Page 37 of A Mismatched Compromise

He had not, until the words left his mouth, been aware that he had made this decision. But he found he had, that it was clearly actualised in his mind and had been for some time, and he felt a sense of relief to have acknowledged it.

“She is still engaged to me,” Bingley pointed out, as though it were common to remind your closest friend that the woman he had just announced he intended to propose to was, in fact, your own fiancée.

“She is,” Darcy agreed. “And if you object to my doing so, I will not. But you have told us yourself that you cannot, in good conscience, marry her, but that you cannot be so dishonourable as to discard her. I have told you that something may present itself, and…well…” He gestured vaguely, as though that tied up the statement clearly. “Whenever I have your permission, Bingley, I am determined to ask her to be my wife.”

“There will be objections,” Fitzwilliam said. “Not mine, to be sure. A clever and spirited wife is exactly what you need, Darcy, and Lord knows you do not need any more money. But others in our family will not feel the same.”

“You are quite right. For one, Aunt Catherine will object,” Darcy said, “loudly and at length, and to anyone who will stand still long enough to hear it. I am not certain about the rest.”

“My father does not object,” Fitzwilliam said. “He told me he likes her, and that you are a fool, which is practically a blessing coming from the old man. Mother will not object when the old man has approved. Lionel will, but no one cares what Lionel has to say. So you cannot use us as an excuse any longer.”

Darcy gave him a hard look, but didn’t dispute the accusation, as it was not, technically, incorrect.

“Well,” Bingley said after a moment. “I had never imagined a scenario in which I would give my best friend permission to propose to my fiancée, but, by all means, Darcy, do so with my blessing. I confess, I would be able to end the engagement with a clear conscience if I knew she were to marry you. She deserves a man who esteems her properly, and who matches her in wit and intelligence, which we all know I do not,” he finished with a self-deprecating grin.

“We all know she runs intellectual circles around you, Bingley, but don’t feel badly,” Fitzwilliam said airily. “You are wealthy enough that you don’t need to be bright.” Bingley threw a pillow at him, and Fitzwilliam ducked, laughing. He turned to his cousin and grinned. “So, Darcy, does this mean Anne is on the market?” he grinned. “Aunt Catherine already ruins most holidays with her presence, so if I marry Anne, at least I wouldn’t be adding an unpleasant mother-in-law to the table, as she is already there.”

Darcy groaned, considered and discarded the idea of throwing another pillow at his irrepressible cousin, then filled their glasses one more time, emptying the decanter.

Chapter 18

Elizabeth found Colonel Fitzwilliam in the rose garden, examining a late-blooming climber with the concentration of someone who is attempting to develop an interest in something that he finds not at all worthy of his attention.

“You look as though you are attempting to determine why it is that people care so much about roses,” she said, coming up beside him.

“That is exactly what I am doing,” he admitted ruefully. “My mother told me to avail myself of the gardens while I am here, and develop the sort of understanding of plants and such that a well-bred individual ought to have. I have been here for twenty minutes, and I am not sure what I am supposed to have learned, though whatever it is, I suspect it has escaped me entirely. I do believe that I have looked very thoughtful for the entire length of time I have stood here, though, and I am fairly certain I can capture that expression the next time the topic turns to horticulture, so it is not all time wasted.”

Elizabeth laughed and fell into step beside him as he abandoned the rose and continued down the path. She had come to enjoy the company of Colonel Fitzwilliam since he had joined the visit at Pemberley, his easy humour and light-hearted manner inspiring the type of fondness she might have felt toward a pleasant-tempered younger brother if she’d had one of them instead of several increasingly difficult sisters.

“You will be leaving soon, then,” she said. “You and your father both. We shall all miss you exceedingly, though I must confess that I believe my father will be the most despondent of all. I do not think he has enjoyed anyone’s company so thoroughly in my memory as he has enjoyed your father’s.”

“The feeling is entirely mutual,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said. “My father has remarked that Mr Bennet is the only man of his acquaintance who is aware of how thoroughly ridiculous the world is, and that they ought to have been friends thirty years ago and saved themselves a good deal of tedious conversation with less perceptive people in the meantime.”

Elizabeth laughed. “So, our fathers will be lonesome for each other. What of you? Will you miss the company?”

“Dreadfully,” Colonel Fitzwilliam assured her, making Elizabeth laugh again with his theatrical sincerity. “Though I shall console myself with the knowledge that Bonaparte requires my attention rather more urgently than my own amusement does.”

They walked on a little, and Fitzwilliam continued. “I’m sure that I shall be thinking of this situation you have all found yourself in rather often. I must say, Miss Elizabeth, that I believe it is most unfair that you should have to suffer the consequences of a series of events that were not your fault.”

Elizabeth was silent for a moment. “Well, they were more my fault than Mr Bingley’s, and he is suffering them as well. Really, the only person who did nothing foolish at all is my poor Jane, and she may be the most wretched of us all.”

“Is this the patient suffering that is so admired among young ladies?” Colonel Fitzwilliam asked, grinning. “I’ve heard it admired, but never quite saw the reason it should be so valued. And I confess I am quite surprised to find you among the number that cultivate it.”

Elizabeth laughed again at the wicked look he gave her. “I am certainly not so good,” she admitted. “I am quite cross about the whole thing sometimes. Your cousin has nearly driven me out of my mind in dismissing all my excellent plans to rectify the situation in favour of his campaign of letter writing. He refused to even discuss the ways in which I could fake my own death.”

Fitzwilliam blinked at her. “How…terribly unreasonable of him,” he said after a moment.

Elizabeth smiled, pleased to have surprised him. “I take it you agree with him and not with me on this topic?” she asked.

“To the contrary,” Fitzwilliam said. “I was merely surprised, yet again, by the boundless creativity and energy you bring to every problem. I confess, I know no one else who would approach an unwanted engagement from such a direction, and it makes me wonder what type of people I have been surrounding myself with.”

“You are very good to say so,” Elizabeth said, amused.

“I am not good at all,” Fitzwilliam corrected her. “I am merely a younger son with no fortune of my own and a habit of saying whatever occurs to me that most take as a sign of my good humour, because otherwise they would have to find me impertinent, and as it would be a grievous failure of military discipline for a colonel to be impertinent, it must not be so.”

He glanced sideways at her, and she saw the mischief creep into his expression. “Though I will say, if I had any fortune to speak of, I believe I would solve this tangle in an instant by simply marrying you myself. It would solve everything rather neatly, I believe, leaving Bingley freed, your reputation secured, and me with the wittiest wife in three counties. The only difficulty in this plan is that a younger son must marry money, and you have none. Thus my excellent scheme founders on practical grounds, which are the least interesting grounds for any plan to founder upon.”

Elizabeth laughed outright. “Colonel Fitzwilliam, I must tell you that even in my present desperate circumstances, I would hold out for a proposal containing rather more romance than that, especially since my first was not romantic in the slightest. You have made me sound like a sensible solution to a logistical problem.”