Darcy's Charade

by Meghan Parrish

  But a second look informed her that her deduction was incorrect. This stranger was far too well dressed to have come by stage. He would either have hired a post chaise or come in his own equipage.

  A man of substance, she concluded silently, and handsome as well.

  He gazed around the crowded room as if he were looking for someone. Then he caught sight of Elizabeth again. He strode purposefully towards her and leaned across the table, inadvertently blocking the light from the window.

  "Madam," he addressed her in a low voice, "are you traveling alone?"

  "Yes," Elizabeth answered automatically.

  "Are you married?"

  Elizabeth, startled, stared at him.

  "No, I'm not, but..." she began.

  "Thank heavens!" he interrupted. "Then I beg you to say that you are with me."

  Elizabeth's brows creased into a slight frown. She knew that because of the accident, which had unnerved her, she was not thinking clearly.

  But I wasn't hit that hard...

  On the other hand, could she have imagined what he had said if the blow she had sustained had been only a slight one?

  "Pardon?" she asked.

  "Please tell everyone that you are with me," he reiterated.

  Elizabeth blinked. What a decidedly odd request!

  "But..." she started.

  "I shall take you anywhere you wish to go," he continued frantically.

  "You wish me to pretend we are married?"

  "Of course not!" His eyes raked over her disheveled appearance. "No one would believe such a tale."

  Elizabeth did not know whether to cry or scream. She had a headache, she was starving, and this man was the second in the day to have wounded her pride! What else could possibly go wrong for her?

  Despite herself, she started to laugh.

  The man was growing more annoyed by the second. His dark, serious eyes did not move from hers.

  "I am not to be laughed at," he nearly shouted. "If you will pretend you are my cousin and that we are together..."

  Elizabeth was utterly bewildered by his request. Half of her told her that she had heard correctly; the other half informed her that she was losing her reason and that this arrogant stranger was an apparition, an after effect of her fall, an illusion caused by her concussion. She placed a hand to her head.

  What was she to do about his request?

  Should she agree? Or not? Why should he need her, anyway? What was he up to?

  "You...you cannot be serious!" Elizabeth returned.

  "But I am," he responded gravely. "I assure you." A brief glimpse of his features through her partially opened fingers told her that he was speaking the truth.

  Gentlemen did not find themselves in this sort of situation; nor did ladies.

  "I am being pursued," he explained.

  Elizabeth's eyebrows shot up. Pursued? By the law? Was he a criminal? He certainly did not appear to be.

  "For heaven's sake, help me!"

  Chapter Five

  Elizabeth had barely a moment to consider his proposition when yet another carriage arrived at the bustling inn, churning up a cloud of dust as it came to an abrupt halt.

  Elizabeth, still in a daze, stared past the stranger at the vehicle. Only a wealthy, spoiled person would ride in such a thing, she decided.

  Elizabeth could not but admire the workmanship that had gone into it, though. It must have taken months to build. The care and craftsmanship that had been lavished on every joint were evident. The wood was beautifully varnished. Every leather strap and brass ring had been polished until it gleamed. The whole equipage was drawn by exquisite dapple grays so well groomed that they did not seem real.

  "Excuse me," Elizabeth's companion whispered. "I'll be back in a moment. Don't go."

  Elizabeth had no intention of leaving. She was riveted by the new arrival. She watched mesmerized as livened footmen assisted the passenger of the carriage to descend. Even her headache was forgotten in the excitement.

  Through the window, Elizabeth saw an elegant, fashionably dressed woman, wearing a beetroot velvet pelisse which stood out against the discreet gray and black of the carriage, step gracefully down. She had the kind of blond hair and china blue eyes which Mrs. Bennet would dearly have liked her own daughter to possess.

  Elizabeth snorted. She herself would never be regarded as a "heavenly creature" or a "divine angel" as this unknown lady would be. No poet would write impassioned verses on the blush of her cheek or the tilt of her head.

  Even as Elizabeth watched she saw a smile of triumph light up the features of the newcomer. It curled into a superior sneer as she swept into the interior of the inn with the air of one who fully expects every man to leap from his seat in deference to her beauty and her rank.

  The owner of the fancy carriage did not see Elizabeth. She did not so much as deign to glance in her direction. Instead, she glided across the floor towards the busy bar and raised her aristocratic, slender, expensively gloved hand to command attention.

  She is the sort of person who expects to be served first, even if she has arrived last and there are others waiting.

  No sooner had the notion crossed her mind than she was aware of the handsome stranger returning to her side. He had brought her a glass of brandy—costly brandy, too, to judge by the aroma—which he put down in front of her.

  "Here," he commanded. "Drink that!"

  Elizabeth regarded it with distrust and disbelief. Had he purchased it to drug her with? She had heard of men who made young ladies drunk and then...

  "You're looking very pale," her companion murmured. "I felt you could do with it."

  Ah! So it was to be a restorative, was it? That was different.

  "Thank you," Elizabeth responded softly.

  She picked up the glass with both hands to keep steady and sipped the brandy slowly. As she did so, it occurred to her that the lady to whom she had taken such an instant and violent dislike might possibly be the person from whom her newfound acquaintance was fleeing.

  "Will you help me?" he asked her again as he took his place beside her.

  A smile played about Elizabeth's lips. "Yes," she replied.

  He nodded as if he were satisfied and called the landlord of the inn over to inquire what there was for lunch for the two of them.

  "We shall start with oxtail soup," he decided when he had heard the man out.

  He then proceeded to request steak and kidney pie, mashed and boiled potatoes, peas, carrots, bread and butter, fish, treacle sponge, black currant pie, wine, tea, cheese, boiled eggs and hot punch.

  Elizabeth could scarcely credit her senses. She made a swift mental calculation of the price based on what she remembered from reading the menu earlier. A meal like that would cost as much as a postman earned in a week! Yet her companion had ordered it as nonchalantly as if the money meant nothing to him.

  She frowned slightly. And the amount of food! He must have an enormous appetite! Or didn't it matter to him if half of what was ordered went uneaten?

  She was sure she was dreaming, she thought as she continued to sip her brandy. This couldn't be real. It was too far-fetched for words. She would wake up any minute and find herself sitting on her bed with Jane at Longbourn.

  She pinched herself, but nothing happened. So it wasn't a dream! It was an actuality. Or was it?

  If it is a dream, she informed herself, I am going to go on enjoying it for as long as I can.

  Elizabeth turned to her companion.

  "You said you would take me wherever I wanted to go," she remarked. "Did you mean that?"

  "Of course," he replied. And then, suddenly anxious, "Why? Where are you going?"

  "Only to London."

  "Oh! I shall certainly take you there."

  "Thank you."

  Elizabeth smiled to herself. To judge from the way he had lavished on her the best brandy she had ever tasted, there would be no nonsense about outside seats in his carriage. Of course, she reminded herself, she
would be traveling with a man who's manners were sorely in need of reinforcement. But at least she would be traveling in style!

  "Of course," her companion added, breaking into her reverie, "we won't be able to travel today."

  "Why not?" Elizabeth inquired, surprised.

  "There is a storm coming," he informed her. "It is impossible to navigate."

  "Oh, dear," Elizabeth murmured.

  "It can't be helped," he stated.

  Elizabeth was about to make a comment, when she realized that the elegant lady, the detested passenger of the elegant carriage, was coming towards them.

  "Oh, lord!" Elizabeth's companion hissed. "She's seen me!"

  So it is her he is running from, Elizabeth noted.

  The lady made a beeline for her quarry. Elizabeth's newfound friend rose to his feet as she approached and Elizabeth wondered vaguely whether she ought to do likewise.

  No! The lady had chosen to behave as if Elizabeth did not exist. The lady could very well show her a bit of deference before Elizabeth stood up for her.

  "Ah!" the elegant lady cried. "There you are!"

  "Miss Bingley," Elizabeth's companion exclaimed with well-feigned surprise. "I had no idea you were returning to London so soon."

  "Didn't you?" Caroline Bingley purred seductively.

  "No. I didn't," he returned. "You have not met my cousin, I believe."

  Caroline was forced to look at Elizabeth and the expression in her eyes was anything but friendly. "No, I have not," she confirmed.

  Elizabeth did what she always did on occasions when someone insisted on regarding her as if she were something the cat had brought in. She told herself that she was vastly superior to such a person, that she belonged to a world which was more noble, more generous, and more polite than the one which her adversary inhabited.

  She offered Caroline Bingley a smile.

  "Elizabeth," she introduced herself. "Elizabeth Bennet."

  Caroline stared at her. "Elizabeth Bennet!" she echoed in tones of horror.

  Bennet was such a plebeian name. How mortifying for the exalted Miss Bingley to have to acknowledge as an equal the woman who bore it.

  "Yes," Elizabeth repeated with relish, "Bennet."

  "This is Miss Caroline Bingley," Elizabeth's companion stated. "An acquaintance of mine."

  "How do you do, Miss Bingley," Elizabeth said.

  "How do you do, Miss Bennet," Caroline responded automatically.

  "Won't you sit down?" Elizabeth invited.

  "Thank you," Caroline replied.

  Elizabeth's companion held out a chair for her and she lowered herself into it.

  "So you are Mr. Darcy's cousin?" Caroline questioned as if she did not credit it.

  "Yes," Elizabeth assured her sweetly.

  Inwardly her heart was pounding. She had heard the name Darcy once from her younger sisters who knew all the gossip in the village. A Mr. Darcy who was visiting Hertfordshire as the guest of the man currently leasing Netherfield Park—an impressive manor home not three miles from Longbourn.

  It couldn't be the same one, could it?

  It could, she concluded, and it was. Her handsome companion was indeed Mr. Darcy; the wealthiest man in all of Derbyshire. Ten thousand a year, in fact.

  "Incredible!" Caroline exclaimed.

  "You seem surprised," Elizabeth remarked calmly.

  "Forgive me," Caroline returned promptly, "but I thought I knew all Mr. Darcy's relations, and yet I have never heard of you. Strange!"

  Elizabeth sensed Mr. Darcy stiffening at her side. She smiled. She was not worried. For her, the fun was only just beginning.

  "Not really," she answered.

  "Indeed?"

  Caroline's query indicated her skepticism. She leaned back in her chair with the air of one who is used to winning and who thus merely has to wait for victory to be handed to her on a platter.

  "Our families have feuded with each other for years," Elizabeth explained without hesitation. "But we two never agreed with the quarrels so we have decided to make up. Haven't we?"

  Darcy, to whom her question was addressed, nodded in assent.

  Elizabeth deduced from his manner as much as from the impish smile playing about the corners of his mouth that he was pleased with her "reason” for the silence regarding her branch of the family.

  Caroline's displeasure was evident. "Oh, I see," she murmured.

  She knew that Elizabeth's story was a complete and utter fabrication and she determined to fault it.

  Meanwhile, Elizabeth lowered her lashes demurely to hide the unholy glee she was experiencing on seeing how she had nettled Caroline. She was elated by her triumph, but she knew that she was treading on thin ice. It would take only one small error on her part to end this delightful charade. And that would spell disaster, not only for herself, but for Darcy.

  If Caroline was able to prove she wasn't Darcy's cousin, Elizabeth realized, she would stop at nothing to humiliate them both.

  Elizabeth was wise enough to be able to estimate the danger.

  If that wretched woman asks me what I call him, she mused, I am lost.

  She did not know Mr. Darcy's Christian name. In fact, she knew nothing about him, apart from where he lived, yet the role she had assumed, that of his cousin, demanded that she knew everything.

  This is a challenge. Nothing sharpened her wits nor delighted her so much.

  Caroline remained in her chair opposite Elizabeth and Darcy. She had already tried to unmask Elizabeth as an impostor but she had not succeeded—which irked her considerably. Failure was not something to which Caroline was accustomed; nor was it something she proposed to acquiesce to meekly.

  Caroline gazed unblinkingly at Darcy while she considered her best line of attack. Finally after a long pause she surveyed Elizabeth carefully and then she spoke.

  "Forgive me for saying so, Miss Eliza," she murmured apologetically, "but your clothes... Whatever has happened?"

  Chapter Six

  Elizabeth glanced at the mud stains on her gown. She guessed that she looked extremely disheveled. She was, moreover, wearing her oldest, plainest dress. How dowdy and poverty-stricken she must seem beside Caroline. How unlikely a traveling companion for Mr. Darcy.

  This is it. The test.

  She had to come up with a plausible excuse for her condition quickly—or surrender both herself and Darcy to the tender mercies of Miss Bingley.

  "Yes, they are a mess, are they not?" Elizabeth returned.

  "Yes," Darcy agreed, smiling as if it were a private joke between them, "they are."

  Caroline was nonplussed. She had not expected Elizabeth to be so nonchalant.

  "How...? What...happened?" she managed to ask.

  "I've been in an accident," Elizabeth explained, for all the world as though she had already discussed it with Darcy. "A carriage accident."

  Caroline seized her cue. "Have you been driving carelessly, Mr. Darcy?" she inquired with the familiar easy tones of one who has known him for a longtime.

  "No he has not," Elizabeth defended.

  "Is your coachman so reckless then?" Caroline persisted. "You really ought to get a new man, if—"

  "We did not come here together, Miss Bingley," Elizabeth interrupted.

  "No, we did not," Darcy confirmed.

  "Really?" Caroline sounded decidedly skeptically.

  "We felt that it would avoid complications," Elizabeth clarified. "I came down on the stage and it was that which overturned."

  "Oh, I see," Caroline stated. There was a short pause and then she spoke again. "Were the doors open?"

  "Pardon?" Elizabeth countered.

  "I cannot conceive, Miss Bennet, how you could fall from the coach in any other fashion," Caroline sneered.

  "I was an outside passenger, not an inside one, Miss Bingley," Elizabeth responded. "I was sitting on top and I was thrown off."

  "An outside passenger!" Darcy exclaimed.

  "Didn't you know?" Caroline inquired si
lkily.

  "Certainly not!" Darcy declared. He turned to Elizabeth. "You never told me," he said accusingly.

  Elizabeth flushed guiltily. "I thought you would have guessed," she replied.

  "I had not the faintest suspicion," Darcy stated. "How could you take such a risk?"

  Elizabeth shrugged slightly. "I believed it would be fun," she stated.

  "Fun!" he echoed. "You might have been killed!"

  "Yes, I realize that now," Elizabeth answered.

  "I sincerely hope you will never travel that way again!" Darcy returned.

  "Do not worry. I shall not," Elizabeth assured him dryly. "I have learned my lesson."

  "I am very glad to hear it," Darcy commented.

  Caroline gnawed her lip with frustration and annoyance. She had been completely left out of the latter part of this conversation. And worse, instead of unmasking the deception and being able to reveal Elizabeth as a fraud, she had merely highlighted a certain intimacy between her rival and Mr. Darcy.

  It was extremely vexing. But what could she do?

  At the moment, the waiter came over and began to set the table.

  "Have you dined, Miss Bingley?" Mr. Darcy asked.

  "Not yet," Caroline muttered through clenched teeth.

  "Would you care to join us?" Darcy invited, out of common courtesy, though he longed to be rid of her.

  Caroline's instincts were to say no and to storm out in a high dudgeon, but she suppressed them.

  "I would love to dine with you," she said, forcing herself to smile prettily as she glanced at Elizabeth, "both of you. Thank you."

  Elizabeth guessed that this had been a bluff on Darcy's part. And Caroline had called it. Was he annoyed? She gazed at him intently but his face was a mask and she could learn nothing from it.

  With a flick of his fingers, Darcy attracted the waiter's attention.

  "Sir?" the man inquired, bowing.

  "Miss Bingley is joining us," Darcy explained. "Would you please lay a place for her?"

  "Certainly, sir," came the response. And immediately it was done.

  Less than two minutes later, the soup was served and the three of them started to eat. During the meal, Darcy skillfully avoided conversation even on general topics. That and the presence of the waiter prevented Caroline from asking any personal questions.