“Oh? Are you sure she didn’t say Derbyshire is beautiful this time of year, not likely to be?” He looked thoughtful for a moment. “She hails from Derbyshire, Fitzwilliam! It is her home! Which you would likely know if you had deigned to speak with her more than two sentences before today. She was likely trying to converse with you, but you had to be taciturn with her and assume the worst. Why would she need an invitation to a county filled with her family and friends? And even if she had been hoping for an invitation, which I sincerely doubt, would that be so wrong? I am her niece! She has known me since I was a babe! Is it so unusual for her to want to see where I will live out my days and ensure I am well settled? Is care and genuine interest in another’s life so foreign to you that you see nothing but artifice and manipulation?”

“Manipulation? I am not the one pretending to be something I am not, a lesson your uncle clearly needs to learn.”

She gritted her teeth. “When did dressing fashionably and behaving politely become so offensive?”

He drew himself up tall and a deeper shade of hauteur overtook his features. “You should not have invited them without speaking to me,” he declared.

“I told you how much my uncle means to me. You knew he was important. And yet, you still treated him like dirt on your boot.” Not unlike how your aunt is treating me, she thought.

“You told me no such thing!”

“Yes, I did! In our letters, I told you about the necklace he gave me and that we shared a special bond. He is my godfather. He is my family, Fitzwilliam.”

Darcy was red with anger and didn’t know what to say. He stood staring at her, breathing and trying to calm himself, his feelings utterly at war. He had been so happy just a few moments ago; his future seemed so bright. Now, he could not believe she dared to speak to him in such a way; he was terribly offended. And he thought her incredibly beautiful in her righteous anger and felt outrageously attracted to her, all at the same time. But how dare she speak to him thus in his own home!

It will be her home tomorrow. And did you not say you wanted a wife with spirit, not one who would cower every time you frowned? he thought traitorously. He glanced at her in time to see a single tear track down one red cheek as she took a shuddering breath.

Feeling cut to the quick by the sight of her, he wondered if she was correct, and if she was, what did that say about him?