“How did you manage to offend Miss Bennet?” Fitz poured himself a glass of port. “Besides running afoul of the sort of men who would attack and abduct her, of course. Oddly, once she had her wits about her, she did not seem to blame you for that.”
“Not yet,” Darcy grumbled. “She would at least have grounds in this case.”
“Therein lies a story,” Fitz said. “Let me hear it.”
It took Darcy nearly an hour to tell the whole of his visit with Bingley, ending with the confrontations at the ball—first with Elizabeth and then with the Bingleys. Fitz found most of the story highly amusing, and he expressed his appreciation for Elizabeth rather more warmly than Darcy liked.
“When I rode away, she was standing in the window watching me,” Darcy said at the end of his recital, his chest tight and his head aching. “I wanted nothing more than to go back for her like some fool out of one of Georgie’s novels.” He propped his elbows on his knees and dropped his head in his hands. “How have I made such a muddle of my life?”
Fitz was quiet for a moment. “You consider this attraction a muddle?”
“Of course,” Darcy responded with a groan. “I am expected to make a very different sort of match. You know that.”
“To increase the family’s standing. Yes, I have heard it my entire life.”
“Then you see the problem.” Darcy ran a hand over his eyes.
“No,” Fitz replied sharply. “I cannot say that I do. My mother might once have had high expectations, but she has waited many years for Henry to marry. She is growing quite concerned that none of us mean to wed at all.”
Darcy sighed. “Henry does not wish to spend his allowance on anyone’s clothing but his own. He will marry when he can no longer put it off. He may ask his widow.” They would all marry eventually. “I have a duty. An obligation to my parents.”
“Your parents are dead. And despite my father’s insistence that he is the head of the family, he is not the head of yours.”
Fitz was being purposefully obtuse. “You need not remind me of my place,” Darcy replied, resigned. “I am well aware of what my honor requires.”
His cousin frowned, then drank deeply from his glass. “Your choice of wife is not a matter of honor, you idiot.” He studied Darcy for a moment. “You still believe that those around you are governed by the same set of rules you insist upon for yourself.”
“And this is wrong?” Darcy asked, incredulous.
“No,” Fitz replied. He set his glass down. “Just naïve. Most men carefully consider the appearance of honor, but do not attend to a demonstration of it. Their lives are all about pleasing themselves. No wonder you are continually disappointed in your friends.”
“I am not a child, Fitz,” Darcy grumbled. “I understand better than you know how dark men’s hearts can be.”
“But you always hope for better.” His cousin chuckled. “And, like a child, you are rather fractious when tired.”
Darcy was put off by Fitz’s patronizing tone, but he could not deny he was exhausted. He stood and moved to the chaise by the fire. “Wake me if Miss Elizabeth needs anything.” She was just on the other side of the wall. Close, yet impossibly out of reach.
“I will.” There was a pause. “You are an honorable man, Darcy,” Fitz said quietly.
Darcy removed his shoes and reclined on the chaise. The last thing he heard before he drifted into a deep sleep was Fitz adding, “Which is why you need me.”