Page 9 of The Longbourn Bloodline

“Yes, I suppose she does.” Mr. Bennet settled himself against the sideboard. “She has a talent for managing things, does Lizzy. The household accounts, for instance. The quarterly rents. The tenant disputes, the Turners’ well and the Miller boy’s apprenticeship fee. The drainage, which I gather you have already inspected.”

Darcy’s hand stilled on his cards. “You permit a young lady to manage estate business?”

Mrs. Goulding’s fan froze mid-flutter, and Mrs. Long leaned forward, licking her lips to relish the retelling.

Mr. Bennet’s eyebrows rose. “My dear Mr. Darcy, I do not permit Lizzy to do anything. I have not successfully permitted or forbidden that child since she was nine years old, when she informed me that my Latin translations contained six errors. She was correct about five of them.” He took a meditative sip of port. “We have not had a steward at Longbourn for some years. I found the expense difficult to justify when I had a perfectly capable daughter who could argue with tenants and balance a ledger with rather more precision than old Mr. Whitmore ever managed.”

Darcy could not countenance the horror of such neglect. “You would impose an estate of this scale, admittedly small, on a delicate young lady. Mr. Bennet, I believe you require the oversight of a competent man to handle tenant grievances and budget for repairs. I should not have been surprised to discover the state of the drainage of the lower fields.”

Elizabeth turned on Darcy, her dark eyes flashing with the bright, dangerous clarity of drawn steel. “Pray, do not strain your delicate sensibilities on my account. I assure you, my constitution survived the burden of our ledgers long before you arrived to inspect our mud with such professional horror.”

She leaned across the green baize, her fingers resting lightly over her stack of copper winnings as if ready to hurl them at him.

“And as for requiring a competent man to manage our affairs,” she continued, “Longbourn has managed quite well without one. If such gentlemen are so easily undone by a cracked tile and a fallen tree, it is a wonder Derbyshire hasn’t slid entirely into the Trent.”

Mrs. Long could contain herself no longer. “Oh, Miss Lizzy is wonderfully capable, Mr. Darcy. Quite the little steward. My nieces, of course, occupy themselves with more ladylike pursuits—needlework, watercolors, the pianoforte—but I have always said there is something rather charming about a young woman who understands field rotation.”

Mrs. Goulding nodded vigorously. “Indeed, indeed. And Miss Elizabeth is so very energetic. One sees her tramping across the fields at all hours. The exercise has done wonders for her constitution, though perhaps less for her complexion. Still, a sturdy wife is not to be dismissed, Mr. Darcy. Sturdy wives bear sons.”

Elizabeth’s cards hit the table with a snap that silenced both women.

“How fortunate,” she said, her voice pleasant as a paper cut, “that my qualifications are being so thoroughly measured for Mr. Darcy’s consideration. Shall a competent man audit my ledgers? Perhaps a letter of reference from the tenants? I should hate for Mr. Darcy to make an uninformed decision about my… sturdiness.”

Darcy’s eyes narrowed, a muscle jumping in his jaw as he stared at her. He had intended to reprimand her father’s laxity, not find himself pinned under the blistering fire of her competence.

Mr. Bennet merely took another slow, delighted sip of his port, watching his daughter lay waste to the proud master of Pemberley. “You see, Mr. Darcy?” he murmured, entirely unbothered. “She argues with tenants far better than I ever did. I suggest you tread lightly, or she will start billing you for your uninvited critique.”

Elizabeth rose from her chair and dropped a single penny on the table in front of Darcy’s glass of brandy. Clink.

“For your troubles, sir. I understand Commerce can be quite taxing for gentlemen unaccustomed to losing.”

CHAPTER FOUR

THE TENANT WALK

Elizabeth had suffered many indignities at the high hand of Fitzwilliam Darcy, but being conscripted as tour guide for the future master of Longbourn was a fresh torment. Yet there she stood, wrapped in her oldest pelisse, boots that had seen better seasons, and a brown bonnet selected expressly for its ability to facilitate a discreet retreat behind any frostbitten hedge at a moment’s notice.

“You’ll want Lizzy,” her father had recommended over the breakfast table when she had descended expecting nothing more than Mamma’s additions to the Eligible Gentlemen of Hertfordshire field guide, which consisted of more scratched-out names than actual entries. “She knows where all the bodies are buried—metaphorically speaking, of course. The drainage ditches, the troublesome fences, and the tenants who require… delicate handling.”

And here, her genial father had smirked and gestured at his second daughter. “Ah, there you are, Lizzy, flush from your Commerce winnings.”

“I am certain Mr. Darcy requires no escort from me, Papa.” She refused to look his direction. “A gentleman of his refinement does not require my delicate steps to escort him across a muddy pasture. He can inspect a rutted lane quite well on his own, or else his professional horror is entirely for show.”

Mr. Bennet merely chuckled, waving a butter knife lazily. “Nonsense, my dear. You care far too much for the tenantry to let him trample over them without supervision. They might panic and assume we had sent the bailiffs at last.”

“He will not be here long, Papa,” she said, still not acknowledging Darcy’s presence. “A week, perhaps two, before the novelty of leaking roofs and insufficient drainage sends him back to Derbyshire.”

“Then humor him while his purse strings are loose.” Mr. Bennet folded his newspaper with the air of a man who had already won. “Do try not to push Mr. Darcy into any ditches, Lizzy. The drainage is already troublesome enough without adding a body.”

Elizabeth bit her tongue. She would walk through fire before letting any of the tenants face this man’s scrutiny without someone to shield them from the worst of his condescension.

And so, Elizabeth swallowed her coffee in great haste, burning the tip of her tongue, chewed on a crust of bread, and donned her brownest bonnet to trek alongside a man wearing superfine trousers, a navy blue coat with gleaming brass buttons, and tall Hessian boots as if visiting Hertfordshire tenants were a stroll through Mayfair.

She half-expected a diamond-encrusted walking stick to appear as they strode over the threshold and down a frosted path. And she stubbornly kept her mouth shut the same way he did at the Netherfield ball.

Darcy walked beside her, his jaw set against the morning chill and his boots picking their way through the muck with fastidious irritation. “If your father imagined this excursion would serve as an agreeable morning stroll, he profoundly underestimated your capacity for silent martyrdom, Miss Elizabeth.”

“My martyrdom would be considerably more vocal if you were not breathing down my neck like an over-inspected bailiff,” she snapped back, not slowing her pace by a fraction. “You disapprove of my handling the estate accounts.”