by Jessie Lewis
“Oh! My book!” Elizabeth cried. She rose hastily from the sofa, declaring her intention to retrieve it from the garden before the heavens opened.
“Sit down, Lizzy,” her mother said impatiently. “We have plenty of books within doors if you wish to read. There is no need for you to be running about in the rain. Send Sarah to fetch it if you must.”
Elizabeth only laughed. “Mama, it would take me longer to explain where I left it than it would to fetch it myself. I will be but a moment.” With a quick smile to Darcy that sent shards of envy slicing through Bingley’s gut, she left the room.
The parlour returned to its previous state of tedium. Jane drifted to sit with Caroline and Louisa, Darcy glared at Fitzwilliam as he flirted with Miss Catherine, and Hurst looked to have fallen asleep. With a loud sigh, Bingley crossed his legs at the ankle and stared at his feet, listening as the patter of raindrops began pinging off the windows. The pall was fractured when Darcy, quite without warning, reared up to the window and braced the frame with both hands, his nose almost pressed to the pane. In a blink, he had slammed his palm violently against the jamb, pivoted on his heel and flown wordlessly from the room, leaving it in brittle, stunned silence.
Bingley leapt to the window, as did Fitzwilliam. The scene unfolding in the garden was all too familiar: Elizabeth being manhandled, yet too far away for him to save.
“Come!” Fitzwilliam ordered, charging from the room.
Nauseated by the remembrance of Elizabeth lying broken on the ground, Bingley turned and ran after him.
***
The air outside was scarcely cooler than within; nonetheless, Elizabeth was relieved to have escaped the crowded parlour. She tipped her head back and breathed deeply of air redolent with the promise of rain before crossing the lawn to the hermitage. She pitied poor Darcy his continued captivity. After their blissful week in London, the confines of Hertfordshire society were testing his patience, and today’s unfortunate entrapment with half the neighbourhood was evidently vexing him greatly. It was for his sake as much as the imminent rain that she did not dally longer.
She had just recovered her book from beneath the stone bench when a familiar voice wished her good day, bringing her spinning around in surprise.
“Mr. Greyson!”
“Forgive me for startling you,” he said, bowing. “I am just arrived and saw you enter here from the stables. I could not pass up the opportunity of speaking to you privately.” He took several steps towards her. “I have missed you.”
Elizabeth started. He had left on business above a month ago, and so much had transpired in the meantime that she had quite forgotten him—and his unwelcome attentions. Another rumble of thunder rolled over the garden, smothering her sigh and providing her with an excellent reason to hear none of what he wished to say. She set out for the stone archway, taking a wide path around him.
“I fear this rain is almost upon us. Let us return indoors and speak there.”
“No, wait! I would speak to you alone about a matter of some delicacy.”
Her stomach sank. He meant to propose! “Mr. Greyson, please, there is nothing to be said between us that requires privacy.”
His brow contracted, and his air became more cautious. “You are angry with me for being gone so long.”
“No, not at all—”
“Forgive me. It took longer than anticipated to set my affairs in order. I ought to have written, but I dared not risk your reputation.”
A few spots of rain hit her face. “I must insist we go in.” She turned and walked determinedly away.
“Why will you not hear me?”
“I would get out of the rain!” she called over her shoulder.
“Then I shall speak hastily!” he insisted. “I love you!”
She stopped just short of the archway and turned back to him, determined to reject him civilly. Let it not be said she had learnt nothing.
“Sir, I beg you would not speak at all in that case.”
“What?”
“I am excessively flattered, but I must inform you I am promised to another.”
“What?” he repeated more heatedly. “To whom?”
“Mr. Darcy.”
“Mr. Darcy? I understood him to be gone from the neighbourhood.” He recoiled. “Oh, I see how it is! You have used me grievously ill, madam.”
Elizabeth shivered as more rain fell on her bare arms. “I have not used you in any way at all!”
“It is clear to me now. It was his hand you coveted from the beginning. But he was not here, was he? You settled for accepting my attentions until he returned!”
“I did not accept your attentions! I afforded you the same civility I do all my acquaintances.” Must all men be so insufferably conceited?
“We walked in this very garden the day I left, discussing my plans to ready my affairs to take a wife!”
“We discussed nothing but your intention to leave for a while on business. Any other intentions on your part were not apparent!”
He stepped towards her, his expression fierce. “I do not think you comprehend the trouble I have gone to in order to make this possible. It is no small undertaking to wed a woman with no fortune. I have spent weeks rearranging my interests to ensure I can afford the injury to my estate.” He sneered unpleasantly. “And do not be fooled into thinking my family welcome this alliance. I have worked hard to convince them of your worth, and you would have it be all for naught!”
Elizabeth let out a great huff of consternation. “I am well aware of what other families think of their stock marrying me! I wonder that everybody is still in such a rage to do it!”
“You would taunt me at such a moment?”
“No, sir! I am sorry you have been inconvenienced, truly, but I cannot marry you, and I gave you no indication that was my wish.”
“Your mother certainly did!”
Elizabeth threw her hands in the air, almost losing her book to the shrubbery. “Then I must insist you take issue with her. There is nothing more for me to say on the matter!” She pirouetted away from him and stormed onto the lawn. Lightning flashed overhead and rain pricked her face, plastering her hair to her cheeks.
“You cannot seriously mean to refuse me?” he called, striding after her.
“Yes, I can!”
“Miss Bennet! Miss Bennet! Elizabeth!”
She found herself suddenly spun around as he seized her arm, sending her book tumbling to the wet ground. His face was close to hers, and he looked to be pleading with her, but she could not hear his words. She was too overcome with a memory she had until that moment been blissfully unaware she possessed—that of Mr. Wickham similarly restraining her, his fist raised to strike. Pain shot through her temple in remembrance of his blow, and she cowered, covered her face with her free arm and screamed.
Then Darcy was there. He appeared from nowhere, propelling Mr. Greyson away with monstrous force and pinning Elizabeth to his side. She buried her face in his coat and felt his guttural command reverberating through her more ferociously than the overhead thunder.
“Unhand my wife!”
Mr. Greyson made a noise, but Darcy cut him off, his voice cold and hard. “Leave now. Never come back. Do not test my resolve not to kill you.”
Elizabeth felt him shift and peered around him to see Colonel Fitzwilliam had arrived and was forcefully leading her ashen assailant away. She saw nothing more, for she was then enveloped in Darcy’s embrace so completely that not even the rain could penetrate his hold.
“My God, Elizabeth! Are you hurt?”
She felt more than a little foolish for screaming. “No. Only a little shaken. And very damp.”
Reverently, he turned her towards the house, keeping his arm wrapped tightly around her. When he paused to retrieve her book, wiping i
t clean on his pristine trousers before handing it back to her without comment but with a tender kiss to her temple, she thought her heart might burst.
***
Explaining the matter to her father and changing into dry clothes took Elizabeth more or less the same time as it did for the storm to pass. Her return downstairs, therefore, coincided with the departure of most of Longbourn’s callers. Only Darcy, Bingley, and Colonel Fitzwilliam stayed, all eager to join Elizabeth and her sisters on a walk after having been trapped within doors all afternoon.
Elizabeth and Darcy soon outstripped the others, though they walked in silence, her every attempt at conversation falling flat. He was not uncivil. Indeed, he was overly solicitous, enquiring frequently whether her head ached and needlessly helping her over every twig and pebble in their path, yet his distraction was obvious.
“Truly, Fitzwilliam, you must not worry. I was not hurt in the slightest.” He nodded once but said not a word. She frowned in consternation. “And you must think no more on Mr. Greyson. I see you are distressed, but you ought to know I should have refused him even were I not promised to you.”
“I assure you, I am not thinking of Mr. Greyson.”
She puffed out her cheeks. Darcy saw it and, in an impatient tone, added, “It is your well-being that concerns me, Elizabeth, not my own.” He clamped his mouth closed and stared directly ahead, his jaw clenched and his countenance severe.
Elizabeth smirked. If one was going to be an awful object, one may as well be an awfully handsome one. She ceased walking, put her hands on her hips and attempted in vain to conceal the grin on her lips. “If you do not divulge what is the matter, I shall be forced to conclude ’tis I who have vexed you.”
He turned to face her, his eyes widened, his nostrils flared, and he winced as though pained. “It is you, woman!” The look he gave her belied his claim, however. “You would push me?” he enquired softly. “Very well. Though it would be more accurate to say torture, than vex.”
Her heart began to pound as he took up her hands and tenderly but surely removed her gloves.
“All day I have watched these hands toying with your hair, pouring tea, playing the pianoforte.” One after the other, he lifted them to his lips and kissed them. “All day I have watched those eyes sparkle and laugh at the world.” His gaze fell to her mouth. “All day, I have watched these lips talk, smile, hum.” He slid a hand around the back of her neck. “To see another man’s hands upon you was insufferable.” He leant closer until their mouths were a mere hair’s breadth apart. “I would make you mine. The wait is torture.”
His kiss was barely gentle, his struggle for restraint unmistakable. Elizabeth’s heart was thundering too loudly to be discouraged by so trifling a thing as temperance, however. They were to be married within the week, and given the day’s objectionable events, she was sure a little less restraint would be entirely forgiveable. She lifted onto her toes to press herself against him and held his face with both hands, encouraging him to kiss her more deeply.
With an inarticulate groan, he thrust both arms around her and pulled her closer than ever before. His hands ran a path up and down her back, settling finally upon her hips. His mouth left hers and rained kisses along her jaw, down to her collarbone and farther, to the swell of her breasts at her neckline, making her gasp. Driven by a passion altogether unknown to her, she drew her hands down over his chest and without overmuch consideration, unbuttoned his waistcoat. He seemed not to notice until she slid her hands around his broad back and gripped his shirt in her fists, tugging him roughly against her.
He brought his mouth back to hers with a kiss that felt as hard and unyielding as had his previous restraint; yet, just as she thought she might abandon herself to his passion, he withdrew it. With a groan that clearly evinced his reluctance, he ceased his ardent kiss. Cradling her face, he peppered her lips with light chaste touches until, finally, he dropped his hands to her shoulders and pushed her gently away.
“Marry me,” he said gruffly.
She laughed breathlessly, noting that his hat, at some point, had been lost. “I shall have to now. That was rather a damning embrace.”
He smiled faintly but shook his head. “Now. Marry me now. I cannot survive until Tuesday.”
She smiled broadly and began buttoning his waistcoat. “If it is any consolation, you have at least succeeded in making my anticipation as great as your own.”
“Good God, would you desist your torture, woman!” Before she could reply, however, he kissed her again—one last, passionate kiss that devastated her equanimity and proved beyond a doubt he was not without the talent for torture himself.
***
“The ladies are in the drawing room, sir,” Peabody informed Bingley when he, Darcy, and Fitzwilliam arrived home later that evening.
“Then be a fellow and bring us some supper to the library, would you?” he replied. It was late, his day had been atrocious, and he was in no humour to make small talk with his sisters.
His failure to save Elizabeth weighed heavily upon him. He had wanted to desperately, but the rug in the hall had hindered his flight from the house, and by the time he recovered his footing, Fitzwilliam had escorted Greyson off the premises, and Darcy had led Elizabeth back inside. He had been too late to help her. Again.
“Is there any brandy in the library?” Fitzwilliam enquired.
“You drank me dry the last time you were h—” He gave a muffled grunt as he bumped headlong into Elizabeth, who was coming out of the library. She stumbled backwards, landing heavily on the floor.
“Good Lord!” he exclaimed, partly in apology, partly in chagrin as he belatedly recognised her as the maid with Elizabeth’s eyes.
“Beggin’ your pardon, Mr. Bingley, sir. I was lightin’ the candles.”
“No, no,” he replied, leaning down to assist her to her feet. “That is neither here nor there. Are you hurt?”
“Strike me!” Fitzwilliam exclaimed. “I thought for a moment you had smuggled Elizabeth back here with you, Darcy.”
Amelia took the opportunity to give a quick curtsy and dart away into the shadows.
“She looks nothing like Elizabeth,” Darcy remarked airily, walking past Bingley into the library.
“Not a mirror image, I grant you,” Fitzwilliam replied, following him in. “But an uncommon likeness, you must admit. Wherever did she come from, Bingley?”
He shrugged. “I have nothing to do with hiring the housemaids.”
That settled the matter, but Bingley was too uneasy to attend to the conversation thereafter. Such was his discomfiture that, after only a few minutes, he invented a spurious pretext and made his excuses. His surprise could not have been greater when he opened his study door to discover Amelia now lighting the candles in there.
She jumped. “Oh no! I’m sorry, sir! Mrs. Arbuthnot told me to light candles in all the rooms.”
The flickering light of the taper she held cast a shadow beneath her cheeks, making her appear more like Elizabeth than ever. Bingley stepped farther into the room. “There is no need to apologise. Pray, tell me I did not hurt you when I knocked you over.”
She lost some of her servility and smiled as she assured him he had not. Bingley nodded his relief and stepped closer, and when his approach did not seem to perturb her, closer still. “I am glad to hear it.”
“It were very kind o’ you come to my rescue.”
He triumphed to have succeeded, at last, in rescuing someone. “It was nothing,” he assured her. “Anybody would have done the same.”
“No,” she replied softly. “There’s many a master’d be less gen’rous to ’ave caught a maid at ’er work. You’re very kind.” She smiled coquettishly. “Quite my ’ero, in fact.”
A short while later, Bingley stared at the canopy above his bed, reflecting upon his brief and il
l-advised kiss. Shame had rapidly obtruded upon his ardour, prompting an abrupt end to their clinch. That shame persisted. Alone in his bedchamber with only his thoughts for company, however, it was so very tempting to imagine it had been Elizabeth he had taken in his arms and Elizabeth’s willing lips to which he had pressed his own.
8
Wilful Misunderstandings
Monday, 13 July 1812: Hertfordshire
Darcy set his book aside, for he had not the concentration to read. He closed his eyes but could not sleep. He used to be a far more sensible man, but impatience for his wedding on the morrow had rendered him distracted and restless.
He rather thought he had good cause to be in a hurry. Theirs had not been an easy courtship. From their devastating quarrel in Kent to Greyson’s unpardonable transgression, they had suffered more than their share of misfortunes. He was done waiting to be Elizabeth’s husband—to protect her, to love her. By God, he was impatient to love her. After his brief glimpse of her nascent passion last Wednesday, he downright ached for her. An absurd number of vexatious social obligations meant they had been rarely together since then—and not for one moment alone. Tomorrow could not come soon enough.
This day was apparently not quite done, however. His door abruptly banged twice, flew open, bounced on its hinges, and swung back to hit his visitor in the face.
“Blast and bugger it!” came Bingley’s muffled voice from the passage beyond.
With a wry smile, Darcy crossed the room to hold the door open.
