In darcys hands, p.15
In Darcy's Hands, page 15
Darcy strode down the hall from Georgiana’s music room, his face as dark as a storm cloud. He had just spent several minutes doing his level best to soothe the girl’s spirits and convince her that, despite what she feared, Caroline Bingley was not aware of what had happened between George Wickham and herself the previous summer.
He did not know how successful he was, for he could not say truthfully, that no one outside their family knew. And for that, he was to blame. He had confessed it to Elizabeth, and that damned letter—well, who could tell who in Meryton might now be aware?
But they should not concern Georgiana. Some nothing hamlet in Hertfordshire was hardly the dominion of society’s wagging tongues. Had not Mr. Bennet made that very point to Darcy last spring? It was Miss Bingley he and Georgiana worried about. Ladies from London.
The most he had authorized his friend to do was warn his family that Wickham was not a respectable man, and he had done so when Bingley got that idea in his head to invite every officer of the regiment to the Netherfield ball. There had been no way around inviting him then, but fortunately the blackguard knew well enough to make himself scarce. He had not thought it prudent to share the whole of the tale to Bingley, not when he still held some fancy in his heart that his friend might make an excellent match for his sister.
Except, he now knew that this was nonsense. He could no more choose a wife for Bingley than Lady Catherine could choose one for him. They must be allowed to follow their own hearts.
And those hearts always led in the direction of the Bennets.
Darcy also knew that Caroline would never, even at her most cruel and cunning, needle Georgiana about the events at Ramsgate, even if she were aware of them. No, it must be another woman who did not marry a man despite telling him that she would do so.
It must be Elizabeth Bennet.
All roads led to Elizabeth. She was gone from Derbyshire, and still she haunted these halls. From the moment she’d appeared on his doorstep, he knew it was dangerous. And now, with the situation past, he should be breathing a sigh of relief and welcoming back the normal ease of his time at home.
But he should know by now that nothing was ever normal again once it had been touched by that lady.
“Darcy!” It was Bingley, practically dragging Caroline down the corridor toward him. What shreds remained of his patience disintegrated on the spot. “I am glad to have caught you.”
“I am not,” he said. He was in no mood for conciliation.
“My sister knew not what she said, I assure you. Tell him, Caroline.”
Caroline Bingley looked quite red in the face. And Darcy knew why. She knew exactly what she had said, no matter what her kindhearted brother would rather believe. And Caroline knew that Darcy knew as well.
It was an odd realization. For so long, he’d thought he’d valued wit and vivacity in a woman, but it was not until he’d met Elizabeth that he actually understood the quality. Once, he’d thought it the biting barbs of fashionable people, those who were so skilled at cutting and slicing all who were beneath them. He’d admired the ladies who, like Caroline, could shred a rival and make it sound like praise. It was easy to enjoy such entertainment, as his stature insulated him from any such behavior being turned in his own direction.
But Elizabeth showed him how false his own sense of superiority had been. Her claws were not so sharp as Caroline’s, not because she was not as clever, but rather because she did not so wish to wound. When she censured him, it was not without reason, and moreover, it was not meant to tear him down, but rather to hold up a mirror to his own long-neglected flaws.
No wonder he’d thought she loved him all those months ago. He’d mistaken her serious criticism for fashionable wit. She challenged him as no other had, fascinated him as no lady in town could touch, and yet he’d taken her for one. Thought she would be flattered by his wealth and standing. No, it took more to win Elizabeth.
More even than the duty arising from a small scandal.
“Mr. Darcy,” Caroline began, “you must know how highly I esteem you. There are few men in England that are your equal.”
He could not prevent the small snort of air which escaped his nostrils.
Her gaze hardened. “I would beg your forgiveness, of course, for any offense which I may have caused. However, I must be allowed to say that the lady in question is not worthy of your regard.”
“You know not of what you speak,” he said in a clipped tone.
“Do I not?” she replied. “Not half an hour ago, I prevented one of her messengers from sending you more letters! What scandalous behavior! What if your sister had gotten word of it?”
“You what!” he exclaimed.
“Elizabeth Bennet tried to have a private letter delivered to you here,” Caroline went on. “Of course I sent the messenger away. Such boldness ought not to be allowed to thrive.”
Elizabeth had sent a letter to him? It was not possible, was it. “Who was the messenger?”
“Some girl from the inn.” Caroline shook her head. “She is likely halfway back to Lambton by now. And you may put in a word with the innkeeper there, if you think of it. Surely the servant is shirking her duties at the inn in order to do Miss Bennet’s dirty work—”
But Darcy was no longer listening.
Chapter 21
Darcy did not waste time. He took his horse and rode toward the village.
The girl was easy to spot on the road through Pemberley Wood, but he feared he scared her somewhat when he galloped up behind her. She fairly leapt from the road into the underbrush.
“Be not alarmed,” he said, as he swung down from his horse.
“Mr. Darcy!” She pressed a hand to her chest. “I beg your pardon, sir, I do—”
“No, it is I who have given you a fright.” Somehow he refrained from holding his hand out like a beggar. “I have been told you have a letter for me?”
She looked at her feet. “Was I wrong to take it, sir? I do not want to be whipped.”
Whipped! What had Caroline said to this poor creature?
“The lady seemed so kind, only—”
“You were not wrong,” he said, gently. “Miss Bennet is a friend.”
She nodded and withdrew the letter from a pocket in her apron. Darcy’s entire world seemed to narrow to that one small piece of paper.
And now he realized his folly. He could hardly tear into it there, in front of this servant girl.
But the maid showed mercy. She bobbed a curtsy. “Well, I’ve done me duty, sir. And now I must go. They’ll have been wanting me at the inn.” She turned and headed back toward the village at a pace he did not often see kept by a woman walking.
Darcy sat against the nearest tree and said a tiny prayer. And then he broke the seal.
He did not read—he gulped the words, like a dying man who had found water in the desert. So quickly did he consume them, that at first they held no meaning, just a wash of her neat script.
It was short. So short. And it contained no declarations of love, no admission of regret. Nothing that he had been hoping for.
So simple. A thank you, only. She had been told, most likely by her uncle, of the origin of her dowry. A pity, but nothing to be done about it now. A thank you for that, and for the hospitality he showed her in Derbyshire. All of it couched in such careful language that it might be read by anyone, anywhere, with no more indication of impropriety than that she, an unmarried woman, was writing to him, a single man.
His own letter had not been like that. He had filled it with secrets. He realized now that even in his anger at the way she had refused him, he had trusted her with the deepest reaches of his heart. He had not put it into words, but it had been there nonetheless, in each slope of his letters, woven between the lines.
And here was hers! Warm with gratitude, perhaps, but with no deeper feeling he could discern. None of the cleverness which marked every other interaction he’d ever had with Elizabeth.
He rested his head against the trunk of the tree and closed his eyes. So that was it. He’d made a fool of himself in front of Bingley and his sister, in front of the innkeeper’s girl, and for what? A thank-you note? And not even one that contained the wit of the lady he so admired. The only physical memento he would have of their time together, and it did not very strongly resemble her at all.
I should have liked to deliver word of my feelings in person, but it was not possible. We leave now for The Lakes.
That sentence stood out from the others, though, as if it were written in flame. Oh, how he should have liked to hear her express herself in person, freed from whatever restraint she might have felt in this format. It was far too dangerous to speak freely in a letter. Had he not proven that himself?
The Lakes…
He had followed Elizabeth to Kent. He had chased her home to Hertfordshire. He could not pursue her another time. Not when he had spent the last week telling anyone that asked, including Elizabeth, that there was nothing left between them.
Not when he had lied to every person he knew… including himself.
He must conquer this. He must.
If I never see you again…
That would be best.
We leave now for The Lakes…
And he would get on his horse and go home.
But as soon as he reached the stables, his mind was set in quite the other direction.
There was nothing for him but Elizabeth. The same compulsion that had driven him into the parsonage in Hunsford to lay bare his heart, the same one that had taken him to Longbourn in a misguided attempt to save her, the same one that had invited her to Pemberley when all reason declared he ought to keep as far away from her as possible.
His soul cried out for hers. It always would. He could not lose her again.
Darcy directed the grooms to ready the carriage and then left to give his valet related instructions. Then, he set off to find his cousin.
“Is Georgiana quite well?” he asked.
“Tolerably,” Fitzwilliam replied. “Where have you been, man? Bingley said you took off after some servant girl? He is much concerned for you.”
“I am quite concerned myself. I shall need you to watch over Georgiana and my guests for several days. I am going away.”
“What? Where!” Colonel Fitzwilliam rose from his desk.
“To the Lakes.”
His cousin sat back again. “I see. And what is your plan?”
Darcy did not have time to think. If he thought too much, he would talk himself out of it again. “To get the matter resolved, once and for all.”
He would follow Elizabeth Bennet one last time. If he was a fool, damn him for a fool. But if there was even the most remote chance that they could at last be happy, Darcy would move heaven and earth to take it.
“I thought it was resolved. You have told me several times—” He looked at Darcy’s countenance. “Well, I shall not hold you to what you said then. I knew it to be incorrect, at any rate.”
“It may be the greatest folly that I have ever undertaken.”
His cousin smiled. “Oh, I would not say that. A great folly that you must travel to the Lakes, perhaps, when it would have been so much more convenient for you to come to your conclusion even a few hours ago. But make it a story for your grandchildren.”
“I pray that I shall.”
The sun had long set and the Gardiners had retired from the dining room into their bedchamber. Elizabeth was glad that this inn could afford them a private sitting room, as she did not think she could sleep tonight, as she had not slept any of the last two as they traveled north. She was too restless—far too restless.
Perhaps he had never gotten her letter.
Perhaps he had, and thought it meant only what it said.
Perhaps he had thrown it in the fire.
Every sound from the street below made her start. The post carriages would come and go at regular intervals, and private chaises stopped to change their horses at the stables, and Elizabeth sat, her sewing ignored, her book closed, her letters half-written, and stared out at the moon and the stars.
Tonight, in Derbyshire, there was a man who consumed all her thoughts.
If she had believed her stay in Lambton to be painful and awkward, it was nothing to the torture of the last two days upon this journey, nothing to the overwhelming emotion of realizing too late the truth of her feelings, and the fact that she had, indeed, only come to know them too late.
But what else was there to be done? Elizabeth was a woman. She could not speak. She could not chase. She should not even have written a gentleman a letter.
And yet, she had. She merely hoped that her understanding of the gentleman’s behavior allowed it to be enough. For a few brief moments when she wrote the lines, she believed it was, but as the days passed she began to doubt herself. Perhaps she was not so very clever as she thought. Perhaps she was a stupid, foolish girl who had squandered her only chance at happiness.
Yet another carriage stopped outside on the street, and horse hooves and wheels crunched against the gravel. She looked idly out the window, and caught her breath when she saw the livery.
Mr. Darcy!
Wrapping her shawl more tightly about her shoulders, and taking her candle, she made her way down to the ground floor, whereupon she found the innkeeper’s wife in conversation with a man still in his great-coat. She knew even then that it was him. He had come!
“Yes,” the woman was saying, “but they’ve gone to bed. If you’ve a message, you can deliver it in the morning—”
Elizabeth cleared her throat. “Mr. Darcy.”
He turned. Their eyes met through the shadows in the hall.
The innkeeper’s wife, a solid, non-nonsense woman of the kind one found in the north, looked from one to the other with no small degree of suspicion. “Shall I send him away, miss? Or gather your uncle?”
“No,” said Elizabeth. “That is not necessary. May we be let into the coffee-room?”
“It’s very late, miss. Should you not go fetch your uncle?”
“No, indeed. We shall only be a moment.”
The innkeeper’s wife was not fooled, but neither did she wish to cross a man in such a carriage and wearing such clothes. Although one might not cross Mr. Darcy even if he wore rags, with that look upon his face.
They were shown into the coffee room, a lantern was lit, and they were left in peace. Or what might pass for peace, if you were not observant.
The door had hardly closed when he spoke.
“I received your letter.”
The light played strange tricks with his expression. She could not make it out. “You did,” she replied. “I was worried you might not.”
He was silent for a long moment. “You are aware, I suppose, of the danger of writing to me. If word got out, people might come to believe we have a private arrangement.”
Her heart leapt for joy, and when she spoke, she could not keep the mirth from her tone. “Oh, would they?”
His eyes widened and a look of such warmth overcame his features that Elizabeth was forced to place her fingertips against the table for support.
Another silence, and this one lasted several lifetimes. “Of course, your father has convinced me that such things are not very shocking, after all. He certainly did not seem to hold my actions against my character last spring.”
“No, I do not believe he did. His objections to the match were not, I believe, due to your character or your station in life.”
Darcy’s voice was very low. “Do you know his basis, then?”
“There were several, but I believe the most pressing was his belief in my indifference.”
He nodded and looked down.
She spoke again. “Though men have been wrong about such conjectures before. A woman’s indifference?” He did not meet her eyes again. She swallowed. “I believe that were my father to question me as to my feelings now, he might come away with a rather different impression.”
At last, as if the words were being torn from someplace deep inside him, Darcy spoke again. “You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are what they were when last we were together in Longbourn, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes remain unchanged. Elizabeth—” His gaze met hers again, and in his eyes she saw something desperate. “I love you.”
“Oh!” she cried out. At the sound of her Christian name on his lips her words—all her witty, clever words—had abandoned her. She fought for composure, but it would not come, and all she could say was, “I love you, too. I think I may have loved you all this time—”
It was enough. He reached for her then and pulled her toward him, and everything she had ever hoped for in this world narrowed to the press of his lips against hers, of his arms enclosing her.
For several long minutes, their conversation was the sort that lovers have, where old exchanges are combed through for secret meanings and hidden thoughts. Every word and look and gesture of the past was reviewed, as each found cause to marvel at the way the other either understood the most subtle of signs, or mistook their meaning entirely.
Elizabeth protested that she had not come to Derbyshire deliberately to see him, and Darcy that he had most certainly come to the Lake District to find her. Darcy declared that her letter had nearly missed him entirely, and Elizabeth confessed that she feared the meaning of the letter would not convey. Both promised that they would never forget the servant who had served her so faithfully.
At long last, they conceded that they must talk of sensible subjects, though neither wished to do so. Still, the innkeeper’s wife could not be expected to sustain her patience forever.
“Whatever shall we do now?” Elizabeth asked.
“Say that you will marry me, at long last.”
“No.” His face fell. “I mean—yes, yes, of course I shall marry you. Only how? We have said that Papa will not allow it. That is the story we have given at home for why you went away.”
“Indeed. The more fools, we.”
Yes. And in Meryton, people thought her father quite mad as well. “Perhaps he could have a change of heart. I will have worn him down, with much persuasion.”
