Ever since she could walk, Elodie Bennet had expectations set upon her, expectations that all young women had. As the second eldest, she was meant to care for her younger sisters and do what was asked of her without complaining.
This also meant...
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TEMPTATION AND RESENTMENT.
"Will you not join us, Mr. Darcy?"
The youngest Bingley offered, passing by his desk. Elodie's head inclined away from him. Darcy took no notice of this slight movement, and if he had, he took no opinion of it either.
"You could only have two motives, Caroline." Caroline smiled in curiosity, wondering what conclusions he would be able to come up with. Honestly, she knew he would never guess her true intentions and she reveled in the fact that she had some sort of superiority over him.
"What can he mean?" She asked Elodie, who merely chuckled mischievously, having regained some sense of herself.
"Perhaps we shouldn't entertain him, he would surely be disappointed then." Caroline nodded along, lashes fluttering against her cheeks ruminatively but gave in to temptation nevertheless. "Do tell us, Mr. Darcy."
He took a moment to go over some sort of reasoning in his head before he leaned back in his chair. "Either you are in each other's confidence and you have secret affairs to discuss, or you are conscious that your figures appear to the greatest advantage by walking. If the first, I could get in your way. If the second, I can admire you much better from here."
Elodie cocked her head to the side, unknowing of Caroline's true intent behind this walk but she definitely knew it couldn't and probably would never be the first option.
"Shocking." Caroline said in response as her lips spread into an impish grin, her brother laughing in the background. "Shall we punish him for such a speech?" Elodie hummed in thought, her eyes traveling to the ceiling as Mr. Darcy held his breath. "Given his character, perhaps we should simply laugh at him?"
"Oh no, Mr. Darcy is not to be teased." The two girls chuckled and kept pacing the room, the quill scratching finally coming to a stop. "Might that have something to do with your pride, Mr. Darcy?" Elodie asked, attempting to make her poisonous question seem casual. "Would you consider pride a fault or a virtue-"
"That I couldn't say." Elodie frowned as the brooding man evaded her attack.
"Because I'm doing my best to find a fault in you." She added more quietly, devilishly smiling to herself in satisfaction as Mr. Darcy's eyes hardened. But every time she felt that she had gotten him tongue-tied, that never actually seemed to be the case.
"Maybe because it is hard for me to forgive the follies and vices of others or their offenses against me. My good opinion once lost is lost forever."
