Getting Miss Elizabeth’s approbation was hard enough without Fitzwilliams “help.”

Part 4

Ginger raced ahead of Darcy, breaking through a narrow opening in the hedgerow. Darcy started to follow, but paused at the sound of voices.

“Your cousin’s conduct does not suit my feelings. Why was he to be the judge?” Was that Miss Elizabeth?

“You are rather disposed to call his interference officious?” Fitzwilliam? What had Fitzwilliam told her?

“I do not see what right Mr. Darcy had to decide on the propriety of his friend’s inclination, or why, upon his own judgment alone, he was to determine and direct in what manner that friend was to be happy. But, as we know none of the particulars, it is not fair to condemn him. It is not to be supposed that there was much affection in the case.” She sounded so much like her mother just now—that could not be a good thing.

He peeked through the hedges. Her face was the very picture of righteous indignation.

“That is not an unnatural surmise, but it is lessening the honor of my cousin’s triumph very sadly.”

Darcy slapped his forehead. No, he could not have—did Fitzwilliam just tell Miss Elizabeth about Bingley? How could he?

Darcy burst through the bushes and into their path. “Miss Elizabeth, Fitzwilliam.” Brushing leaves off his lapel, he glowered at his cousin who shrank back. “Pray forgive the intrusion. I am on a mission to retrieve Ginger.” He reached for the cat.

Ginger flattened his ears and pressed back into Miss Elizabeth’s arms, clearly no happier with him than Miss Elizabeth was.

She slid several steps back, maneuvering the cat out of his reach. “He does not seem disposed to your company, sir.”

“It seems, perhaps that you are not either. Pray forgive that I overheard a bit of your conversation.” He glared again at Fitzwilliam. “Grant me your forbearance and pray allow me to speak for myself in this matter.”

Fitzwilliam scooted out of the way and bowed. “That sounds like a most excellent suggestion. Pray excuse me.” He scurried away.

At least the army had taught him when retreat was a necessity.

Miss Elizabeth fixed such a look on him! Had her mother or a stern governess taught her that? It was all he could do not to wither in the face of it.

He ran a finger around the inside edge of his cravat. “Er, ah, I believe my cousin shared some matters that I thought were to be held in confidence with you?”

“It seems he has.” Icicles dripped from her voice.

“And you do not approve of what you have heard.”

“Should I?” Ginger’s tail whipped back and forth across her apron and he glared over his shoulder at Darcy. “By all appearances your pride and caprice have ruined every hope of happiness for the most affectionate, generous heart in the world. No one could say how lasting an evil you might have inflicted. I cannot possibly take that lightly! No motive can excuse the unjust and ungenerous part you acted. You dare not, you cannot deny that you have been the principal, if not the only means of dividing Mr. Bingley and Jane from each other, of exposing one to the censure of the world for caprice and instability, the other to its derision for disappointed hopes, and involving them both in misery of the acutest kind.”

He blinked and edged back. “I have no wish of denying that I did everything in my power to separate my friend from your sister, or that I rejoice in my success.” Or at least he had until just now.

“How could you object to Jane herself? There could be no possibility of objection! All loveliness and goodness as she is! Her understanding is excellent, her mind improved, and her manners captivating.”  Color crept up her cheeks.

“I grant that there is truth in what you are saying.”

“How very kind of you.” Did she know her words carried a razor edge?

Probably. He swallowed hard; he had to continue, this might be the only chance he had to explain himself. However poor that explanation might be, he had to try. “I had not been long in Hertfordshire, before I saw that Bingley preferred your eldest sister to any other young woman in the country. But it was not till the evening of the dance at Netherfield that I had any apprehension of his feeling a serious attachment. I had often seen him in love before.”

Perhaps that was not the right way to have begun an explanation. Her eyes widened, like Ginger’s just before he pounced. “In love? You mean he makes a habit of toying with the affection of ladies?”

“No, he does not toy with them. But he has, more than once fancied that he had feelings for them. At that ball, while I had the honor of dancing with you, I was first made acquainted, by Sir William Lucas’s accidental information, that Bingley’s attentions to your sister had given rise to a general expectation of their marriage. He spoke of it as a certain event. From that moment I observed my friend’s behavior attentively. I could then perceive that his partiality for Miss Bennet was beyond what I had ever witnessed in him.” Beyond what he had witnessed in anyone up until that time. Besotted was the only way to truly describe it. But best not share that.

“So you admit you understood the depth of his affections for her?”

“Your sister I also watched. Her look and manners were open, cheerful, and engaging as ever, but without any symptom of peculiar regard. I remained convinced from the evening’s scrutiny, that though she received his attentions with pleasure, she did not invite them by any participation of sentiment.”

Her brows creased and she broke eye contact as though suddenly pondering what he said. That was a good sign. Hopefully.

“If you have not been mistaken here, I must have been in error. Your superior knowledge of your sister must make the latter probable. If it be so, if I have been misled by such error, to inflict pain on her, your resentment is not unreasonable. But I assert that the serenity of your sister’s countenance was such that the most acute observer might believe that, however amiable her temper, her heart was not likely to be easily touched. That I was desirous of believing her indifferent is certain, but I will venture to say that my investigations and decisions are not usually influenced by my hopes or fears. I did not believe her to be indifferent because I wished it; I believed it on impartial conviction.”

She stomped one step toward him. “And if now I tell you that you were entirely and utterly incorrect in every assumption you made?”

“If I have wounded your sister’s feelings, it was unknowingly done; and though the motives which governed me may to you very naturally appear insufficient, I have not yet learnt to condemn them. I still cannot regard looking towards the best interests of my friend as an evil.”

“And it was only your perception of Jane’s lack of affection toward Mr. Bingley that made her objectionable.” Her eyes narrowed as she made eye contact once again.

The cat’s meow.

“That was my highest concern, although,” he swallowed hard, “the situation of your mother’s family in trade, though objectionable, was nothing in comparison of that total want of propriety so frequently, so almost uniformly, betrayed by herself, by your three younger sisters, and occasionally even by your father. Pardon me. It pains me to offend you. But let it give you consolation to consider that for you and your sister to have conducted yourselves so as to avoid any share of the like censure is praise no less generally bestowed on you and your eldest sister, than it is honorable to the sense and disposition of both.”

She colored and turned aside. Ginger looked at him over her shoulder as if to warn him that more needed to be said.

Will Darcy take Ginger’s advice? Is it even a good idea? Tell me in the comments.

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