“Yes, of course.” Darcy nodded. “We’ll be along shortly.”
“Good,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam. He regarded Darcy with something like pity, and then, shaking his head once more, turned and strode up the hallway.
Darcy watched him go. He shut his eyes, swearing under his breath. “Miss Bennet?” He couldn’t call her Elizabeth in the light, he found. Maybe when they were close again—but what was he saying? They would not be close again. There was no point in that.
She appeared in the doorway.
“I’m sorry about my cousin,” said Darcy.
She looked a bit disheveled. Mostly, it was her lips, which seemed a little too red, a little too… used. “I’m fine. Why don’t you come back in here?”
He ran a hand through his hair. “I can’t. You heard him. If we don’t go back to the party, he is going to spread stories about us.”
“Does that matter? You are a man and can do as you please, and I am a spinster. I belong to no one but myself. The worst that can happen is they pack me off to live with Collins and Mary.” She wrinkled up her nose.
“Stop calling yourself a spinster,” he said. “Listen, we must be concerned about how we will return to the party. If we were to walk back together, people might notice, might talk. Whatever you are saying, you cannot weather a scandal. We must tread carefully.” If he wasn’t broken, useless as a man, maybe he would have taken her up on her offer. But he couldn’t bear the thought of her disappointment, and he was too embarrassed to explain.
But she already looked disappointed. “Oh, well, all right. But when will I see you again?”
He reached into his jacket pocket and took out his bottle of laudanum. Taking a small nip, he shut his eyes. “You don’t want to see me again. Is there no way you could forget about me?”
She licked her lips. “I don’t think so. Perhaps you have many women that you have taken to bed, so one here or there can be forgotten. But for me, you see, there is only you, and that makes you… significant.”
It was quiet for a moment.
Then he turned away from her. “You will enter first. I shall follow after some time has passed.” He busied himself rearranging his cravat.
“I don’t say it to make you feel guilty.” She placed a hand on his shoulder. “It is simply a fact, and I cannot change it.”
He looked at her, a perverse thought occurring to him. “Now that, madam, isn’t true. You say I am only lover you have ever had, but that is only because you have never taken another. You seem eager enough for it, given the way you’re behaving.”
She drew back, her hand dropping to her side. “Why would you say such a thing? This isn’t about… the act, it’s about you. You are what I want.”
He smoothed his hair. “I assure you, Miss Bennet, another man—any other man—would be able to please you better than I can.” He gestured. “You lead the way?”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand. You acted as if you welcomed my attentions just a moment ago. I believe that you are acting the way you are now for the same reasons you did in the past. Because you have some ridiculous idea that you can hurt my reputation. But I’ve explained to you that you can’t.”
He sighed. “Miss Bennet, we cannot continue to have this conversation in the hallway here. Someone else is going to come by and discover us. Now, we must return to the ball. There is nothing more to say.”
* * *
Elizabeth did enter the ballroom without him, and she went over to one wall, where she stood alone, watching, waiting for him to enter. He did, after nearly a quarter of an hour. No one seemed to notice either of them. They certainly didn’t seem to think that the two of them had been together. She guessed that was good. She was not overly fond of the idea of being part of a scandal, she supposed.
It was gentlemanly of him to worry about such things. She was grateful for that.
But she was very, very confused.
Why had he stopped? She had felt his eagerness in his kisses. He was as hungry for her as she was for him. And every time they had met since he had returned to England, he had been, well, flirtatious with her. He had showered her with compliments, smiled at her, stared at her. She could not believe that he didn’t want her. She knew that he did.
So, then, why hadn’t he continued kissing her?
She didn’t know.
And it was killing her that they were in the same place now and not close to each other. She followed him with her eyes as he joined his cousin Anne. She was laughing, looking gay and happy. Darcy took his bottle of laudanum out of his jacket and took a pull from it. He smiled at Anne, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes.
Elizabeth was frustrated. The only reason she’d come to this ball was to get close to Darcy. Now that she couldn’t do that again, she might as well go home.
Of course, she wasn’t going to. She was in the same room with him now, and that was better than nothing.
She laughed under her breath. She was pathetic. Her life was bland and boring, and he was the only thing in it that shone, that excited. She had nothing but him to bring her joy.
Maybe it wasn’t her that was pathetic, but her station, her situation.
She only wished she understood why Darcy had been the way he’d been. He hadn’t even promised that he would see her again. He’d actively tried to get her to stay away from him, even suggesting that she take a different lover. That was preposterous.
She knew that Darcy had always had a poorly formed idea of trying to protect her. But there was nothing to protect her from anymore. A dangerous affair with him was preferable to a safe and staid life as a maiden aunt. She wanted him.
No.
She needed him. He was as important to her as the air she breathed.
Being away from him now hurt.
Maybe it wasn’t as strong for him. Maybe he didn’t care about her as deeply as she cared about him. He was a man, after all, and he probably saw her as a throwaway woman, someone to be trifled with and not to be serious about.
She clasped her hands together in front of her body as she thought about that. Well, if it was true, that was a blow, but it wasn’t insurmountable. She didn’t need him to care about her as much as she cared about him. She wished for it, of course, but whatever he could give her would be enough. A little of him was better than none of him.
She would simply have to make it clear to him that she could be whatever he wanted her to be. If he only wanted to see her a small amount of the time, that would be okay. She wouldn’t make demands on him, wouldn’t bother him. She would only provide comfort, and in return, she simply wanted a little of him. As much as he could spare.
He must think she wanted more than he wanted to give.
Maybe he thought something preposterous, like that she wanted him to marry her.
She laughed aloud at the thought of it. Her? Married?
Several of the women surrounding her gave her strange looks.
She looked at the floor. She would have to disabuse him of that notion as soon as she could.
* * *
“Oh, I’m very sorry, madam,” said the butler at the de Bourgh townhouse. “Miss de Bourgh isn’t in.”
Her heart sank. After all this time, now, Anne had finally decided to refuse her entry to the home. How was she to get in to talk to Darcy, to tell him that she had no designs on him, that she didn’t want to marry him, didn’t want anything from him except what he could give her? “Oh, how unfortunate.” She turned to go, and then turned back around. To the blazes with propriety. “Is Mr. Darcy at home?”
The butler raised his eyebrows. “Madam, you are a woman alone.”
She lifted her chin. “I am aware it is… unusual for a woman to call on a man, but if he is at home, even if he is abed, I would ask that you—”
“In any case,” said the butler, “he is not at home. He and his cousins have quit the city.”
“What?” She was stunned. She had not expected… It was getting later in the
Season, and some people were already retiring to the country, but neither Darcy nor Anne had given her any indication that they were leaving.
“Yes, they have all gone to Rosings in Kent. Miss de Bourgh has invited a few of her more persistent suitors to enjoy some hunting on the grounds. We will be leaving soon as well. Miss de Bourgh was only letting this house for the Season.”
“Oh, indeed,” she said. “Well, thank you very much for the information.”
“Certainly,” said the butler.
She started down the walkway. This was a blow. She had no idea that he was leaving, and now he was gone, off to the country, and she was stuck here in London. Bingley and Jane would quit town within a month so for Netherfield, but that was nowhere near Kent. She had no idea when she might see Darcy again.
That thought hit her hard, like a cannon ball to her stomach.
She gasped, stopping her movement, unable to breathe or think for several seconds.
No, she couldn’t lose him again. Not after she had just found him.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Mr. Collins had been enamored of his former patron, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, to the point of distraction, but Elizabeth did not think that the affection had gone both ways. Still, she wrote a letter to her sister Mary, broadly hinting that she would like to visit Kent and asking if Mary or Collins had any connections she might exploit.
She received a tart letter back from her sister, scolding her for thinking to ask such highly improper things. Mary told her that if she longed for Kent, she might take some time to reflect on it. Longing was suffering and suffering was good for the soul. She must allow herself to suffer and she would come out on the other side refined in God’s fire and—
Well, it went on for a bit, but Elizabeth stopped reading at that point.
She despaired.
She could not wrangle her way into an invitation to Rosings, of all places. She had no way to do so. She was only lowly Elizabeth Bennet, and a spinster at that.
Darcy was lost to her.
It shouldn’t matter. She had not seen him in five years, and life had gone on. And, truly, all things considered, he had treated her rather badly. There was no sane reason to want him so much.
But she did, and now that she had no chance of seeing him, everything was wretched.
* * *
Darcy awoke every day planning to write a letter to Miss Bennet. To Elizabeth.
Her name invaded his dreams, which were always vivid and strange, owing to the fact that he was drinking so much laudanum these days. He dreamed that Elizabeth was a giantess and that he was trying to climb the slope of her breast to reach her nipple. He wanted to please her, but he kept slipping on the smooth skin, and he couldn’t hold on. He would tumble down into the folds of her flesh and get lost there.
He dreamed that Elizabeth’s hair was the sea, and that he was swimming amongst the strands of it. He dreamed that he was drowning, but that it smelled so sweet in her locks that he didn’t care.
He had started drinking the laudanum to deal with the pain of the loss of the opium. Laudanum was touted as a cure for those who were dependent on smoking opium, and Darcy supposed that in a way, it was. After all, he was no longer smoking, and he was no longer in pain.
But he knew that the truth was he had simply changed his delivery system. He wasn’t smoking anymore. Instead, he was dependent on the far inferior experience of the laudanum.
The only up side was that laudanum was freely available in England, while smokable opium was hard to come by.
He wasn’t entirely sure how he’d ended up this way. He’d spent years smoking only occasionally. He would have a little opium once every two months, and he enjoyed it, but he did not crave it the next day.
But then… one day he felt remarkably ill the following day after smoking and the only thing that made him feel better was to smoke more.
He knew it couldn’t have been that sudden, not really. That he had gradually gotten himself into this awful hole of need for the substance. But it had seemed as if one day, opium was his best friend on earth. And then it had turned on him, like a tamed dog gone wild, and bit him so hard it drew blood. Now, opium was his master and he lived only to get more.
He hated himself.
The last few years on the ship were nearly impossible to get through. It took much longer to assemble the money he needed, because he was constantly depleting his opium supply and because he missed so many opportunities to raid ships from being lost in an opium haze. He had to do so much of the substance to feel anything, to keep himself from growing ill.
When he had left the ship, he had told himself that he would fight through the sickness and get himself free of it. He was going back to England. There would be no opium. He thought he could end the bad business.
But he was weak. He barely made it two days before he was banging down the door of a doctor, begging for some laudanum—anything to stop the agonies he was going through. He had never felt anything so terrible, and he was convinced he was dying.
But now, he was drinking a rather lot of laudanum daily. He tried to keep himself standing in the evenings at least, but the rest of the time, he lay in bed, lost in his dreams. He’d retired to the country partly to get away from all the late-night parties and balls.
And then… there was Elizabeth. He didn’t want to leave her, not exactly, but he didn’t have space for her. She reminded him of a time when he was capable of wanting and desiring and panting and taking and…
All of that had been stolen from him. He was nothing now. He was a shell of a man, and inside him was only hunger for opium.
He remembered hungering for her. Part of him wanted to try to hunger for her again.
That part of him woke each day intending to write to her. He wanted to explain to her where they had gone, to tell her that after Anne’s marriage was secured, perhaps they could spend some time together. He wanted to tell her that he couldn’t make promises, but that she still stirred something inside him, and that he thought of her often.
But.
There was a monster inside him that surged up far before he could ever get some paper or pick up a pen. That monster demanded feeding.
Once Darcy had tamed the monster with its required opium, he had no energy. He only had dreams.
So, the letter never got written. And the weeks began to slip away in a mixture of opium visions and regret.
* * *
“I have had the strangest letter from Kitty,” said Jane. She was standing in the doorway to Elizabeth’s bedroom.
Elizabeth had been retiring to bed early lately. She had begged off several balls that Nancy had attended, leaving poor Jane to chase after the girl. Elizabeth knew that she should feel bad for foisting that on her sister, but she seemed to have lost the room in her soul for anything other than the dreadful longing she felt for Darcy.
Now, Elizabeth was lying on her bed, fully clothed, with a book open in front of her. She had not been reading the book, however. She’d been staring at the words, but they had been swimming in front of her. She had been thinking of being on the ship all those years ago, the way that she had read to the men on the deck in the warm afternoons.
She struggled to sit up. “Jane? Is that you?”
Jane came into Elizabeth’s room. “Have you been writing letters to Mary about going to Rosings Park?”
Elizabeth groaned. “Oh, what of it?”
“Well, as I said, I have had a strange letter from Kitty, telling me that she and Bolton have had an invitation there, and she wrote to me saying that they would take you along since you were so eager to go to Kent.”
Elizabet sat up straight, her heart beating wildly. “What? You cannot be serious. Oh, Kitty, dear, I take back every uncharitable thought I have ever thought of you.”
“Why did you not tell me that you want to go to Kent?” Jane came in and sat down on the edge of her bed. “Are you unhappy here, Lizzy? Is ii because of Nancy? Has she run you ragged? I ca
n chaperone her sometimes if you are too exhausted. You mustn’t feel as though you must go behind my back and pretend to want to go to Rosings Park, of all places, just to get away.”
“Oh, Jane, no.” Elizabeth reached for her sister’s hand. “I was not pretending. And it is not… that is not the way of it.”
“You are my constant companion,” said Jane. “I am so happy that you are hear with us. You are my dear, dear sister. But if you are unhappy with me, then I wish you would feel as though you could talk to me about it.”
“It’s not about you, Jane, darling.”
“Then what is it about?”
Elizabeth sucked in a breath. “It is…” She placed her hands in her lap and studied them. “Mr. Darcy has gone to Rosings.”
“That man again! Bingley has not even had a chance to rekindle his friendship with him. I knew he had left town, but…” Jane cocked her head to one side. “Now that I think on it, you became rather morose around the time he left. You are in love with him, aren’t you?”
Elizabeth sighed. “I don’t know. It is not really love, I don’t think. It is… something worse. Something frightening. Something that has gotten into me deep down, and now I cannot bear to be away from him. I have to go. I am sorry for leaving you here with Nancy and the children. I truly am, but if I do not see him again, I think I shall go mad.”
“Lizzy!” Jane furrowed her brow. “I don’t know if I like the sound of that. You don’t sound like yourself at all.”
“Oh, Jane, does it matter? What does Kitty say? When am I to leave?”
Jane sighed. “I suppose I’ll write her back and say you would like to go.”
“Yes,” said Elizabeth. “Yes, please. I want nothing more.”
Jane took Elizabeth’s hand and squeezed. “I shall miss you.”
“You too, dearest Jane.” Elizabeth squeezed back. But inside, she was jumping for joy. The dreadful letter to Mary had been worth it in the end. It was all going to work out. She was going to see Mr. Darcy.
* * *
Several days later, Elizabeth sat in the coach with her sister Kitty and her husband, Mr. Bolton.
The Dread Mr. Darcy Page 13
