“We could share my copy –” Darcy began before he was interrupted by Miss Bingley seizing the deal of the century.
Caroline hastily thrust the Netherfield copy into Elizabeth’s hands the second she rose from the chair, making the petite woman suck in her breath at the refreshed pain in her hands. Assuming it to be Elizabeth realizing her mistake, Caroline paid no mind and quickly curtsied with a simple nod as she took Elizabeth’s place in the chair still warm from its previous occupant.
As Elizabeth began to walk away clutching a copy of the sonnets to her breast with her forearms instead of her palms, she had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing aloud as Caroline’s shrill voice began to instruct Mr. Darcy on how they should practice their sonnets.
Briefly, she looked over her shoulder at the poor man she had just sentenced to Miss Bingley’s company and was not surprised to see his stony glare meet her eyes. Unsure of what had come over her, Elizabeth Bennet winked at the socially awkward man from Derbyshire and her own heart felt an irregular pitter patter when Fitzwilliam Darcy rewarded her with a full, charming smile.
Finding herself surprised at how the man could make her feel without any words at all, Elizabeth’s nervous energy filtered down to her feet and carried her quickly out of the room. With any luck, she would not see Mr. Darcy until dinner and then the exciting event of the sonnets.
Six
November 19, 1811, evening
The quintet of the Bingleys, Bennets, and Mr. Darcy drew lots to choose the order of recitation. Footmen cleared the furniture in the drawing room to place all the seating parallel to one wall, wrapping around, and moved the carpet to sit squarely within, to act as a stage. Elizabeth found the room to be so altered, a small jolt of excitement ran through her producing a fresh patch of goose flesh.
Jane luckily drew the first slot from the folded bits of parchment in Mr. Bingley’s hands. Elizabeth noted her sister’s breath quicken as Jane sat with a serene smile on her face. While Caroline and Mr. Darcy drew their numbers, Elizabeth wished she could offer to take Jane’s place to spare her sister the nervousness of performing first.
“Well, Miss Elizabeth, it is down to you. Only the second and fifth spots remain.” Mr. Bingley played a jolly good fellow and shook his hands to mix the lots in the cupped cage of his palms. Presented with a fifty percent chance of going last, Elizabeth selected her fate and unfolded the small bit of parchment.
“It would appear I am to conclude our evening’s festivities.” She flipped the parchment to show a carefully scrawled ‘5’ in the middle of the creases.
“Would you prefer I go first?” Mr. Bingley whispered to Jane, who nodded and blushed. The happy Bingley flashed his intended a bright smile, “I hoped you would agree.”
As Mr. Bingley took the stage, Elizabeth slid on the sofa to reside close to her sister Jane.
Mr. Bingley dramatically cleared his throat and made a flourish with his hands as he had seen actors in London on stage do the same. “I humbly dedicate this sonnet to the love of my life, my angel, Sweet Jane.”
Caroline gasped as her brother stunningly pronounced his attachment to Miss Bennet, a development she and Louisa suspected but hoped would not come to pass.
“Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. Love is not love . . .” Charles Bingley began a lovestruck recitation of Sonnet 116 to the inward groan of Fitzwilliam Darcy.
Darcy panicked as the ‘surprise’ element of this activity robbed him of the sonnet he had prepared with Miss Bingley. He intended to dedicate it silently to Miss Elizabeth, but now he could not very well stand up and recite the same sonnet! Darcy searched his memory of the sonnets for a solution as applause broke out for Mr. Bingley’s performance.
Jane responded to Mr. Bingley’s lovely sentiments with much of her own, through the words of Sonnet 57. The professions of being a slave to her love, of minding the clock without minding his absence, and being a fool in love made those gathered round without the initials C.B. very uncomfortable. Darcy acknowledged for a moment perhaps Charles was indeed quite the lucky man that a depth of passion did reside beneath the simple woman’s sweet smiles and congenial conversation.
Still without an answer for his performance, and only Caroline’s to go, Darcy grabbed a copy of the sonnets on the table and flicked to a familiar number. Running his eyes over the words to commit the image to his memory, his desperate adjustment was interrupted when Caroline Bingley began to command attention.
“Like my brother, I too wish to dedicate my sonnet to someone quite special.” Miss Bingley smiled as Darcy lifted his head, the stares of the remaining party causing him discomfort. All color drained from his face at Caroline’s first lines:
“A woman’s face, with nature’s own hand painted, Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion;”
Darcy faltered in his indifferent expression as Miss Elizabeth coughed, earning a glare from Miss Bingley. Darcy looked past the happy couple separating him from Elizabeth in the seating arrangement, but his chair was at least half turned so he could see her without obstruction. His lovely Elizabeth struggled to keep her countenance as it was clear they both recognized the sonnet from the first lines, a lewd dedication to a man, as none other than number 20.
Caroline passionately rendered her superficial understanding of the sonnet, grinning ear to ear as she delivered the final line to a stunned silence.
“But since she pricked thee out for women’s pleasure, Mine be thy love, and thy love’s use their treasure.”
Miss Bingley smiled and preened, awaiting the applause that scarcely came. Flustered, she furrowed her brow until Miss Elizabeth dared to address her.
“Is this sonnet the one you practiced with Mr. Darcy this afternoon?”
Caroline rolled her eyes at her adversary. “I respected his wishes for a surprise, so I recited one I memorized this morning as my first choice.” Miss Bingley glanced back and forth between that upstart and Mr. Darcy, unsure of what she had done wrong. She had selected a sonnet that complimented a man’s handsome features, how could Mr. Darcy not accept the compliment?
“Darcy? What sonnet do you have for us?” Mr. Bingley tried to move the proceedings along so Caroline might sit down and let Darcy start.
“As you took my first choice, friend, I am forced to recall a sonnet that has been much on my mind lately.” Darcy stood and walked widely around Miss Bingley who did not leave the stage area until the man stood where he planned to begin. Caroline scowled as she took the chair next to Mr. Darcy’s empty seat.
“As Miss Bennet and Charles have dedicated sonnets to each other, and we have had other dedications . . . ” Darcy shook his head slightly at the unpalatable memory of Miss Bingley referring to his manhood via poem. “This sonnet is dedicated to a lady of great wit, who deserves more than a mere mortal man may offer.”
Caroline sat up taller in her chair, fully expecting Mr. Darcy’s sonnet was dedicated to her. Elizabeth Bennet glanced down at her hands in her lap.
“Take all my loves, my love, ye, take them all.” Mr. Darcy’s baritone floated richly through the air over the lines of Sonnet 40, forcing Elizabeth to look up and find he only had eyes for her. Her breath caught in her chest as she mouthed the sonnet along with him, feeling the pricks of tears in her eyes at such a romantic gesture directed at her.
“And yet love knows it is a greater grief to bear love’s wrong than hate’s known injury.” Darcy smiled, breaking his serious demeanor as he spied his Elizabeth nodding slightly in agreement to his plea. With a grand finale, Darcy looked up at the ceiling to invoke his last line:
“Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows, Kill me with spites!” He paused, allowing his booming demand to rest in the air, then slowly he lowered his gaze to offer his Elizabeth a smoldering smirk.
“Yet we must not be foes.”
Elizabeth joined him in the last line, to the applause of both Jane and Mr. Bingley. Miss Bingley folded her arms and sulked as she rea
lized Mr. Darcy did not look at her even once during his recitation.
As Elizabeth rose from her seat, she and Mr. Darcy shared a moment of quiet camaraderie. She took his meaning, or so Darcy hoped, as he took Elizabeth’s seat on the settee to be front and center for her sonnet, instead of the chair next to Miss Bingley.
“This should be exciting; Lizzie loves to play act.” Jane bristled under the excitement of what was to come, having been witness to Elizabeth’s extravagant monologues during rainy days at Longbourn in their youth.
“Oh dear, now I shall be sure to disappoint!” Elizabeth laughed merrily as Jane shook her head. Caroline began to speak, but her brother cut her off.
“Do not keep Miss Elizabeth waiting, it is her turn,” Bingley nodded to his future sister and Elizabeth nodded back, also striking an elegant pose of her arm draped dramatically over her forehead and her body cheated to the side away from her audience.
“That time of year that thou mayst in me behold,” Elizabeth’s arm outstretched above her as she bent backward, her profile displaying the womanly curves she was blessed to possess to great advantage. Her fingers fluttered as she brought her arm down, leaning over so that it hung limply before her. “When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang upon those boughs which shake against the cold.”
As Elizabeth shivered and continued to perform an elaborately artful movement to each line of her sonnet, Darcy wetted his parted lips with a slip of his tongue and squirmed in his seat. The woman twisted, turned, and at one point delivered her lines in a booming voice to the far wall! His imagination ran wild producing a cold sweat on his brow of the magical days and evenings the two of them might share at his estate in Derbyshire, two masterful minds of wit and charm.
“This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong, to love that well which thou must leave ere long.” Elizabeth delivered her last line straight as a stick, doleful, with her eyes on none other than Mr. Darcy.
As the loudest applause yet echoed in the room, Darcy crossed his legs as he considered her last line. Was Elizabeth saying that she lamented leaving Netherfield in the morning? Their earlier conversation had been cut short by Miss Bingley, and Darcy, too, felt desperate to rekindle the subject matter of their feelings for one another.
Caroline spoiled the triumph of Miss Elizabeth by immediately ordering a new game, barking orders at the footmen to hang a sheet.
“Caroline, what is this? We have performed as you desired.” Charles Bingley raised his eyebrow at his sister’s sudden plans, plans she did not discuss with him at all.
“It is time for shadow pantomime! We have cards and must all try to guess what is being displayed on the other side!”
The room became darker as the majority of the candlelight was moved to the opposing side of the sheet hanging now from chandeliers that had been half snuffed. Caroline took the first turn as the furniture too was rearranged to two chairs and the small sofa brought forward. With Jane and Charles taking the lover’s seat, Darcy and Elizabeth took the chairs positioned close to one another.
Caroline began her performance of some exotic bird to the laughs and cheers of Mr. Bingley and Jane. Darcy took the distraction and lowered light to his advantage. He deliberately brushed his bare hand against Elizabeth’s. To his surprise, when he returned his hand to his arm rest, he was greeted with a similar gesture just a few moments later when Mr. Bingley took his turn behind the sheet.
The two enjoyed this easy, imperceptible affection until it was Darcy’s turn to perform. As the man leaned forward to accept a card from Miss Bingley on Jane’s far side, he whispered a simple phrase to make Elizabeth’s blood thump painfully in her ears from her quickened pulse.
“Gentle thief.”
The excitement of their last night at Netherfield Park with sonnets and shadow games put the Bennet sisters in a good mood as they climbed the stairs to their rooms. Elizabeth farewelled Jane in the hall, knowing the following night they would be sharing their room instead of enjoying elegant guest quarters in the most luxurious home in the county. Elizabeth was about to undress for the night, having released the pins in her hair and brushed out her locks, when a distinct tap sounded at her door. Frozen with brush in hand, and staring at her reflection in the mirror, Elizabeth heard it again. A distinct short tapping on the door. Perplexed as to who might be unable to knock, Elizabeth rose from the mirror and opened her door.
“Mr. Darcy!” Elizabeth hissed with a frown on her face.
“I wondered if we might speak.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “Right here in the hall?”
Darcy motioned with his hand that he might be let into the room. Elizabeth tilted her head and her eyes widened with an incredulous stare.
“Sir, you are mad. I wish you a good night.”
Elizabeth stepped away from the door and began to close it, but Mr. Darcy’s foot stopped the wooden portal’s progress. Elizabeth looked down at his boot, back up at him, then back down at his boot and softly squawked.
“I thought we were through with playing games,” he whispered firmly.
“This is not a game. If anyone catches you here we are both ruined.”
Darcy smirked at Elizabeth’s worry over something as silly as being forced to wed. It was the outcome he was there to discuss.
“Elizabeth, you cannot brush your hands against mine and then pretend to not show interest in becoming my wife.”
Elizabeth blinked. He smiled at her, but all she could do was blink again.
“Is this your proposal?”
Darcy’s smile faltered. “Er, no, that is, I thought we should discuss—”
“Hear me, Fitzwilliam Darcy, and listen closely. I have never been so abused by a man, but I have forgiven your insults. I have allowed myself to entertain emotions you neither deserve nor return with proper behavior. I have demanded you treat me as a gentleman ought . . .” She stomped her slippered foot and regretted the action as it really hurt! “And yet you try to rendezvous with me in a most inappropriate manner? Good night, sir!”
“And this is your response? To shun me with your temper at every misstep. Why should I bother with a woman who runs both hot and tepid in the same evening?”
“You should not. Indeed. I neither know you well, sir, nor do you know me. I suggest if, in the morning, you are still interested in your pursuit that you inquire with my father!”
Darcy removed his foot as Elizabeth closed the door, clenching it tightly as she wished for nothing more than to slam it. But to do so would be a mistake, and she knew it. Agitated, she fumbled to lock the door for good measure then paced in her bedroom to release her nervous tension.
How dare the man ask to enter her rooms! What did he take her for? Stinging tears pricked the corners of her eyes as her logic and emotions all mixed into a flurry of chaos in her mind. She recalled the deliciously unsettling feelings every moment their hands touched in the drawing room. It was wanton, and forbidden, and she was so utterly wrong to have encouraged him. It was true what they warned, improper advances were always around the corner with just the slightest misstep by a young lady.
Feeling vulnerable, she did not undress for bed. She considered running to Jane’s room, but for the first time in her grown life, she was not sure Jane would provide her comfort. Jane appeared to love Mr. Bingley body and soul, though their acquaintance too was of such a short time. Elizabeth hugged her arms to her person and settled beneath the covers, laying on her side with her eyes upon the blasted door. On the morrow, they would be on their way home and she could forget all the terrors of company at Netherfield as soon as possible.
Seven
November 20, 1811
After a restless night and early breakfast, with a conspicuously absent Mr. Darcy, Elizabeth endured the sweet speech and surfeit of smiles between Jane and Mr. Bingley. It was not that she wished her sister less than the joy she was feeling, but Elizabeth’s visit to the home could not compare with the elation of Jane’s where she was lea
ving intended for Mr. Bingley.
Recalling her conversation with the missing guest from the night before, Elizabeth could not help her curiosity.
“I have not seen your friend, Mr. Darcy, this morning Mr. Bingley. Does he not usually take his meal in the earlier hours?”
Mr. Bingley paused in his attentions to Jane and addressed Elizabeth. “Darcy is out riding. He is much like I have heard you described by Jane, eager to rejoin Nature after a long spell of being stuck indoors.”
“Oh, I hope the terrain treats him well.”
“Mmm.” Charles took a bite of his quiche and nodded, dismissing any further conversation with Elizabeth to look upon Jane.
Elizabeth frowned and picked at her own meal. Her appetite fled and her head began to ache. Mr. Darcy’s remark about becoming his wife still rang in her ears—a frightening, exhilarating, and yet impossible notion all at the same time. What an odd sort of man he was to so often stand stoically and silently in a room, only to blurt out the strangest ideas when pressed.
“And she shook her hands like leaves—” Caroline’s shrill voice faltered when she and Louisa Hurst entered the dining room to find their brother and both Bennet sisters sitting at the table. “Oh, good morning. I did not know you would still be here for the morning meal. I had instructed the carriages to be called first thing. I am sure you are anxious to return home.”
“Caroline—“ Bingley warned.
“As you have asked, I am happy to declare I am elated to return home and enjoy a properly kept house. You do make an admirable attempt, Miss Bingley, but it is painfully obvious running a house this large is still out of the range of your limited skills.” Elizabeth dropped her fork with a clatter and released every pent up ounce of anger from her breast, aimed fully at Miss Bingley.
To Capture Mr. Darcy, a Pride and Prejudice Variation Novel Page 10
