. You can do better than that.”
Darcy clenched his jaw.
“Ah,” Bennet said lightly. “The silence of avoidance. I have five daughters, Darcy. You will find I am rather well acquainted with that particular brand of evasion.”
“I owed Miss Elizabeth an apology. And I gave it.”
“You did,” Bennet allowed. “And yet, it was not only Elizabeth who witnessed your display at the assembly. It was not only she who bore the brunt of your actions. Do you truly suppose a public wound may be mended with private regret?”
He stood and walked a slow circuit around the study.
“You did not simply injure her pride, sir. You invited speculation. You cast her as a figure of ridicule—and worse, a subject of curiosity. And in a world such as ours, Mr Darcy,thatcan cost a woman far more than it does a man.”
He turned back. “You say you owed her an apology? I say you owe her far more than that. I am not an unkind man, nor am I an unreasonable one. But if you believe you can enter my home, disrupt the peace of my family, and then slip away under the cover of civility, you are sorely mistaken.”
“What, then, would you have me do?”
Bennet leant forward. “I would have you determine, here and now, whether you are to be a man of words or a man of deeds.”
Darcy felt himself back in the Pemberley schoolroom.
“I do not ask for your friendship,” Bennet continued. “Nor do I seek your approval. But if you mean to place yourself in my daughter’s path, whether as friend, suitor, or tormentor, I will have the truth of it.”
Bennet rose. “Until then, I suggest you not return.”
Darcy stood. Bennet adjusted his waistcoat. “You do play chess, do you not?”
“I do.”
“Then consider this my opening move.”
* * *
He followed Bennet into the withdrawing room. The door to the music room stood ajar; the sound of the pianoforte drifted in—rich, steady notes played with unadorned precision.
Darcy stopped to listen. The composition, measured and unembellished, was one he knew, but under the performer’s hands, it possessed a quiet confidence that was more than pleasant. He had heard Miss Mary play only once before, yet something in the touch felt familiar.Extraordinary, actually.
Mrs Ecclestone sat with a small smile, tracing slow figure eights in the air, like a conductor awaiting her orchestra. “Lovely,” she murmured, eyes half-closed.
Miss Kitty and Miss Lydia were absent. Mrs Bennet, her hands folded primly in her lap, turned to him. “Mr Darcy, I do apologise. The younger girls have retired early.”
“I understand.”
“Mr Darcy, tell us. Does Miss Bingley enjoy the country? I believe she mentioned finding it… refreshing?” Miss Bennet, apparently the family diplomat, asked with mild curiosity.
“She finds it a change from London.”
