Designed for Each Other

by P. O. Dixon

  Smiling he said, “I believe that can be arranged. What say you, Miss Bennet … Miss Elizabeth?”

  Looking at Darcy, Elizabeth said, “Speaking on behalf of my sister as well as myself, I am quite certain of it.”

  Chapter 20

  A Gentleman’s Approbation

  Earlier, Darcy had dispatched his man to go to Cheapside to ensure that the Gardiners were in town before arranging to have Elizabeth and Jane travel all the way to Gracechurch Street. He was not the least bit disappointed upon learning that the Gardiners had traveled to Oxfordshire and were not expected to return for another few days.

  As their plans to travel to Hertfordshire the very next day had been fixed, he did not see the harm in having the Bennet sisters spend the night at Darcy House as his guests, despite the possible impropriety inherent in the scheme. Miss Bennet being beyond the age of legal consent was more than capable of carrying out the role of her younger sister’s chaperone, after all. What could be the harm in their staying just one night?

  Thus, he instructed his housekeeper to arrange all the particulars, including the assignment of a maid to attend the Bennet sisters.

  With it being Elizabeth’s first night in her future home, Darcy wanted everything to be special and what better way to welcome her than a dinner party. He instructed his housekeeper to prepare all of Elizabeth’s favorites, although he did not exactly specify the dishes as such. His engagement to Elizabeth was meant to be a secret, after all—even from his London townhouse staff.

  The guest list was intimate by design, consisting mainly of their party from Kent: Bingley, Colonel Fitzwilliam, Jane, Elizabeth, and Darcy himself. He instructed his friend Bingley specifically that Miss Bingley and the Hursts were not to be included.

  He was livid when his friend was later shown into the drawing room with his sisters and brother-in-law trailing closely behind. He did his best not to show it. The Bennet sisters were no strangers to Bingley’s sisters’ antics, having spent time at Netherfield under the same roof with them when Jane was recuperating from a cold. There was no reason in the world not to make the best of it, or so he thought.

  From almost the moment she strolled into the room, Miss Bingley began putting on airs as though Mr. Darcy were her particular friend and she was his. A rather handsome woman who had been educated in one of the first private seminaries in town and had a fortune of twenty thousand pounds, she was always inclined to think very highly of herself even to the point of forgetting her family’s fortune had been acquired by trade.

  “Oh, Mr. Darcy,” she cried, “I would be quite put out with you if not for the fact that I have missed your company exceedingly. Why, I was beginning to suspect you might never return from Kent, and then who would open Richardson’s ball with me? You do remember, you promised me the first set. But how can I stay angry with you for very long when you have come and with hardly a day to spare? Oh, we shall be the envy of every couple in the room, will we not?”

  “Miss Bingley, will you not greet my guests? Miss Bennet,” Mr. Darcy said in deference to Jane’s rank as the eldest Bennet sister.

  Caroline, pretending she had been unaware of Jane’s presence, said, “Heavens, I hardly even noticed you. You are looking very well since last we met.”

  In return for Miss Bingley’s condescension, Jane curtsied a little, and she spoke not a word.

  Darcy deliberately walked to where his lady stood and not so subtly took her by the hand. He gave it a gentle caress before releasing it just as quickly. “And here is Miss Elizabeth. No doubt it has been more than a little while since the two of you have enjoyed each other’s company.”

  Now it was Miss Bingley’s turn to be silent. She could not have missed seeing him touching Elizabeth’s hand or the looks that passed between them when he was doing it. She certainly could not help noticing that he was standing a little too close to Elizabeth either. Why, if he would but look at her that way, Caroline would surely be planning their wedding.

  At length, Caroline found her voice. “Why, Miss Eliza Bennet, how delightful it is to see you again.” Assuming her own place by Darcy’s side and lacing both hands through his very much nonexistent extended arm, with what flourish did she turn and address everyone gathered in Darcy’s drawing room. “Oh, what a happy occasion this is. All of us are together just as we were at Netherfield, and thanks to Colonel Fitzwilliam we are all so charmingly matched.”

  Jane said, “You are mistaken, Miss Bingley, for I find I have no appetite for anything beyond a bit of solitude this evening. Pray you will excuse me, Mr. Darcy… Lizzy.”

  “Jane,” Elizabeth cried, “shall I accompany you?”

  She held up her hand. “No, my dearest sister. There is no need for that. Pray remain here with Mr. Darcy and his guests. I am just a little tired after our travels today. I am sure I will be quite all right after a long night’s rest.” Saying that, Jane was gone directly.

  Moments thereafter, Miss Bingley decried, “If I remember correctly, Miss Bennet was always of a rather sickly constitution.”

  Voices throughout the room could be heard exclaiming either Caroline or Miss Bingley in unison as well as in varying degrees of astonishment mixed with hints of disgust.

  “What did I say that is not true?” Caroline asked in a manner suggesting she was the injured party. “Is it not true that she spent the better part of her time at Netherfield convalescing?”

  “You ought to apologize to Miss Elizabeth all the same,” said Mr. Bingley.

  “I thank you, Mr. Bingley,” Elizabeth responded in her own defense, “but, I assure you an apology is not required and were it offered, I do not know that I would accept it. Who among us does not comprehend Miss Bingley’s true intentions?”

  Surrendering her current position by Mr. Darcy’s side, Elizabeth assumed the spot Miss Bingley had staked out for herself compelling the young lady to step aside. Accepting her intended’s proffered arm, she gave him a warm smile and, in a voice that only the mistress of the house had the right to assume, she encouraged everyone to make their way to the dining room for dinner.

  * * *

  Jane did not know who angered her the most in the drawing room: Mr. Bingley, Miss Bingley, or herself. All she knew is she was angry, disappointed, and simply exhausted because of it.

  She really was happy to see Mr. Bingley when he walked into the room. Having spoken with him at his behest earlier that day, he had asked for a private audience with her at some point after dinner, and she had agreed. How disgusted she was to see his sister waltz into the room on his heels, pretending she was mistress of the manor. Especially because it was meant to be an intimate dinner party. She was well aware that Mr. Darcy had explicitly told his friend as much.

  It is as though Mr. Bingley is tethered to his pernicious sister, and he has no desire to sever the cord. How difficult would it have been to escape her company this evening? I am beginning to question his being in Kent so long as he was and away from her tutelage.

  Here, Jane blew out a frustrated breath. I simply refuse to be drawn in by those people again.

  Thus resolved, she opened the book she had left behind in that particular room earlier and resumed reading where she had left off. Time passed quicker than she supposed and before long she was aroused by the sound of a most-welcomed gentleman’s voice.

  “Here you are, Miss Bennet,” he said. “I have been going from room to room in search of you. I hope I am not intruding.”

  “Colonel Fitzwilliam,” she said, laying her book aside. “I welcome your company.”

  “I was hoping you would.”

  Jane toyed with a loosened lock of her hair. “I suppose you think I am a coward for escaping the dinner party by feigning being tired. In my defense, I had no desire to spend a moment longer than necessary in Miss Bingley’s presence.”

  “No—not at all. Why do you think I was so eager to follow your lead?”

  “I did not realize you shared in my distaste for the lady,” said J
ane, not so apologetically.

  “It is true. Women of her ilk are my abhorrence.”

  “Her ilk, sir?”

  “Women who lavish the object of their marital prospects with sickening civility, feigned deference, and officious attention—always speaking, and looking, and thinking for a gentleman’s approbation alone.”

  “Oh, that ilk.”

  “Indeed. However, I do not suppose for one second that your reason for eschewing Miss Bingley’s company has anything at all to do with mine.”

  “Not in so many words. The truth is there was a time when I thought rather highly of Miss Bingley as well as her sister, Mrs. Hurst. I was quite persuaded they held me in equally high esteem.”

  “Pray what happened, that is, if you do not mind my asking?”

  “My time spent here in London during the early part of the year taught me how little those two were to be trusted. You see, I called on them when I first arrived, thinking the friendship we had formed while in Hertfordshire afforded me such a right. I learned the painful way that our so-called friendship was really no friendship at all, but rather a bit of mean-spirited condescension on their parts.”

  “How so?”

  “After waiting for some time for either of them to return my call as promised, Miss Bingley came to my aunt’s home in Cheapside and made it very clear to me that she wished me all the best but saw no point in continuing our acquaintance. I do not at all comprehend her reason for wishing to be intimate with me at the beginning of our acquaintance, but I promised myself if the same circumstances were to happen again, I am sure I should not be deceived yet again.”

  “It is her loss and your gain,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam.

  “Of course, I see that now. But I realize I have only myself to blame for being so willfully deceived. My sister tried to warn me and on more than one occasion. I simply would not allow myself to believe it. Lizzy also warned me that Miss Bingley never wanted her brother to court me. Having read between the lines of the letter she wrote on her brother’s behalf, mind you, Lizzy also advised me that Miss Bingley was the principal party in keeping her brother and me apart.”

  “I take it that you harbor a bit of ill will toward Bingley as a result.”

  “Can you blame me? Who in my position, having been so ill-used by another and subjected to heartbreak and ridicule as a result, would not be deeply aggrieved and consequently unforgiving toward the offender?”

  “Miss Bennet, you may have noticed that I have grown extremely fond of you since making your acquaintance. Indeed, I like to think of the two of us as more than casual acquaintances.”

  “I agree, Colonel Fitzwilliam. You and I are of the same mind as regards our acquaintance, I am sure.”

  “I am delighted to hear you say that.” Seizing her hand in his, he raised it to his lips and brushed a soft kiss across her knuckles. Lowering her hand while still holding it in his, he said, “I admire you too much not to be completely honest with you regarding all the pertinent facts relating to Bingley’s abrupt departure from Hertfordshire.”

  Jane could not deny being affected by the colonel’s nearness. She had spent too much time in his company during the past weeks to be immune to those innumerable gifts he possessed, his being a man with a way with women. Her heartbeat racing, it did not help her composure one bit that he was sitting so close and holding, even caressing, her hand.

  Their eyes met, and it was more than a moment before she grew demure. Breaking eye contact, she withdrew her hand. Standing, she smoothed her skirt and walked over to the fireplace.

  The colonel also stood. He walked over to a side table and poured a drink. He offered it to Jane, but she did not accept. He took a sip of the dark liquor.

  “Sir, what is it that you think I should know about Mr. Bingley’s leave-taking?”

  His drink in hand, he walked to where Jane stood. By way of an inviting gesture of his hand, he encouraged her to take a seat by the fireplace. He took the one directly opposite. “I think you should know that whereas Miss Bingley may have played a part in keeping you and her brother separated, she did not act alone. You see, Miss Bennet, my cousin was also instrumental in the scheme.”

  “Mr. Darcy?” Jane cried.

  The colonel nodded. “Trust me when I say that both Mr. Darcy and Miss Bingley may have been complicit in the scheme, but their motives for their actions have nothing in common whatsoever. I can only speak to Darcy’s motives, for he explained his purposes to me long before you and I met. Indeed, in explaining the time he spent with Bingley last autumn, he mentioned having to come to his rescue yet again to save him from a most disadvantageous alliance. I say that he had no ill intentions towards you in doing so because Bingley had theretofore fancied himself in love with any number of young women since he and Darcy became friends. I am afraid that my cousin could have no reason to suppose that Bingley’s falling in love with you was any different.”

  “I suppose my family’s lack of fortune and want of connections must surely have been a factor as well,” said Jane.

  “A circumstance that is by no means confined to you nor are you to be faulted, but from Darcy’s viewpoint, Bingley’s tendency in failing to consider such things is not exactly in his own best interest. At the time, Darcy felt it was incumbent on himself to see that his friend made the most advantageous match possible.”

  “Do you mean to someone like his own sister, Miss Darcy?”

  Miss Bingley’s words to a similar effect echoed in Jane’s mind: “My brother admires her greatly already; he will have frequent opportunity now of seeing her on the most intimate footing; her relations all wish the connection as much as his own, and a sister’s partiality is not misleading me, I think, when I call Charles most capable of engaging any woman’s heart. With all these circumstances to favor an attachment, and nothing to prevent it, am I wrong, my dearest Jane, in indulging the hope of an event which will secure the happiness of so many?”

  The colonel replied, “I suspect that may very well be the favorite wish of Mr. Bingley’s family, and there may have been a moment in my young cousin’s history where both Darcy and I entertained such a notion, but the truth is, young Georgiana’s prospects ought not to be constrained.”

  “In other words, Mr. Bingley is not good enough for Miss Darcy.”

  “I did not say that?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I am saying that Darcy, in doing all he did to keep you and Bingley apart, was acting in service to his friend.”

  Jane wondered if Elizabeth had any knowledge of the things the colonel alleged. And if she did, why did she choose not to confide in Jane herself? On the other hand, she had never seen her sister so happy. Elizabeth loved Mr. Darcy, and she likely wanted Jane to love him too, and thus her silence on his role in the scheme.

  “I pray that in telling you all this you will not begrudge my cousin. I merely thought you should know.”

  “I cannot fault your cousin if for nothing else but for the sake of familial harmony as he is to be my brother, I must let bygones be bygones.”

  “I am happy you feel that way, which brings me to another matter of great concern to me. One having to do with Charles Bingley.”

  “Mr. Bingley, sir?”

  “Indeed,” said the colonel, nodding. “you suffer a bit of ill will toward him for the way you were mistreated by the people who mean the most to him.”

  “And rightly so.”

  “Surely if you can forgive Darcy, then you can forgive Bingley. If not for the sake of familial harmony, then for yourself. I am certain he cares deeply for you even if you choose not to see just how much. I suspect you love him too or at least you believed you did at one time. Those feelings cannot have dissipated so easily as the passage of a couple of months would allow. Let that be the basis upon which the two of you build something lasting. He is an excellent match for you.”

  “As opposed to whom, Colonel Fitzwilliam? For I cannot suppose you are not speaking of yours
elf.”

  “I would be lying if I denied how much I wish it were otherwise. But the second son of an earl cannot marry where he chooses. I must—”

  Nodding, Jane interrupted, “—marry a woman with her own fortune if you are to maintain your manner of living. I know—my sister made that abundantly clear when she suspected that I might be captivated by your infinite charms.”

  “I want you to know that were my situation different, I would do everything in my power to make you mine. You are exquisite, Miss Bennet.”

  As though he was powerless to do otherwise, he stood from his chair and walked over to her. He seized her hand in his once again and bowing, pressed a lingering kiss on her palm. He had the keenest sense of how vulnerable she was.

  When Bingley speaks of her has being an angel, he cannot possibly know how close he is to speaking the truth.

  As for the colonel, he would be lying if he said he was unaffected by her. A part of him longed for her—ached for the chance to know her in that way a man knew the woman whom he adored, the woman who belonged to him and him alone. In the lonely hours of the night since getting to know her, he yearned for her—spent long hours satiating his need for her, imagining her there beside him.

  Her hand in his, she cried, “You are not being fair, sir. One moment you are encouraging me to open my heart once again to the man who has been the means of tearing it apart, and the next moment you are making love to me.”

  “I confess to being an imperfect man in that regard. The truth is I have longed for you from the moment I first laid eyes on you. As much as I admire you, I know there is another who admires you more—someone who, unlike me, can fulfill all your heart’s desires. If it were not for the fact that I suspect deep down inside you still care for him, I would not encourage you to marry him. I would not do anything in the world that might cause you pain.”