“I assure you, I shall manage perfectly.” Darcy looked past his long-faced valet to nod his acknowledgment to the serving man who had appeared at the inn door with the information that his horse was ready at the mounting block. “You are merely hours behind, a day at most.”
“Yes, sir,” Fletcher answered, a sigh all but audible in his voice. The heat of August had not quite rendered the journey from London unbearable, but the addition of Mr. Hurst’s new valet to the servant’s carriage had set all of Darcy’s people, particularly Fletcher, on edge. “A sneaksby and a mushroom!” Fletcher had pronounced Hurst’s man as he attended Darcy their first night out of Town, and his reports worsened at each stop along their way. Darcy was not without sympathy for his valet’s complaints, for the company of Miss Bingley also grew increasingly tedious in direct proportion to the hours spent confined with her in the coach. Her brother’s conversation offered some respite, as did Georgiana’s attempts to interest her in a book or the scenery, but Darcy could only thank Heaven when, upon arriving at the last coaching inn before Derbyshire, he had found waiting for him an urgent note from Sherrill, his steward, requesting his immediate presence at Pemberley. The call of duty could hardly have been sweeter, its siren tone reaching Fletcher’s ear as well, but it was impossible that Darcy’s valet should accompany him. Nor did he desire any company. These last miles before home he wished to spend alone, with only his thoughts for companions, before he entered into the incessant demands of master and host of his great ancestral estate.
A knock at his door brought Darcy around to see his sister poised at the threshold, a somewhat strained look upon her face. “Sweetling,” he sighed as he strode to her, “I am sorry to leave you so!”
“Not so very sorry.” She sent him a rueful but understanding smile. “I wish we were near enough that I might ride ahead as well.”
He bent and bussed her forehead. “When you get to Pemberley —”
“It will be better, I know,” she finished. “We will not be in each other’s pockets, especially when Aunt and Uncle Matlock arrive with D’Arcy and his new fiancée and family. I hope —” She stopped then and bit her lower lip.
“What, dearest?” He looked down tenderly into her wistful eyes.
“That I shall find a friend among these new relations D’Arcy brings us.” She rested her head upon his shoulder. “My own friend.”
“As do I.” He embraced her and then, gently setting her from him, chucked her under her chin. “I must go, but I promise you, we shall look into this business. Perhaps Aunt Matlock may have some suggestions.”
Pulling on his gloves and gathering his hat, saddlebag, and crop, Darcy saluted his sister and made for the door, his stride becoming a run down the steps when he heard a door behind him open to the sound of women’s voices. Turning the corner at the base of the stairs, he quickly passed through the public rooms and out into the sunlight of what promised to be a warm Derbyshire day.
“Darcy!” Bingley’s cry from behind him brought him to a halt. He turned and, smiling at the figure of his friend, waited for him to catch up. The last three months had not only brought Darcy peace from his crushing rejection at Rosings Park but had wrought significant changes in the manner of his friendship with Bingley, but also, Darcy was convinced, in Bingley himself. The man striding purposefully toward him was not the same Bingley of a year or even three months ago. There was more confidence in his carriage and assurance in his lineaments.
“Bingley!” He grinned at the look of reproach his friend freely cast him. “Your pardon for leaving without saying farewell, but I truly must be off if I am to reach Pemberley in good time.”
“Say no more.” Bingley grasped his hand and, falling into step with him, accompanied Darcy to the mounting block and his waiting horse. “I did not expect it; I just wish I could accompany you.” He peered down the road and, with a frown, turned back and addressed him. “Is it wise to go alone?”
“I expect to catch up with the baggage coaches in an hour and will have them release Trafalgar. The two of us should pass relatively unnoticed through the backcountry of Derbyshire.” Darcy patted the pistol in his saddlebag. “If not, we are not without resources should we be ascosted.”
“Well then, I shan’t detain you except to wish you Godspeed and to promise to deliver Miss Darcy and all my relations upon your doorstep tomorrow.” Bingley grinned and shook Darcy’s hand once more but solemnly. “Take care, Darcy.”
“And you, my friend,” Darcy replied and swung up into the saddle. “Until tomorrow!”
The mount beneath him was not Nelson but rather a less unpredictable cousin dutifully sent forward from Pemberley by Darcy’s steward. Nevertheless, the animal’s bloodlines ran true, and the ground between the inn and the coaches was eaten up in less time than Darcy had thought. Even so, Trafalgar’s affronted bark, alternating with a beseeching whine, reached him before he had even sighted the coaches. Upon being released and restored to his master’s side, the hound first trembled from nose to tail with undisguised joy, then with equal enthusiasm, rolled in the dust of the road, ran around Darcy’s horse in circles, attempted to leap up, and pawed ecstatically at his boot.
“Down, Monster!” Darcy thundered, then winced at the deep scratch that now transected his right boot. Fletcher would not be pleased. The hound sat dutifully, but his twitching tail beat out the quickly passing moments that might have been expected to contain such strenuous obedience. Nodding to Trafalgar’s keeper, Darcy urged his horse on, issuing a curt “Come!” to his erstwhile devotee. With an explosion of compliance, Trafalgar raced ahead, circled back, repeated the maneuver, and finally fell into a trot beside him, his happiness so complete that Darcy could only laugh and marvel at how very good it felt to be exactly where he was.
Now that the Monster accompanied him, Darcy slowed his pace to a steady, comfortable one, which he judged would bring them home to Pemberley by late morning. Pemberley! On the one hand, he was impatient to be there, to sluice away the pervasive dust of summer travel and breathe in all the familiar tranquillities of his beloved home. There was even a pleasant anticipation, he found, in setting into motion his solutions to those alarms forwarded by his steward and in meeting the routine seasonal obligations of his lands. On the other hand lay a profound sense that these hours by himself without duty or obligation to distract him, this time to reflect and consider, was essential to his well-being and future. Here, on this road through Derbyshire, before God and any man who might pass him by, he was nothing more than a man alone with his horse and his hound and his conscience.
After the terrible days following the assassination of the Prime Minister, caution had urged Darcy that he ought personally to escort Georgiana out of the city and to the safety of Pemberley. Rumor at first ran amuck, suggesting that the entire country was on the verge of rebellion. The unknown temper of the countryside militated against chancing their safety on the road; therefore, they had stayed in Grosvenor Square behind closed doors until some reliable report was to be had. When it had become apparent that the Government still stood, London had settled down to going about its business in the usual fashion in shockingly short order. With the certainty that the plot had been centered in the person of John Bellingham, the entire population seemed to throw the incident over its shoulder and pick up the Season where it had left off, and a removal no longer appeared necessary. Lady Monmouth had disappeared, her abandoned lord knowing not where; and although it had been almost three months, they had still no word from Lord Brougham. Darcy suspected that his friend had pursued the Somewhat-Less-Honorable Beverly Trenholme to America. If so, it would be some time before Dy reappeared in London.
In a few weeks Darcy’s life was returned to its normal rhythms but not, he had discovered, to his habitual courses. Something had changed in that terrible time since Hunsford, had changed profoundly. He was not the same man he had been. Looking back at that arrogant suitor of last spring, he wondered at himself as he would a stranger. It all seemed so very long ago. What a figure he had cut, striding with such exalted confidence down the steps of Rosings Hall and along the path to the village! From a three-month perspective, he considered that impeccably dressed man as he made his way to Hunsford parsonage, so self-assured, so certain of his reception and answer. For a moment, he felt again the pangs of the humiliation that lay before him. In a very short space, that stranger’s world would be turned on its head, changed forever.
He had been the recipient, he now gratefully acknowledged, of a rare and precious gift. In demanding the hand of a woman he neither understood nor was capable of knowing, he had instead received from her the chance to see himself and the opportunity to become a better man. And he had changed. He knew he had. He knew that he was not that man stalking angrily back to his chambers in Rosings Hall. What had happened to him in those intervening months? He was not sure; he could offer no complete explanation, but the man who had opened Rosings’s doors, already prepared to write an angry letter, was a stranger, a man who had been walking through his entire life asleep. But now, he had awoken.
Some things, such as his more equitable relationship with Bingley, had changed quickly. Others, Darcy had to admit, had come more slowly. Some had been painful — the honest inventorying of his offenses tallied an alarming list — while others had furnished his life with new purposes and pleasures. The result had been that the world had become a much more interesting place, filled with fellow travelers whose joys and sorrows he no longer disdained to know and whose shortcomings he was far more inclined to overlook. He knew that he would never be one of that hearty sort who immediately attracted the interest and goodwill of all he met, but no longer would he allow himself to stand aloof, even among strangers. He would accommodate; he would seek to set at ease rather than silently demand to be pleased. It was difficult at times, but a newborn compassion joined with determined practice made surmounting his reserve easier. One day, he hoped, it would be part of his nature.
Nature? He looked about for Trafalgar, who possessed with those reserves of energy that encouraged him to follow his nose, had been largely absent from his company. Loping back at Darcy’s whistle, the hound presented a tired mass of burrs and stickers. “It appears that a rest is in order,” Darcy remarked to the panting wretch below him. Truly, the animal did look terrible, but it was a result more of his own adventures in the brush than the arduous nature of their pace. Reining in, he drew his leg over and dropped to the ground, then reached for his saddlebag and pulled out the flask of water inside. “Here, Monster.” He waved the flask before the hound but then realized that he had nothing into which to pour it. Pulling off his glove, he cupped his hand under the lip and then bent down, slowly pouring the water into his hand while the hound frantically lapped it up. “There, that is enough.” He straightened, shaking droplets from his hand. “I am thirsty as well!” he protested to the pathetic whine and took a long draw of what remained. “Ingrate!” he accused Trafalgar, wiping his lips. “You do not hear Seneca complain, and he has had to carry me all these miles!” Hearing his name, the horse nickered and tossed his head, to the supreme disinterest of Trafalgar, whose eyes remained trained upon the flask.
Darcy stretched and then took a deep breath of Derbyshire air, happy to be out of the soot-laden grime of Town, happy to be within an hour of home. He returned the empty flask to his saddlebag, pausing to stroke Seneca’s thick mane. The animal stopped in his pull at a clump of grass just long enough to nudge him roughly, whether in affection or to move him away from the clump he now attacked, Darcy was not certain. He laughed, scratching the horse vigorously along his withers as he considered the intense anger, the indignation he had nurtured that first dark week back in London. It seemed the experience of another man. How different Elizabeth’s refusal appeared to him now.
A sharp bark recalled him to his errant hound. Trafalgar’s luminous brown eyes and twitching tail communicated his impatient anticipation of home. “It will not be long.” Darcy bent and ruffled the animal’s ears. “We are almost home.” The hound was a bit battered from his forays into the brush, but likely better for the experience. Not at all unlike himself, Darcy mused. Yes, he indeed owed Miss Elizabeth Bennet a debt. In her principled refusal of him, she had done him no harm; rather, she had done him incalculable good. What an incredible young woman! The wretched letter had been, in part, a bid for some little of her respect.
He gave Monster a final pat before hoisting himself back atop Seneca. “Only a few more miles and we shall cross into the home wood,” he informed the hound. “The lake is just beyond, and I strongly advise that you avail yourself ! You do not look or smell like a gentleman in the least, and if you do not take care of it, a stable lad will!”
Refreshed, he gathered the reins and pressed on, the nearness of his own lands increasing the longing in his heart to be home. With new energy, his horse pounded through the home wood. The path, hard and dusty from a dry summer, wound its way up and down the rugged Derbyshire hills before it emptied into the broad valley through which the Ere wound until it reached the dam that formed it into a perfect reflection of Pemberley House. In his anticipation, Darcy had left Trafalgar scrambling far behind and so pulled Seneca to a halt just as they broke through the trees above the valley. The both of them breathing hard, he let the reins go slack and leaned over Seneca’s neck to stretch out the muscles in his back while they waited for the third of their party. As he returned upright, his eyes were drawn immediately down the expanse of valley.
How many times had he seen his home from afar, whether from this vantage point or some other? Yet he could no more stop his eyes from traveling over every aspect of the majestic structure than he could prevent himself from rejoicing in the beauty of the gardens or the natural loveliness of the river and wood. Pemberley. Home. This time, however, there resided something new in that part of him which swelled at the sight. He looked down on Pemberley House, questioning every exquisite line until that something found a name. Gratitude. Gratitude for what he had been given filled his breast. And for the first time in his life, Darcy felt that he might possibly be worthy to hold the great gift that had been entrusted to him.
A scrabbling sound in the brush behind him alerted Darcy to his companion’s arrival, and looking down from Seneca’s height, he noted it with a sympathetic laugh. Trafalgar was, if it were possible, in an even more disreputable state, his sides heaving and tongue lolling as he threw himself at the horse’s feet. “Do not blame me!” Darcy addressed the weary animal. “Perhaps next time you will not indulge your curiosity quite so often and attend to business.” The flash of a canine grin at his tone put the possibility of such a lesson learned firmly outside the realm. “Very well, then, Monster.” He laughed. “Shall we see who reaches home first?” At the word home, a miracle of sorts occurred, followed by a blur of movement, and the next he knew, Trafalgar was no more than a streak moving down the valley. “Ho!” Darcy yelled to Seneca and, putting heels to his sides, gave the horse his head in pursuit. That they both clattered into the stable yard within feet of each other he charged to the loss of his hat. Forced to stop and retrieve it, he could do no more than recover the ground between them, which was not enough to decently call it a tie. When he dismounted, he almost landed upon his preening competitor, who danced about Seneca’s legs. “Yes, you win!” he conceded and, suffering Trafalgar’s triumphant bark with good grace, was rewarded with a consoling but wet tribute to his sportsmanship.
“Welcome home, sir!” The head of Pemberley’s stables motioned to the lad with him to take Seneca’s reins.
“Thank you, Morley. It is good to be home.” Darcy nodded and handed over Seneca. “See he is well cooled,” he called after them as the lad led him away.
“Hard ride, sir?” Morley watched his young charge as he led the horse to a paddock.
“Not bad. How are things here?” Darcy stripped off his gloves and, taking off the troublesome hat, threw the gloves into its depths and, with a quick smile, handed the lot to another lad who had run up. Morley waved the boy off to the servants’ entrance to Pemberley House and then fell into step with his master.
“Vera good, sir. Everythin’ is right and tight. All the young uns are comin’ fine, sir, comin’ fine. Not a weak or sickly one in the lot this year. I think you’ll be pleased.”
“Excellent! No problems, then?” Darcy looked past his stable master as a team that he did not recognize was led away from the traces of an unknown carriage. “Visitors?” His gaze returned to Morley.
“Day trippers, sir, come to view the house an’ grounds. We just got notice from the house that they intend to walk the gardens when they’re done and maybe the park and we were to unhitch the horses.”
Darcy grimaced. “Visitors! Well, I shall take the long way around then. I meant to send Trafalgar into the lake anyway. The beast is in sad want of a bath.” He looked about, but the hound was nowhere to be seen. “Now where did he go!” He sounded a sharp whistle and then shouted, “Trafalgar! Monster!” A bark from the direction of the lake answered him back.
“Sounds like he’s afore you, Mr. Darcy.” Morley laughed.
“He usually is! Good day to you, Morley.” Morley’s “An’ to you, sir,” followed him as he strode purposefully after the hound, as much to stretch out the cramped muscles in his legs as to make sure the animal became intimately acquainted with the benefits of Pemberley’s lake. As he walked, Darcy breathed in the flower-freshened breezes wafting from the gardens and smiled to himself. He had made good time; it was still early in the afternoon, and he was home. He looked toward the house. No sign of the visitors whose intrusions were part and parcel of the obligations of a great house. Good! Hurrying on to the lake, he found the hound nervously pacing its edge, looking over his shoulder in anxiety for Darcy’s appearance.
“Here I am, Monster, but you need not have waited. Get on with it!” he urged him. Trafalgar sat down and whined. “Swim!” Darcy commanded. The hound looked at him, dumbfounded. “Swim!” He motioned toward the water, but the animal seemed unable to comprehend his meaning. “Humph!” Darcy looked narrowly down into his dog’s face, studying whether he was truly confused or merely being recalcitrant. Too canny for him, Trafalgar avoided his gaze, looking away across the lake and up to the gardens. “So that is the way of it.” Darcy searched about him and, breaking a dry branch in two across his knee, he returned to the lake’s edge to find he was now in possession of the hound’s undivided attention. They regarded each other in silence, each watching for any movement, any drop in the other’s resolve. Suddenly, with a swift jerk of his arm, Darcy threw the branch far into the lake. “Fetch!” Without the slightest hesitation, the hound sprang into the water and paddled determinedly after the prize.
Darcy skirted the edge of the lake, laughing and shouting encouragement to the hound as he swam, and met him on the other side, taking care to arrive only after Trafalgar had emerged and shaken off the worst of the water that clung to his coat. “Good man!” Darcy accepted the branch from the dog’s jaws. “Now, up to the house with you!” With a last, soulful glance at his prize, the animal loped off toward one of the gardens, leaving Darcy to follow. He tossed the branch away and turned his face toward his home. Home! The pleasant, grateful elation of earlier returned, warming his heart. Rejoining the road from the stable, he determined to make his way through the lower garden and thus avoid the hall, for he was in no proper state to greet strangers after this morning’s ride, and although the elation remained, he was not long on his way before he began to feel the morning’s exertions. He tugged at his cravat until it hung in loose, sweat-stained loops about his neck. His coat he had already unbuttoned, nor did he have the will to rebutton it. He was both hatless and gloveless, having sent these items ahead with a stable boy, and he could feel the dust and grit of the road being rubbed against his skin by the weight of his clothing. His face…He paused to rub at his eyes and chin. No, in no state at all!
Dropping his hand, Darcy turned into a parting in the tall hedge that marked the boundary of the lower garden’s lawn only to be brought up short. The visitors! He hesitated at the sight of the three strangers whose backs were, fortunately, turned to him as they inspected the exterior of his home under the care of Old Simon. He had mistaken the time, Darcy groaned to himself, and they were already arrived in the gardens. Perhaps he could retreat quietly the way he had come. As he took a step backward, one of the ladies turned, her eyes coming to rest full upon him. The light in them struck him like a bolt. Elizabeth! My God, Elizabeth? Every nerve in his body came alive, yet he seemed unable to command them to any purposeful action. Elizabeth — here! The truth of it raced through him, yet his mind reeled into denial. How could it be? But it must be; for there she stood not twenty yards away, her lovely eyes wide in surprise and then turned from him as a blush suffused her cheeks. An answering heat flushed his face as he searched for a sign, an indication of how he should approach her. None came, and she remained a picture of beautiful confusion. That he must relieve her anxiety was his only thought; he must be the one to make a beginning. Willing his limbs forward, he went to her.
“Miss Elizabeth Bennet.” He offered her a slow, honoring bow. He could barely hear her answering acknowledgment and found, upon rising, that her blush had deepened further and that her eyes looked almost everywhere but at him. “Please allow me to welcome you to Pemberley, Miss Elizabeth.” Her “thank you” was soft as a breath and no more substantial. She was clearly uncomfortable. Somehow he must set her at ease. “I was not aware that you planned to visit Derbyshire,” Darcy ventured. She made no reply. “Have you and your companions been long on the road?”
“We left Longbourn a little more than two weeks ago, sir.” Her answer to this was stronger-voiced but still quavered in the summer air.
“Ah…and your family is well? Or was well?” he amended. “Your sisters? Have you received any communication?” He grimaced inwardly at his jumbled, awkward sentences.
“Yes and no, Mr. Darcy.” She bit her lower lip. “Yes, they were well when I left, but no, I have not received any communication as yet.”
“Oh, I see…Your trip, it has been pleasant?” he persisted. “The weather, it seems, has been in your favor. Have you found it so?” She smiled slightly at that and agreed that the weather had, indeed, been fine. “Yes, so I have found,” he affirmed, ‘’although I have been on the road only three days. You have been traveling how long?”
“Two weeks, sir.”
“Yes, you did say that. Two weeks. Do you stay in Derbyshire long? Where are you staying?” Good Lord, that was blunt of him!
“The inn, the Green Man, in Lambton, sir.”
“Ah, yes, the Green Man. Garston, he is the proprietor, keeps a fine inn. But watch for all his grandchildren,” he responded, “especially when he discovers you have been a guest at Pemberley. There will be no end to their courtesies. Did you say how long you would remain in the vicinity?”
“No, I did not.” She glanced away nervously in the direction of the others. “I remain at my companions’ pleasure. It has not been decided as yet when we shall leave.”
“I see.” He paused. What else to say? “And your parents, they are well?”
She did smile fully at that and even looked him directly in the face. A breeze played with the curls about her temple, and the color or style of her bonnet, he knew not which, did lovely things to her eyes and enhanced the radiance of her face. Good Lord, it was a wonderful sight! “To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Darcy,” came her reply. He smiled back. She looked away. Was it distress that wrinkled her brow? Had he said something wrong? Perhaps it was himself, his present unkempt appearance. Did she doubt her welcome? She must never think that! If he said nothing more, he must assure her at least of that.
“You are very welcome to Pemberley, Miss Elizabeth, you and your companions.” He bowed. “Please, take all the time you desire to walk the park and grounds. Simon knows all the best views and the most pleasant walks. You are in excellent hands with him. If you will excuse me, I have just arrived and must attend to some business.” He bowed again, receiving this time her soft leave of his departure.
Moving past her, he continued on, the exultation in his heart at her presence at his home vying with embarrassment with his miserable performance and, he looked down in dismay, his disheveled appearance. What must she think of him? With a groan, he hurried on. If only Fletcher had accompanied him! Under his valet’s care, he could have been presentable in a quarter hour. It could not be helped. He ran up the steps and into the hall, surprising Mrs. Reynolds as she was locking up one of the public rooms.
“Mr. Darcy, sir!”
“Mrs. Reynolds! Yes, I arrived not long ago.” He flashed her the smile that had served him well with her for twenty-four years. “How long would it take for hot water to be sent up?”
“Fifteen minutes, sir, unless you desire a bath.” She looked at him curiously.
“No, that will not be necessary. Make it warm and in ten minutes and send up one of the footmen to help me dress, if you please!” he said as he made for the staircase. He stopped halfway to the top and looked back down the hall. “Oh, and Mrs. Reynolds, Trafalgar is with me or, rather, somewhere. Perhaps a boy should be sent to the garden?”
“Yes, sir. We shall attend to Master Trafalgar.” Mrs. Reynolds looked up wonderingly at him.
“Excellent! Ten minutes, Mrs. Reynolds!” He continued up the stairs and all but ran to his dressing room. He shed the dusty clothes of his morning while at the same time searching through the neatly hung and ordered garments. Good Heavens, what should he wear? Nothing too imposing. Would hunting attire be too casual? Would she regard it an insult? His gaze ranged over the choices before him. “Fletcher!” he groaned aloud. “What in blazes should I —” A knock at the door interrupted his plea. “Enter!”
“Mr. Darcy, sir! Is there aught amiss?” Mr. Reynolds poked his head in first and then, seeing his master’s distraction, entered. “You required a footman, sir. Is Mr. Fletcher not with you or shortly to arrive?”
“No, Sherrill’s note brought me ahead on horseback, but it is very urgent now that I attend to my guests.”
“Guests, sir?” Reynolds was confused. “None of your guests have — Oh, the visitors! But they are out in the park, sir; you need not trouble yourself.” Another knock sounded.
“The water!” Darcy jumped to the door, much to Reynolds’s surprise. “Come in; pour some in the basin and set the rest over there,” he directed the brawny youth. “Very good; that will be all.” He turned his attention back to his astonished butler. “It is of incalculable importance that I trouble myself for these particular visitors. If I can prevail upon them to return to the house, they should be treated with the utmost courtesy.” A sudden anxiety seized him. “They were well cared for earlier, I trust?”
“Yes, sir. Mrs. Reynolds conducted them personally. The young lady claimed some little acquaintance,” he offered.
“Yes, that is true…” Darcy turned back to his wardrobe and stared at its contents.
“May I help you, sir?” Reynolds briskly stepped forward. “I believe I may be of equal or better service than a footman.”
Surprised at such condescension, Darcy turned to his butler, a man he had known most of his life, to behold one still possessed of all the dignity of his office but with an understanding twinkle in his eye. “Yes, you may.” He nodded toward the wardrobe. “The doeskin breeches, I think, the tan waistcoat and dark brown coat. A plain neckcloth, mind you, and shirt. The brown-topped boots…and a clean set of all else.”
“Very good, sir. All shall be ready.” The old man straightened his shoulders before this new duty.
“Thank you, Reynolds.” Darcy’s lips twitched against an incipient grin. “I will not be long.”
Despite his impatient speed and Reynolds’s surprising alacrity with his clothes, it was almost a half hour before Darcy clattered down the courtyard’s steps and onto the drive. Where Elizabeth was now in the vast expanse of the park had occupied his thoughts as he had finished dressing. Old Simon would keep them to the usual paths shown to visitors, but where exactly might they be? He scanned the perimeter of the wood that girdled the near park. Knowing her stamina, they might be anywhere, but he doubted the endurance of her older companions. He narrowed his search. There! A flash of color among the trees that overhung the path meandering by the river gave him his course. He set off, judging that even at such a pace he had a quarter hour in which to prepare to meet her.
They had made a beginning, but he was in no position to say how good a one. It was very possible he was striding toward a woman who would rather he were at the Antipodes than coming to escort her to his home. He called up the emotions that had crossed her countenance as they had spoken. Confusion, embarrassment, both had cast their shades over her loveliness, but there had been no trace of aversion or the cool politeness he had feared in an imagined encounter. Nor welcome either, he reminded himself. Well, there was no help for it! He could not stay away from her, not here on his own lands, where he had the best chance of showing her, expressing to her, his gratitude for what she had done for him. A fullness of heart came hard on the heels of that thought, and the incredible good fortune of her visiting Pemberley seized him again. He strode on until, rounding a curve in the walk, he came upon them.
This time she was able to greet his arrival with her usual self-possession. He had hardly risen from his bow when he heard the words “charming” and “delightful” applied to all she had surveyed. Schooling his features to display a more moderate pleasure at her words than he would have liked, he thanked her. “Charming” and “delightful” were commonly ascribed to Pemberley by visitors, but never before had the accolades held such significance. Elizabeth found his home charming and delightful. Better and better. His elation was short-lived, however; for no sooner had he thanked her than she colored and fell silent. At a loss for the change in her demeanor, he hesitated. He must engage her again, restore her ease in speaking to him. What? Her companions! How could he have ignored them for so long! They must think him…
“Miss Elizabeth, would you do me the honor of introducing me to your friends?” The look she returned him to this request was a curious mixture of surprise and amusement. Whatever it meant, he promised himself as he followed her to where her friends awaited, he would meet it with credit.
“Aunt Gardiner, Uncle Gardiner, may I present Mr. Darcy? Mr. Darcy, my uncle and aunt, Mr. Edward Gardiner and Mrs. Edward Gardiner.”
Relations! He looked at them in surprise. He should have guessed, but the placid gentleman and lady before him were as unlike the family members with whom he was familiar as he could imagine. “Your servant, sir.” He bowed.
“And yours, sir,” Mr. Gardiner replied. “We have been thoroughly enjoying your house and lands, Mr. Darcy, and must tell you at once what wonderful attention your servants have bestowed upon us. We have been made more welcome at Pemberley than at any other great house we have visited on our holiday.”
“I am glad to hear it, sir!” Darcy smiled at the genuine pleasure in the man’s voice. “We are pleased to have earned such a good report.” He turned to the lady. “Ma’am, I hope that the park has not been too fatiguing for you. It is quite a distance around.”
Mrs. Gardiner smiled brightly up at him. “I confess, sir, I am tired but have rarely been so pleasantly rewarded for the effort. Pemberley is lovelier than words can tell.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” He bowed. “If I may, please allow me to conduct you back in Simon’s place. I think I may know almost as much as he about the way.” To this they readily assented, and dismissing the grateful gardener back to his pruning, Darcy took up a place next to Elizabeth’s uncle as they set out. It was but a few minutes before he discovered Mr. Gardiner to be not only a man of particular intelligence and taste but a fellow fisherman as well. Delighted to have hit upon something they held so closely in common, he invited his guest to fish the river whenever he desired and offered him tackle and advice on the best spots for sport.
In the midst of the men’s fishing stories, the ladies before them descended to the river in exclamation over some water plant of unusual parts. Mr. Gardiner, in fine humor, recommended they stay on the path until the feminine raptures were done and the ladies returned. Although he would have liked to have had a part in Elizabeth’s short expedition, Darcy remained with her uncle, watching the proceedings closely lest any accident befall them.
“My dear,” Mrs. Gardiner addressed her husband upon returning to the path. “Your arm, I beg of you. I fear I am more fatigued than I had believed.”
“Of course, my love.” Mr. Gardiner stepped forward smartly. Darcy’s hopes expanded. As the Gardiners fell behind them, he moved forward to Elizabeth; but she greeted this new arrangement with silence, the brim of her bonnet serving as a barrier to him. Committed to his course, he prepared to begin again with her.
“Mr. Darcy.” Elizabeth’s voice issued from behind her bonnet brim. “It seems that your arrival today was very unexpected, for your housekeeper informed us that you would certainly not be here till tomorrow; and indeed, before we left Bakewell we understood that you were not immediately expected in the country. Otherwise, we would never have dreamt of invading your privacy.”
“Indeed, that had been my plan,” he acknowledged, “but I received yesterday a note from my steward that required my presence sooner rather than later, and I came forward a few hours before the rest of the party with whom I am traveling. They will join me early tomorrow.” He paused, wondering how she would receive the information, then continued. “Among them are some who will claim an acquaintance with you — Mr. Bingley and his sisters.” Only the slightest of bows indicated that she had heard him. Darcy looked away, his lips pressed together in dismay. The conversation was circling in upon itself, and he had no notion of how to elicit something more from her. In fact, his mention of the Bingleys may have prompted her to decamp from the area as quickly as possible. But she could not go! Not before he had shown her that he was, indeed, a different man than that one who had accosted her in Hunsford’s parlor. Not before Georgiana had had an opportunity to meet her whom she had so wished to know since his mention of her last autumn. He laid hold of that thought.
“There is also one other person in the party who more particularly wishes to be known to you.” He took a deep breath. “Will you allow me, or do I ask too much, to introduce my sister to your acquaintance during your stay at Lambton?” What followed as he bent to hear was a jumble of expressions, the sum of which tended to her willingness and pleasure in fulfilling Miss Darcy’s wish of acquaintance and that, yes, she would be happy to receive Miss Darcy the day after she arrived home. When she had finished, silence again descended upon them, but it seemed to Darcy it was of a different sort than had plagued them before. She was pleased; he could tell it, and he was content.
They were soon quite in advance of her relations, nearly to the house. As they approached, they slowed, and looking down at her, he asked, “Miss Elizabeth, will you walk into the house?” He was rewarded with a brief upward flash of her eyes. “You must be in want of rest or refreshment, and within you might await your aunt and uncle in some comfort.”
“No, I thank you, Mr. Darcy,” she replied, “but I am not at all tired.” There followed more silence. He observed her anxiously, wondering how he should go on. Then, suddenly, Elizabeth began to speak of the other great houses she had seen during her holiday, and they were able to share observations and opinions on estates and gardens in the neighborhood until Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner arrived. His invitation to walk in was repeated, but to no avail. They were much obliged but it had been a very long day and they must return to the inn. A lad was sent to the stable yard, and in short order, the carriage was brought forward.
“Mrs. Gardiner.” Darcy handed her up into the carriage with care. “Miss Elizabeth Bennet.” He turned to her and performed the same office, not caring that her relations might notice the softness in his voice or the lingering of his hand upon hers. He stepped back from the carriage but stayed to watch them long after it was needful, and even then, he walked slowly back to his door. He had made a beginning, and she had consented to receive him in two days’ time. It was enough.
Darcy’s gaze searched the confines of his book room in growing exasperation. Was there nothing that could distract him long enough to allow his mind and body to settle into more rational courses? How was he to meet the mundane and obligatory when every part of him was so very alive to the events of the afternoon? After leaving the pleasurable sight of Elizabeth’s curious, backward gaze at him from the carriage, he had retired to his book room and study with the intent of preparing for the interview with his steward that had called him forward. But when the study door was safely shut against any chance observance by his staff, he found himself utterly unable to do so. For a quarter hour now he had paced the room, incapable of any thoughts save those that centered upon the surprise and delight of discovering Elizabeth at Pemberley. The words they had exchanged, the time spent so closely in her company crowded his brain and heart. Jostling them for room was the anticipation of their next meeting, an appointment that sent distracting sensations flashing along every nerve. It was not until Witcher’s knock and the announcement of Sherrill that respite from the sweet agony of his reflections was forced upon Darcy and any other subject could be entertained.
His steward’s concerns required he return to the saddle and accompany him out to deal with several difficult cases among his tenants and examine an unexpected obstacle to the draining of a field bordering the Ere. Several hours later found them still pondering balance sheets and hay production estimates spread out upon his book room desk. Finally, nodding his leave to go with a reassuring smile, Darcy dismissed his much-relieved steward to his dinner and the task of putting his directives into motion. The difficulties that had occasioned his early return he had met with some rather innovative solutions that had not easily won Sherrill’s confidence. In the end, Darcy had prevailed, not an uncommon scene within these walls over the generations of Darcys who had ruled here. But as he looked about him from the perspective of his desk, the events of earlier that day returned to possess Darcy, and this, his haven and seat, strangely became too small to contain all that now strove in his breast. Rising, he took a deep breath. He must steady himself, somehow integrate that hard-won sense of himself into this opportunity Providence had bestowed. In short order he found himself pushing open the doors to the conservatory, the Eden of his parents’ creation.
The fragrance of fertile earth and summer blossoms enveloped him as he stood just inside, the doors behind him swinging shut of their own accord. In the gathering dusk he could still distinguish his mother’s favorite chair among the vining exotica and, near to it, the lounge upon which his father had spent his last painful days surrounded by the living tribute to his wife’s artistry and their deep affection, each for the other. He looked up between the branches and vines into the darkening sky, where a clutch of stars was already visible, and inhaled the encompassing peace. Elizabeth was near. He imagined her at table with her uncle and aunt, smiling yet pensive behind those lovely, bright eyes as she reviewed their encounter in the privacy of her heart. With what anticipation did she regard their forthcoming meeting? Had she been as pleased with the conclusion as he had at first thought? It would be more than he deserved. Or had she been merely polite, caught as she had been on his lands?
He sighed and set out slowly for the far end of the conservatory. And Georgiana! He smiled at the thought. She would be overjoyed with his news! How keenly she had regretted never having had the opportunity to make Elizabeth’s acquaintance. She, who so longed for a friend of the heart, could never find another of such perfect sanguinity. He would watch them closely. If they delighted in each other, as he hoped, what better friend or confidante could he desire for his sister?
He had reached the end and stopped, peering out into the darkness of the gardens beyond Eden for a moment before turning about. Above him, through the glass, he could see the pale walls and brightly lit windows of Pemberley shimmering in the night. Elizabeth was near, as were Georgiana, the memories of his parents, what he had been born to, and what he had lately learned that truly meant. Here, in this place, they together filled his soul, propelling it upward in renewed gratitude and a sense of peace. He started back through the conservatory, a smile upon his face. Yes, Georgiana would be overjoyed. So much so that, perhaps, she might not wish to wait an entire day to begin her new acquaintance. He devoutly hoped that would be so!
“Mr. Darcy, sir, the carriage has been sighted.” Darcy looked up from his book and thanked the footman before inserting his mark and putting it aside. He had read little and understood even less, the volume being more a prop in the masking of his expectations for the day than a true endeavor. Pulling at his cuffs and waistcoat, he strode to the door and out into the hall. The wide main door was open to what summer breeze might chance by as well as to the broad sweep of the carriageway, where he did, indeed, spy his own coach bowling smartly down the lane followed closely by Bingley’s equipage. The vehicles raised such dust that a breeze carried a shower of it toward the door and desposited a layer upon his coat as he stepped outside to meet them. Flicking away the undesirable patina so as not to mar Fletcher’s brushing of that morning, he composed himself to greet his sister and friends.
Lads from the stables quickly stepped up to the leaders while an army of footmen opened doors, pulled down steps, and retrieved the guests’ cloaks, cases, and portmanteaus. As Fletcher had predicted upon his arrival in the servants’ coach earlier that morning, Bingley’s brother-in-law was the first out, his face red and perspiring from a cravat tied entirely too high and a corset laced much too tightly for travel. Darcy bit his lip at the picture Hurst presented while the scathing adjectives with which Fletcher had rightly decried the talents of Hurst’s new valet repeated themselves in his mind. But Hurst was not his immediate concern, nor were any of the Bingley entourage. Rather, his desire was for his sister and the happiness he hoped soon to be able to bestow upon her.
“Bingley! Welcome!” He clasped his friend’s hand.
“Darcy!” Charles breathed out an exasperated sigh as he grasped his hand in return. “Thank God, we have arrived! You would not believe what was necessary to transport my family a mere three hours’ drive.” He looked daggers at his brother-in-law’s back. “And the only ally you supposed is the worst of the lot!”
“You have my sympathy.” Darcy clapped him on the shoulder. “And a glass of restorative awaits you in your rooms.”
“Marvelous!” Bingley grinned and headed up the front stairs.
Darcy turned then to Hurst. “Please walk in and allow Reynolds to attend to you, sir. You do not look well. Ladies.” He turned to Miss Bingley and her sister and bowed.
“Mr. Darcy.” Miss Bingley extended her hand. “To be at last at Pemberley! It seemed we would be forever upon the road this morning.”
He briefly touched the fingers offered to him. “You are welcome. I trust your journey —”
“Tedious beyond belief!” Miss Bingley cast her eyes to Heaven. “But who would not suffer more and gladly if Pemberley be their destination!” She cast him a soulful glance. “Such perfection! Why, it is recompense enough merely to breathe the air. You are, sir, justly within your rights to be proud to command such a noble estate.”
“Proud, Miss Bingley?” His brow rose. “I hope not!” He smiled then into her startled countenance and indicated the door. “Please allow Mrs. Reynolds to show you to your rooms. You must be wishing to rest after such tedium as you have endured.”
Darcy’s eyes strayed past her, his smile lengthening into a broad grin when at last Georgiana appeared at the coach door. Quickly, he strode to her and handed her down himself. “Sweetling!” He kissed her brow and, tucking one of her gloved hands under his arm, bent and whispered, “I have been at my wit’s end awaiting your arrival. The most wonderful thing has happened!”
“What can it be!” She laughed up at him. “It must be wonderful indeed for such a smile as you wear!”
“It is,” he whispered. “Go, refresh yourself, and come to my book room directly. Try to come unobserved.” He lifted his chin toward Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst and, urging her onward, added, “Hurry!” With an excited giggle, Georgiana obeyed, falling quickly into Mrs. Reynolds’s welcoming arms within the door before hurrying to the stairs. Satisfied with her reaction, Darcy followed behind but waited until all his guests were abovestairs to send word to the stables and then turn in through his study door. He was not forced to wait long. Before fifteen minutes had elapsed, Georgiana was seated on the divan, her face wreathed in such expectant smiles he could do nothing but smile back at her.
“Yes?” She looked to him inquiringly, but her pert expression and the expectation of the joy his news would bring made it impossible to begin. Instead, he threw back his head and laughed. “Fitzwilliam!” Georgiana tugged at his hand much as she had when a child. “Tell me!”
He dropped onto the divan beside her and with great effort schooled his features and asked with the utmost solemnity, “How should you like to meet Miss Elizabeth Bennet?”
His sister’s eyes widened, incredulity writ large in them. “Miss Elizabeth Bennet? Fitzwilliam, you tease me!”
“No, I swear!” He laughed again. “She is here…in Lambton, rather…the Green Man!”
“But how…?”
“She travels with her aunt and uncle on a tour of Derbyshire.” He settled in beside his sister, happy at last to tell all his news. “Her aunt is from Lambton, and Mrs. Gardiner must have it that they visit the scenes of her girlhood. Pemberley’s reputation enticed them, and our reported absence convinced Miss Bennet to chance a tour. I found them in the gardens yesterday on my way from the stables.”
“How she must have felt upon seeing you!” Georgiana murmured sympathetically. “And you! Oh, Brother!”
“I was stunned to be sure.” He squeezed one of her hands. “I hardly know what I said, but later…”
“Yes, later?” she prompted.
He smiled hesitantly. “I believe I did better.” He took a deep breath. “I asked her permission to introduce you.”
“Fitzwilliam, truly?” Georgiana almost wrung his hand.
“Yes, dearest, truly” — he laughed again — “and she has given her consent.”
“When? When shall we meet?” Georgiana was every bit as excited as he could have wished.
“I hoped” — he looked askance at her — “you might be agreeable to setting out for Lambton immediately.”
“Now?” Georgiana’s countenance fell. “Oh!”
“I know you have just arrived,” he rushed to explain, “but there is so little time to accomplish an introduction with some assurance of…of privacy.” A knowing expression crossed his sister’s face. “I see you understand me. Come, will you oblige me and Miss Elizabeth Bennet? The curricle is on its way.” He could see her hesitation, the return of shyness to her eyes at the prospect of this meeting taking place so precipitously. He took both her hands in his and kissed each one. “Georgiana? You will adore her; I know it! I could wish for you no better friend.”
“Of course, Fitzwilliam.” She freed a hand and placed it upon his heart. “Let me get my bonnet.”
“Send for it,” he whispered. “We must be off without discovery.” Still in possession of one of her hands, he rose and pulled her to her feet, and giggling with pleasure, Georgiana trailed behind him. In haste he led her to the door, and laying hold of the knob, he flung it open, only to be brought up short by a much-startled Charles on the other side.
“Here, what is this?” Bingley jumped back and stared at the two of them framed in the doorway. “Darcy?”
“Bingley!” Darcy paused. What to do? “My sister and I have an urgent appointment to keep in Lambton,” he added as they all turned to observe the curricle being drawn to a halt before the door.
“In Lambton?” Bingley’s brow rose. “We just drove through Lambton.”
“Yes, well.” Darcy cast about him for something to satisfy Bingley’s curiosity.
“We go to meet someone,” Georgiana supplied. “Someone visiting.”
Bingley turned back to Darcy. “Really? Must be someone dashed important to hie Miss Darcy back out upon the road immediately we arrive!”
Darcy held his silence, hoping Bingley would not persist, but he could sense Georgiana’s discomfort under his friend’s interrogation. There looked to be nothing for it but to bring Bingley along. “It is Miss Elizabeth Bennet,” he spoke lowly, taking Bingley by the arm and propelling him toward the door. “Shh! Do not repeat it!”
“But, Darcy!” Bingley protested in a sharp whisper as he was pushed outside. “Miss Elizabeth?”
Darcy helped his sister into the conveyance and handed up her bonnet, which had just arrived. “No, only Miss Elizabeth and her aunt and uncle from London. I understand that Miss Bennet is well,” he offered at Bingley’s crestfallen expression, “but that is all I can tell you.”
“I should very much have liked to have seen Miss Elizabeth, regardless,” Bingley said.
“And you will, soon after,” Darcy assured him. “I wished to introduce Georgiana to Miss Elizabeth in a less public situation than would be the case at Pemberley among my guests.” He looked meaningfully at his friend.
“Oh, without Caroline and Louisa about, you mean.” Bingley stood back smiling. “Say no more, old man. I understand completely.” He looked at Georgiana. “I will stay out of sight until your introduction is made. Then, I beg you will ask Miss Elizabeth if I may come up. Darcy?” He turned to him. Darcy nodded his assent. “Right, then! I shall be close behind you.” He beamed at them both. “Capital!”
The five miles to Lambton was accomplished in a silence dictated differently for each of the curricle’s occupants. Georgiana contemplated her hands in her lap and the scenery as, her brother suspected, she prayed and prepared for this unexpected interview, on which she could not help but know he placed great importance. For himself, the rapid progression of events had carried him through the morning, but as he drove toward Lambton and Elizabeth grew ever closer, an uneasiness took up residence in his chest. His earlier question of her pleasure in the introduction returned, accompanied by the disquieting realization that she could not know they were even now coming. He doubted she would thank him for what could only appear as another example of insufferably high-handed behavior. Had he overstepped himself yet again, read too much into her conversation, her eyes? He felt certain that she would be kind to Georgiana. She might even welcome Bingley. But would she turn cool and distant under his regard?
As was usual, the news of the approach of a vehicle from Pemberley was known in Lambton before they arrived. Darcy almost swore that both Matling of the Black’s Head and Garston of the Green Man paid some village urchin to keep watch, for they were out in front of their respective establishments, each determined to tally one more stroke against the other in their personal contest for the notice of the district’s greatest house. Therefore, it was with great triumph on the part of one and high dudgeon on the part of the other when it was realized the curricle was actually stopping in the village and coming to rest before the Green Man. In a rush and tumble, Garston’s innumerable grandchildren formed a guard of honor from the curricle’s steps to the inn’s door, where Garston himself awaited them, nigh bursting with pride for his house.
“I shall knock about in the taproom.” Bingley waved them on as Darcy and Georgiana prepared to follow the innkeeper up the stairs. “But do not, on your life, forget me, Darcy!”
Putting a hand under Georgiana’s elbow, Darcy made to assist her up the inn’s narrow stairs when he sensed her holding back. He stopped and peered down at her. “Georgiana?”
“I’m sorry to be such a goose, Fitzwilliam, but I so want her to like me!” She cast an almost desperate look up at him.
“She will! She will like you; have no fear,” he assured her firmly. “She will like you more than ever she liked me,” he added with a wry smile, “I promise you!” Georgiana shook her head at him, but a smile played upon her lips at his comment, and it was she who took the first step forward. Seconds later, Darcy heard a knock sound on a door above them, and the innkeeper’s announcement of visitors echoed down the short hall to meet them. Although his sister seemed to have accepted his assurances, the apprehension he was feeling increased with each step toward Elizabeth’s door. The door opened.
“Mr. Darcy and Miss Darcy,” Garston intoned, stepping back to usher his exalted visitors into the presence of guests who now assumed an unprecedented degree of importance in his estimation. He heard Georgiana’s intake of a quick, deep breath, and then…there was Elizabeth. He swallowed nervously as he stood outside the door, unable to pull his eyes away from her face. Her smile, though tentative, was tempered by the lively interest in her eyes as Mr. Gardiner greeted them.
“Mr. Darcy, you are most welcome, sir.” Elizabeth’s uncle bowed as his wife and niece did their curtsies. The man’s calm demeanor and generous tone brought Darcy to a sense of his limbs. He and Georgiana stepped into the room.
“Mr. Gardiner, Ladies.” Ingrained habits swept him into his own bow. “Please allow me to apologize for our intrusion, sir. We have come unannounced and a day before expected.”
“Tut, tut, sir.” Mr. Gardiner would not have it. “Did we not arrive on your own doorstep unanticipated? Please, allow us to welcome you and your companion.”
Although the circumstances could in nowise have been deemed similar, Darcy inclined his head and, after glancing at Elizabeth, responded with a grateful smile. “You are very kind, sir. Mr. Gardiner, Mrs. Gardiner, Miss Elizabeth Bennet, please allow me the pleasure of presenting to you my sister, Miss Georgiana Darcy.” He stepped a little behind Georgiana as she made her curtsy, the better both to put her forward and to observe what might happen. Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner exhibited all that might be expected in the nicety of their response, but it was Elizabeth whose actions were his primary concern. Her aspect seemed a mixture of hesitancy and curiosity as she waited for her relatives to accept the introduction. Then, finally, she stepped forward.
Darcy was conscious of his heart booming in his chest even as he placed an iron hold on his breath and watched the two he held most dear in the world meet for the first time. Georgiana curtsied, her smile shy but her countenance open to Elizabeth’s scrutiny. “Miss Elizabeth Bennet.”
“Miss Darcy, I am so pleased to meet you.” Elizabeth returned her courtesy with a warmth in her smile and voice that spoke quiet assurances to Darcy’s heart. Georgiana’s smile deepened; he let go his breath.
“And I you, Miss Bennet. You are so kind to overlook our haste in seeking you out.”
“Please think on it no more, Miss Darcy,” Elizabeth averred. “Truly, we are delighted. But you must have only recently arrived.” Georgiana’s eyes strayed to her brother’s at Elizabeth’s comment; then Elizabeth’s did also.
“The journey was not a long one.” Georgiana reclaimed Elizabeth’s attention.
“Oh?” Elizabeth’s eyebrow arched provocatively. “But then I have been told that fifty miles is ‘an easy distance.’ Perhaps you are of your brother’s persuasion in this?” Darcy smiled on hearing her quote his words. Oh, how he had missed her repartee!
“Fifty miles! In my brother’s care it is easy, indeed!” Georgiana replied seriously, “but I would not regard it generally so!”
“Miss Elizabeth teases you a little,” Darcy put in. “She is quoting to you some nonsense I taxed her with several months ago. Yet, Mr. Gardiner, sir.” He looked to Elizabeth’s uncle. “A well-sprung carriage and good road might make fifty miles little more than a trifle, would you agree?”
“A mere nothing, sir,” Mr. Gardiner concurred but cast his niece a droll look, at which all of them laughed.
“Then we are of the same mind in this as well as fishing, in which sport I hope you will indulge tomorrow as there are now several gentlemen at Pemberley who share our passion. A party will surely be made up in the morning.” Darcy’s invitation was readily accepted and with such grace as encouraged him to like the man even more and anticipate some real enjoyment in the proposed expedition. Bingley and Hurst fished, but in Mr. Gardiner he sensed a true angler. The thought of Bingley reminded him then of his promise, and excusing himself, he stepped over to the door and instructed the servant outside to collect the young man in the taproom and bring him up.
Turning back, he was gratified to see Elizabeth and Georgiana in earnest conversation. Elizabeth had taken the lead, but her gracious drawing out of his sister sprang from more than correct manners. He knew her quite well enough to be sure that the lively interest in her countenance and the soft encouragement in her eyes were unfeigned. They had hit upon the subject of music, it seemed, and Georgiana was fairly blossoming under Elizabeth’s regard as each of them expressed admiration for the reputed talents of the other. Then Georgiana laughed, at what he could not hear, but one thing was confirmed to him as he watched them drawing together. He had not appreciated Elizabeth, loved Elizabeth, rightly before. What was arising in his breast now was nothing like those previous petulant desires. Rather, it was a fullness of joy that wished to be of service to her in any capacity she might choose, to provide for her that place where her talents and graces might come to complete fruition. Command me, his heart whispered, try me!
Bingley’s knock at the door recalled him to his manners, and upon his friend’s entrance, he made Bingley’s introduction to the Gardiners as well. There followed an enjoyable half hour for the entire party with such abundance of easy conversation that Darcy was confident that an invitation to dine at Pemberley would be welcomed on the Gardiners’ part. He glanced again to Elizabeth. Although they had spoken little, she had not completely avoided his gaze. He sensed an awkwardness, or was it nervousness, in her demeanor toward him. She made no obvious bid for his attention, centering all her effort on Georgiana; yet her eyes strayed to him with something unreadable in their expression. No, the clues she had scattered this morning were not enough for him to discover her mind on this reacquaintance. If he were to do so before the precious few days she was to stay in Lambton ended, he must make more opportunities.
“Georgiana.” He gently drew his sister away from the others. “Shall we invite them to dine?”
“Oh, yes, Fitzwilliam!” She leaned closer. “Miss Elizabeth Bennet is wonderful! I long to hear her play and sing, and…and she is so very kind!”
He smiled down into her joyful face. “Then do the honors, my dear! Invite them!”
“I?” Georgiana shrank a little.
“You are the lady of Pemberley, and they do not appear such frightful people that they would spurn your invitation,” he teased. “For the day after tomorrow.” His hand closed on her shoulder in assurance. “Go!” he whispered.
With a tremulous breath, Georgiana turned. “Mr. Gardiner, Mrs. Gardiner, Miss Elizabeth Bennet.” She waited, trembling a little as they all turned to hear her. “My brother and I would be most honored if you would dine with us at Pemberley. Would the day after next be acceptable?” Darcy looked past her to Elizabeth to gauge her reaction, but as she apprehended the intent of Georgiana’s words, she looked away; even her aunt could not see her expression. Did he then have his answer? He glanced back at Mrs. Gardiner, who oddly enough, was allowing a smile to play upon her face. Did she know something? Did she have Elizabeth’s confidence? He watched as she caught the eye of her husband, and for a moment something passed between them.
“Miss Darcy, Mr. Darcy.” Mrs. Gardiner came forward and curtsied. “We would be most happy to accept your invitation to dine at Pemberley.”
At his snap of the reins, the curricle lurched forward. Darcy’s first task was to navigate down the narrow village street toward the bridge over the Ere, but when the horse had established a comfortable gait and the high wheels no longer bumped against cobble or rut, he was able to turn over in his mind the events of the last hour. The journey down the inn’s stairs, he mused, had been taken with much lighter hearts than the journey up had been. He had felt Georgiana’s pleasure and happy ease as he took her arm down the steps and out into the afternoon sun, and if that were not enough, the smile on her face would have told the story. As for his own features, he had found himself hard-pressed to keep an even mien for the smile that still tugged at the corners of his lips. Pointing the horse for the bridge out of Lambton, he was more than pleased to feel his sister tuck a hand snugly inside his arm and the tickle of her sigh against his cheek.
“Oh, Fitzwilliam, I do so like her! Do you think…” She paused. “Do you think she likes me? She was so kind, so amiable; she seemed to know exactly what to say. And she listened to me even though I hardly knew what to say. But, then we talked about music and family and you…a little.” Darcy’s ears pricked up at the last, but he allowed it to pass. “It was easier then.”
“Then you look forward to their coming to dine,” he asked, “and do not regret the invitation?”
“Yes, oh, yes! Mrs. Gardiner is all that is amicable, and Mr. Gardiner seems a jolly, indulgent sort of gentleman whom no one but a complete goose would fear for long!”
Darcy chuckled at the scorn for her earlier fears in her voice. “Yes, only a complete goose, I grant you!” The horse’s gait slowed as it prepared to pull the curricle over the high arch of the bridge. The rush of the merry waters and the clatter of hooves against cobblestone drowned out Georgiana’s response. When they were crossed, he looked over to her. “You realize that Miss Elizabeth Bennet and Mrs. Gardiner will likely return the call tomorrow. Will you be easy? Shall I return early from fishing?” He presented his offer with what he hoped was light disinterest, but in truth he struggled with competing desires. On the one hand, he should absent himself from the salon if he truly wished to remove every obstacle to the growth of a friendship between Georgiana and Elizabeth; on the other, he could hardly think how he could know Elizabeth was at Pemberley and stay away from her.
“Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst will be there. Will they not be happy to see Miss Elizabeth as well?”
“I would not depend on the joy of either of those ladies to carry the morning,” he replied, “but Mrs. Annesley will know how to make your guests feel at ease.”
“Of course, Mrs. Annesley.” Georgiana nodded and then looked askance at him. “Still, it would be good if you came…just to be sure. Near the end of their visit, perhaps?”
He briefly looked down on her and then away. Was this a bit of feminine subterfuge or a resurfacing of her shyness? Whichever, it was an open door that he was glad to step through. Taking both reins in one hand, he reached down to squeeze the gloved fingers curled about his arm. “I shall make an appearance then, near the end.”
Mr. Gardiner’s grasp of the art and nuances of angling was a pleasure to behold, but it was his easy, companionable silence that particularly recommended him to Darcy’s growing circle of those he respected. That Bingley or Hurst would ever achieve the status of true angler was doubtful; Bingley’s laughter and Hurst’s roars gave neither him nor the trout in the river any peace to be about their business. It was not long, therefore, before he and Mr. Gardiner found themselves side by side away from and above the spots along the Ere that the other two gentlemen had staked out. Glancing over at the older man, Darcy was reminded of the last angling trip to Scotland that he and his father had taken the summer before he entered Cambridge. Although he had not then been his sire’s equal in the sport, he had been treated as such, and the quiet companionship and good humor of that expedition were not unlike what he felt at this very moment. If it were not for the distracting awareness that even at this moment Elizabeth was in Pemberley’s salon and a raging curiosity about the events taking place there, he could have put it down as a satisfying expenditure of a morning.
“Mr. Darcy, allow me to thank you again for this invitation,” Mr. Gardiner offered, his voice low. “I hesitate to say how long it has been since I have had this pleasure and did not think that, as escort to two ladies, such an opportunity would come my way. Quite providential!”
“It is my pleasure, sir,” Darcy responded and was gratified to discover that he truly meant it. “I hope that you will not pass Pemberley by on any future holidays in Derbyshire. If I am not in residence, Sherrill, my steward, will be happy to see to you.”
“You are very kind, sir.” Ten minutes of silence ensued before the older man coughed and cleared his throat. “Ah, Mr. Darcy, I beg you will not think you need attend me. I am quite content to spend the next hour communing with Providence and the trout on my own should you have obligations elsewhere.” The guileless eyes rested on him briefly. “You must not let me detain you.”
Had he been so obvious? Looking narrowly down at the man, Darcy could detect no sly or conspiratorial humor, only a quietly blissful gladness to be just where he was. Another open door? He pulled in his line and set the tackle down next to the box they shared. “There is something that I promised Miss Darcy that I should see to before her guests leave,” he explained. The excuse sounded weak and insubstantial to his ears, but Mr. Gardiner nodded sagely, as if his explanation bore all the marks of reason. “If you will excuse me, I will attend to it directly.” Leave was promptly given, and with a deep breath, Darcy turned for home, his pace increasing the closer he drew to the house. Forcing himself to walk up stairs he wished to take in bounds, he paused only long enough to straighten his waistcoat and coat before nodding to the footman to open the salon door.
As soon as he stepped inside the room, all conversation ceased, and Darcy found himself under the curious regard of every feminine eye in the room. “Ladies.” He made his bow after sweeping them all with a polite smile. “I hope you will excuse my intrusion.” Although all his being was alive to Elizabeth’s presence, he knew at once that Georgiana was under some strain. The source he could easily guess, for Miss Bingley’s countenance was wreathed in one of the most false smiles he had ever had the misfortune to receive. But Caroline Bingley was not his concern on this excellent day, and he passed by her quickly to take Georgiana’s hand in his. “Come, my dear,” he whispered, moving her from Mrs. Annesley’s side to sit next to Elizabeth on one of the divans. “Miss Elizabeth, has my sister told you of the last concert we attended before leaving London?” He took up a station on the other side of Georgiana and dared to look down into Elizabeth’s smiling face. She wore a simple but becoming gown of pale yellow muslin sprinkled with delicate flowers that enhanced everything about her. He particularly noted the curls at her nape, which brushed her shoulders and played enticingly with the lace at her throat. It was all he could do not to reach out and entwine his fingers in them.
“No, she has not, sir!” Elizabeth turned her beautiful, laughing eyes upon Georgiana. Good Lord, she positively glowed! “Please, Miss Darcy, you must tell me. Whom did you see, and what did you hear?”
Georgiana colored a little but responded readily enough, and Darcy could have asked for no better than the gentle questions and sincere exclamations that Elizabeth contributed to their conversation. He could sense his sister’s tension slipping away as, with either Elizabeth’s help or his, their conversation flowed from one topic to another in a seemingly natural manner. As for Elizabeth, she gave every indication of developing a warm regard for Georgiana, which made his heart rejoice. It was not long before he had the further satisfaction of assuming the part of observer only, withdrawing from participation as the exchanges between the two became more animated, until all he needed to contribute was the broad smile that would not be contained.
“Pray, Miss Eliza.” Miss Bingley’s voice carried imperiously across the drawing room, bringing all other discourse to a halt. “Are not the — shire Militia removed from Meryton? They must be a great loss to your family.”
Darcy stiffened as the room fell into shocked silence. What devil had seized control of that woman’s tongue that she would attempt to introduce Wickham into his drawing room? What could be her purpose? Surely Caroline Bingley could not know of Wickham’s attempts against Georgiana! No, that was impossible! He glanced at Elizabeth, who had gone very still at the mention of her name. Yes, it was Elizabeth whom Miss Bingley wished to defame in this exceedingly ill-bred attack. His blood raged at the thought, but even so, it was his sister for whom he feared. As he looked down into Georgiana’s pale face and large eyes, he saw that the damage had been done, for at his glance she quickly lowered her head and looked away, all her former animation having fled. His color heightening in helpless anger, his eyes sought Elizabeth’s. It remains with you, he tried to tell her through the agency of his earnest regard. Miss Bingley must not delve further.
The glint of steel that had preceded so many of their own verbal fencing matches flashed past him, and Elizabeth’s chin, accompanied by the most enigmatic of smiles, rose. “Yes, it is true; they have removed to Brighton, Miss Bingley,” she replied airily, “a necessary event for the Militia and a most happy event for those who are now relieved of the necessity of entertaining them.”
Darcy did not trust himself to turn back to note Miss Bingley’s reaction lest she see the grateful relief that flowed through his frame and across his face. Instead, he gave himself over to the pleasure of observing the satisfaction her parry had induced in Elizabeth’s eyes and the puzzle of how he was to thank her. Before he could come to any conclusion, she leaned toward Georgiana and lightly brushed her hand. He caught his breath, the wonder of her concern for his sister holding him, warming him as she turned her face up to meet his. No words, of thanks or gratitude, were needed, her eyes told him. She already knew his heart on this matter, and his trust of her was not misplaced.
His heart swelling, Darcy took a seat opposite them and engaged her directly, carefully choosing his subject for both his ladies’ sakes. “I must say, Miss Bennet, your uncle is a true disciple of Mr. Walton, possessed of an excellent disposition for the sport. I left him in high spirits happily pursuing my trout.”
“Indeed?” Elizabeth smiled back at him, her light scent of lavender entrapping his senses. “He has often mentioned how his concerns have kept him from indulging in what was once, before his marriage, a passion of considerable proportion. I am glad he has had the opportunity to enjoy it, especially as he has so good-naturedly put himself at the disposal of two demanding women for his entire holiday. I thank you for his invitation.”
“It was my pleasure,” he managed to reply, then tore his gaze away to glance at Georgiana. She remained silent, as yet unequal to even this inconsequential an exchange. His pause seemed to have decided Elizabeth, and she rose.
“I fear we must be going, sir.”
He rose immediately as well, reasons and schemes to detain her coming quickly to the fore; but there was that presence about her that stayed him, and he held his peace. Mrs. Gardiner came then to stand beside her niece and offered her thanks for their welcome and for her husband’s invitation. Darcy bowed his acknowledgment. “Your husband’s skill has not diminished, madam. It was a privilege to observe him. If you and Miss Elizabeth Bennet must go,” he continued, “please, permit me to see you to your carriage.” Of course, they could not refuse, and with smiles of thanks they allowed him to usher them to the door after taking leave of his sister and the other ladies.
Standing in his hall, Darcy looked down upon Elizabeth, her glorious crown of hair coming only just to his shoulder, and was beset by so many emotions that he could barely sort them out, save for one. He loved her. It was as simple and as complicated as that. The simplicity lay in the nature of his love, for it was centered upon Elizabeth rather than himself or his desires and arose from the deepest wish to be the one whose privilege it was to do her good all her days. The complication lay within him. He could not make her love him or arrange for it as he did all his other concerns. He could only show her who he had become and was becoming…and hope.
Little of import could be said while they waited the few minutes required for their carriage to pull up to the entrance, but he could not let even so small an opportunity pass him by. “Miss Darcy and I look forward with pleasure to your visit tomorrow.”
“As do we, sir,” Mrs. Gardiner replied.
It appeared that Elizabeth would remain silent, allowing her aunt to offer all the civilities, but then she lifted her face and met his hopeful gaze with a sincerity that took his breath away. “Indeed, sir. Please, say as much to Miss Darcy, also?”
“I shall,” he promised, hope taking a small foothold in his heart. He waited until the carriage settled before handing Mrs. Gardiner up, then turned to Elizabeth. This time he was not made to wait for her hand. She gave it to him willingly. As his hand closed around her gloved fingers, delight coursed through him; and as she depended on his arm to assist her up, deep feelings of protectiveness followed it.
“Until tomorrow.” His voice was hoarse with all that possessed him, but Elizabeth heard him. Her answering smile was soft, its sweet contours remaining with him as the carriage bore her away. He watched after her until the trees of the park swallowed up the carriage. Even then, he was reluctant to rejoin the ladies in the salon, but he had to return to Georgiana to see how she fared. He stepped into the room just as Mrs. Hurst was agreeing with her sister upon some matter, a not unusual occurrence in their filial relationship, only to be addressed by Miss Bingley upon the same subject.
“How very ill Eliza Bennet looks this morning, Mr. Darcy. I never in my life saw anyone so much altered as she is since the winter!” She sniffed her incredulity. “She is grown so brown and coarse! Louisa and I were agreeing that we should not have known her again.”
A thorough disgust with Caroline Bingley gripped him. Not only her words but her very tone and manner were offensive to him. “Haughty as a duchess and heartless as a jade,” he had once named her. She had not improved a wit since but was, in fact, hardening into a caricature of both. “I perceived no alteration in her,” he replied coolly, “save in her being rather tanned. That is no miraculous consequence, as she has traveled some distance and in summer.”
Miss Bingley was not to be prevented her declamation but continued on despite the note of caution a wiser woman would have recognized in his voice. “For my own part, I must confess that I never could see any beauty in her. Her face is too thin; her complexion has no brilliancy; and her features are not at all handsome.” Darcy ground his teeth, his jaw hardening; but her list was not yet complete. “Her nose wants character; there is nothing marked in its lines. Her teeth are tolerable, but not out of the common way; and as for her eyes, which have sometimes been called so fine” — she glanced at him but, to his disbelief, continued on — “I never could perceive anything extraordinary in them. They have a sharp, shrewish look, which I do not like at all; and in her air altogether, there is a self-sufficiency without fashion, which is intolerable.” The last she had said to his back as he turned sharply away and sat down next to Georgiana. His sister looked at him with amazement at what she heard and what he was tolerating. She laid a hand upon his.
“I remember, when we first knew her in Hertfordshire, how amazed we all were to find that she was a reputed beauty.” Darcy’s jaw flexed. She had reached the limit of what he was prepared to countenance. Only care for Elizabeth’s name prevented him from confirming Miss Bingley’s suspicions with a demand she vacate his home at once. “And I particularly recollect your saying one night, after they had been dining at Netherfield, ‘She a beauty! I should as soon call her mother a wit.’ But afterwards she seemed to improve on you, and I believe you thought her rather pretty at one time.”
At this last pronouncement he could contain himself no longer but rose with a bound and turned upon her an eye that had made grown men step backward. “Yes,” he replied icily, “but that was only when I first knew her; for it is many months since I have considered her as one of the handsomest women of my acquaintance.” The shock on Miss Bingley’s face gave him no pleasure, but neither did her company or her conceits. He could no longer bear any of them. With the briefest of bows, he left the room, his disgust taking him straight out the door and toward the river. With any luck, Mr. Gardiner and his own tackle would still be there…and Hurst and Bingley would not. At this particular moment the silent counsel of creation and the serene example of Elizabeth’s relative would best quiet his angered spirit. Suitably obliging trout, he mused, would not be amiss, either!
Not only had Mr. Gardiner remained for the rest of the afternoon but the trout had been most cooperative as well, exhibiting sufficient cunning to offer a challenge yet being sensible enough to yield themselves to the inevitable at the appropriate moment in the game. Only a punishing gallop atop Nelson over rough ground could possibly have diverted Darcy better from the wonderful fact that Elizabeth’s company and companionship had that day been his. To see her at Pemberley, in his home and in those rooms in which he had long imagined her, was more than he ever had had reason to hope for after Hunsford. It was a thing to be dwelt upon, which he did, alternating between such pleasure and doubt that Georgiana had been forced to clear her throat several times through dinner in order to recall him to his surroundings and guests.
“As I was saying,” Bingley began again after one such lapse, “the attraction of angling continues to elude me, Darcy.”
“As did the trout, damn them,” Hurst interrupted.
“Well, you would roar and stamp about. Frightened them so they were only too happy to have Darcy or Gardiner catch ’em.” Bingley turned back to his friend. “As much as I should like to accommodate Mr. Gardiner, I hope our next visit to your river will be no more demanding than a picnic.”
“A picnic!” broke in Mrs. Hurst. “Oh, Caroline!” She leaned toward her sister. “Would not a picnic be just the thing?”
Miss Bingley lifted a quelling eyebrow in response. “Perhaps,” she said slowly and then bid for Darcy’s attention. “If that is agreeable, sir, allow me, I beg you, to spare Miss Darcy the arranging of it?”
He inclined his head in permission but offered her not even the encouragement of a smile. He had suffered Caroline Bingley for Charles’s sake, but her jealousy and ill-bred disparagement of Elizabeth had now rendered her presence utterly distasteful to him. Let her be kept busy with ordering his servants about if that would amuse her. The experience would be short-lived, and his people would survive it with reasonably good humor once he had given Reynolds the word.
“Tomorrow, then.” She pounced upon his acquiescence. “We shall breakfast at the river alfresco! What will be the number? We expect no one in the morning, I trust?”
“No, no one, Miss Bingley,” he affirmed, his irritation rising with both the woman and her transparent implication.
“Miss Elizabeth Bennet, her aunt and uncle will be with us tomorrow evening,” Georgiana reminded her gently. “I do hope we may prevail upon her to play and sing for us. You have heard her before, have you not, Miss Bingley?”
“Yes,” Miss Bingley responded in a clipped tone, but when Georgiana drew away from her, a slight frown creasing her young brow, she stumbled on. “Yes, I have; we all did…at…oh, that man’s. What was his name?”
“Sir William Lucas, a most congenial gentleman.” Bingley reproved her with a frown deeper than Georgiana’s. “As I remember, she played and sang beautifully, and was universally importuned for another. It will be an uncommon pleasure, Miss Darcy, if you are able to persuade her to perform. Do so, I beg you.”
Darcy did smile at that. Bingley’s confidence and willingness to assert himself had increased steadily since that day in Darcy’s London study. His friend certainly moved with more assuredness among his contemporaries, but it was in his own family that Darcy particularly appreciated Charles’s new self-confidence. If he could school his sister in some discretion, she might continue to be received in his house after this visit. The issue that occupied him to the exclusion of his present guests, though, was not Miss Bingley’s future visits to Pemberley but, rather, whether such might be hoped for by Elizabeth Bennet.
Had she been pleased with his home? She had affirmed so upon their first encounter, but had her opinion been no more than that of any visitor on holiday? Now that she had been a guest, what did she think? He closed his eyes and shook his head slightly, annoyed with himself. Yes, he wished her to think well of Pemberley, but what truly lay at the bottom of his speculation was whether she as yet thought well of Pemberley’s master. His anxiety to know if he had progressed in her estimation was consuming every thought that was not strictly needed to maintain an appearance of attention to his guests. They swung from hope to doubt and back again with alarming swiftness. Her quick-witted response to Miss Bingley’s implication joined with her silent collusion in Georgiana’s protection were encouraging, as was her willing acceptance of his assistance into the carriage and her soft smile of farewell. Could he credit these incidents with any substance, or were they merely general politeness?
“Ahem.” Startled, Darcy looked over at his sister as Georgiana cleared her throat yet again. Her lips pursed in a bow of rueful amusement.
“Brother.” She prodded him with a gesture to the door. “Shall you and the other gentlemen want your brandy now?”
The mystery of Elizabeth’s regard for him plagued Darcy for the remainder of the evening and followed him to his chambers after wishing Bingley and Hurst bonne chance over the billiard table. Tomorrow evening she would be here…possibly for the last time. The thought chilled him as he reached for the bell pull. Her aunt and uncle might have been done with Lambton and, desirous of continuing on in their holiday plans, might whisk her off the following day to the next great estate or praised natural view. A great, painful No! arose in his chest. She must not! She must not disappear, perhaps forever this time, before he could make some substantial determination of where he stood in her esteem! But how? How was it to be done? He turned slowly toward his dressing room.
“Mr. Darcy, sir.” Darcy started in surprise at Fletcher’s voice.
“Good Heavens, man! I only just summoned you!” Darcy said sharply. Then, realizing his valet must already have been there, he added, “Make a bit of noise if you are about, will you?”
“Yes, sir.” The man bowed and approached him. “May I assist you, sir?” Nodding, Darcy unbuttoned his coat as he turned his back. Fletcher’s sure fingers carefully stripped him of the garment. “Your fobs and watch, sir.”
“What?” Darcy demanded and then looked down at his waistcoat. “Oh, yes, of course.” He pulled the items from their pockets and laid them on the table. What he needed was time, more time, and time that would not be interrupted or curtailed by others. Time, he mused, staring down at his watch while Fletcher removed his waistcoat, a commodity that, regrettably, was not in his power to command or create.
“Is there aught amiss with your pocket watch, sir?” Fletcher scooped up the mechanism and peered at its face before pulling out his own and comparing the time.
“No, Fletcher. I was woolgathering, musing over the inflexible independence of Time.” He let out a short sigh and began unbuttoning his shirt while the valet worked at the knot of his cravat.
“ ‘Inflexible independence,’ sir?” Fletcher pulled at the neckcloth and then tossed it onto a chair.
“Yes.” Darcy bent and removed his shoes. “Men invariably need more or less of it but cannot command it to be still or bid it go faster. Time proceeds as it will and will not be bridged or created.”
“Indeed?” Fletcher responded. “Is man then merely ‘Time’s fool’?”
“You misquote the Bard, Fletcher,” Darcy snorted. “I believe he said ‘Love’s not Time’s fool.’ ”
Fletcher smiled. “Forgive me, sir, as I trust the Bard would also. But as the only love that is subject to Time is man’s, it is all one. As for its ‘inflexible independence,’ that is a matter of perspective; is it not, sir?”
“What can you mean? Sixty minutes always equals one hour!”
“Yes, sir. But an hour with the toothache is an eternity; whereas an hour with one’s beloved is as a moment gone.” Fletcher’s voice dropped. Then he shook himself and continued firmly. “No, I believe Time is perfectly flexible if we have the wit or nerve to mold it to our use.”
Wit or nerve. Fletcher’s prerequisites for the command of Time repeated themselves in his mind as Darcy lay unsleeping in his bed. The clock on the mantel chimed out the hour. One o’clock. Time, more time, was what he needed in order to determine Elizabeth’s mind, but he could count on no more time than what tomorrow afforded. Tomorrow, dawn to evening, was all that he could foresee; therefore, it was tomorrow that he must bend and mold. If you have the wit or nerve to do so, he reminded himself grimly. His mind ranged over the next day’s schedule. Accomplishing anything to his purpose at dinner was summarily dismissed. Too many interested parties about for the privacy he desired! Further, waiting until then left him even less time to bend. Morning and afternoon, then, were all that remained to him.
It came to him all in a moment: the picnic Caroline Bingley had been so eager to marshal! All of his guests would be gathered at the river for her alfresco, at which time he could send a servant with his regrets that he had been called away and to proceed without him. Ah, yes, there was the wit; what about the nerve? He would call on Elizabeth and the Gardiners. Nothing unusual in that! He would ask for permission to escort her, or all of them if need be, on a stroll of the village path which followed the Ere. Then, when opportunity arose, he would thank Elizabeth privately for her kindness to Georgiana. Her response and subsequent conversation would, he hoped, reveal something of her estimation of him that might be built upon at dinner that evening.
Darcy heaved a sigh as the mantle clock chimed out the quarter hour. It was not an elegant plan. Rather, it was fraught with countless opportunities to go wrong. But it was all he had, and he meant to use it.
“No, Fletcher.” Darcy looked over the clothing his valet held out for approval. “Riding clothes, if you please, ones fit for a call.” He finished drying off his freshly shaved chin and cheeks and ran a hand through his damp hair.
“Riding clothes, sir? I was not informed, sir!” Fletcher frowned mightily at such an oversight. “Shall I send notice to the others?”
“No, only I shall be out. The others are still to attend Miss Bingley’s alfresco.” He paused to see what effect the announcement produced in his valet. Fletcher, however, appeared more concerned with the new demand placed upon his art than with its cause. Grateful for Fletcher’s lack of interest, Darcy channeled away the man’s thoughts with a question suited to his other talents. “How is that progressing…the picnic?”
Fletcher rolled his eyes. “The staff has been harried through four refinements of the menu and three changes of location since last evening, sir; but they press on with good humor,” he said, disappearing into the closet in search of the required clothing.
“Good humor?” Darcy called after him.
Fletcher emerged, a complete ensemble and several alternates in hand. “They have eyes, sir, and ears, and know you have all our best interests in hand.” Darcy cocked a brow at him. Clearing his throat, Fletcher continued. “Forgive me, sir, but we…ah, the staff, sir, can bear with whatever the lady may demand during the short time she will be here.”
“I see.” Darcy strode to the window and leaned against the frame. What faith they all had in him! What hopes were invested in his every decision! He sighed and bowed his head. The happy future that his people wished him and themselves was not so easily accomplished, for they were not privy to the irony that ruled their hopes. Yes, Elizabeth’s place in his heart was sure, but that place meant little to the woman who had last spring, without a moment’s hesitation, refused the offer of his hand and the prestige of Pemberley. He could make that same proposal to Caroline Bingley or nearly any other woman in England and be assured of success. Yet here he was, setting out to pursue the one exception…perhaps for that very reason. He knew her worth. If Elizabeth’s opinion of him had softened, if she turned toward him in any way, he would not let her disappear from his life. He would pursue her, court her as she so richly deserved, and God willing, win her respect and her heart.
Turning back to his valet, he examined the attire held out for his inspection. Doeskin breeches, of course, and boots polished to the highest gloss were at the ready. “The silver-gray waistcoat, I think, and that coat.” Fletcher’s brow went up in question. “The green one, yes.” He nodded as the valet held it out. “Now, hand me the breeches…hurry, man!”
The interior of the Green Man was dark and still cool when Darcy took off his beaver and bent to enter the inn’s door. For the first time in his adult life he had escaped the elaborate attentions of its proprietor and been greeted only by a servant, to whom he conveyed his desire to be conducted to the rooms occupied by the Gardiner party.
“The Gardiners, sir?” Forced to disoblige the village’s most esteemed patron, the young man looked panic-stricken. “The Gardiners ’ave gone out awalkin’, sir.” Disappointment that Elizabeth was not immediately available put a check upon his eagerness, but Lambton was not large. He should be able to find them; it was the loss of time he rued.
“Which direction —” he began to ask, but the nervous boy interrupted him.
“The young lady is still above, sir. Would you be awantin’ to be taken up for jus’ her?”
He could not stop the laugh that welled up inside him at the lad’s apologetic tone. Did he want to be taken up just for Elizabeth? His heart expanded. This was perfect, much more to his purpose than he could have hoped or planned for.
“Yes, if you please.” He grinned down at the boy and gestured that he should take the lead up the inn’s stairs.
The upper hall was quiet, the public room below not yet belabored with patrons and the inn’s other guests out about their business. The tread of their boots upon the wooden floor rang loud in Darcy’s ears but did not mask the sound of a chair being scraped across the floor behind the Gardiners’ door. Elizabeth! His heart turned over as he came to a halt behind the servant and waited. The sound of light footsteps reached him. His breath caught in his chest. The serving boy reached for the latch and, stepping back, pulled the door open.
Elizabeth’s pale face appeared suddenly, looking up at him with such wild pain and desperation that he started back, speechless at beholding such stark need in her every line.
“I beg your pardon, but I must leave you,” she gasped out. “I must find Mr. Gardiner this moment, on business that cannot be delayed; I have not an instant to lose.”
“Good God! What is the matter?” Darcy demanded, the misery in her face eliciting both alarm and every tender feeling he possessed. Find the Gardiners? Impossible for her in this state! “I will not detain you a minute; but let me, or let the servant, go after Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner.” He seized command of the situation as well as he might, ignorant as he was of the particulars. “You are not well enough; you cannot go yourself.” Darcy expected that she would gainsay him and prepared to insist that she not attempt the mission. She did not. Instead, she hesitated and, to his concern, trembled visibly before nodding and, after calling back the servant to entrust him with the task of recalling her aunt and uncle, sank heavily into a chair.
What should he do? Darcy looked down into her pain-filled countenance, the droop of her fine shoulders, and knew that he could not leave her. His hand reached out, every impulse urging him to gather her into his arms and vow to make all things right again, but he was forced to let it drop to his side. He had no right. “Let me call your maid,” he said to her gently instead. At the shake of her head, he pursued a different tack, but in the same tone. “Is there nothing you could take to give you present relief? A glass of wine; shall I get you one?” Again, she shook her head. Darcy’s feeling of helplessness increased. Perhaps she was too distressed to realize her condition? “You are very ill,” he told her softly.
“No, I thank you.” Elizabeth’s back straightened a little. “There is nothing the matter with me. I am quite well, I am only distressed by some dreadful news which I have just received from Longbourn.” Tears that had been stayed by her anxiety now burst forth, rendering her incapable of speech, and left Darcy no further enlightened save that the cause was news from her home. A death in her family seemed the likeliest answer. Had there been some terrible accident? His heart went out to her, desperate to be of some use, some comfort in her throes of sorrow and pain. Again, the desire to hold her, lend her his strength seized him. Good God, how much longer could he stand to see her thus and maintain his place! He lay hold of the back of the chair opposite hers and gripped it so tightly his fingers ached.
“Miss Elizabeth, please…allow me to be of service to you in some manner,” he importuned, but her tears continued and there was nothing more he could say or do but wait.
“I have just had a letter from Jane, with such dreadful news.” She finally looked at him, although her words were halting. He leaned toward her, intent on her every syllable. “It cannot be concealed from anyone.” She gasped for breath and then continued. “My younger sister has left all her friends — has eloped; has thrown herself into the power of — of Mr. Wickham.”
His shock could not have been more complete. Wickham! The Devil take him! But how had this happened?
“They are gone off together from Brighton,” Elizabeth continued disjointedly. “You know him too well to doubt the rest. She has no money, no connections, nothing that can tempt him to —” She gasped again. “She is lost forever.”
Darcy’s mind reeled at her account and its implications, rendering him both enraged and speechless. Had the man no conscience at all? At least with Georgiana there had been the motive of revenge and gain, but what had been his purpose with Lydia Bennet? Elizabeth was entirely correct; she had nothing to tempt him to marriage. Her attractions were youth, heedlessness, and the promise of sensuality. When Wickham had had his use of them, he would abandon her without a thought.
“When I consider that I might have prevented it. I who knew what he was.” Elizabeth bitterly berated herself. “Had I but explained some part of it only — some part of what I learnt, to my own family! Had his character been known, this could not have happened. But it is all, all too late now.” She buried her face again in her hands.
Darcy looked down helplessly upon her bowed shoulders. What could he say or do to mitigate the disaster in this turn of events? Little, so very little! “I am grieved, indeed, grieved — shocked,” he whispered. “But is it certain, absolutely certain?”
“Oh yes!” she answered with a wretched laugh. “They left Brighton together on Sunday night, and were traced almost to London, but not beyond; they are certainly not gone to Scotland.”
Here was something — time and a location! Darcy’s mind began to function more rationally. When and where! “And what has been done, what has been attempted, to recover her?”
“My father is gone to London.” Elizabeth gestured in a hopeless manner. “And Jane has written to beg my uncle’s immediate assistance; and we shall be off, I hope, in half an hour. But nothing can be done; I know very well that nothing can be done.” She sighed bitterly. “How is such a man to be worked on? How are they even to be discovered? I have not the smallest hope. It is every way horrible.”
That might very well be true, Darcy thought to himself, or not!
“When my eyes were open to his real character. Oh! had I known what I ought, what I dared to do!” Elizabeth wrung at her handkerchief, anger displacing her grief. “But I knew not — I was afraid of doing too much. Wretched, wretched mistake!”
Elizabeth’s misery pulled at his heart. The sight of her there, weeping, blaming herself for the rash behavior of a sister who had been allowed to run wild and the perfidious treachery of a practiced seducer would have tempted Darcy to fresh anger if his own fault in the affair had not then struck him with punishing force. Her mistake? No, it was his…it was his pride, his care for nothing beyond his family circle that had allowed a blackguard freedom to prey upon young women. And now the wolf had fallen upon another family, the family of the woman he loved so well and to whom he owed so much. The blow threatened to send him back into the emotional tangle that he had felt at the first glimpse of her face and revelation of her news. But no! If he allowed that, he would be of absolutely no use to her. Turning away, he began to walk up and down the room, latching on to every fact Elizabeth had conveyed as a puzzle piece. Where would Wickham have gone to ground in London and who might know? Possible avenues of inquiry recommended themselves. If only Dy were back in Town! Whether Dy was available or no, Wickham’s trail must be picked up with the utmost speed before he tired of Lydia Bennet and disappeared to some other corner of the kingdom.
Darcy turned, then, and observed Elizabeth. She had covered her face with her handkerchief, lost to all but the terrible facts of her family’s disgrace. He had every reason to stay with her in her distress, but no right. He ought to excuse himself, but how was he to do it? He hesitated, then plunged into an awkward apology. “I am afraid you have been long desiring my absence, nor have I anything to plead in excuse of my stay, but real, though unavailing, concern.” Slowly, she straightened and listened with tear-brightened eyes. Please God, he hoped she believed him! “Would to Heaven that anything could be either said or done on my part, that might offer consolation to such distress! But I will not torment you with vain wishes, which may seem purposely to ask for your thanks.” He could see that she was regaining countenance. Her chin lifted ever so slightly at his words. “This unfortunate affair will, I fear, prevent my sister’s having the pleasure of seeing you at Pemberley today.”
“Oh yes.” She wiped her eyes and sniffed. “Be…be so kind as to apologize for us to Miss Darcy. Say that urgent business calls us home immediately. Conceal the unhappy truth as long as it is possible,” she pled. “I know it cannot be long.”
“You have my word,” he promised her, looking down into eyes that now seemed to withdraw from him. “I am sorry, truly sorry that such distress has come upon you and your family.” He paused, wishing there were some better comfort he might give, but none was vouchsafed him. “And there may yet be hope for a happier conclusion than you presently have reason to expect.” She looked at him dubiously but inclined her head. There was no more he could do. He answered with a bow. “Please, convey my compliments to your relations and that I hope you may all return to Pemberley at some happier time,” he offered, and with a last searching look to impress upon her the sincerity of his words, he stepped into the hall and quietly shut the door.