"Yes. Lady Eleanor Carlisle." He spoke her name with a certain reverence.
Darcy had a vague recollection of a thin, somewhat disheveled little girl. Presumably she had improved since then. "I was already planning to call on Lord Bentham. You can accompany me if you like, but I imagine you could do as much on your own."
"Unfortunately not. They have never invited me there or called on me here. I fare better than my father, though - at least they will greet me in public." Darcy winced. "I am sorry."
"I am not asking you to advocate for me. I only want a chance to have a conversation with Lord Bentham, to prove to him that I can behave properly and that there is no dirt under my fingernails. And if he condescends so far as to treat me as a gentleman. I intend to ask him for his daughter's hand. He will refuse, of course, but at least I will have tried."
"Does Lady Eleanor know of your plan?"
"No. She has also invited a friend to visit in the hope that we can steal a few moments together, but I have not told her that I plan to try a frontal assault. She would attempt to dissuade me, fearing it would anger her father." Paxton's mouth was set in a firm line.
"I have no objection to noting your finer points to Lord Bentham, but perhaps this should be taken in stages. If we call on them, they will have to either return the call or at least invite us to dinner. It would be difficult for them to ignore my presence nearby. Although I have seen little of Lord Bentham in the last few years, my father was his closest friend, and the Dowager Marchioness is my great-aunt and used to be quite fond of me. She is a practical woman and might be willing to take your side."
"The Dowager Marchioness? In her day, she ignored my parents, but it hardly matters. She no longer lives at Bentham Park. The current Lady Bentham does not care for her company, and even the dower house is too close for comfort. The dowager has her own establishment some twenty miles from here."
Darcy raised his eyebrows. "I cannot imagine she took that well! She was always a lady who spoke her mind."
"I do not know what happened, but my Eleanor is fond of her. Do you think Lord Bentham will heed your opinion of me?"
Darcy stretched out his legs in front of him. "He will listen to what I say, for my father's sake, if nothing else. My parents introduced him to his first wife, though there is no love lost between his current wife and me. His eldest son was my particular friend, but he is in exile and out of favor, so that is of little use. Still, Lord Bentham has tried to stay in contact with me these last few years, so perhaps he will be pleased to see me." It was true; Darcy had been the one to refuse all the overtures Lord Bentham had made to him.
"If I can catch even a glimpse of Eleanor, it is worth a try. Although Bentham Park is but three miles from here, it has been difficult for us to meet because she is chaperoned so closely. Nothing can come of it, of course, but it is some comfort to be in her presence."
Darcy wondered if it would be comfort or torture for him to be in Elizabeth's presence. It was unlikely he would ever find out. Still, if a sympathetic ear would help Paxton through his despair, Darcy was willing to listen, especially if another glass of port might chase away that light and pleasing figure that insisted on haunting him.
After downing three more glasses, Darcy had given up hope of forgetting Elizabeth's fine eyes even for an hour. All in all, Paxton was more fortunate than he was. "At least you can console yourself with the knowledge that Lady Eleanor cares for you." It was more than he had. If Elizabeth had cared for him, but been unable to marry him, it would have been enough. Or was it the other way around - that if she had married him, but not cared for him, that would have been enough? His thoughts were no longer clear enough to tell for certain.
"I take it the lady you loved did not?"
"No." The port burned in his throat. "She detests me."
"Detests you? That is ridiculous. Is she such a fool as that?"
"No, I am the fool, for not realizing how she felt before I was mad enough to propose to her."
"Come now, Darcy; it may be true that you offend people from time to time, but no one detests you."
George Wickham's face swam before Darcy's blurred vision, followed by an echo of Elizabeth's voice. You are the last man in the world I could be prevailed upon to marry. "She found me arrogant and self-centered. I met her in a little country town where I was visiting my friend Bingley. Do you know Bingley?"
"Darcy, you are drunk. I introduced you to Bingley."
Darcy tried to recall it, but could only bring up a fuzzy vision of a dinner party - or was it a shooting party? "I was bewitched by her, though she was nothing more than the impertinent daughter of a poor country gentleman with low connections. She had one sister who was presentable, but the rest of the family behaved disgracefully. Marrying her would have been a degradation, and I feared raising expectations I could not meet, so I said nothing. I left the neighborhood as soon as I could and determined to forget her."
"Beneath you," said Paxton bitterly. "How well I know it. Love is of no importance, not when compared to your parentage."
"None of it mattered. She did not want me." Darcy heaved a sigh, then repeated the words more slowly. "She did not want me."
"How can you say that, when you left without a word?"
"I met her again later. I offered her my hand, and she refused me in the harshest terms. I had spent months admiring her, showing her attention, but it turned out she had no idea of it. That is how much she disliked me - she could not even conceive of me as a potential suitor. I had thought she was flirting with me, but I must have been blind. I did not know her at all. I believed her to be sweet and caring, and if it had occurred to me that she might reject me, I would have thought she would do so in a gentle and kindly manner. Instead, she berated me, made accusations, told me my behavior was not that of a gentleman. I had paid her the highest compliment I could give a woman, and in return, she attacked my character." Elizabeth had proved she was not the insightful, intelligent, caring woman of his dreams. So why could he not forget her?
Paxton shook his head, then placed his hand to his forehead as if he needed to steady it. "She sounds like a shrew! You had a narrow escape, my friend."
Darcy hunched his shoulders, lacking an answer. He had never seen signs of cruelty or vindictiveness in Elizabeth before that night. She had hidden it well, or perhaps she was only a shrew when it involved him. Still, his sense of justice would not let the explanation end there. "She had some slight excuse in that she was under a misapprehension about me. Do you remember George Wickham? He had plied her with his lies about how I mistreated him. But she believed him."
"George Wickham could charm the birds out of the trees if he set his mind to it."
Darcy's mouth twisted. "That is true enough."
"But why did she think you ungentlemanly? Had you made advances she might have deemed improper?"
"No. She simply did not like the way I spoke of my honest scruples about her family and her connections. It was all true, though. She is my inferior, and I thought my frankness would show her the strength of my love."
"You said she was inferior to you during your proposal?"
"It is not as if she were not already perfectly aware of it!"
"Still..." Paxton, his face stony, drained his glass so quickly that it made him cough. "Suppose a Duke... no, a Royal Duke, asked you for your sister's hand, and told you in the process how inferior you are to him, how degrading it was for him to even consider marriage to a woman without a title, and that your relatives were an embarrassment. Would you feel honored by his frankness?"
"As if there were a Royal Duke alive whom I would permit Georgiana to marry," grumbled Darcy. The picture Paxton had painted was an unpleasant one.
Paxton sighed. "Never mind. Even so, I would have thought no woman would refuse a man with as much to offer as you do. Was there another man she preferred? A better match, perhaps?"
"There was no other man, at least not that I was aware of." The idea made his stom
ach roil. "She could never find a better match than me. She has no fortune. I was probably the most eligible man she had ever met."
His friend gave a soft whistle. "She must be mad."
It was precisely what Darcy had told himself time and again, but hearing the words aloud somehow broke the spell. "No. she was not mad, just not mercenary. She simply thought me unworthy of her notice. I loved her. God, what I would not have done for her!"
But he knew what he had not done for her. He had never tried to earn her respect, only to buy her, and she could not be bought. With a trembling hand, he sloshed more port into his glass.
Chapter 2
"Now, Lizzy, I insist that you tell me about the gentlemen who proposed to you." Eleanor led the way down a path into the wooded area of the park. "There is very little to tell."
"I do not believe it! Which one came first, the fool or the ill-tempered one?"
"The fool. He was a cousin of mine whom I had never met, a clergyman who will someday inherit my home. He came to visit us with the express plan of choosing a wife from among my sisters. Oh, if only his interest had lighted on Mary! But we had no such good fortune. I cannot tell you how obsequious and foolish he was. Everyone was laughing behind their hands at his pompous manners and lack of understanding. He could not even dance without making himself look silly! I had the most mortifying dance with him at a ball. The next day he proposed to me on bended knee, expressing his most ardent love, although he had known me less than a fortnight. It could have been a scene in a farce. He did not believe me when I refused him, even when I became downright rude! Then, when he was finally convinced that I meant it, he proposed to one of my friends three days later, claiming ardent love for her."
Eleanor covered her mouth with her hands to stifle her laughter. "He did? What did she say?"
"She accepted him, believe it or not, because it was a prudential match for her. I was horrified, but she seems content enough with him, or at least able to ignore his idiocy."
"And what of the other one, the ill-tempered gentleman?"
Elizabeth looked away, pretending an interest in a stand of beeches beside the path. "That was much worse. I had taken a decided dislike to him when we first met because of his insufferable pride, and then because of some stories I heard about him, stories that later proved to be untrue. I had a horrible dance with him as well, at that very same ball. I should have taken greater care around gentlemen who were in attendance that night since they had such an odd tendency to propose to me!"
"Was he eligible?"
"Oh, very - quite beyond my reach, in fact, both in wealth and birth. Your father might even consider him an appropriate suitor for you. That was part of the problem. It never seems to have occurred to him that a woman in my position might not wish to marry him. I did not even realize he admired me until the night he shocked me by proposing. It was a nightmare of a proposal, all about my low connections and what a degradation it was for him to marry me. He was stunned when I refused him, and we quarreled bitterly. It is an embarrassment to recall that episode. I behaved no better than he did."
"I cannot believe that. You are always so kind to everyone."
"I was very unkind to him, not to mention vain and nonsensical. I made a fool of myself by accusing him of horrible things, which were later proved to be untrue. I am still vexed with myself for how I treated him. You have no idea how often I have wished since then that I could go back in time and give him a calmer answer."
"Would you accept him now that you know the stories are untrue?"
"No, for I still have no wish to marry him, or even to see him again. I am complimented by his attachment and I respect him, but I cannot approve of his proud behavior. Besides, can you imagine how humiliating it would be to encounter him again? I would be mortified. He knows what a blind fool I was."
Eleanor's brows drew together. "It sounds as if you still have strong feelings about him."
Elizabeth inspected her hands. "I am sorry for his disappointment and that I made matters worse by condemning and upbraiding him. But I imagine he must hate me now, and I doubt he has any respect left for me. Until that day, I had always prided myself on my perspicacity, but he showed me how foolish and gullible I am. It was not a lesson I enjoyed."
"You are far from gullible, and there are plenty of other men in the world. The guests for my stepmother's house party will be here in a few days. Perhaps one of the gentlemen will fall in love with you and make you a proposal you can accept," said Eleanor with a smile.
"It is hardly likely, given the guests your parents receive. How many of them are titled?" Then again, it was no more unlikely than Mr. Darcy admiring her. She still could hardly believe it.
"Most of them, no doubt."
"Is your foppish almost-intended one of the guests?"
"Lord Deyncourt? You must be joking. He would never travel here; Yorkshire is much too far from his tailor. Hyde Park is almost too rustic for his tastes, and he would consider even a jaunt into Kent or Sussex as a venture into savage lands. No, we are perfectly safe from him here." Eleanor halted in front of an old oak. Standing on tiptoe, she reached past the lowest branch where it met the trunk and pushed her hand into a crevice in the rough bark. When she withdrew her hand, she displayed an envelope sealed with red wax, then pressed it against her lips.
"From your Geoffrey?"
Eleanor took another letter from her pocket and placed it in the crevice, then leaned back against the oak. "This is our post. We discovered it when we were children and hid our treasures there. Now we use it to communicate. He writes me every day. Occasionally we manage to meet here, but I never know when my stepmother will permit me to walk out. It will be so much easier now that you are here."
Looking around at the secluded area, Elizabeth wondered what would happen if Eleanor were ever discovered there with him. It would be quite compromising. Would that make her father more or less likely to approve of a marriage between them?
By mutual agreement, the two gentlemen decided to postpone their ride the following morning. The hammers pounding inside Darcy's head did not predispose him for any activity beyond sitting in the library and pretending to read a book. It had been years since he had indulged to the extent he had the previous night, and he fervently hoped it would be many more years before it happened again. Since he was not yet certain he would survive the aftermath of this event, it seemed pointless to worry about repeating his mistake.
Still he would not have any regrets, except one. Keeping Paxton company as he drowned his sorrows had been the right thing to do for his friend. Darcy's recollections of the previous night were hazy, but it was engraved on his memory that at some point he had poured forth the bitter saga of his failed efforts with Elizabeth Bennet. His only comfort was that he had not named her, and he had given the impression it had taken place years before, not less than two months past. Even so, he regretted letting the port loosen his tongue. The entire affair was an embarrassment he preferred to forget.
Paxton strode into the library with a paper in his hand, looking more cheerful than anyone had a right to be after a night of imbibing heavily. "Darcy, are you still willing to call at Bentham Park today?" Darcy winced, both at the very idea and at the sound of Paxton's voice. "Of course." He hoped the hammers in his head would have stopped by then.
"Excellent! Eleanor writes that they are expecting guests in the next few days, so it would be best if we called before the house party begins."
"She writes to you?"
Paxton fiddled with the cuffs of his coat. "There is a hidden place where we leave letters for each other. Since I cannot see her, it is our only connection. But perhaps now that will change."
Darcy's pleasure in seeing his friend more in his usual spirits almost made up for the throbbing in his head.
"Darcy!" Lord Bentham, somewhat more rotund than the last time they had met. bounced to his feet with surprising alacrity and shook Darcy's hand heartily. "By God, if you are not the very
image of your father as a young man! I cannot tell you how pleased I am to see you. What brings you to Yorkshire?" He then seemed to notice his companion for the first time. "Paxton," he said civilly but without enthusiasm, and there was a moment's hesitation before he offered to shake his hand. At least he had shaken it, but clearly Paxton had not exaggerated Lord Bentham's sentiments.
Paxton made a very correct bow. "My lord." His perfectly tied cravat stayed precisely in place.
"I am visiting Paxton, who is an old friend from my Cambridge days. When I discovered how nearby Bentham Park is, I decided I must call at the first possible opportunity. It has been too many years since we last met."
Lord Bentham's face sobered. "Yes, at your father's funeral. It was a great loss to us all when he passed away."
"It was indeed. He valued you highly. Do you recall those days when our families were so often in company together? I remember someone saying that if there was a Fitzwilliam in the room, you could depend on finding a Carlisle and a Darcy nearby."
"Oh, yes, those were fine days! Did you know that your mother introduced me to my first wife? They were the best of friends, those two!"
Darcy had heard the story retold more times than he cared to remember, but his goal was to remind Lord Bentham of the ties between them for Paxton's sake. "Is that so? I am not surprised; I remember how devoted my mother was to Lady Bentham, and vice versa."
Lord Bentham chuckled. "Always up to mischief, those two! My late wife was devastated when we lost your mother, and nothing would do except that she would take Lady Anne's children home for the summer to distract them. You were far less of a hellion than my sons, though! How old were you then? Twelve? Thirteen?"
"I was eleven. I must say, usually when I return to a place I have not been since I was a child, I discover it is smaller than I remember it, but Bentham Park seems larger than ever." Flattery was not among Darcy's skills, but he was determined to do his best.
Mr. Darcy's Noble Connections: A Pride & Prejudice Variation Page 2
