“The gale was blowing ninety, with waves so high they were topping our mainmast,” Frank was now telling his enthralled listeners. “We were being knocked about so badly that every article in the ship was smashing itself to pieces against the bulkheads, when here comes the gunner, his eyes as round as cannonballs.”

Frank paused dramatically, his ice-blue eyes scanning the table to be sure he had everyone’s absolute attention. “‘Cap’n, Sir,’ says the gunner,” Frank continued his story, mimicking the high-pitched voice of the frightened man, “‘everything’s bashing about so terrible below I fear the powder may spark and blow us all to kingdom come.’”

Frank paused again and a sly smile creased his deeply tanned features. “‘Well man,’ said I, ‘thank God for all that good china down there among the powder. For if it’s to kingdom come we’re bound, at least when we arrive there we’ll be able to put on a decent British tea.’”

The guests laughed and clapped appreciatively. But no sooner had the applause died down than Frank returned his attention to Darcy. “Well, sir,” he said a bit too loudly, “Edward tells me you had a close call of your own the other day. Thrown from your mount, eh?”

Darcy nodded as all eyes turned to him. “Yes,” he replied, smiling. “But I was fortunate enough to be rescued and taken to the home of your lovely sisters who nursed me back to health.” He inclined his head in a bow toward Jane and Cassandra, who were seated together a little ways down the table.

Frank, who had been drinking copious amounts of wine, raised his glass to his sisters. “My own dear Jane and Cass, God bless ’em. Are they not angelic creatures?” he asked, his gruff voice filled with genuine affection.

The sea captain winked and leaned closer to Darcy. “Yet I declare the poor lasses have not a husband between them,” he said in a loud stage whisper, “though not for want of offers. But both of them have vowed they will marry for love alone, fortune being not a matter of consequence to either.”

Jane smiled tolerantly at her brother’s good-natured teasing, but Cassandra’s fair complexion flushed bright pink. “Frank!” she exclaimed, scandalized. “Mr. Darcy will think you are in earnest if you insist on baiting us so.”

“What you say is true, brother,” Jane playfully rejoined Frank. “But you know full well that we have only vowed never to take husbands until you have brought us a shipload of pirate treasure, so that we may have fortunes large enough to marry whomever we choose.”

Frank’s broad shoulders shook with laughter and wine sloshed over the rim of his glass. “Then, dear Jane, I shall scour the world over in search of pirates,” he declared. “For sisters as genial and accomplished as you and Cassandra deserve nothing but happiness.”

Without warning the tipsy captain turned back to Darcy. “And you, sir, what think you of the married life?”

Relaxing slightly, for his adversary seemed now to be merely having fun, Darcy glanced over at Jane and pretended to ponder the question. “They say that marriage is a wonderful institution,” he finally answered. “But who wants to live in an institution?”

There was a long moment of deathly silence in the room as everyone at the table pondered the threadbare joke that Darcy had last told as a freshman in college.

Jane was the first to laugh. Then the entire company broke into loud, appreciative howls.

“Quite right!” Edward chortled uncontrollably from his winged armchair at the head of the table. “An excellent jest, sir! Excellent.”

Darcy smiled at their reaction, wondering if it was possible that his audience might have just heard the joke for the very first time. In the same instant, though, he realized that he had committed yet another serious blunder.

Frank, his blue eyes rimmed in red from the effects of the wine, was glaring at him. For a moment Darcy couldn’t imagine what he had done, then it dawned on him that he was guilty of having gotten a bigger laugh than the Austen family’s heroic favorite son.

“And what think you of the politics in France these days, Mr. Darcy?” The humor had drained from the captain’s voice and he was eyeing his victim like a hungry gull making ready to swallow a sardine.

Another uneasy silence descended upon the candlelit dining room as Darcy smiled disarmingly. “I’m afraid I know more of horses than of politics, Captain,” he replied.

“Hmmm!” Frank grumbled, unappeased. “Would that all your countrymen felt so. Even now my ships patrol the American coast in an attempt to halt the godless Yankee slave trade and quell your shipments of munitions to England’s enemies.”

Frank paused and took another long draught of wine, dribbling a few blood-red drops onto the front of his snowy shirt. “We may soon be at war with you Americans, you know,” he growled menacingly.

Glancing down the table, Darcy saw that Jane’s face was filled with alarm, and he wondered if she was now regretting her earlier promise to keep his secrets.

“Frank! I fear you are making our guest uneasy with this talk of slaves and war.” Edward was on his feet, clearly embarrassed by his brother’s rude behavior toward a potentially valuable new banking client.

To Darcy’s surprise, Frank abruptly stood and bowed stiffly to him. “My apologies, sir, if I have said anything to offend you. I fear I am not often enough in gentle society.”

Seizing upon the opportunity to put to rest the dangerous subjects of slavery and war with America, Darcy leaped to his feet and returned the bow. “No offense taken, Captain,” he said. Then, raising his glass to the assembled guests, he offered a toast. “May our two nations be forever joined in friendship and prosperity.”

Darcy could feel the tension in the room magically dissolving as all present smiled with evident relief and raised their glasses.

“Hear! Hear! Well said, sir!” Edward cried out.

Darcy looked back over at Frank, but the abrasive captain had already turned away and was conversing with a buxom young lady at his side.

From her position farther down the table Jane sat thoughtfully scrutinizing Darcy. Cassandra leaned close to her and whispered with a little smile, “What think you of Darcy now, Jane? Is he not after all a gentleman?”

“He makes a good show of it,” Jane grudgingly conceded, “but I observe that he is far too nervous in this informal atmosphere. See how his eyes dart constantly about the room. And I saw him before, rubbing at his fork with a napkin, as if he thought the thing to be unclean.”

Jane paused to watch the American a moment longer, then she slowly shook her head. “No, sister,” she concluded, “I think there is too much of the cornered fox in Darcy’s look. And he is sorely in need of a valet to tie his cravat.”

“Oh, Jane, you exaggerate as usual,” Cassandra retorted.

“Do I?” asked Jane. “Watch this, then.” She pointedly stared at Darcy until he glanced her way. When she had his attention, she touched her throat with her fingers and shook her head slightly. Darcy immediately looked down self-consciously and fumbled with the broad silk scarf tied in a clumsy bow at his collar.

Grinning delightedly at his flustered reaction, Jane inclined her head toward her sister and raised a hand to cover her mouth. “See,” she whispered.

Cassandra looked from Darcy to Jane and back again. “But whatever can it mean?” she asked.


Following supper, the members of the dinner party retired to a large drawing room on the second floor of Edward’s manse for conversation and light entertainment. Jane, who was soon coaxed and teased by the others into taking her place at the piano, played a series of increasingly difficult pieces by Mozart and Haydn, all of which she performed with admirable style.

Hoping to avoid both of the Austen brothers, but most especially the volatile Frank, Darcy sought out Cassandra, whom he discovered sitting alone at one side of the room, and took a chair beside her. “Your sister is very accomplished,” he said quietly, for he was genuinely impressed with Jane’s mastery of the instrument.

Cassandra accepted the compliment to her sister’s musical talent with evident pride. “She does play beautifully,” Cass agreed, adding, “music, I think, is Jane’s only true passion. She practices every morning at the pianoforte at home, you know.”

Before Darcy could say that he did not know that—for he could not recall having heard any music during his stay at Chawton Cottage—Jane finished her last piece to enthusiastic applause. He and Cassandra both rose as she walked over to join them.

“That was wonderful, Miss Austen,” Darcy told her, pointedly touching his poorly tied cravat. “You are full of surprises.”

Jane accorded him a little curtsey. “I thank you, sir,” she replied with laughter sparkling in her eyes. “You are all politeness.”

“Is it true that music is your only passion?” he asked with a mocking smile.

“Not at all,” she retorted sharply. “Is it true that horses are yours?”

Cassandra, who had been listening to the conversation with growing bewilderment, took advantage of the momentary lull to step back and curtsey to Darcy. “If you will excuse me, I think I must visit with my brothers now,” she said, beating a diplomatic retreat to the other side of the room.

Alone at last, Darcy and Jane both looked around to see if anyone else was within earshot. To Darcy’s dismay, he saw Frank scowling at them from his post beside the mantel.

Jane read the anxiety written on Darcy’s features and asked him a little too loudly, “And how is dear Lord Nelson, your horse?”

“Please, not here,” Darcy begged her. “I believe your brother would gladly run me through with that saber he’s carrying.”

Jane accorded him an angelic smile. “Yes, I’m sure he would, given cause,” she agreed. “In which case, perhaps you had better explain yourself to me now, sir, so that I may properly consider whether I would wish to stop dear Frank if he tries.”

“Very well,” Darcy said. He glanced nervously around the crowded room. “Is there someplace we can go?”

She stared at him, not certain of his meaning. “Go?”

“Somewhere private,” he said impatiently, “where we can speak without being overheard.”

Jane wrinkled her brow at the odd request and she also looked around the drawing room. Then she slowly shook her head. “Not here in my brother’s house,” she told him. “Certainly not with Frank about.”

“Where, then?” Darcy pleaded. “It is urgent that I speak with you immediately.”

Caught off guard by this unexpected turnabout—for Jane had expected to be the one who would force him to reveal his secrets to her, and in her own good time—she could think of no suitable private meeting place.

And at any rate she was not at all certain that she wished to be alone with this mercurial and possibly dangerous man. “I do not know…” she replied, playing for time. “You must give me a moment to think.”

Darcy waited impatiently. Across the room, Captain Francis Austen was speaking in low, serious tones with Edward and Cassandra, turning around from time to time to openly glare at Darcy.

Chapter 24

“I stood there waiting for her to think of a private place where we could speak, the whole time with her brother’s suspicious eyes burning into me like lasers.”

Darcy looked up at Eliza in the growing gloom of early evening. Though she had long since taken her feet out of the water and folded them beneath her, she was still leaning eagerly toward him, as if she was afraid of missing some minor detail of his story. “So where did you go?” she asked expectantly.

“Jane couldn’t think of anywhere at the moment, and then we were interrupted by another of her many relatives,” Darcy replied. “We didn’t have another opportunity to be alone for the rest of the evening. But later, as she was leaving Edward’s house, I—”

“Fitz? Y’all down there?”

Darcy left the sentence hanging and whipped his head around as the shrill cry split the quiet evening.

“Perfect!” Eliza groaned. She tore her eyes from Darcy and saw Faith Harrington stumbling toward them across the lawn.

Darcy got up, gave Eliza his hand and helped her to her feet. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll finish this later.”

“Oh there you are!” Faith waved and hurried down to the lakeshore. She had changed from her riding outfit into a frilly pink summer dress, which somehow made her look even harder and less feminine than she had before. “Now y’all aren’t having a little secret affair, are you?” the tall blonde chirped, leering at Eliza.