Katie Oliver - What Would Lizzy Bennet Do?

‘You’d best tuck in, then,’ he agreed. ‘You’ll burn it off riding. I plan to give you and your mount a good workout.’ He leaned over to kiss her.

She couldn’t help but notice that he looked utterly yummy in his breeches and boots and white polo shirt.

‘Perhaps we should go back upstairs,’ she said, and waggled her brows suggestively, ‘and you can mount me .’

‘Holly,’ Hugh said, frowning as he cast an uneasy glance over his shoulder at the door, ‘careful what you say. Anyone might walk in.’

‘Wouldn’t that give your mother a turn,’ she teased, ‘hearing me talk about sex right in front of the eggs and soldiers?’

He did not share her amusement. ‘Holly, really.’

Her smile faded. ‘You’re annoyed with me! Hugh, I’m only joking.’

‘There’s a time and a place.’ He turned away and speared a sausage with a grim expression.

Holly felt a flicker of irritation. ‘Well. I’m sorry. That’s me put in my place, then.’ She reached for a piece of toast with the silver tongs and dropped it on her plate.

He let out a short breath and turned back to her. ‘No, I’m sorry.’ He sighed. ‘Whenever I’m here I revert back to the perfectly behaved specimen I was expected to be, growing up – “Master Darcy”.’ He gave her a rueful smile. ‘He had excellent manners but no sense of humour, I’m afraid.’

Instantly, her anger fled. ‘Poor you. I can’t imagine what it must’ve been like, growing up in a place like this.’

‘It had its perks. It was an easy matter to disappear when I didn’t want to be found, for example.’

Holly laughed. ‘There is that. Do you like my outfit?’ she asked as she carried her plate to the table. ‘Do I look suitably horsey?’

Hugh leaned over and gave her a quick kiss before he sat down next to her. ‘You look beautiful, as always.’

‘ Very good answer.’

‘Good morning, everyone.’ Hugh’s father strode into the dining room with his wife following behind. ‘I trust you slept well, Miss James?’

‘Holly, please,’ Holly replied, ‘and yes, very well, Lord Darcy. Thank you.’ How could she do anything but sleep well, she thought irritably, with Hugh in the east wing and herself stuck in the west?

‘Going riding, are you?’ Hugh’s father asked as he went to the silver coffee urn and reached for a cup.

‘Yes. Lizzy’s invited us for a hack across the property later this morning,’ Hugh answered.

‘I’ve loaned Holly a few of Phoebe’s old things so she has the proper riding attire,’ Lady Darcy added, and glanced at Holly. ‘I realise, living in London, you likely don’t have the right sort of clothes for the country.’

Honestly , Holly thought with a flicker of irritation, how did Hugh’s mother always manage to make her feel like Eliza Doolittle, trying – and failing – to pass herself off as a lady?

‘My family actually do own a country place, in Chipping Norton,’ she pointed out. ‘I even had a horse when I was younger, for a time.’

There , Holly thought. Take that, you smug cow .

‘Where’s Harry this morning?’ Lord Darcy enquired as he sat down. ‘Haven’t seen him since yesterday afternoon.’

‘I’m here.’

They all looked up from their plates then as Harry, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and sockless loafers, appeared in the doorway.

‘Harry,’ his mother cried, and half rose in her seat, one hand pressed to her throat. ‘My God! What’s happened to you?’

Holly let out a gasp.

Harry, his handsome face usually so open and friendly, was scowling.

And no wonder, Holly realised in dismay, as she took in the twin purple bruises that marred his jaw and surrounded his blackened left eye.

Chapter 13

‘Harry!’ his father exclaimed, and flung down his napkin in astonishment. ‘What the devil happened? You look hideous.’

‘You should see the other bloke,’ Harry said, in a weak attempt at humour.

No one laughed.

‘Don’t tell me you got into a fight ,’ Lady Darcy said in dismay. ‘Harry, honestly! Fighting is terribly déclassé.’

‘I think I know what happened,’ Hugh said as he set his cup down. ‘You got into an altercation with Ciaran Duncan yesterday, didn’t you?’

With a sigh, Harry dragged out a chair and sat slumped at the table. ‘Yeah. I did.’

‘What? You got into a fistfight with that… that awful man?’ his mother gasped. ‘How could you?’

‘I went to the Longbourne marina yesterday to get the Pemberley ready for the race on Saturday.’

‘I told you I already did that,’ Hugh pointed out.

‘I know, but I had to make sure everything was in order, didn’t I? Hugh was there, too,’ he told his mother, ‘and he saw Charli. She was on Ciaran’s yacht.’

Lady Darcy’s eyes widened. ‘Do you mean to say that Charlotte Bennet was on Ciaran’s private yacht? Oh, dear. I wonder if her father knew?’

‘No,’ Harry said grimly, ‘he didn’t. Which I already suspected, so I went aboard the second the Meryton docked and demanded to know what Ciaran was up to.’

‘And what did he say?’

‘He said it was none of my business. I told him it was my business, and Charli was my friend and she was coming with me, and that I was taking her home. She refused, and Ciaran got in the middle, and, well…’ he shrugged. ‘Punches were thrown.’

‘Oh, no.’ Lady Sarah paled and reached for her orange juice. ‘I need something stronger,’ she muttered. ‘Orange juice alone just won’t do.’ She picked up a silver bell and rang it. ‘Someone bring me some vodka.’

‘It gets worse.’

Harry’s father glowered down the table at him. ‘How could it possibly get any worse?’

With a grimace, Harry met his eyes. ‘The Longbourne Tattler got wind of it somehow, and there’s a photograph, and it’s on the front page of this morning’s paper. And,’ he added glumly, ‘Ciaran’s threatening to file a lawsuit against me. For assault.’

Hugh leaned back in his chair in disgust. ‘I’ve no doubt he’s already filed it, knowing Ciaran. This is just the sort of thing he lives for.’

‘It just gets better and better,’ Lord Darcy snapped. ‘It’s not enough Duncan dragged our family through the mud once before! What on earth were you thinking , Harry? You young idiot!’

‘I suppose I shouldn’t have got involved,’ Harry admitted, and sighed. ‘It was incredibly stupid.’

‘Yes,’ his father agreed curtly, ‘it was.’

‘No, it wasn’t.’ Holly spoke up in Harry’s defence. She turned to him. ‘You did a brave thing, standing up to Ciaran Duncan.’

Harry’s eye – the one that wasn’t purple and nearly swollen shut – met hers. ‘Thanks.’ He gave her a crooked, but very grateful, smile.

‘He’s a womaniser and a nasty piece of work, and I know it only too well,’ Holly said. ‘Charlotte’s far too young to resist the attention of someone like him, and if she falls for his lies, he’ll use her and toss her aside like the – the paper in the bottom of a bird cage.’

‘You sound as if you speak from experience, Holly,’ Lady Darcy said, and lifted her brow quizzically.

‘No need to go into all of that,’ Hugh interjected, and laid a hand protectively atop Holly’s. ‘It’s in the past now.’

‘No.’ Holly regarded her fiancé, and then Lady Sarah, without expression. ‘No, it’s all right. Your family deserves to know. And I’ve nothing to be ashamed of, except for my own stupidity.’

In as few words as possible, she told them all how Ciaran had romanced her in Manhattan the previous summer, how he’d dazzled her with expensive dinners, private box seats at the theatre, a cruise in New York Harbour on a hired yacht, and repeated declarations of love, until she agreed to his proposal of marriage and wore his engagement ring on her finger.