Pemberley Ranch - Jack Caldwell [64]
“Will, is something wrong?” asked Gaby.
Darcy looked at the water for a while, thinking. Damn, I probably ruined Gaby’s friendship with Beth. Anne’s, too. What the hell was I thinking with that dress? That’s just it, I wasn’t thinking. I was treating her as if she was mine already. And all I accomplished was to drive her off and hurt Gaby and Anne.
A woman as fine as Beth Bennet deserves to be wooed, courted. Not just ridden down and lassoed like I was roping a calf—tossed, tied down, and branded. I haven’t the faintest idea how to earn the good opinion of a proper lady. I am the biggest idiot in Long Branch County.
“Will?”
Darcy sighed. “Gaby, I’ve made a mistake—a very, very big mistake—and I don’t know how I can ever make things right.” He tossed a twig towards the water’s edge.
Gaby looked at Will in surprise. It never occurred to her that her perfect brother could ever err. “What happened?”
“Hurt somebody I thought I loved.”
Gaby thought for a moment. “Beth?” she gasped. “What did you do?”
“I’m embarrassed to talk about it. Let’s just say that after what I did, she’d be the last person on earth to go get help if I was drowning in the lake there.”
“That’s hard to believe with George Whitehead in town.”
“He’s part of the problem.”
“What do you mean? Oh, you don’t think Beth’s in love with him, do you? Because if you do, I can assure you she’s not.”
“No, she told me she wasn’t.” Will, to his shame, remembered almost everything from the late-night discussion in the Burroughses’ library, except how he managed to earn a knot on his head. Before Anne told him what had happened, he half-figured that Beth had taken an empty whiskey bottle to him. “But he’s been telling stories.” He turned to Gaby. “How do you know she doesn’t love Whitehead?”
“A woman can tell these things.” She played with the grass beside her. “Will, when I… when Whitehead tried to… court me, I suppose… you made me talk about it. I didn’t want to, but you said it would make me feel better. And it did. Will, I think you need to talk to me now.”
“And it’ll make me feel better?”
“I don’t know. It worked for me. At least you’ll know you won’t be alone.”
Darcy thought about that for a minute. “Well, I can’t feel worse.” And so he told Gaby almost everything. Seventeen-year-old girls didn’t need to know about spying on naked people swimming, after all.
The Bingley household took their ease in the front parlor after supper. Charles read from a week-old newspaper, while Jane mended one of his shirts. Beth attempted to concentrate on a book of poetry, trying to keep her thoughts away from the mystery of Will Darcy, but Caroline defeated her by holding forth on the Burroughses’ ball.
“It was certainly not up to Netherfield standards,” she told her brother. “The food, in particular, was the usual primitive cooking so prevalent in these parts. ‘Barbeque,’ I believe it’s called. Do you remember the last party we held at Netherfield?” She turned to her sister-in-law, a faraway look in her eye. “Jane, the food was so elegantly presented and was as delicious as it looked.”
“I’m sure it was, Caroline,” Jane replied, never taking her eyes off her task, in a tone of voice that told Beth her sister had heard these tales before. Charles kept his face in the paper.
Caroline was insensitive to it. “And the dresses! Yes, they spanned the colors of the rainbow, I’m sure. Silk and taffeta and all good things. A far cry from what I saw here.” She turned to Beth, interrupting her reminiscing, a slight frown creasing her brow. “Your dress, however, was very fine, Miss Beth. May I ask where you got it?”
Mention of the blue dress brought Darcy—and his reaction to it—to Beth’s mind, and she hoped she didn’t blush as she told a small lie. “It belonged to Anne Burroughs, and she was kind enough to insist I wear it. It was very pretty.”
Caroline seemed relieved at the intelligence. “I see. It did favor you, though—much better than it would have done for Miss Burroughs.”
“Caroline! That is not very kind,” Jane mildly scolded her.
“Oh, Jane, you know it’s