These Three Remain Read Online Free Page B

designed to keep their aunt’s attention from once more focusing upon himself; but this time he was as desirous for more of the particulars as his aunt was to reveal them.
    “Indeed!” replied Lady Catherine, nodding at Fitzwilliam approvingly, “and so I said. But, Nephew, that does not constitute the height of this family’s folly. No, indeed!” Her Ladyship vigorously tapped her silver-handled walking stick on the floor. “Not only have they not had the benefit of a governess’s discipline but they are all out before the elder ones are married! From the oldest to the youngest, who is a mere fifteen years of age! I have never heard of such foolishness, and so I informed Mrs. Collins’s friend.”
    Darcy’s cup rattled on its saucer so badly he was forced to stay it with his other hand. Mrs. Collins’s friend? There had been no Mrs. Collins when he had taken his leave of Netherfield. Who was she, and who was her friend that Her Ladyship would hold forth upon Collins’s relations? He took a deep, steadying breath and turned back to his relatives.
    “Mrs. Collins?” Fitzwilliam queried. Darcy almost blessed him aloud.
    “A modest, steady young woman my new rector recently took to wife, having met her during a visit I encouraged him to make to an estranged relative on his father’s side. ‘Come back with a wife, Mr. Collins,’ I told him, ‘and you come back with all you will need for a useful life.’ I cannot say how often he has thanked me for that advice. She is exactly what I would have chosen for him. Not above herself, quiet, but with agreeable manners, as is her father, Sir William Lucas, who was lately here to visit them. I am informed that you have already made their acquaintance, Darcy.”
    Lucas! Darcy searched his memory for a name. Charlotte…Miss Charlotte Lucas, Elizabeth’s close friend and confidante! How many times had he observed them tête-à-tête? Miss Lucas had married Collins? That could only mean…! His fingers crept to the pocket of his waistcoat, but they found nothing. Where? Of course, he had left them upon the road! Looking up, he caught Richard regarding him curiously, his brow crooked at the disposition of his hand. Self-consciously, he smoothed down the waistcoat and essayed a response. “Yes, Ma’am. Last November in Hertfordshire. I…I had accompanied a friend who was in search of property in that neighborhood. In the course of that search, I met Sir William and his family.”
    Was fate to bring back into his life the reality of which those threads had been merely the shadow? He strained to know, to be certain who this friend could be, and yet, if it was Elizabeth, what should be his course?
    “I am informed that you have also met Mrs. Collins’s friend, Miss Elizabeth Bennet. It is quite annoying, Darcy, that I shall not have the pleasure of making a first introduction.”
    Elizabeth! It
was
Elizabeth! Darcy’s heart began to pound, and his hands went cold as ice. How should he meet her? As indifferent acquaintances? As familiar antagonists? Had she completed her sketch of his character, or had she refrained as he had asked? And Wickham! With what other falsehoods had he plied her after Darcy had abandoned the field?
    “Darcy?” Lady Catherine’s voice brought him back to the present. “I was saying, I am much put out that I will not have the pleasure of making a first introduction, for Miss Bennet assured me that you were well acquainted. I find that she is rather close to impertinent on occasion, which might lead her to overstating the situation. Is this true that you are acquainted?”
    “Quite true, Ma’am. The society in Hertfordshire was small, and we were thrown in each other’s way rather often,” he confessed.
    “Is that so?” Richard pursed his lips, a wicked gleam lighting his eye. “Then perhaps we should pay Mr.
and
Mrs. Collins and Mrs. Collins’s friend a visit tomorrow. What do you say, Darcy?”
    A shiver of alarm passed through Darcy.