Page 73 of The Longbourn Bloodline

“Celebrations.” Mr. Bennet’s mouth curved. “Is that what we are calling Mrs. Bennet’s seven-hour dissertation on wedding breakfasts? I confess I found the wine cellar more appealing company.” He gestured to the chair opposite. “Sit. You look as though you are about to face a firing squad rather than an elderly gentleman with poor circulation and a fondness for his own voice.”

Darcy wiped stray cat hairs from the armchair and sat. The cat lifted her head, assessed him with her imperious gaze, and leaped from the desk to settle in his lap. Darcy scratched behind her ears, and the purring was immediate and loud.

“She has defected,” Mr. Bennet observed. “I raised that cat from a kitten, and she abandons me for a man in a well-cut coat. I begin to understand how King Lear felt.”

“I am certain her loyalty to you remains unshaken, sir.”

“Her affection extends to whoever provides the warmest lap and the most reliable source of cream. You, Mr. Darcy, have apparently qualified on both counts.” He drew on his pipe, exhaling a thin stream of smoke. “But you have not come to discuss feline allegiances.”

“No, sir.” Darcy kept his hand from drifting to his cravat, and cleared his throat. “I have come to ask for your second daughter’s hand. To propose to Miss Elizabeth.”

“Have you indeed.” Mr. Bennet leaned back in his chair, steepled his fingers, and regarded Darcy over the tops of them with an expression of such studied neutrality that it bordered on theatre. “I seem to recall giving you rather specific instructions some weeks ago, Mr. Darcy. About wooing. Flattering. Chasing her across muddy fields, or whatever it is gentlemen of ten thousand a year do when they wish to make themselves agreeable.”

“You did.”

“And I recall stipulating that once her temper was sufficiently softened, you might come to me for my blessing.” He paused, allowing the silence to do its work. “Tell me, sir. Have you wooed her?”

“I have,” he said. “Although I confess the methods were unorthodox.”

“I gathered as much. My intelligence reports suggest your courtship has included, in no particular order: rewriting the family entail, surrendering your claim to this estate, hiding a letter in a wall, departing for Derbyshire at considerable speed, and returning with your sister and your friend in tow like a man assembling reinforcements.” Mr. Bennet tilted his head. “Have I omitted anything?”

A flush crept up Darcy’s neck, grateful that the matter of wassailing had escaped Mr. Bennet’s intelligence. “The circumstances were, I admit, somewhat unconventional.”

“The entire affair has been absurd from start to finish—a comedy of errors that would have made Shakespeare weep with envy.” Mr. Bennet’s eyes glinted. “And yet my daughter, who spent most of October informing anyone who would listen that you were the most disagreeable man in England, now runs to your carriage as though you were the last ship leaving a burning port.”

“She—”

“I watched her, Mr. Darcy. We all did. She picked up her skirts and ran.” The amusement faded from his face. “I have not seen Elizabeth run toward anything since she was twelve years old. She walks, she strides, she occasionally stomps when provoked. And she is usually walking fast, walking away, but not running. You, it seems, have made my daughter run toward a man. Most unusual.”

“I like to believe that I have earned her good opinion,” Darcy said.

“Her opinion, perhaps, but as you once said to my wife that the country can in general supply but few subjects for character study, and hence her good opinion may necessarily be limited.”

“I regret any suggestion that her country upbringing is limited.”

“You need not flatter me.” Mr. Bennet puffed on his pipe. “However, I wish you to acknowledge that Elizabeth has never been farther than London, and that only in the company of her uncle and aunt, whom she is familiar with and who cosset her like a fragile piece of porcelain.”

“Mr. Bennet, I am aware of her attachment to her family and home.”

“Yes, you must have observed. Our Elizabeth has walked every acre of this estate. She knows the tenants by name—their children, their ailments, and the state of their roofs. She has roots deeper than that oak in the south meadow, and you are asking me to help you transplant her to Derbyshire.”

“Where she will be loved and admired by my household, Mr. Bennet. My sister already delights in her, and I can assure you that I will do everything possible to ensure she has the happiness she deserves. She will have a carriage and the ability to travel, and her family will be encouraged to visit…”

Mr. Bennet held up a hand, a pained look crossing his face. “She is not fragile, and she is a determined young woman. I am sure she will tell you all is well and rise to the responsibilities of mistress of Pemberley. However, she is at heart a country girl, the daughter of a gentleman of modest estate. I do not believe she even understands the difference in station or the lifestyle of an aristocrat such as yourself, Mr. Darcy. I mean no insult, but my Elizabeth believes, as her mother does, that dining with twenty-four families is sufficient society. She has not been to finishing school, has not attended Mrs. Beaumont’s tea-pouring lessons, has not the art of speaking behind a fan, or even of walking with a yardstick strapped to her back and books atop her head. Her mother speaks too freely, and Elizabeth believes battling her mother’s nerves is a competitive sport. That wit and spark that has so enchanted you will be mocked and disparaged by your society.”

“You cannot know that.” Darcy felt the prick of sweat on his forehead and the panic that his petition might be refused. “I will protect her. My name alone is sufficient.”

“Name, perhaps, will buy whispers behind her back instead of outright slights.” Mr. Bennet’s mouth twitched. “But name will not alleviate the daily weight of living among people who believe your wife married above her station. Dinner parties where the seating arrangement is a declaration of war. Drawing rooms where a woman is measured by her connections before she has opened her mouth.”

“What will you have me to do?” Darcy looked at Mr. Bennet—at the sharp eyes, the lined face, the pipe-smoke curling between them—and understood, with sudden clarity, what this interview was really about. He, too, if he had a daughter, would be in a similar state—a father who loved his daughter and was terrified that she would not be happy.

“I cannot deny you the proposal or refuse you,” Mr. Bennet said. “It will be Elizabeth’s decision. But I ask you to count the costs for her. Elizabeth will not only be far from family and familiar faces, or the land she grew up on, but she will be, for the first time in her life, truly away from home.”

The truth pressed close, and for a moment Darcy felt the old unease—the memory of formal dinners, the endless, echoing rooms of Pemberley, grand as any cathedral yet curiously uncertain of their purpose. He had loved those rooms, but he had also learned the distinction between magnificence and comfort, and the peculiar loneliness that could flourish in the midst of both.

“Pemberley has two hundred rooms,” Darcy said, “and for most of my life, the only ones that felt like home were the library and the kitchen garden where my mother kept her roses.” He paused, aware that he was giving Mr. Bennet something he did not give easily—the interior of his life, laid open. Cleo’s purr vibrated against his ribs. “What Elizabeth did for Longbourn, she can do for Pemberley. She would bring the warmth, care for its tenants, delight in its beauty, and enliven the family and the grounds. I would give her free rein to entertain, invite her sisters, and even set up a schoolhouse for the tenant children, as my mother had wished. She will make Pemberley hers, as she made Longbourn hers, because she cannot help it. It is her nature.”

“And you will not object when she rearranges your two hundred rooms to her liking?”