Darcy in Want of a Wife

Chapter 2

“Are you enjoying the dance, Mr. Darcy?”

Darcy was thankful that he was an experienced dancer, as his feet made their stately way along the line without conscious thought.

“I am, Miss Stowe,” he replied and lapsed into his usual silence. He was never a particularly loquacious man, but now, with his heart beating with unaccustomed fervor, and his eyes lingering on his partner’s face, he was entirely tongue tied.

The couple completed several more figures in silence, and then Miss Stowe said, “I believe you arrived from London only today, sir?”

“I did.”

“Do you hail from Town, Mr. Darcy?”

“No, I was born and raised in Derbyshire.”

“Oh!” Miss Stowe replied, her face lighting up. “I have never been to Derbyshire, but one of my aunts spent much of her childhood in that county. She lives in Cheapside now but has often regaled me with stories of the hills and lakes and wild beauty of Derbyshire.”

Darcy found his heart warming within him at these words. “Do you remember where she lived?”

“A little town called Lambton,” his companion said immediately.

“Lambton! That is only a few miles from my birthplace!”

“How remarkable!” Miss Stowe said, her dark eyes glowing with pleasure. “Is the area as beautiful as my Aunt Gardiner remembers?”

“If anything, it is even more beautiful,” Darcy said fervently.

“You are blessed! I love Hertfordshire, but it is rather flat, which is good for the farmers, but is not particularly majestic.”

“There is something to be said for flat fields,” Darcy remarked absently, his eyes fixed on his partner’s clear skin, framed by her fiery locks.

“Indeed there is,” Miss Stowe agreed cheerfully. “I live at Longbourn, which is about a mile from here and runs along the western edge of Netherfield. The soil of Longbourn is rich and good, and none of the fields ever flood.”

This broke Darcy out of his admiring reverie, and he said, “I am surprised that you are aware of such things, Miss Stowe.”

His words were harsher than he intended, and he winced internally, only to be relieved as his partner chuckled and said, “I believe in Town very few ladies are much acquainted with such details, but I am a country girl at heart. The Bennets depend on the rents, after all, thus, it is important that the tenants be cared for well.”

“That is true enough,” Darcy agreed and lapsed once more into silence.

An odd confusion reigned in his heart and mind. He had rarely found his attraction to a woman so roused, certainly not by the colorless young ladies of the ton. But Miss Stowe’s fiery red hair was as bright as her wide joyous smile, both qualities noticeably lacking in the impeccably finished blondes and brunettes of high society, who had been taught to restrain themselves to small smiles and slight titters. Darcy found little to interest him in such gestures, but Miss Stowe’s open happiness enchanted him.

The music came to an end, and Darcy clapped along with the others, and then asked, “Would you care for some punch, Miss Stowe?”

“Thank you, yes,” the lady replied, putting her hand lightly on his. He guided her over to the table and handed her a glass, his gaze lingering on her expressive face and lively eyes.

“Mr. Darcy, will you not introduce us to your acquaintance?” an arch voice inquired from his right.

Darcy turned, surprised by those familiar polished accents so close to hand. Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst stood nearby, the elder sister waving her fan in a bored and languid way, the younger staring intently and unsmilingly at Miss Stowe. Darcy was puzzled for a moment; Miss Bingley had, heretofore, evinced no interest in any of the local gentry, and he could not think what about Miss Stowe would attract Miss Bingley’s attention.

A few seconds later, he suppressed a wince and a sigh. Of course, Miss Bingley’s easy jealousy had been awakened. She, in her determination to become Mrs. Darcy, had come to look on him with a proprietary air, regarding with disfavor his attentions to any other woman beside herself and her safely married sister. She had few enough occasions to exercise this undesirable trait, for Darcy rarely danced with any woman of marriageable age with whom he was not already well acquainted.

He was not much inclined to subject pleasant Miss Stowe to Miss Bingley’s sharp tongue, but the laws of propriety dictated that, once an introduction had been asked for, it must be performed. So he turned towards Miss Bingley and her sister, gesturing courteously, and said, “Of course. Mrs. Hurst, Miss Bingley, may I please introduce you to Miss Stowe. Miss Stowe, Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley, sisters of my friend Mr. Bingley.”

The ladies curtsied and Miss Bingley said, with a smirk, “It is a delight to meet you, Miss Stowe. I do not remember – have I met your family tonight?”

Darcy, who had been watching Miss Bingley off and on throughout the evening, knew that the lady had avoided being introduced to most of the families, and wondered why she had said such a thing.

“You may have met my aunt and cousins, the Bennets, whom I live with,” Miss Stowe said composedly.

“Oh yes! Your elder cousin is Miss Bennet? She is such a lovely woman! My brother seems quite taken with her!”

Miss Stowe turned toward the dance floor, where Bingley was dancing again with Miss Bennet, and smiled fondly. “Yes, Jane is the handsomest woman of my acquaintance, and the kindest as well.”

“You are fortunate to have such generous relations,” Miss Bingley continued with a knowing smile.

“I am,” Miss Stowe agreed.

/

On the Road to Netherfield

Later

“She is a veritable angel!” Bingley enthused, in answer to Mrs. Hurst’s vaguely snide observation that he had been much taken with Miss Jane Bennet. “Upon my word, I am certain that I have never met a woman who so effortlessly combined such loveliness of face and such amiability of temper!”

“She is well enough, I suppose,” Miss Bingley said, “though she was the only one. A dull gathering, filled with people of little beauty and less fashion. As for their conversation – deplorable! Utterly provincial and dreadfully insipid.”

“You are too harsh, sister,” Mrs. Hurst said. “I am certain that such topics as occupy their minds are entirely suitable to the insignificant backwater they inhabit.”

“You are both being unkind,” Bingley said. “I did not find them at all boring, but instead charming, eager to please and be pleased. And no lady, I believe, could be as enchanting as Miss Bennet!”

“Miss Bennet is a sweet girl and perhaps worth knowing,” Miss Bingley admitted, “though I suppose we cannot keep from speaking to her cousin, Miss Stowe, which is bound to be awkward.”

“Why would you wish to avoid Miss Stowe?” Darcy demanded, speaking for the first time since he had entered the carriage.

He could not see his friend’s sister in the darkness, but he heard her unladylike snort. “It is obvious, is it not? She must be, at best, an indigent relation, and at worse, a by-blow of some relative.”

“Caroline!” Bingley remonstrated, so sharply that Darcy was surprised. “How can you say such a thing?”

“Oh Charles, I will not say it in public, of course, but surely it is obvious, no? That fiery red hair is so very unattractive, and she looks nothing like her cousins, who are all blue-eyed blondes!”

Darcy opened his mouth to protest that he found red hair very attractive and then closed it with a snap. He knew Miss Bingley, knew that she was prone to jealousy and meanness, and he had already betrayed his own attraction to Miss Stowe by dancing with her.

“You have no right to say such things,” Bingley said severely. “Caroline, I must insist that you never say such a thing again. The Bennets are among the leading families in the area, and if you gossip about their cousin, it would doubtless provoke outrage among the local gentry.”

“I do not care about the local gentry,” Miss Bingley said haughtily.

“You should,” Darcy said. “Your brother has leased an estate here and will find it far easier to manage his estate if he is on good terms with his neighbors. I understand that Longbourn marches along the western border of Netherfield, and thus it behooves Bingley to be on good terms with the Bennets.”

“Exactly,” Bingley agreed.

Miss Bingley merely sniffed.

/

Drawing Room

Longbourn

The Next Morning

The October sky was a deep azure, highlighted by the wisps of white cloud smeared across the blue as though an artist’s negligent brush had dabbed a canvas. Below, a playful breeze rippled through foliage of bright crimson and brilliant orange and golden yellow, brown peeping like birds around their more colorful fellows and the last of the green leaves tending towards chartreuse.

The drawing room door opened, and Mr. Stanley, the butler, stepped inside. “Lady Lucas and the Misses Lucas,” he announced, and withdrew.

There was a flurry inside the room as Mrs. Bennet and her girls hastily set aside books and sewing and sketchpads and stood up, all beaming.

“Good morning!” Mrs. Bennet cried out hospitably. “Do sit down, and we will have tea shortly. It was a wonderful assembly last night, was it not?”

“It was,” Lady Lucas replied, obeying her hostess by taking a comfortable chair near the window. Her two daughters sat down as well, the elder nearby Jane and Elizabeth, the younger close to Kitty and Lydia.

“It could have been better though,” she continued with a sigh. “I had hoped that Mr. Bingley would bring more gentlemen from London.”

“One wealthy man is far more superior than none,” Mrs. Bennet said and turned to Charlotte. “Youbegan the evening well, Charlotte. Youwere Mr. Bingley’s first choice.”

“Yes, but he seemed to like his second better,” Charlotte said with determined cheer.

“Oh, you mean Jane, I suppose, because he danced with her twice. To be sure, heseems as if he admires her, but of course it is early days yet. He danced with many ladies, which is to his great credit; quite unlike his friend, Mr. Darcy, who danced only with his own party and with Lizzy. I expect he must be poor and in want of a wealthy bride, which is a pity – such a handsome...”

“Poor?” Lady Lucas interrupted. “Not at all, my dear Mrs. Bennet! Mr. Darcy is the master of a great estate in Derbyshire and is very rich indeed, with an income of ten thousand pounds per annum!”

This provoked gasps of astonishment from Elizabeth and her cousins, and Mrs. Bennet demanded, “Ten thousand pounds? Truly?”

“Truly,” Lady Lucas replied, obviously pleased that she knew something which her neighbor had not. “He is also, according to Miss Bingley, the nephew of an earl. He is undoubtedly a distinguished young man!”

“Whatever did you speak of, Lizzy, during the dance?” Lydia, the youngest of the Bennet daughters, demanded.

“We spoke of Derbyshire, mostly,” Elizabeth replied. “He was born and raised in that county, and his estate must be near Lambton, which is where Aunt Gardiner grew up, you know. He said it is a beautiful area.”

“I am certain it is,” Jane said. “It was kind of Mr. Darcy to dance with Lizzy when there were not enough gentlemen.”

“Yes,” Charlotte agreed. “We all know that thanks to the war, there have not been enough gentlemen for many years.”

“Quite,” Mrs. Bennet said and turned a bright smile on Lady Lucas. “I am planning to host a dinner party soon; would you care to join us, along with the Netherfield party?”

“We would be delighted,” Lady Lucas said.