by Anne Morris
Elizabeth gently interrupted him and said. “No, tell me about losing him.”
Darcy thought again, how different, she is so very different from the others I have met.
“I can understand if you do not wish to tell me,” said Elizabeth. “I recently lost my mother. I have not been long out of mourning. I still long for her. Yet, it is part of the story of losing a parent, our love for them.”
He looked over at his companion as they walked and a whirlwind of emotions hit him, both remembrances of his father, but his thoughts intensified his feelings for this woman who encouraged him to speak about his father’s passing. Elizabeth still had that extra hand up on his arm. She squeezed her fingers there, and Darcy found the pressure reassuring.
“You said you associate his death with Hertfordshire. So was he at your uncle’s estate?” Elizabeth asked.
“Yes,” Darcy replied. “He and my uncle were on the board of directors for the Grand Junction Canal project.”
“I’ve heard about that,” she said. Elizabeth moved her hand away, but they continued walking.
“My uncle was involved because part of it runs through Hertfordshire, so he got my father involved because they needed men on the board of directors,” Darcy explained.
“I understand,” Elizabeth hinted. She understood both about the need for men like his honored father to give wisdom as board members, but also that such family connections were important, with the Earl of Langley, his uncle, soliciting his father’s opinion.
“They were out surveying one morning. The canal runs mostly through existing rivers, though it has been expanded in some areas, you understand,” he emphasized.
“I don’t really understand any of it, engineering a canal,” Elizabeth replied with a lilt to her voice which Darcy supposed was a laugh, but she did not want to laugh, just then (because of the nature of the story), though she did want to encourage him.
“It was his heart. It was a massive attack. It took him quite quickly while they were out surveying by the river’s edge,” Darcy explained. “They took him to a little building, just a simple house on the edge of the river.”
“It is difficult when they leave us suddenly, is it not?” she remarked.
“Yes,” Darcy answered, his voice tense. “I was in London at the time. It was still a full day for me to be fetched to his side, nightfall before I could get there.”
“They never really leave us, though, do they?” Her voice was sad, but yet something else was there too.
“How so?” asked Mr. Darcy.
“Well, they live on. You are his son and heir. And has not Lady Emma teased that you have a sister?” Elizabeth remarked.
“Yes, Georgiana,” answered Darcy.
“And you can remember him, and the magnificent things that he did. It is not like they are truly gone, even if it still hurts inside when we consider that we will no longer see them,” she explained.
“You mentioned that you lost your mother recently?” asked Darcy.
“Yes. In October of the year ten,” explained Elizabeth. He could feel her hand tighten a little on his arm.
“Was her death sudden?” he asked.
“Yes and yet not. Mamma lingered for three days,” her voice was cool as she explained.
“So you were able to say goodbye to her?” inquired Darcy.
“No. She was not with us, ever, during those three days.” Elizabeth’s voice sounded not cold, but he could hear the same loss in it that he was feeling as he thought of his father.
“I am sorry.” Darcy paused then. “I think I understand your point, Miss Bennet,” he said after a minute’s reflection. “I have often only considered my loss in thinking about the death of my honored father, but have not been able to consider what I still have. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Elizabeth replied. They walked back to the carriage.
Here was a young woman who taught him something about himself. Darcy did not think that there was ever another before who had taught him any sort of lesson and such a lesson worth having. Elizabeth Bennet was also the young woman who had stirred a particular interest, certain feelings, when he had seen her in that red dress. That was a potent combination indeed.
CHAPTER TEN
Elizabeth did not know the lady whose invitation she held. It was another one of those invitations which showed up at the last minute, but Mrs. Gardiner and Mrs. Eyers both encouraged her to go. It seemed that one of her admirers—was it the colonel or Mr. Darcy?—had gone to the trouble of soliciting the invitation on her behalf.
Mrs. Faceby was a young woman which surprised Elizabeth, who seemed to think that only old and established matrons hosted such events. However, had not Viscountess Keysham hosted a ball? Perhaps this lady was also holding a function as a means of establishing herself.
The room was mostly filled with young people as Elizabeth and Mrs. Eyers made their way into the double drawing-room. Mr. Darcy was there with his cousins, and they came over to collect her. There was a natural pairing between the two women and the two men, though Mrs. Eyers kept an eye on her charge until she was seated next to an old friend and then lost herself in conversation. There were always people the chaperone knew in any drawing-room.
Some young women first displayed themselves in various manners, either at the pianoforte or by singing. When that was done, their hostess called for card tables. Elizabeth felt unimpressed with the activities of the evening, and she could not help communicating her thoughts.
“Is this all anyone ever does in London? Have musical programs and then play at cards?” Elizabeth sighed.
“Why? What else is there to do?” asked her friend, Lady Emma.
“We could talk,” responded Elizabeth, who could not help the peevish tone in her voice.
“We do that during the daytime,” refuted Emma.
“Do you never do something like play parlor games or is that too uncouth, too countryish?” asked Elizabeth.
“Parlor games, you mean like during Christmas?” cried her young friend.
“They don’t have to be limited to the Christmas season,” asserted Elizabeth.
Her friend laughed, and Elizabeth felt that this was the first time that she was being laughed at, the subject of a joke. Elizabeth considered how much she did not fit into London drawings-rooms if she did not understand why cards must always be played.
“We can talk while we play,” offered Lady Emma, when she was done with her outburst.
“There is an element of frivolity that is missing from cards,” Elizabeth asserted. She would not be persuaded out of her enjoyment of parlor games.
“Do you have a favorite parlor game?” asked Colonel Fitzwilliam, who finally spoke up, though he did not seem to be taking a side.
“I like the ones which involve wordplay. Where we are to engage back and forth with language in questions and answers or to recite poetry as we go around and add a line and must pay a forfeit if we do not get it right,” said Elizabeth. “It allows those who are astute at words to be clever and witty, but also to be a little impertinent or risqué with their words.”
“Risqué!” exclaimed Mr. Darcy.
“Yes,” Elizabeth asserted. “It is all in fun. Have you never played such a game as Cross Questions and Crooked Answers when bored in an evening and with nothing better to do?”
“I don’t believe I have,” Mr. Darcy answered in a bland tone.
“I don’t believe you have ever played such things as parlor games, Mr. Darcy. It does not seem to be the sort of activity you would engage in,” remarked Elizabeth, who looked at his handsome but rather emotionless face. Darcy frowned at her underlying assertion that he was not the type of man who knew how to seek fun.
“Perhaps we need to play these games tonight,” Mr. Darcy declared his brows rising.
“Tonight?” his cousin, Lady Emma Fitzwilliam, looked at him. “Are you mad?”
Colonel Fitzwilliam had been watching Elizabeth; he looked at Darcy. �
�This is not our evening,” he said. “We are not the hosts.” Darcy looked over at the two pairs of people at the table next to them. Captain Martel was there.
“Martel! Do you feel like playing at cards or should you like to play at parlor games?” proposed Darcy, his face began to take on an animation Elizabeth usually did not see on it in the evenings.
“Parlor games! I haven’t played at parlor games in a number of Christmases. What fun!” exclaimed the soldier in delight.
“Yes! We must!” said one of the two ladies sitting there. “We haven’t played at parlor games for ever so long.”
The cry went out to a third table to inquire how dedicated people were to cards, and somehow the infection of the crowd was catching, and they declared they should play at parlor games instead. Mrs. Faceby found her evening turned on its head. It was not to be an evening of a little music by a few mostly talented young ladies, then some card-playing, but one of silly parlor games which might have been a disaster for her budding reputation as a hostess.
But everyone enjoyed themselves, especially when it came to recalling all the ways to pay forfeits at the end of the evening. The guests stayed beyond the time planned in order to watch people pay their forfeits or to pay their own forfeits: excited to give or receive kisses. Both Mr. Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam ended with forfeits to pay, and Elizabeth received a kiss on her cheek from each gentleman in payment.
It might have been a disaster, but it was not.
By the end of the evening, as they gathered their wraps, Emma took Elizabeth’s arm. “I don’t know when I have ever had so much fun! Elizabeth you truly are unique!”
“I quite agree,” asserted Colonel Fitzwilliam as he held Elizabeth’s cloak.
“As you see, Miss Bennet, parlor games, can be an activity I do engage in,” declared Mr. Darcy before he said goodnight to her and Mrs. Eyers.
***
Lady Emma came to call the next day. Mr. Darcy was her escort.
“Maurice has been called away with his general,” Emma explained. “He says he cannot say exactly why, so it must be rather important, don’t you think? There must be something serious occurring on the Peninsula or in the Americas.”
Then she continued. “Elizabeth!” Her teacup had been hovering in front of her, but Lady Emma had not had a chance to sip from it. She put it back down on its saucer. “You don’t know what a success Mrs. Faceby’s soiree was last night. And all due to you! Isn’t that right, Darcy?”
“Yes. I heard it mentioned when I went riding, first thing, in the Park this morning. People said they wished they had received an invitation,” reported Mr. Darcy. His face was expressionless again, but Elizabeth thought his eyes twinkled at her.
“Really?” inquired Elizabeth, with doubt in her voice. She thought it had not started as the most exciting evening, which was why she and Lady Emma had their little tiff, their first disagreement, about the nature of London society, and the endless evenings of card parties or musical displays by young women.
“Yes! I am beginning to think I need to take you with me everywhere. I shall mention that you are the Mistress of Revelry and wherever you go, fun is sure to be had!” laughed her friend, who finally was able to sip her tea, though her eyes widened over the rim of the cup.
Elizabeth Bennet wasn’t sure that she wanted to be known as the ‘Mistress of Revelry’ in London. Such a moniker might not be understood in the right manner in every drawing-room. Elizabeth wasn’t entirely certain how to express that to her friend. She looked to Mr. Darcy for help.
“Emma, I’m not sure that such an epithet is the right one to be throwing out about Miss Bennet,” he said. “Though I certainly did enjoy the evening.”
“Our options are thinning as people abandon us for the country,” asserted Lady Emma. “I am going to be certain to suggest that Miss Bennet be invited if I receive an invitation for anything that occurs these last few weeks before Mamma finally decides that we need to join Papa at Langley.”
Elizabeth’s two visitors left after their half hour, but not before Mr. Darcy invited her to ride in the park that afternoon. Elizabeth had not been forthcoming about her part in enhancing the activities the evening before, so she had to relate to Mrs. Gardiner what had occurred at Mrs. Faceby’s soiree once the visitors left. How a card party had changed to one of parlor games because of her complaints.
“Sounds like an entertaining evening,” her aunt commented. “But I agree, it is not quite like most of the evenings you hear about.”
“They are a little stiff and predictable, aunt,” sighed Elizabeth. “These London activities and people.”
“That is true, Elizabeth,” said Mrs. Gardiner, before she went to see to her children.
***
It was only Mr. Darcy who took her for a ride in the park. “Where is Lady Emma?” asked Elizabeth.
“I believe there is a young gentleman who came to call on her and took her for a drive. I’m sure we will see her,” explained Mr. Darcy.
“Oh!” was Elizabeth’s reply. She was momentarily struck dumb, which was a rare occurrence. “I see that we are in the Park at the fashionable hour this time, Mr. Darcy,” Elizabeth finally asserted.
“Yes,” was Darcy’s short answer. Then they both seemed at a loss for words. So often they had found conversation easy, but Elizabeth was struck almost shy with the idea that Mr. Darcy was calling on her specifically. He was taking Elizabeth—and Elizabeth only—for a ride in the park at the appropriate time (and without Lady Emma).
She did reason with herself that Lady Emma’s absence was a last minute thing, and Mr. Darcy had not known that he would be stuck with the bother of riding out only with her. Yet, it had been Mr. Darcy who had asked, not Lady Emma who suggested that they go to the park that afternoon. It was Mr. Darcy who had called the day before. Elizabeth again felt that warm sensation building and spreading inside her; she glanced over at him.
Lady Emma had warned her about how many women had attempted to snare him into marriage, but Elizabeth wondered if any of them had tried to love him? She thought not. Elizabeth felt that it never occurred to any woman to love Mr. Darcy. They probably only wanted to marry his money or move into his station in life or wanted his estate—the name of which she still could not quite remember.
Elizabeth wondered about her own heart, and were his attentions to her having any impression on it? Elizabeth thought that they were, and for the first time in her life, Elizabeth felt like she was falling in love. Mr. Darcy was undoubtedly handsome. But he was kind and intelligent and funny even, as the previous evening had proved when he had asked two tables of card players to change their mind and to play parlor games instead. Mr. Darcy should have the credit for last night’s success, not Elizabeth.
“You look extremely thoughtful, Miss Bennet,” said her companion as he briefly glanced over at her.
“I was considering that Lady Emma gave me credit for the success that playing parlor games had on everyone’s mood and outlook last night. But that, in truth, it was your doing,” Elizabeth explained as she reached over to lay a hand on his sleeve.
Mr. Darcy glanced down at her hand and then back to his driving. “Do not let that get out. People here in London have a different view of me.” His face was turned from her so Elizabeth could not see what his eyes expressed. She suspected that he was teasing.
“Why would you not wish the world to understand your character, Mr. Darcy? Understand that you can be insightful and attentive and playful. I suppose that would be horrible if it got out.”
He laughed, and Elizabeth thought how much she loved to hear him laugh. His smile had been a treat when he blessed her with it, but his laughter was a treasure.
Darcy had not been able to contain the joy her words gave him, and at the delicacy and intimacy as Elizabeth Bennet once again reached over to touch him in so innocent a manner, and yet it had a profound effect on him again. Darcy felt that touch wash over him and ignite a fire deep inside. He had never
felt such a thing before. There might have been a mild interest in a young woman from time to time over his years of coming to London for the Seasons, but in hindsight, it had been a soft, almost intellectual interest. Not this deep and intense attraction Darcy had for this young woman of no consequence from some small town in the middle of Hertfordshire, who also raised some difficult memories in him.
Elizabeth’s hand remained on his sleeve as his laughter died down, and he glanced again at her. She was not looking out at the park, or the other carriages and the people within them, but at him.
“Yes?” Darcy could not help but ask.
“I like your laugh. You need to laugh more, Mr. Darcy,” Elizabeth responded, her eyes blazing with her delight as her lips spoke of her joy in his company. Darcy considered for the first time what those lips would taste like.
“I shall endeavor to laugh more in your company, Miss Bennet,” he said and turned back to watch the road. She removed her hand as they were within view of a dozen carriages. They rode in silence unless hailed by a friend. Darcy felt suddenly at a loss as to what to say or how to move forward in speaking to Elizabeth. She seemed content to be in his company, to sit in silence on the seat next to him. Perhaps that fact spoke well of their compatibility. So often women needed to rattle away about every minute detail of their lives, but Miss Bennet was content to sit with him and enjoy the day, the sun, and the drive.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Elizabeth had a quiet evening with the Gardiners when she returned from her ride in the park. It was the first at-home evening after many days of being away night-after-night. Her aunt commented on that fact, but then Mrs. Gardiner mentioned the company Elizabeth had been keeping recently.
“My dear, I must confess to being confused as to who is your current lover. I thought Colonel Fitzwilliam was so taken with you. After all, he brought his mother to visit, and she invited us to dinner. But now Mr. Darcy has been squiring you around most days. So which of them am I to be concerned about?”
