Masquerade 2

by Emma East

  The next day as they worked in the garden, Elizabeth tilling and Charlotte extracting weeds in the vegetable patch, Charlotte said, “Did Mr. Darcy appear to be acting queerly last night, Lizzy?”

  Elizabeth paused, and then resumed tilling with renewed vigor. “Well, that assumes Mr. Darcy being quiet in company is strange.”

  “Quiet, yes, but he barely spoke a word after dinner.” Charlotte dabbed at her forehead. Despite the good weather, they had both worked up a bit of sweat, and Charlotte’s apron was covered in dust. “I wonder if something was on his mind?”

  Charlotte’s comment was too nonchalant for Elizabeth to believe. “Perhaps. It’s not unheard of for powerful, wealthy gentlemen to be lost in thought, though it is rare to witness.”

  “He usually had a few words to speak to you while he stayed in Netherfield.”

  Elizabeth schooled her face into one of bland disinterest. Her hands were becoming slippery inside her gloves and she paused in the tilling to wipe them on her apron. “If you are trying to imply there was something between Mr. Darcy and I, I would like to say that’s as silly as the romance novels your sister swoons over.”

  “It’s a pity,” Charlotte sighed, turning her back and resuming her work. “’tis a pity to see Mr. Darcy moping all night.”

  Despite herself, a scoff escaped Elizabeth. “And what would make Mr. Darcy mope? Aside from my terrible songs throughout the evening, of course. I do not play a quarter as well as his sister, as Lady Catherine was quick to point out.”

  Charlotte ignored this. “He seemed to grow withdrawn when it became obvious that Colonel Fitzwilliam wasn’t to leave your side all night. To this untrained eye, it appeared to be jealousy.”

  “Untrained it is!” Elizabeth laughed. “Charlotte, I declare that you are as bad as Mariah! Please, for the love of your friends, do not take to swooning next!”

  Charlotte’s cheeks flushed, but she remained resolved in her opinion, and by the time they took their tea Elizabeth was a little shaken in hers. Charlotte had always been perceptive—but she wasn’t right this time. She couldn’t be right.

  But at least she could be grateful that Charlotte didn’t perceive the truth of the situation. The dreadful truth that had felt emblazoned on her forehead the night before. Elizabeth couldn’t bear to see the disappointment in her friend’s eyes if she found out that not only had Elizabeth allowed herself to be seduced, but she had fallen in love with the man with no hope of a commitment from him. But last night had proven her strength. She straightened her shoulders, proud of herself. Though she had been wobbly at first like an hour’s old horse, she had confidently withstood his presence without succumbing to wishful longing for him.

  However, the next day proved that she had congratulated herself prematurely.

  Reading a letter from her sister, she walked along the lane toward the little village of Hunsford in a distracted manner. Her sister and Bingley were enjoying Brighton as part of their honeymoon tour. This was her most recent letter detailing their adventures at the seaside. Her sister’s tone throughout the letter put a smile on Elizabeth’s face, imagining her sister’s well-earned happiness and joy warming her chest. Hopefully, by the time Elizabeth returned to Longbourn, her sister would be settling just three miles away in Netherfield. She couldn’t wait to see her sister’s beautiful smile and hear all about their travels.

  The lane from the parsonage wound through a small park, large enough for one of Anne de Bourgh’s phaetons to ride through. Trees sheltered the dusty lane, their branches shading the path. It was one of her favorite places to walk outside of the isolated woods on the many acres of the Rosings estate.

  Nearly a mile from the village, Elizabeth moved to the side of the lane as she heard a horse’s hoofbeats from behind her. She looked up when the rider went by, and her smile froze on her lips when she looked up into Darcy’s stern expression.

  “Miss Bennet.”

  He drew to a stop beside her and, with nothing more, dismounted in one smooth, athletic motion.

  Elizabeth’s gaze shot forward and though she remained calm, her heart raced faster than any horse could run. Her thoughts flew. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He was supposed to ride past her and then they could both pretend they never saw the other. She would have been happy to do so in his position. Her feet continued on with no effort or conscious thought from her.

  “It’s a good day for a walk,” Darcy said. He could have been encountering a mere acquaintance on the road for how carefree his tone was. He held the reins for his horse in his left hand and, without even a tug, it began following him.

  “Erm, yes. It is.” Or it was. What did she do with her hands? How did her bonnet look? Elizabeth repressed the urge to reach up to see if it was on straight.

  “Going to town? Are you meeting Mrs. Collins there?”

  “I-I am,” she said. A quick glance at him told her nothing and she did not want to risk another look for fear he might return it. She licked her lips. More seem to be expected of her in the conversation. “Are you riding to town? It’s a lovely day for it.”

  “And a walk,” he agreed. They went a few steps in silence, his horse nickering quietly at the slowness of their pace. “The weather has been unseasonably fine so far this week.”

  “It was cooler last week,” she said. How banal! Would they be stuck speaking about the weather for the remaining mile to town? She would expire from embarrassment if so. Whatever he had to say to her, she hoped he got on with it so this awkward, forced commentary on the weather could be put out of its misery.

  “You know, this place has changed little since I was a child. This road, for example.”

  Darcy’s tone was contemplative, and he looked up at the trees above them, their heavy branches providing ample shade to the lane. It was a dark, cool road, and one of Elizabeth’s favorite places to walk. It was unsettling to realize that Darcy had memories of this lane, memories that spanned his lifetime.

  “I assume not much could change besides the trees growing taller,” she said, darting another quick glance at him. Curiously, he seemed lost in memory.

  “This winding road was one of my worst nightmares as a child, you know.”

  “Really?” Elizabeth flushed as Darcy looked over at her. She had not intended to express her shock so vehemently.

  Darcy looked away. “Surprising as it may seem, yes. I can remember being in the carriage and glancing out the window up into those heavy, weeping branches. They would sway in the wind, and in the moonlight’s gleam the branches appeared to be the claws of an old crone and I was certain that they would snatch me right out of the safety of my parents’ arms.”

  Elizabeth looked up at those gnarled branches, and she could imagine a young child—a boy with chubby cheeks and Darcy’s bottomless dark eyes—staring up in terrified wonder at their twisty bottoms, his imagination going wild with every shadow.

  Her tone softened with her curiosity. “What did your parents say when you told them this?”

  “I never did,” he said. He shrugged one shoulder when she glanced at him in surprise. “Although my gut knew this was true, and that at any moment these hideous trees could tear me away, I didn’t want to appear like a child. Only children cried about nightmares.”

  Elizabeth did not know quite how to resolve the image in her head of a young Darcy, chin trembling as he looked out at the threatening trees, but unable to admit what scared him. Even to those he loved the most. As someone from an inherently loving and open family, she had always felt encouraged to discuss her fears with her parents. Silly as those fears sometimes were, Mr. Bennet and his wife generally listened, if not understood. It seemed sad that Darcy had held in such a small thing, when speaking about it would have given him such comfort. Her heart went out to that boy, now grown and walking beside her with no hint of his childhood terror on his face.

  “I can see how it could affect you. I carry vivid images from my childhood that I can imagine are exaggerated as mos
t childhood memories are.”

  “That’s true. Everything seems bigger, grander, when one is a child. You know, I do not recall a normal, routine day of my childhood. The routine runs together, and only the memories with the strongest emotions are left behind for me to dissect and analyze.”

  Elizabeth smiled to herself. Of course, the noble and esteemed Darcy could not fondly reminisce as the plebeians did, as she herself did. No, Darcy would analyze and dissect his memories with the studiousness of a devout pupil.

  “It’s in those vivid moments where we learn about ourselves and our loved ones, I think,” she said. She looked over at him and found him smiling, too. A handsome smile, with one corner of his lip pulled up and a dimple just appearing in his cheek. Her mother would call it a cheeky smile.

  His eyes met hers. Dark eyes, with impossibly thick lashes, they also held a smile. Open, direct, with an honest lack of guile or ulterior motive.

  Elizabeth dropped her gaze to the ground. He should have ridden on. That’s what she had expected of him. That was what she wanted him to do.

  “We never did this.”

  She lifted her head, her frown falling away. “Pardon?”

  Darcy gave her that one-shoulder shrug again. “This. Shared stories about ourselves. It’s hard to share in discussion when our minds were on other topics.” He paused. “I like it.”

  “Yes, well…” She swallowed. “It may be too late to make the attempt.”

  She could only imagine a conversation full of this… picking over every word, dissecting every phrase for an alternative meaning. It would be exhausting. Elizabeth didn’t have much hope for that kind of conversation.

  Darcy accepted her point with good grace. Then, his gaze on the dusty road ahead of them, he said, “Not learning more about you is something I deeply regret, so I hope you are wrong and we may one day share our thoughts with each other in a spirit of companionship and honesty.”

  Companionship. Whatever could he mean by that?

  “Elizabeth.”

  She stiffened as his hand touched hers, as he drew her to a stop and turned her toward him. Her tongue weighed two stone in her mouth. Surely, this couldn’t be happening. Darcy could not be making such a public overture, or gazing at her as if she was a candle to rid the room of shadows. He could not be here, holding both her hands in his larger ones, his thumb caressing the tops of her knuckles.

  He was supposed to ride on and ignore her. Why hadn’t the infuriating man ridden on?

  “Elizabeth,” he said, and the wind picked up her name on his lips and brought it to her ears. From his mouth, it was a sweet name. His Adam’s apple bobbed and his dark pupils seemed to widen to engulf her in his gaze and it was impossible to even think about looking away.

  “Tell me,” he said, taking a step forward. His scent, warm and spicy, came with him and reminded her of all the other moments they shared. Intimate. Secret. His hands tightened on hers and his head dipped low enough for his whisper to tickle her lips. “Tell me you don’t love this, that you don’t want this. That you don’t love…”

  Me, she finished.

  “I—” She couldn’t hear herself speak over the pounding, rushing noise in her ears. But there was so much between them, volumes of history. How could she back away when his full lips touched hers so delicately, full of questions she couldn’t answer?

  Tell me you don’t love me, she thought as she pressed forward, and she tasted salt at the back of her throat because she couldn’t tell him that. She couldn’t lie.

  Her eyes began to burn and she pulled away—tore away, turning her face away so he couldn’t see the shameful tears burning the edge of her vision. “I have to go,” she gasped, and she ran. She ran back the way she had come, back to safety.

  She didn’t blame him. She couldn’t. Instead, she blamed herself for falling in love with a man who only wanted the worst of her.

  Chapter Ten

  “And what has you scowling today?”

  Darcy was in a foul mood. His cousin’s jovial tone as he entered the library did not help in the least. He reached for his port beside him and wished he could enjoy it and the sumptuous surroundings. However, his thoughts continued to drift back to Elizabeth’s expression on the road.

  How could one woman cause so much damage and in such a short amount of time?

  “It’s a nice day today,” Fitzwilliam said, his tone uncertain. He sat down tentatively on the blue velvet sofa across from Darcy, gray eyes wary as he studied him. “Darcy? Have you had bad news from London? Pemberley?”

  “What? Oh. No. No, it is a business matter.”

  “Ah.” Fitzwilliam sat back and his expression plainly said he didn’t believe Darcy. But Darcy did not plan to explain to him that he had cocked up the situation so irreparably that the woman he… the woman he…

  He swallowed. Anyway. It was a complete mess.

  “Well, if nothing is the matter, then you’ll be happy to give me leave for the day,” Fitzwilliam said, throwing his arms over the back of the sofa and directing a lazy smile at Darcy. “It’s a beautiful day today, and I feel myself wishing for a walk.”

  “Hmph.”

  “That is, if you don’t need me for the remainder of the afternoon,” Fitzwilliam said. “You said yesterday you wished to go into town—”

  “I did so already,” he muttered. A quick trip it had been too, and he had forgotten to ask after the writing supplies he needed replenished. He would need to go back tomorrow or else be forced to use lavender-scented stationery for his correspondence to London.

  Fitzwilliam sat back. “Oh. Darcy, are you certain you are alright? You appear… unsettled.”

  Darcy cleared his throat. A look toward the heavy oak door of the library told him that there would be no reprieve from his cousin’s incessant questions and worry.

  “You sound as if you have plans of your own.”

  People tended to want to speak about themselves and favor their own concerns over worrying about others. Fitzwilliam was no exception. The concern dropped from his expression and his lips turned up at the corners. “I do, in fact, have tentative plans to stop in at the parsonage and see if the fair Miss Bennet is around.”

  Darcy’s port tasted sour on his tongue, sour in the back of his throat, sour all the way down as he swallowed.

  “Miss Bennet,” he said.

  Fitzwilliam’s eyes danced. “You did not tell me what sort of women they grew in Hertfordshire! She seems a lovely creature, and eloquent to boot. No wonder your friend married into the family!”

  “Lovely,” Darcy repeated.

  “The way she laughed and smiled! I could barely contain myself at finally meeting someone entertaining here at Rosings.” Fitzwilliam laughed. “Truly, I would get to know her better if I could.”

  “You realize she will inherit a pittance.”

  Fitzwilliam’s eyes widened. Darcy’s outburst had cut through his happy bubble like a pin into a child’s balloon. His lips parted as he stared at Darcy and, realizing what he had said and how harshly he had declared it, a creeping sensation of embarrassment climbed Darcy’s neck.

  “It is only the truth,” he said, shifting on the sofa and reaching for his port. It was empty, and he took the excuse to retreat from his cousin so he could pour another. Over his shoulder, he asked, “Would you like one?”

  “I… um, no, I don’t think so. It’s a little early for me.”

  Darcy scoffed. How nice for some.

  Richard Fitzwilliam. The outspoken one. The merry lad of his youth had turned into a good-natured soldier with a soft heart for beautiful women. It wasn’t strange for Fitzwilliam to label himself besotted with this or that lovely creature he had met in a ballroom in London or dance hall in Brighton. He was like Bingley in that regard, except more circumspect in declaring himself. Open and honest, and everything Darcy was not—could not—be.

  Her face as she had stumbled away from him that morning had been full of tears. When he had come to her w
ith only good intentions, with rising hope in his chest that now she would yield to him and soothe his longing heart, she had run away. Afraid of him and his desires. Wanting something from him he hadn’t a clue how to give.

  He swallowed the sour port, acidic and filmy on the back of his tongue. Lip curled, he kept his back turned to his cousin and looked out over the grounds of Rosings.

  “Pay no mind to me, cousin. You should go enjoy the day and find this lovely Bennet.”

  Fitzwilliam, sensing the darkness of his mood as it filled the room, left. Darcy stood there at the window and, soon, watched his cousin walk down the lane toward the parsonage at the edge of the estate. His gaze followed him until they had admitted him into the parsonage and then he could stomach the sight no longer and turned away, his stomach roiling.

  His aunt’s library had been poured over by scholars and masters. Each tome had been selected carefully by her now-deceased husband and preserved with the help of Darcy and Fitzwilliam. The room was richly decorated, but austere in the ways that only his aunt could accomplish. An ornate end table with tilted, clawed feet but no vase or ornament to sit on top. Thick velvet curtains at the window, but the desk was left to sit upon the bare floor. It mimicked her personality perfectly.

  He went to the desk and opened the heavy box sitting on the edge. He pulled out a sheet of the hated lavender-scented stationery and sat down behind the desk.

  It took a moment to prepare his pen, and in that moment he figured out how to begin:

  Bingley—

  It is my pleasure to wish you congratulations on your marriage to the eldest Miss Bennet. I wish you all the joy that you so rightly deserve.

  I also wish to apologize again. You were right to shock some sense into me, and to hold me accountable for my degrading and disrespectful manners. I could not have been more despicable. I was all that you said: selfish, greedy, and uncaring of the reputation and future of others. I thought I cared, but I only cared to satisfy my vanity and desires. I put no thought into the harm I inflicted upon others—no, upon her. I will say it. I harmed Elizabeth, and I did not care—