Page 65 of Bitten By Mr. Darcy
The colonel smirked at her.
She shrugged. “I suppose I am biased towards her, but I can tell you, there isn’t an ounce of badness in her. She is everything I wish I could be.”
The colonel gazed at Jane. “Ah, yes, I suppose you might regret it now, being tied to a man who cannot even join you in the afternoon, while every eligible bachelor in London makes love to your sister.”
“No, sir,” she said.
He glanced at her, lowering his voice to make sure their conversation was not overheard, though Jane and her suitors were not even looking at either of them. “Apologies. I know I said I would no longer speak of this anymore. There is, indeed, nothing to speak of.”
“I don’t think there is, actually,” she said. “I think you have a worry about my husband, that he is dangerous in a way he is not. He is a good man, despite the fact he is… what he is.”
“You would think so, madam,” he said, but he did not meet her gaze.
“You are a good man, too. You would not see a woman like me harmed,” she said. “But that is all I think it is for you, some kind of gallantry entwined with finding me not unpleasing, I suppose. And for my part, I have only been swayed by your easy conversation, and the way you smirk from time to time.”
Now, he was looking straight at her. “The way I smirk?”
“I think I worried it meant something,” she said. “But what I said before is true. I am quite taken with my husband, and this is, with us, it’s nothing.”
He cleared his throat. “Yes, as I said before, we can leave the subject entirely.”
“Itisnothing,” she said.
“Absolutely nothing, madam,” he said.
Then, they didn’t speak much and it was a bit awkward, and she wondered if she had made a misstep there. He obviously did not think it was nothing, and perhaps she could have gone easier on him there. She did not truly know what his attachment was to her, if there was one.
She expected he would excuse himself by and by, perhaps after he finished his tea. But instead, one of Jane’s other suitors left, and the colonel moved across the room to sit on the other side of her sister.
And Elizabeth wasn’t sure what to make of that.
Jane, on the other hand, spoke eagerly with the colonel, who was the sort of witty conversationalist he always was. He had Jane laughing a great deal quite quickly, and then Jane was asking him ever so many questions about all manner of things. “Have you truly been to the war? Were you very frightened?”
This went on to the point where the other suitor left, looking somewhat crestfallen, as if he could not compete with a man who was both the son of an earl and a war hero.
That evening, Jane could talk of littlebutColonel Fitzwilliam, and with a sort of exuberance that was somewhat unlike her. However, Elizabeth could see the charm Mr. Darcy had put on her sister at work in it.
“If I’m honest with myself,” said Jane quietly, “he is exactly what I want. I wish to be married to a well-connected man with ties to a respected family. He is the son of an earl, after all. But also, he is a good fit for me. He is talkative where I am shy. He is boisterous where I am quiet. And… he has this way of smirking.” Jane turned bright red.
Elizabeth could not help but smile. “I know that smirk you speak of, in fact.”
“Do you think he likes me, too? He behaved as if he did, but perhaps he was simply being polite. I truly cannot tell. And there have been ever so many men in and out, you know, but most of them did not make me feel at ease in the way the colonel did.”
Elizabeth examined her feelings about it all. Was she jealous of Jane and the colonel? Had she felt some possessiveness of him?
Certainly.
But she also wished the colonel well and thought well of him also. Her only concern was that the colonel had been so attentive to Jane because he was trying to show Elizabeth that he was not interested in her since she had dismissed him rather sharply. If that were the case, Jane might be crushed.
Otherwise, she thought they might suit each other quite well.
It might be a very nice match.
When Mr. Darcy awoke and they were still talking of this during dinner, he was quite surprised, but he did not say anything, not until later.
She and her husband had taken to retiring to her chamber in the evenings now that Jane was staying. They would lie together on her bed and her husband would drink a bit of her blood. They would talk. She would fall asleep in his arms, though when she woke, he had always left her to avoid the sun.
That night, as she lay in the circle of his arms, he tentatively broached the subject of the colonel. “And I wish you to be honest with me, Lizzy. I mean it. Do not worry that it will wound me if you are hurt by the way he has begun pursuing your sister. We were still considering him as the father of your children, after all.”
