The Ballad of Gregoire Darcy (31 page)

“Come. Dinner must be almost ready. There is a wonderful selection of French wines this year, and you may drink all that you like while your poor brother can have none.”

“I forget—is Geoffrey old enough to join us?”

“Not yet, thank goodness, or we would have to temper our speech.” He sighed. “That day will come soon enough.”

“Temper what speech? You say nothing in company, nothing at all.”

“I wouldn't say
nothing
—”

“Almost nothing. Monosyllables.”

They slowly walked back to Pemberley proper. “If my doctor permitted me to drink—I tell you, it would be a different story. I am a lush.”

“So I have heard from Mr. Bingley.”

“Bingley! We should give him strong drink and find out what he
really
did in India. I keep hearing a tiger mentioned and still know nothing about it.”

“Why would Mr. Bingley have a story about a tiger?”

“Precisely.”

They laughed their way back to the house.

CHAPTER 21

DARCY HAD BEEN BACK at Pemberley for less than three weeks when he called Elizabeth into his study, where the day's mail was piled up. He had been perusing a note about an offer on an estate holding when he noticed the letter from Longbourn, sorted accidentally into his pile. “From your father,” he said to her. The missive, he was sure, was not urgent, or it would have come by an express courier.

Mr. Bennet rarely wrote; he had a passion for the written word, not for writing, and often lamented that there was little to say about life in Longbourn that mattered enough for the cost of the letter. Elizabeth immediately opened the letter and sat down to read it. She giggled. “It seems that Mary has had a caller.”

“Ah, yes.The protégé,” Darcy said, relieved that at least one Bennet romance was going as intended without his aid; he was eager to leave it that way, if at all possible. “What does your father make of this development?” he said, as she was sure to tell him anyway.

She happily read him the letter, likely omitting some words, but the letter was not long to begin with.

They decided it was good news (they could hardly decide otherwise). “He is a sensible young man,” Darcy said, “and they are always in short supply.” He rose and kissed his wife on her cheek. “I must find my brother. Do excuse me.”

“You are excused,” she said with a smile. She rose to leave moments after he disappeared, and stopped only to glance at the torn envelope, one of the documents that her husband had been reading when she entered. It had not escaped her notice that he was bothered by them. The name in the upper left corner of the envelope brought no recognition, being an address from the Isle of Man.
How odd
, she thought to herself. But then again, he had many holdings, inherited from both sides of the family (including Rosings
and portions of Kent), so she put the thought aside to seek out her sister, who was there for lunch, to share the more interesting news.

The gun fired but missed its target, a passing bird. The shot was so wild that the fowl was in no danger of it.

“Maybe you should try stationary targets,” Georgiana Bingley said.

Geoffrey Darcy put the gun down to reload it. “All you
do
is hit stationary targets.”

“When they make an archery target that moves, I will be happy to shoot it,” she said, and loaded and fired her bow in less time than it took him to push down the canister for the next shot. It hit the red circle in the middle. Only three shots out of ten had failed to do so. “This is so boring.”

“You could hunt.”

“You know Mama would never let me do such a thing. Can you imagine me tramping through the woods with a bow and arrow after a deer? I would ruin my dress and never hear the end of it.”

“I can imagine that, actually.”

She frowned in annoyance. “I mean, me tramping through the woods with
permission
to do so. Quite a different thing. Plus, I think my father would be suspicious if I returned with a fawn slung over my shoulders.”

“Not ladylike.”

“No.”

Geoffrey's dog returned, having had nothing to retrieve. “Sorry, Gawain,” Geoffrey said, petting him on the head. He put his rifle down and picked up one of Georgiana's arrows and tossed it.“Fetch.”

“Hey!”

“Considering all the arrows you've lost over the years, you can afford to give one to poor Gawain.”

“He's poor only because he never has anything to bring back but things you toss him.”

Geoffrey did not respond to the jibe, accustomed to her sarcasm as he was. Instead, he just let his errant dog return and tossed it again. Sir Gawain was four, and most energetic, which Geoffrey's father liked. His father did not much care for the name, but he had been overruled by his mother, who thought it was more amusing than a traditional name for a pup.

“Do you have anything else to do but insult my marksmanship?”

“Oh yes,” Georgie said. “I must learn to dance, sew, draw, paint, sing, and if I have time before supper, play the pianoforte; all casually, of course. It would be indecorous for me to attempt to become a professional at anything.”

He said, “You know how to do some of those things.”

“But they must be perfected.”

“And after that?”

“That's the part I haven't worked out. Everyone I know who is unattached seems so terribly bored.”

“I like your drawings,” he said. “It's a shame your governess burned them.They were…imaginative.”

“There are only so many flowers in this world to be drawn,” she said. “Should we wake your uncle?”

“I don't know how he succeeds in sleeping through the racket this rifle makes,” he said. “Probably because he wakes at half past three every morning—terrifies the servants every time.”

“Still? Did anyone tell him he doesn't have to keep monastic hours anymore?”

He glanced at her. “Do you want to be the one to tell him?”

To this, she had no response. They gathered their materials and headed down the hill, where Grégoire was asleep against a tree, his head lolling to one side. Fortunately, they were able to rouse Grégoire before Geoffrey's father showed up, because he was supposed to be watching them, not the reverse.

“There you are,” Darcy said as he arrived. He nodded to his niece. “Miss Bingley.”

“Uncle Darcy,” she said with a curtsy.

“Father.”

Grégoire wiped his eyes. “I am sorry. Am I late for something?”

“No, not at all. There was something I wanted to discuss with you. Geoffrey, you're late for French—”

“
Aww—
”

“And Miss Bingley, I am sure you are late for
something.
”

She did not reply, but merely curtsied and ran off, back toward Kirkland.

“Shoot anything?” Darcy asked his son.

“No.”

“Did you at least fire in the general direction?”

Geoffrey colored. Grégoire tried to hide his amusement. But Darcy patted his son on the shoulder. “When I was your age, I couldn't hit the broad side of a building. Most of what I know, I learned from your Uncle Bingley—and to this day, he can still best me. But that will be our secret. Mention it in front of your uncle—whichever one you like—and you will regret it.”

“Of course, Father.” That was his cue to exit, and he bowed briefly to them and ran back up the hill toward Pemberley, Gawain racing ahead of him. “I will not be outrun by my cousin and a dog on the same day!”

Unfortunately, he had not yet learned the value of promising himself things that would turn out to be unattainable.

Darcy sat down on the stump beside his brother. He did not ask how he was feeling—Grégoire had tired of it, even though he did not express his agitation in words. He was bordering on actually being well; it was only a matter of energy. “I trust that they behaved themselves for the time you weren't asleep?”

“They are wonderful children,” his brother replied. “What brings you away from your ledgers?”

“I will endure this from my wife, but not from you,” Darcy said with a laugh. “It is a proposal.”

“A proposal?”

“I have a holding on the Isle of Man that I inherited with the estate—a house on a small island in the south. It has been sitting idle since Father died, and now someone has made an offer on it. Before I sell it, I want to see it again. He may have left some personal effects there, as he did in Valgones. And I must decide on a price,” he said. “I would very much like for you to accompany me, if you feel up to it.”

“It is a short journey by sea, is it not?”

“If we leave from Liverpool, it would not be more than a few hours at most. Plenty of time to hold your stomach.”

Grégoire smiled. “Then I would be happy to accompany you.”