“A man like me shouldn’t get a chance with a woman like you, I don’t think. If you haven’t figured it out already, you will soon. I am not nearly as intelligent as you are.”
It took all of her control not to react to this. But she was pleased. She liked that he’d said it. She liked him.
“It will be an unequal match forever, and I know it, but I shan’t mind,” he said. “It would be my pleasure and my delight to spend my life trying to earn the right to have you.” He kissed her knuckles and laid her hand down. “Rest, my beautiful Elizabeth.”
He left.
She relaxed, thinking that he wasn’t perfect, but that she couldn’t help but be a bit moved by his admiration. A man who thought her something to strive for? It wasn’t the worst sort of match she could imagine, not at all.
She coughed some more, burrowed into the pillows, and fell into a fitful sleep.
IT WAS MIDMORNINGwhen Miss Jane Bennet arrived, flushed, muddy, fair hair falling elegantly out of her bonnet, in the breakfast parlor.
Mr. Darcy smiled when he saw her. He could not help but smile. Wasn’t she pretty, then?
“Well, of course you must see your sister,” said Mr. Bingley, and took it upon himself to escort Miss Bennet to Miss Elizabeth’s room.
“That’s the one you like,” said Miss Bingley to him dolefully. “Why couldn’t Charles like her instead? She’s the eldest, after all, and she doesn’t say the sort of frightful things that the other one says.”
“What frightful things?” said Mr. Darcy absently, gazing into Jane’s wake.
“Oh, you know. You’ve listened to her,” said Mrs. Hurst.
“I haven’t,” said Mr. Darcy.
“We were speaking of the time we were invited to dine at the house of the French comtesse,” said Miss Bingley, “and she said something wretched about the way we must have kept all the invitations in a memory book to look at.”
“You actually have saved all the invitations,” said Mrs. Hurst.
“Yes, but it was the way she said it, as if it was a foolish thing to have done,” said Miss Bingley. “As if she would never do such a thing. But she has never dined with a comtesse either, of that I am sure.”
Mr. Darcy felt a smile itch his lips. What he would give to be a fly on the wall on these conversations between the women, then. He should like to see what Miss Elizabeth had to say if this was a sampling of the ‘wretched’ things.
But he mustn’t think this way, he reminded himself and the smile fell from his lips.
Only two days ago, he and Bingley had spoken together, having a conversation about the Bennet women in Bingley’s study over glasses of port.
Bingley had said, “I know she is not greatly my superior in terms of her status or her wealth, but she is my superior, Darcy. She’s a woman to strive for. Thelookof her, it’s…”
“Yes,” Darcy had muttered, picturing Elizabeth Bennet, who was not pretty, not exactly, but was still the most interesting woman he’d ever seen. He would not mind gazing upon her for years and years, from every single angle. He wondered what she looked like with her hair down or with her—
These sorts of thoughts were beneath him.
“And not just the look of her,” said Bingley. “Her wit. She’s dazzling with a turn of phrase. She’s so very, very clever. Some men might not want a clever wife, but I think—”
“Wife?” Darcy broke in at that point, and was astonished that he sounded somewhat winded, as if Bingley’s declaration of intention had left him breathless.
“Yes, I know,” said Bingley, “it’s soon, and perhaps I don’t know her well enough. But I am intent on getting to know her. Thus far, the more I know of her, the more I admire her.”
Darcy didn’t say anything.
“You don’t approve?”
“She is singular, Miss Elizabeth Bennet,” said Darcy finally, running a finger around the top of his glass. “I see why you are enamored.”
“Oh, Lord, Darcy, you aren’t secretly also interested—”
“No, no,” said Darcy, “no, I like the other one. The sister. The pretty one. Jane.”
