Page 75 of A November to Remember

“You love her, Cousin,” Darcy stated the fact.

Robert collapsed back onto the bed, burying his face in his hands.

“I love her,” Robert whispered, the words tearing out of him. “And I am unworthy of her. I am a rake, Fitzwilliam. A careful one, perhaps, but a rake nonetheless. I have nothing to offer a creature of such pure, untainted goodness.”

Darcy moved closer, his heart aching for the man who hid his torment behind lace and sarcasm. “Why do you not speak with her? Why do you insist on deciding what she deserves without allowing her a voice in the matter?”

Robert lifted his head, his eyes bleak. “She cares for Bingley.”

“I am not convinced of that,” Darcy replied thoughtfully, recalling his recent observations. “In my understanding, if she were truly attached to Bingley, his withdrawal would have left her devastated. But Miss Bennet is not devastated. She is angry. I saw it clearly the day Mr Collins arrived.”

“Indeed, Brother,” Richard murmured, his voice gentle. “A lady weeping for a lost love does not typically look at the man with quite so much venom.”

Robert stared at Darcy, a tiny spark of hope igniting in his eyes. “You truly believe that?”

“I believe you must let her make her own decision,” came the firm reply.

Robert swallowed hard. “I shall think on it. Perhaps... perhaps I shall recruit my allies, Mrs Bennet and Mrs Philips—”

“There is no Alliance!” Darcy, Richard, Dawson, and Dickinson shouted in perfect unison.

Robert raised both hands in surrender. “Very well, very well! Do not shoot me.”

Chapter Eighteen: The Gentle Art of Sending People Away

November 23rd, 1811

Caroline had been pacing for the last three quarters of an hour. The fire crackled in the grate, failing to thaw the ice in her chest. Charles had been upstairs, enclosed in Viscount Keathley’s bedchamber, after he was unceremoniously summoned by that fearsome valet, Boodles.

She glanced at Louisa, who lay draped on the smaller sofa, pressing a damp cloth over her eyes. In the far corner, Mr Hurst occupied the leather armchair, producing a steady snore, dead to the world and its impending social disasters.

“Charles has a constitution unsuited to independent thought.” Caroline stopped before the window, glaring at the shrubbery. “If that viscount raises his voice for another quarter-hour, Charles will trot down to Longbourn and propose to the girl out of sheer intimidation.”

Louisa shifted her weight, groaning softly. “Merely planting doubts in his mind is insufficient, Caroline. You told him she is only compliant, but he is a romantic. The moment she smiles at him over a teacup, he will forget every sensible warning. We must remove him from the county.”

Caroline turned away from the glass and stared at her sister, deeply impressed. Nausea occasionally bestowed clarity on Louisa.

“London.” Caroline tapped her fingernails on the windowsill. “You are correct, Sister. We must return to town immediately. Once he is back among proper society, surrounded by women whose mothers do not haggle over the price of fish, this infatuation will evaporate.”

Louisa lowered the cloth, her eyes red-rimmed and miserable. “Are we doing the right thing, Caro? Miss Bennet is a gentle creature. She has never spoken an unkind word to either of us. Perhaps she would make him happy.”

Caroline’s demeanour turned cruel. “Happiness is a luxury for fools, Louisa. We are discussing our survival.”

She sat next to her sister. Louisa did not understand the true peril. She was already safely married. Mr Hurst had no ambition, no intellect, and an alarming fondness for cheese, but he owned a respectable house in Grosvenor Square. Louisa’s position was secure.

Caroline’s position hung by a frayed thread.

Their father had acquired his fortune in trade. He had spent his life surrounded by ledgers, warehouses, and the smell of soot in the northern manufacturing towns. Caroline had dedicated her existence to scrubbing that soot from the Bingley name. She had learned Italian, she had purchased gowns from Paris, and she had cultivated the friendship of Fitzwilliam Darcy, enduring his lack of conversation for years, all to elevate herself into the untouchable heights of the aristocracy.

If Charles married Jane Bennet, everything Caroline had built would turn to ash. Jane Bennet would become the mistress of the house, and Caroline would be relegated to the status of the spinster sister, living under the roof of a woman whose mother had the volume of a town crier. She would be forced to defer to a nobody. Society would laugh and the Bingley name would sink right back into the mud.

“I refuse to be subordinate to her.” Caroline stared at the fireplace, imagining a future involving Mrs Bennet visiting daily. “I refuse to let that woman dictate the bill of fare in my dining room.”

Louisa’s stomach offered a complaining rumble. She squeezed her eyes shut, her face paling. “Oh, heavens. It is happening again.”

Caroline abandoned her misgivings for domestic duties, walking to the bell pull and giving it a sharp tug.

A maid appeared in the doorway mere seconds later.