If the weather held, the carriage would arrive at the coaching inn at Bromley in about an hour. Once there, Fitzwilliam and Darcy would part company, and Darcy would be left alone with his thoughts. He had left Rosings Park an hour after he was sure Elizabeth had read his letter. He had seen her sitting outside the parsonage holding his letter to her breast, and he sensed that it had distressed her. And that memory would be the very last one he would have of her, and as Anne had predicted, he regretted having written it.
“Darcy, you are contemplative this day,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said.
“There are times when silence is beneficial.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam and Darcy were exactly the same age, and the young Richard Fitzwilliam had spent many summers at the Pemberley estate. As young men, both had attended Cambridge, and from there, they experienced the Grand Tour of Europe’s great cities. Without a care in the world, the duo drank champagne at the Chateau de Crecy in Picardy, joined costumed revelers at Carnavale in Venice, saw Rome and its catacombs by torchlight, and danced into the early hours of the morning in Paris. They were traveling to the south of France when a rider intercepted them with a message from Pemberley: Darcy’s father was dead.
In that one instant, Fitzwilliam Darcy went from being someone with few responsibilities to a young man who was now the master of a great estate. The staff, the tenants, the villagers, all would look to him to make decisions that would affect their everyday lives. But the greatest responsibility was that he was now the guardian of his sister, who had just celebrated her thirteenth birthday. Until Georgiana married, everything she wanted to do required his approval, and his decisions would chart the course her life would take. These changes in his circumstances had an immediate and permanent impact. Darcy was much more serious, and although Fitzwilliam was used to long rides with Darcy saying very little, even for him, no conversation at all was not the norm.
“Darcy, it is quite obvious that something is troubling you, and I would like to think that you could speak of it to me.”
“I have been preoccupied,” Darcy confessed. “As you know, since that episode with Wickham and Georgiana, I am ill at ease when we are apart. Once I am back in town and see that all is well, everything will be as it was before,” and Darcy turned his attention to the passing countryside.
“Does your preoccupation have anything to do with Miss Elizabeth Bennet?”
“What?” Darcy said, sitting up straight. “Why would you say that?”
“On the evening Miss Elizabeth was at Rosings for dinner, I noticed how often you looked at her. She is a very attractive woman with an inquisitive mind and a sharp wit and is completely without airs. I was totally taken in by her. However, being the younger son of an earl, I cannot marry where I wish, so I do not form attachments for ladies with no fortune. On the other hand, you are rich, and you may marry whomever you please.”
“Why are you speaking of marriage? You interpret my admiration for her technique in playing the pianoforte and a few glances in her direction as a prelude to a proposal. That is quite a stretch, Fitzwilliam.”
“It will not do, Darcy. You were not admiring her technique; you were admiring her. And it was not a few glances. You could hardly take your eyes off her.” When Darcy said nothing, Fitzwilliam continued. “Let us suppose for the sake of argument that you are in love with Miss Elizabeth and that you would like to marry the lady.”
“If I asked you to stop before you made yourself ridiculous, would you?”
“No, because I think you want to hear me out. So let us examine what would happen if you chose to go down that path. Because of your position in society, you would be able to weather any storm that would ensue. You are rich and well connected, and as such, cannot be ignored no matter whom you marry. As for the matter of Elizabeth being the daughter of a gentleman farmer, theoretically, you are equal. She is the daughter of a gentleman, and you are the son of one. From my perspective, you lose nothing, but there is much to be gained.”
“Richard, these are all fine arguments. But you obviously did not notice that Miss Elizabeth does not like me very much.”
“That is because she does not know you as well as I do. She needs to see the man who cares so deeply for his sister or who will travel to Rosings to surprise Anne. She does not know of your kindness to me in keeping me out of poverty or in rescuing my brother from embarrassment. My advice to you is to seek the first opportunity that offers for the purpose of courting her.”
The carriage pulled into the courtyard at the inn, and while the colonel waited for his horse to be saddled, he said, “If all I have said does not persuade you, think of my brother and sister-in-law, Lord Fitzwilliam and Lady Eleanor. You have seen them together, when they are together. Both have impeccable pedigrees, but they cannot tolerate each other and all of this was easily predictable. Will, pursue Miss Elizabeth. She will challenge you.”
Pursue Elizabeth. Simple advice. But what Richard did not know was that he had already attempted to pursue her and was rejected with a vehemence that had stunned him: “I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.” She would have accepted an offer from a dustman before she would have consented to marry him.
Thinking back to that afternoon, he wondered at his own behavior, which was the antithesis of how he usually acted. It was spontaneous, irrational, and, in the end, self-defeating. He had never intended to ask Elizabeth to marry him, which was obvious by the mode of his declaration. He was working it through in his mind. Unfortunately, that process was spoken aloud, and not realizing that Elizabeth might find his musings to be offensive, he did not even look at her while he was pointing out her defects. If he had, he would have said no more. In his mind, he could now recall the pursed lips, the raised shoulders, the flashing eyes. He had seen eyes like that before, at Pemberley, when a bull had chased him out of a pasture.
Well, what had been done could not be undone, so he would make his way to London. Once at home, his beloved sister would put him in a better humor.