His voice dropped to a mere whisper. “One day when we are alone, I will tell you of another wrong he did me which I have had to keep secret for the sake of someone who is very dear to me.”
“I am thoroughly ashamed of my own lack of judgement. How could I be fooled so easily?”
Mr. Darcy sighed. “My father was a great and truly wise man. Yet, to his last breath, he adored that scoundrel. I myself was friends with Wickham for many a year before I saw just how despicable he can be. Do not blame yourself and do not hide in a corner. This is no place for you. Come along.”
She did not give him her hand; he took it from her lap, and she followed him silently to the dance, which had already begun. He pulled her into the throng of whirring couples. Normally an excellent dancer, she was so surprised by the quickness of his step that she stumbled. He was forced to put his hand on her waist briefly to steady her.
“You must try and keep up with me, Miss Elizabeth.”
She laughed. “I thought you did not like to dance, Mr. Darcy?”
“I do not generally. Though any chore is made easier and more enjoyable when there is the promise of a reward at the end of it.”
Speech was thus rendered impossible; looking at him was rendered impossible. It was all she could do to put her feet where they ought to go. The room grew hotter, the dance faster. Everything else fell away: the loud, colourful room, the other couples turning as furiously, the noise of a dozen shoes on the floorboards, the laughter. All she could think of was that they were coming to the end. They were moving down the set, the mistletoe looming ever nearer. There was applause and louder laughter as the first kiss was bestowed, and then another, and then another. Of course, she would do the same. She would kiss his cheek. It was Christmas, after all. When they were finally under that little sprig of greenery, she stood on the tips of her toes to reach him, expecting him to offer his cheek.
Instead he quickly caught her face between his hands and kissed her, properly, fully on the mouth. His lips felt firm and tasted sweet, and that was all she was conscious of before he let her go, and then mortification took hold of her.
The laughter that followed their encounter was louder than ever, the applause even stronger. Knowing it would be worse to make a fuss, that she would do better to laugh and for her neighbours to think she did not mind, she smiled and shrugged.
He muttered a hushed apology as they walked away, their dance complete, though he did not look entirely sorry. She was at a loss as to what to say or do, was, left wishing for a hole in the floor to appear and swallow her up.
Thankfully, Jane appeared by her side and ushered her into the hall for some air, where they could speak without others hearing.
“You look as if you might faint, Lizzy.”
“How dare he?”
Jane only smiled and took out her fan, waving it in Elizabeth’s face. “He is in love with you. A man in love ought to be forgiven some impetuousness.”
“No! You are wrong!” Elizabeth shook her head. “I know not his reasons. He is all arrogance and conceit. He thinks he may do whatever he…” She wanted to protest more, but her shoulders sagged. “Everyone will be talking of it for weeks.”
“Come now! Everyone has had too much wine for it to matter much. There is hardly anyone left here that we know.”
“Even so, I am sure they will get to hear of it. Oh, it is so embarrassing!”
“A little perhaps. Though now you will be the girl Mr. Darcy kissed rather than the girl Mr. Wickham threw over for Mary King.”
“I shall never live it down.”
Jane took Elizabeth’s face between her hands, much as Mr. Darcy had just done, and forced her to meet her eyes. “It matters not. Will you listen to me? Where has your cleverness gone? He is in love with you and you with him and, may I say, I mightily approve of your choice.”
“I should like to go home,” was all Elizabeth could say.
In her absence, it seemed Mr. Darcy had decided that was exactly where they were bound. Her mother and other sisters burst into the hall seconds later, laden with coats and hats, and they were all soon back in the sleigh for the return journey to Longbourn. Mr. Darcy drove them again, his face buried deep in the collar of his coat. He said not a word as he handed all the ladies out.
Elizabeth, torn as she was between anger and confusion, jumped down without assistance and dashed inside. She immediately declared herself ready for bed, going upstairs before Mr. Darcy had even come in.
Yet she did not go to bed. She took a seat by her window and pulled the heavy curtains back so she might see the stars again. Some people believed they could predict the future. But the more Elizabeth looked up at them, the less she knew.
After a while, she heard Mr. Darcy’s deep baritone in the hall below. He had such a distinctive voice, and she had come to know it above all others. He was speaking to her father, she thought, and then she heard two sets of heavy steps move towards his library, followed by the peculiar squeak the hinges on that particular door always made when it was opened. Then she heard it being firmly shut.
Bleary-eyed and with a thick head from too little sleep, Elizabeth came warily down the stairs the next morning, only to be met by the sight of Mr. Darcy’s trunks in the hall. He was there too, but not dressed to go yet. She was so surprised she forgot to be angry at him.
“It is Christmas morning,” she said. “You are not going?”
“As you see.”
“You cannot travel today.”
“The turnpike, when I went yesterday, was just about passable. I confess I worry for my sister who is at Matlock without me. My family there are not the warmest of companions. She will not have been as fortunate as I…to have been so graciously received by you all, after the way I previously behaved…well, I have been much humbled. I have said as much to your mother this morning and your father last night.”
“You cannot make your servants go so far. Tomorrow should be their day of rest.”
He smiled. “You are good to think of them, but know that I am a generous master and they will be well compensated. May I speak to you elsewhere, before I leave?”
She nodded, and they walked down the hall to a small parlour at the front of the house. They passed Jane on their way. Elizabeth had kept Jane awake much of the night discussing everything that had passed. Her sister stifled a yawn and then smiled at Elizabeth in an encouraging way.
Mr. Darcy opened the door for her and shut it behind himself when they were both inside. She put a hand to her chest, feeling it pound in uncertainty, realising only in that moment that he had asked to speak to her alone and that she had followed him, unthinkingly, without stopping to consider what it might mean.
“I was not very gentlemanly last night. You have every right to hate me.” He paced over to the window, stopped, and turned. “Do you hate me?”
“No,” she said hesitantly. “Though I was angry, embarrassed.”
He bowed his head. “I made a dreadful first impression on you, most likely a terrible second, and now an even more awful third. What I would wish for is the opportunity to remedy matters. There was a time when I did not care who I offended, but I have come to admire you. And, through you, I have learnt a different way of seeing the world. It is a gift you have given me—a Christmas present,” he said, his voice breaking. “I will be honest and confess I once thought you beneath me, yet now I see your worth. I understand how fortunate I would be…” He stopped to clear his throat. “Mr. Wickham would express himself so much better.”
“Perhaps,” she said, “but I find I no longer care for his speeches.”
“Of that I am glad. I have spoken to your father.”
She must have coloured deeply, for he did too.
“Oh, no, you mistake me. I made such a bad beginning that you and I barely know one another. It is too soon, and I would not have you so unsure of me. Though the look of relief you now wear has me perturbed.”
Her heart seemed to have moved into h
er throat, robbing her of speech. She could say nothing but, when he held out his hand, she slid hers into it. It was a glorious feeling when his fingers closed around hers.
“I shall be at Matlock for a time, then Pemberley. After which, I will travel to Town and speak to Mr. Bingley. Be assured, he will call upon your sister at the Gardiners, though after that I intend to leave them to their own devices.”
“But that was your forfeit, and it was I who lost the bet. You never told me what my forfeit would be and how I should pay it.”
He smiled, the seriousness was gone from his countenance. It had been replaced by a devilish expression. “The forfeit I really wished for, you have already paid.”
In his cravat, she found a place to hide her embarrassment and stepped closer to him. “A young lady imagines her first kiss quite differently, Mr. Darcy.”
He laughed. “I see my error. May I ask how she imagines her second?”
It was too much for her. She withdrew her hand and stepped back but favoured him with a smile. “A different forfeit, if you please.”
“Very well, then,” he said, not missing a beat. “What I asked from your father was permission to write to you while we are apart. Your forfeit to me is a letter by return, upon receipt of mine. I will not be happy, madam, if there is much delay in your correspondence. You have seen me at my worst. You know how dreadful my temper will be if I do not have at least a few lines from you by the end of January.”
He was as charming in his own peculiar way as a thousand Wickhams, and she suspected she trembled from the force of her emotions. She was in love, and what she loved most about him was that he expected no more of her than a letter.
He had come to understand her in these few strange days when he had been trapped at Longbourn. She did not want him to go but wondered if it was selfish to ask him to stay. He left for the sake of his sister. For that, she adored him all the more, but he would be missed.
“We will see one another at Easter,” he told her. “You are to go and see your friends at Hunsford. I will go to Rosings Park to visit my aunt there. There is only a lane separating the two properties.”
Elizabeth laughed. “As I have been told, many times.”
“We might walk together often. The countryside is beautiful. The company I cannot truthfully recommend, but the paths and groves I think you would very much enjoy.”
Again, he put out his hand and, again, she took it. The stars knew nothing. Elizabeth could foretell the future from his touch. This was how it would be.
He released her then and, going around the house, quietly offered his goodbyes. When he had finally driven away, Elizabeth escaped back to her room, supposedly to ready herself for church. Instead, she threw herself upon the bed and cried for a good long while, as she had not done since she was a child, till her emotions were spent. She did not rouse until she heard her mother pass by her door, exclaiming to no one but herself.
“Ten thousand a year! Now that makes for a very merry Christmas indeed.”
* * *
CAITLIN WILLIAMS is an award-winning author of Ardently, The Coming of Age of Elizabeth Bennet, When We Are Married, and The Events at Branxbourne, that all spin the plot of Pride and Prejudice around but keep the characters just the same. Originally from South London, Caitlin spent thirteen years as a detective in the Metropolitan Police but is currently on a break from Scotland Yard so she can spend more time at home with her two children and write. She now lives in Kent, where she spends a lot of time daydreaming about Mr. Darcy, playing with dinosaurs, and trying not to look at the laundry pile.
And Evermore Be Merry
Joana Starnes
Mr. Darcy sends you all the love in the world, that he can spare from me. You are all to come to Pemberley at Christmas. —Jane Austen
Is this about right, Mr. Howard, sir? Or should I lower it, do you reckon?” Georgiana heard the third footman ask the butler as she rounded the corner into the entrance hall, arm in arm with her sister. They were just in time to see the young man atop a ladder, seeking to suspend the Christmas bough in the designated spot.
They had amused themselves with putting the finishing touches to it that very morning, she and Elizabeth. Now it stood resplendent with ivy and holly entwined around its hoops, ornamented with red ribbons, gilded nuts, fire-red apples, and the customary sprig of mistletoe.
The latter had begun to be frowned upon in fashionable households, along with the liberties that stemmed from it. Thus, in grand homes, the poor mistletoe was of late grudgingly allowed only in the servants’ hall for the so-called lesser sort to disport themselves in such an unseemly manner as stealing kisses from young maidens while there were still translucent berries to be plucked. But airs and graces had no place in the Darcys’ home—never had and never would—nor would they turn their backs to age-old customs to follow the dictates of fashion. So the old mistletoe was here to stay, both in the Christmas bough and in the servants’ hall.
“That will do nicely, Peter. There is no need to lower it,” came the instruction, not from the butler, but from the master of the house. Georgiana could not suppress a smile when she heard her sister chuckle.
Still, just as it was proper, Elizabeth waited for their butler and third footman to withdraw before she shared her amusement with her husband.
“For shame, Fitzwilliam,” she teased, with an airy gesture towards the kissing bough. “You call this hospitable, having it hung so high? What of our guests who are not quite as tall as you and Richard?”
But Georgiana’s brother shrugged and cast his wife an unrepentant grin.
“Then we shall see several gentlemen a-leaping.”
“And a partridge in a pear tree,” Georgiana added with a giggle, easily swept into their playfulness and the seasonal gaiety.
It was a great joy to return to her childhood home for Christmas to see her dear relations—and to see them so happy. She had missed them grievously ever since she had left Pemberley as a bride and had made her home in Town within easy distance of her husband’s place of employ at Horse Guards. Naturally, they met often when Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth were in Town, but they were rarely there ever since the little ones were born.
But now that was of no consequence, Georgiana thought with childish delight. It was in the past. Derbyshire had claimed her yet again now that Henry had come into his inheritance. Their new home was but eleven miles from Pemberley, and she could not be happier.
No, that was false, she thought and smiled. Happy as she was now, her felicity would be complete in five days’ time when her husband would be free of the unfinished business that kept him in Town and would come to join her.
“Well, then, what of our walk?” her brother asked, disrupting her ruminations. “I take it that the troop is still above-stairs, readying themselves.”
“I imagine so,” Elizabeth said with a smile, “or the rest of the house would not be so quiet. I sent them up to dress half an hour ago. With any luck, by now Miss Hughes might have won that battle.”
The ever-so-capable Miss Hughes had prevailed, it seemed, upon her charges’ penchant for high-spirited procrastination. No sooner had Elizabeth and Georgiana traded their slippers for sturdy boots and donned their pelisses than a cheerful commotion could be heard from the direction of the staircase that led to the family wing.
“Slowly and with care now, if you please. No running down the stairs, and keep a firm hold on the handrail,” the governess was heard to say as she admonished her charges towards safety. The wild stampede settled briefly into a steady rhythm, only to revert to an ungoverned rush once the stairs were negotiated.
“Papa, Papa, shall we build a snowman? Can we? Oh, do say we can!”
“No, Georgy, that would take an age. Let us go to the treehouse. Can we climb up, Mama?”
“Papa’s shoulders! Best climb on Papa’s shoulders,” Anne piped up, joining her other sisters in leaping around their father like excitable pups.
Elizabeth made no
effort to either curb their exuberance or assist her husband. Instead, she rolled her eyes and smiled as she reached to take her youngest babe from his nurse’s arms.
“Do have a cup of tea and a moment’s peace, Miss Hughes, at least while there is some peace to be had,” she urged, and the elder woman returned the smile and dropped a curtsy.
“Enjoy your walk,” she said, opening the door for them and waved at the Miss Darcys as they gleefully tumbled out.
The first snowball shot right past her, missing her by inches, and Georgiana drew back from the line of fire, her right hand instinctively covering her mid-section. There was nothing to see, no discernible change, and there would be none for quite some time. She had not told anyone yet, not even her husband. Georgiana smiled to herself. She would tell him at Christmas. Henry would love that present best of all.
Her smile grew wider at the sight before her. There they were, her brother and his happy family, merrily chasing each other through the shrubbery, everyone’s dignity abandoned as they dodged snowballs that now flew from all directions. Some came from beyond the azaleas—or rather from beyond the white mounds that stood where the azaleas would be—with no perpetrators in sight, their presence betrayed only by giggles. Some were very accurately sent flying by her eldest niece, who was peeping from behind the artful arrangement of rocks at the furthest end. Fitzwilliam was returning fire with no less skill, and there was Elizabeth, who had once more entrusted her babe to the safety of his nurse’s arms and was now dashing from behind a flame-shaped conifer, chased by two ruddy-faced imps who were eagerly taking her back as a target.
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