These Three Remain by Pamela Aidan Page B

quietly took up a position that afforded him the best view of his fair tormentor and abandoned himself to the savoring of her performance.
    “You mean to frighten me, Mr. Darcy, by coming in all this state to hear me.” Elizabeth challenged him from under arched brows. “But I will not be alarmed though your sister
does
play so well. There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises with every attempt to intimidate me.”
    Recognizing her tone from their duels of old, Darcy smiled but did not hesitate to meet her
en garde
with a parry and thrust of his own. “I shall not say that you are mistaken because you could not really believe me to entertain any design of alarming you.” His smile widened as she pursed her lips at his reply. “And I have had the pleasure of your acquaintance long enough to know that you find great enjoyment in occasionally professing opinions which, in fact, are not your own.” The joy of her laughter at his sally was reward in full for the discomforts of the evening.
    “Your cousin will give you a very pretty notion of me.” Elizabeth turned to Fitzwilliam. “He’ll teach you not to believe a word I say.” Richard shook his head in immediate denial and joined her in looking up at his cousin. “I am particularly unlucky in meeting with a person so well able to expose my real character, in a part of the world where I had hoped to pass myself off with some degree of credit,” she continued. “Indeed, Mr. Darcy, it is very ungenerous in you to mention all that you knew to my disadvantage in Hertfordshire — and, give me leave to say, very impolitic too — for it is provoking me to retaliate, and such things may come out as will shock your relations to hear.” A hoot of laughter from Richard greeted her assertion, but Darcy was not deterred. It was too delicious!
    “I am not afraid of you,” he said, smiling down at her.
    “Pray let me hear what you have to accuse him of,” cried his cousin. “I should like to know how he behaves among strangers.”
    “You shall hear then.” She deftly accepted his counterchallenge. “But prepare yourself for something very dreadful. The first time of my ever seeing him in Hertfordshire, you must know, was at a ball — and at this ball, what do you think he did? He danced only four dances! I am sorry to pain you, but so it was. He danced only four dances, though gentlemen were scarce; and, to my certain knowledge, more than one young lady was sitting down in want of a partner. Mr. Darcy, you cannot deny the fact.” She looked up at him with a sweet daring sparkling in her eyes. Perhaps he had been too hasty in agreeing to swords. Her accusation was all too true, her complaint of him all too valid. But, deuce take it, how was he to know that a stupid country dance among strangers would come to figure in his life to this degree?
    “I had not at the time the honor of knowing any lady in the assembly beyond my own party,” he offered.
    “True. And nobody can ever be introduced in a ballroom.” She dismissed him and his defense. “Well, Colonel Fitzwilliam, what do I play next? My fingers wait your orders.”
    Rankled by her reply, Darcy could not let it rest. “Perhaps I should have judged better had I sought an introduction; but I am ill qualified to recommend myself to strangers.”
    “Shall we ask your cousin the reason of this?” she inquired of Fitzwilliam, her eyes alight at Darcy’s tactical feint. “Shall we ask him why a man of sense and education, and who has lived in the world, is ill qualified to recommend himself to strangers?”
    “Oh, there is no difficulty in that,” Fitzwilliam assured her. “I can answer your question without applying to him.” He smirked up at Darcy. “It is because he will not give himself the trouble.”
    Just wait until you are in need of funds next quarter day,
Darcy silently promised him. But what should he say? His only