by Pamela Aidan
“Then do pet the poor creature before he disgraces himself!” Brougham drawled and, without invitation, made himself comfortable in one of the study’s well-upholstered chairs.
Shooting his friend a glance fraught with irritation, Darcy bent and caressed Trafalgar’s soft crown and then twisted his silky ears between his fingers. “Monster!” he addressed the dog affectionately and was answered with a shuddering sigh and a languorous lick of his hand. Laughing, Darcy rose and, followed closely by his hound, took a chair opposite Brougham. When he was seated, Trafalgar positioned himself as near to Darcy’s boot as was seemly and raised his head to regard his late traveling companion with something akin to triumphal disdain.
“Ha!” Brougham marked his charge’s betrayal. “I am now put in my proper place, I see: airily dismissed from polite company like a governess whose students are called upon to perform for their papa!” Brougham’s “For shame!” was answered with a sniff and his “Ingrate!” with a wide-mouthed yawn as Trafalgar settled in closer to Darcy’s leg.
“You brought him down from Pemberley?” Darcy repeated stiffly, interrupting the trade of insults. “Why ever did you take upon yourself such an office?”
“It seemed the thing to do.” Brougham’s gaze flitted up from Trafalgar to rest upon Darcy. “I knew from your letter to Miss Darcy that you would make your return on Saturday and suspected that you would wish a private homecoming. Having been forced to cut short a jaunt to Scotland that I had planned before you postponed your departure from Kent” — he tipped a curious brow at Darcy, to which Darcy declined to respond — “I decided to take my leave just before your return and asked your sister if there was any service I might do either of you during my short sojourn. Miss Darcy mentioned that you would likely send for your animal upon your return. So, with her help, I obtained your man Hinchcliffe’s authorization and a promise to keep mum about my surprise, then delayed in Derbyshire on my way back from Scotland long enough to retrieve young Master Trafalgar.” Brougham leaned back into the chair. “We enjoyed a most instructive drive down together. I would have you know, Darcy, ‘Monster’ is a name not wide of the mark. Due to your undisciplined beast’s execrable behavior, my credit at the Hart and Swan on the North Road is thoroughly destroyed.”
Darcy bit down on his lip, his hand twitching to bestow an approving pat on Trafalgar’s unrepentant head, but there was a more pressing debt to settle and a warning to serve. “I must thank you for your watchful care of my sister. You have discharged my request with astonishingly dutiful care, it would seem, for Georgiana has spoken of little else but you since my return.”
“Ah,” Brougham replied, “I see.” Resting his elbows on the chair’s arms, he templed his fingers beneath his chin, regarding Darcy steadily. “You object to my attention to Miss Darcy? I had thought that you welcomed what I could do for her in Society.”
“I would be a fool not to,” Darcy returned evenly, “but she is very young, Dy, and you play the gallant extremely well.”
Brougham’s face suddenly darkened. “Do you accuse me of making a game of Miss Darcy’s favor?”
“I do not.” Darcy regarded his friend piercingly. “I only make mention of her youth and remind you how easily a young girl might be led to imagine herself in love.” At that, Brougham rose from his chair and, in visible agitation, walked the length of the room. Darcy looked on him with wonder. Dy stood for a moment, his back to Darcy, then turned, his face relaxed now into the careless lines Darcy saw when they were in company.
“Of course, it is proper and right for you to warn me, Darcy! It is hereby noted, and I shall endeavor that Miss Darcy not be cozened into believing any such thing. I assure you, she is safe with and from me; and here is my hand on it!” Dy extended his hand, which after rising, Darcy grasped with relief. “But I find it incumbent upon me to advise you of something as well, old friend,” Brougham added.
“Yes?” Darcy answered cautiously.
“Miss Darcy is many admirable things. She is, indeed, a credit to your care and liberality; but, my friend, she is a girl no longer. Beware you treat her so, or underestimate her understanding, for there is a strength in her which you have yet to see.”
“So.” Darcy drew up haughtily. “Do you now presume to teach me as you have my sister and my hound?” At the word hound and his master’s inclination toward him, Trafalgar rose as well and, stationing himself at Darcy’s side, looked up with equal hauteur at their guest.
“Wouldn’t dream of it, old man!” Dy laughed. “No future in it!” The study clock struck the hour, drawing all three pair of eyes to it. “You are to view Miss Darcy’s finished portrait today, are you not?” he inquired when the echo had faded. “I would count it an honor if you would allow me to accompany you, for I confess, I would very much like to see it.”
At last, he was alone! Poised at the closed dressing room door, Darcy listened as Fletcher completed his preparations for the next morning and finally departed for his quarters. With the click of the servants’ door, Darcy relinquished his hold on the guard he had vowed to maintain with the relief of a man who had been unburdened of his commission to hold back the wind. The rush of its sudden release flowed through his frame, and for a moment, the tightness in his chest was diminished. For a moment, he could take a deep breath and believe it was a night like any other. Then thoughts of her came as they had come every night since his return as soon as he was decently alone; and the virulent admixture of anger and anguish in his heart, suppressed during the day, could be read plainly in his every feature.
Wrapping his dressing gown tightly about him, Darcy moved to the hearth and took the chair closest to the glowing embers. It was a cool April, necessitating a fire still be laid at night, and he stretched out his slipper-clad feet to take advantage of its warmth. God knew, Darcy snorted, he had none in himself. No, according to Miss Elizabeth Bennet he was a coldhearted miscreant who rejoiced in ruining deserving young men and blighting the hopes of maidens wherever his disdainful gaze happened to alight! He looked at the chair across the hearth rug and knew that, if he closed his eyes, he would be able to see her there. Smiling grimly, he slowly shook his head. “No, Miss Bennet, I do not wish you here to catalog my many shortcomings.”
Darcy’s gaze shifted to the brandy decanter at his side. No, the potential for warmth in that quarter was tempting, the haziness it would afford even more so; but he would be damned if he would allow her to drive him to drink and turn his life into a common Cheltenham tragedy! His life! His life had been well enough until Charles Bingley had taken it into his head to let a country house and then induced Darcy into overseeing his transformation into a member of the landed gentry. Why ever had he agreed to it? Pity? Boredom? If only he had not succumbed to Bingley’s entreaties, he would not even have entered Hertfordshire last autumn. He would not have met…her. The thought brought a sharp pang to his chest. Even now, would he never have wanted to know Elizabeth, the first and perhaps the only woman who could draw him both body and soul, who could merrily stand against him on a point of contention and yet excite both his admiration and desire?
“Elizabeth,” Darcy groaned, cradling his brow in his hands. She had given every appearance of receiving him in Kent. Her visits to Rosings had been lively and her behavior toward him amiable. Yes, she had teased him at times, but he knew that to be her way. His observation that she delighted in expressing opinions not strictly her own she had greeted with scandalized laughter but not denial. He had seen the acknowledgment of a “hit” in the knowing arch of her eyebrows. Their walks had been conducted almost formally. Little had been said, it was true; but it was his actions that he meant her to read, and she had given him no reason to believe himself mistaken in his advances.
Darcy fell back against the chair, rubbing at his eyes and raking a hand through his hair, his mind struggling to fit together all the pieces of this puzzle that was Elizabeth Bennet. At least she could no longer hold Wickham’s story against him. His letter must
have laid those charges to rest. If she could not abide him, there was a degree of comfort and vindication to be found in that, was there not? He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and looked searchingly into the fire. If Elizabeth had known the truth about Wickham, had read aright his wordless apology for slighting her on their first meeting, would it have changed her belief that he was the last man in the world whom she could ever be prevailed on to marry? Good God, those words still cut him like a knife! To her, he was the last man; for him, she seemed the only woman. Could fate have fashioned a more perfect twist or held him in any more derision?
Darcy rose from the chair. The embers were dying as were the coals in the warming pan that heated the sheets. If he did not go to bed soon, he would not find sleep before the chill returned. Casting aside the dressing gown, he removed the pan and slid between the bedclothes. Would it have made any difference if Elizabeth had known the truth? Darcy closed his eyes against the question, only to see her there armed with her other accusation. No, it would have made no difference; for had he not “ruined the happiness” of the sister she loved? Darcy groaned and, turning on his side, grasped a pillow and buried his face in it. No more…no more tonight! His only relief lay in dreamless sleep, but a ragged night of fitful, dream-curst sleep was all Providence saw fit to give him.
When Fletcher came in the next morning to pull back the curtains, Darcy was torn between a desire to curse him roundly for awakening him and the urge to thank him for putting a point to the disturbing phantasmagoria that had plagued his night. Eschewing both for an uncharacteristic lack of resolve, he struggled upright and swung his legs out of bed, his eyes smarting from the morning light that poured in through the window. How could there be so much sun? He was in London, was he not? Grimacing, he looked at the devastation wrought upon his bedstead by his restless night. The chambermaids would have a fine time of it, for it looked as if he’d engaged in mortal combat. Darcy looked up to see Fletcher staring openmouthed at the upheaval.
“I-I beg your pardon, sir,” he stammered when he realized Darcy’s eyes were upon him. “Should you want your barbering now, sir?” He carefully looked away from the bed.
Darcy heaved a sigh. “Yes, I suppose…” His voice trailed off as he thought of the day ahead. The first test of his uncertain disposition would be breakfast with Georgiana. Supper the previous evening had been yet again an exceedingly uncomfortable exercise, his preoccupation interfering at every turn. Georgiana had sat very straight and still, casting him glances well seasoned with worry throughout a meal that he had barely tasted. Frankly, he did not care to repeat the performance. “Fletcher,” he recalled his valet from the dressing room, “send down for a tray. I shall breakfast in my chambers this morning.”
“Very good, sir” came the formal reply, but Darcy knew that his valet’s curiosity at this directive would be multiplied by every member in his household and received with dismay by his sister. Better, though, that he should disappoint her from a distance than chance hurting her feelings close at hand. He shambled into the dressing room and settled back in his shaving chair, determining that for the next quarter hour he would do nothing but surrender himself to Fletcher’s ministrations. The unvarying ritual required no thought, only submission to his valet’s murmured instructions. The soothing effects of warmed, fragrant towels on his newly shorn face would not be amiss, either. Lord, he felt absolutely terrible! Darcy closed his eyes awaiting Fletcher’s return. Unsettled, lethargic, disinterested — he felt a specter in his own house, drifting from room to room, unable to feel at home in any of them. He could not read, he could not write, he could not even enjoy his sister’s music without falling into fruitless reflection. “With what I most enjoy contented least,” he murmured to himself.
“Your pardon, Mr. Darcy?” Fletcher had returned. How could he have been so careless as to repeat the phrase aloud and within his valet’s hearing!
“Shakespeare, Fletcher. Surely you have heard of him,” Darcy drawled sardonically, raising his chin for the lathering brush.
“Yes, sir. The Twenty-ninth Sonnet, I believe,” Fletcher replied smoothly and began his expert application of shaving soap to his master’s face and neck. Darcy closed his eyes again, eager that the familiar motions should preoccupy Fletcher and lull himself into a state of thoughtless oblivion.
“ ‘Yet — ’ ” The single word hung in the air with no further support. Opening an eye, Darcy beheld his valet, razor in one hand, reaching for the strop.
“Yet?” he repeated curiously as Fletcher set the slide and snick of the razor into a rhythm upon the strop.
“ ‘Yet,’ ” Fletcher replied with feeling. “The next line, sir.” With a light touch, he lifted Darcy’s chin another fraction, turned it and made the first pass. “ ‘Yet!’ followed most auspiciously by ‘Haply.’ Taken together, they make all the difference, sir. Most comforting.”
Able to do no more than make a noncommittal grunt in answer to Fletcher’s enigmatic observation, Darcy looked at the ceiling. What should he do with himself today? Yesterday, Hinchcliffe had somberly directed his attention to a stack of correspondence that still remained discreetly ensconced in the portfolio on his desk. He had tried to deal with it several times in the past few days, but try as he might, he could not focus his mind on the facts contained therein, nor find it in himself to care overmuch about their contents. He could drop in at Boodle’s; he’d not shown his face there since before he’d left for — No, the effort to appear interested in the goings-on of his club was simply beyond him. What he really needed was a hard, bruising ride over challenging terrain that would take his mind and body to the brink of exhaustion. Then see if Miss Elizabeth Bennet haunted his dreams! But there was no such place in London, and Nelson — too much of a handful for Town — was enjoying his stable of mares in Derbyshire. That avenue for his temper, it seemed, was closed to him as well. Was there nothing he could put his hand to that would rid him of this, this — What? From what, exactly, was he suffering?
When, in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes. The words of the sonnet returned to revolve inside his brain. I all alone beweep my outcast state…Disgrace? he asked himself, testing the thought for a moment before hardening against it. Well may he have been in disgrace in Elizabeth’s eyes, but be it in hers or any man’s eyes, that did not make it so! There was, after all, an innumerable host of men in the world who were the greatest fools, and their opinion counted for nothing. Yet — Darcy paused at Fletcher’s word and flicked an eye toward his valet. Yet, Elizabeth’s charge lay heavy against his conscience. “Had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner.” To be in disgrace with one who mattered; further, with the woman with whom one had thought to spend one’s life; whether just or no, such disgrace was a crushing blow indeed.
Full apprehension of the next line came hard on the heels of his admission. Outcast state…Yes! that was how he felt: cast out, bereft of any prospect of contentment or joy, rejected by Fortune. Wishing me like to one more rich in hope…Nothing in the present was of interest to him; nothing in the future offered him hope that this situation would change. Darcy closed his eyes against the silent groan that began deep in his chest and traveled inexorably throughout his frame. Hope — the word, so rich and full, pregnant with sound and meaning — mocked him. From where was hope to come? His cousin had but to wait for the next pretty face to ease his disappointment. The idea of venturing out into the marriage mart for a replacement to install in his heart was, to Darcy, too appalling. Such an exercise could not possibly be done, not by him. Elizabeth was irreplaceable. He’d learned that quite well enough at Norwycke Castle. More rich in hope? He derided himself. He was destitute of it.
“The towel, sir?” Fletcher had finished shaving him.
Darcy nodded but arrested his valet as he turned, his curiosity at Fletcher’s words getting the better of his judgment. At this point, any straw would do. “ ‘Yet’? What did you mean by it, Fletcher?”
“ ‘Yet’ and �
��Haply,’ sir.” Fletcher carefully averted his eyes from Darcy’s and set about rearranging the shaving equipment on the tray. “ ‘Yet’ turns the point of the sonnet. All is hopeless before it; then, in the very midst of the poet’s self-abasement, ‘yet’ suddenly appears, a word suggesting that hope may still exist, that all is not truly lost.”
“Humph.” Darcy snorted his dissatisfaction. “Hope against hope: a poet’s romantic solution to what the rest of the world knows as the unyielding nuda veritas of life.”
“You would be entirely correct in that, sir,” Fletcher replied, “save for the presence of ‘haply.’ ”
“Haply? By chance?” Darcy frowned.
“By Fortune, if we follow the Bard’s metaphor,” Fletcher amended. “Hope reborn begins with no more than a thought; but that thought is able to move the poet from misery to joy. ‘Haply I think on thee,’ and then ‘bootless cries’ are turned into ‘hymns at heaven’s gate.’ ” His voice fell almost to a sigh.
“All this with a thought,” Darcy interrupted, discontent and skepticism hard-edging his words.
“No, sir, not a thought — Fortune’s thought. Would you like the towel now, sir?” Fletcher cocked his head toward the steamy article whose comforting fragrance was beginning to tickle Darcy’s nose. Nodding, he sat back again in the chair, closing his eyes against the towel’s imminent application. It landed suddenly in a hot and unceremonious heap upon his face as, in a shocked voice, his valet exclaimed, “Miss Darcy!”
In a single, swift movement, Darcy flung the towel from him and shot bolt upright. “Georgiana!” Never had his sister entered his chambers uninvited! He could not even think when her last visit had been; certainly, she had never seen its walls before he was properly dressed.
“I-I beg your pardon, Fitzwilliam,” she stuttered to his incredulous gaze. Although she was obviously nervous, she returned his regard steadily, breaking only to slide a glance at Fletcher, who had remained next to his chair in slack-mouthed surprise.
