Bound by Darcy by Emma East

Author:Emma East
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Emma East

chapter twelve

He noticed something off about his wife before dinner. The sadness was still there in her eyes, the slow way her lips pulled into a smile. That was not it. That was to be expected. Yet there was something added to the mix of his wife’s mannerisms he could not attribute to her father’s condition.

“Do you need to rest more?”

Elizabeth shook her head and gave him a not-quite-smile over her shoulder, her lips thinned into a tight line. “I dozed earlier when I sat with my father.”

“You sat with him all day today. How is he?”

The apothecary had given them an update after his afternoon visit, and the shadow in her eyes confirmed it. “Not well. Very little time is left.”

The sitting room door opened. It was the younger sister, the one whose childish, spoiled attitude prickled at his nerves. “Mama says to call you to dinner!” she said before skipping away. A giggle echoed down the hall and her voice was not the least bit muffled when she said, “I won, Kitty! They’re only speaking. And you said they must be kissing. What a laugh!”

Darcy stifled a groan.

“Sorry,” Elizabeth said, standing. Her gaze didn’t meet his, and a flush marked her cheeks. “I’ll speak to them.”

“It’s fine,” he said, hoping to mollify her. It didn’t. She still wouldn’t look at him. He held out his elbow. “Dinner?”

The rest of the house were settling into their seats when they entered. Mr. Gardiner was absent. “He’s sitting with your father,” Mrs. Gardiner said when Elizabeth enquired after him, and patted the seat beside her.

It did not go unnoticed to Darcy how Mrs. Bennet pursed her lips when Darcy sat beside his wife instead of taking the open chair at her left as she had made him do the previous night. Nor did he fail to see his wife’s anxiety as Mrs. Bennet launched into an interrogation of the table, but Mrs. Gardiner in particular, regarding the state of London’s society. Darcy was forced to admit several times how little knowledge he had of society when Mrs. Bennet turned to him to verify various facts and gossip she’d read in the papers.

With how tense Elizabeth was each time Mrs. Bennet turned to him, Darcy’s suspicions grew.

“Yes,” she responded when they were alone in her room that night after dinner and he asked the question lurking in the back of his mind all night. “She wishes to come to London and… live with us.”

“Is that what you want?” She gave him a plaintive look in reply. “I see. Is it ridiculous to expect Mr Collins to allow her and your sisters to remain here?”

“She does not expect it, and truthfully, I would not wish it upon my sisters,” she said quietly, twisting her hands in her lap. “Excluding what he did to me, his views are… unreasonable, in most instances. Fordyce, for example.”

He winced and ran his hand through his hair. “Perhaps that is what we should focus on. Charles and I briefly discussed logistics, but if there is a way to purchase the entail rights from Mr.

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