After everyone had arrived and they were gathered before the meal, Georgiana turned to Elizabeth, a little breathless. “Are you quite overcome yet?”
Elizabeth merely smiled in response. Truth be told, she’d been overcome since the moment she came down the stairs. The first person she saw was Mr. Darcy himself, dressed in a formal coat and evening gloves, as fine as she’d ever seen him since the night of the Netherfield ball. The finest tailor in Derbyshire had nothing to be embarrassed about. Mr. Darcy’s new clothes fit him to perfection, highlighting the changes to his body that the months climbing mountains had wrought. His hair had been trimmed to respectability, but the other changes in his face and figure were impossible to hide—the broadness of his shoulders and chest, the angular hardness in his cheeks and jaw, and most of all, the haunted expression in his eyes.
He had seen her too, standing upon the stairs, and bowed, a motion that did nothing to steady the beat of her heart. “Miss Bennet. You look lovely this evening.”
“Thank you, sir,” she had replied. “As do you.”
He looked down at his clothes, as if he had forgotten he was wearing them. “Yes, the uniform suits, does it not?”
In truth, it suited as well as the more disheveled look he had worn in the forest. Every part of him suited, whether new or old. Elizabeth could not help but believe that the experience he’d lived only added to the dignity of the gentleman. He had come through the fire, and now he was more the master of his domain than he had ever been. Everyone in Derbyshire would soon see it.
As they sat down to dinner, Elizabeth paid special attention to the other young ladies in attendance. She wondered which of these women would be thought of as a suitable match for Mr. Darcy one day. The admiral’s three fair-haired nieces had ten thousand pounds apiece, she’d been told, and the pretty, ginger-haired daughter of another gentleman, Angelica Whiting, would inherit a tidy estate not far from Pemberley, near a village called Kympton.
That was probably the simplest option. It would enrich Pemberley most directly to join those estates. Elizabeth could picture every particular.
At dinner, Elizabeth was seated near the clergyman from that village, who was a young, single gentleman with a ruddy face and an amiable demeanor. He spoke to her animatedly all through the meal, and she soon learned he was a devotee of poetry, despite its rumored deleterious effect upon one’s morals.
“Have you read this new work by Lord Byron?” she asked. “I am told it is rather shocking.”
“‘Childe Harold?’” replied Mr. Clarence. “Yes, just. Angel—I mean, Miss Whiting—lent me a copy just last month that she had procured in London.” He gestured to the redhead at the end of the table, who was staring down at her plate, while beside her, Mr. Darcy did the same. “We enjoy reading poetry together.”
Elizabeth felt rather more generous toward Miss Angelica Whiting after that.
Chapter 28
After dinner, they adjourned to Georgiana’s lovely new music room, which had been fitted up only last autumn in celebration of her sixteenth birthday, and all those with musical inclinations were persuaded to play for the assembled guests.
Georgiana delighted them all with a few songs and then turned the piano over to what Elizabeth was relieved to see was a number of ladies and even a few gentlemen whose musical ability far outstripped her own. There were so many volunteers, in fact, that she was spared any encouragement to add her own meager efforts to the evening’s entertainment. Instead, she retreated into conversation with Colonel Fitzwilliam and hoped to find a way to once more broach the topic of leaving, and soon.
Elizabeth was acutely aware of where Mr. Darcy was in the room at all times. Whether he stood placidly in the corner and listened to his sister play, or conversed with the old admiral about drainage problems or with the young men on the recent sale of horses, she felt every nod of his head or gesture of his hands. She knew when he was silent and when he was speaking, even if she was across the room and engaged in another conversation entirely.
The hair on the back of her neck pricked and a moment later, Georgiana approached with her brother on her arm. She looked exhilarated, and he looked mainly away from Elizabeth’s face. “I have asked Miss Cole to play some music we might dance to. Won’t you be so good as to start the dance, brother?” She squeezed his arm.
He seemed to break out of a trance. “Why, yes, Georgiana, I shall dance with you.”
“That will never do!” she exclaimed with a laugh. “We are not in London now, but there is enough society about to avoid standing up with your sister. Here, dance with Miss Bennet.”
“Yes, indeed, Miss Bennet shall make you the perfect partner!” agreed the colonel, smiling as broadly as Georgiana.
Elizabeth blanched. Mr. Darcy was not even looking at her. “But…but then who shall you ask, Colonel?”
“He shall ask me, of course!” Georgiana teased. “And come, we must have another two couples at least. Mr. Clarence! Miss Whiting! Will you not dance?”
In the end, Georgiana recruited eight couples, and the servants were obliged to move the furniture to accommodate them all. Mr. Darcy held out his arm. “I suppose we have no choice.”
“What a shame to surrender your code of never dancing except under the most extreme circumstances, such as a ball.” She placed her hand upon his arm. Beneath the layers of fabric she could feel the tense formation of his flesh.
“Is not the exhortation of a beloved sister an extreme circumstance?” he replied as he guided her toward the head of the set. She remembered another time he had done this, at Netherfield, before their worlds had turned upside-down. “And remember, if you please, that there were other occasions upon which I wished to dance with you and was denied.”
“No!” Elizabeth cried. They faced each other upon the floor as the music began. “That cannot be. I recall none—”
“I asked you to dance at a party at Lucas Lodge, and you said you had no intentions of dancing.” He began the form and stunned, Elizabeth hopped to keep up. “And I asked if you might not wish to dance a reel when you were staying at Netherfield. Your rebuke on that occasion is one I shall never forget.”
“My rebuke…” she took his hands again as they moved around the other dancers. Was it true? Had she really turned him down twice? The occasion at Lucas Lodge she vaguely remembered, but not the other. And it all seemed as if it had occurred in some other life. Some life in which she did not love Mr. Darcy, did not crave the few moments when his glance landed upon her, did not thrill to the very touch of their hands on the dance floor.
Their palms met again, followed in quick succession by their gaze. She caught her breath.
“You said,” replied Mr. Darcy, in a low tone meant only for her, “‘Despise me if you dare.” And I said—”
“‘I do not dare,’” she whispered in response. The dancers whirled about them. “I do remember. You were asking me to dance? I thought you were only belittling my taste in music.”
They parted again, and she caught in his expression a degree of contemplation, as if he, too, were reviewing the events of that long-ago evening. She hardly managed to complete her figures in the dance until they were reunited again.
“It seems that I am not good at making my intentions clear when it comes to you, Miss Bennet,” he said now, taking both of her hands in his own as they began their way down the set. “I must endeavor to improve myself lest we fall prey to more misunderstandings.”
“I should not think there is much occasion to worry, sir,” she said at once. “I believe Colonel Fitzwilliam will soon be ready to depart for London. He has promised to carry me home. And then we shall not often meet, I imagine.” Never, she hoped.
“Oh, but Georgiana will not have that. You will be invited to London in the winter, and your sisters, too, if her conversations on the matter are anything to credit. And we will surely visit Mr. Bingley when he returns to Netherfield—”
“Mr. Bingley returns to Netherfield?” El
izabeth asked, astonished.
“He well might,” Mr. Darcy said, offhand. “I am only thinking how likely it is that we shall spend quite a lot of time in each other’s company.”
Elizabeth felt very faint. She leaned upon his arm. A few more beats of the music, and they would be parted once more.
“This thought does not please you, I see.”
“No, I—” but they were separated once more, and besides, she was not quite certain of what she should say.
It pleased her all too much, and it nearly broke her heart.
When they joined again, Elizabeth began at once, afraid she would not be able to get it all out before they were parted again. “I fear I might have caused another of the misunderstandings you mentioned,” she blurted. “I do not dread spending time in your company.” She very much did, though. She dreaded it and craved it all at once.
“You ran from me not one week ago,” he stated simply. The dance required their hands to meet, and then their arms, up to the elbow. She was very close to him now. The closest they had been since he had helped her out from the roots of the yew.
“You frightened me,” she replied softly. The dance was a thousand miles away, the others in the room all but forgotten. “What choice did I have?”
“You are a rare specimen, Miss Bennet, who defends a man who berates you, then runs when he begs for forgiveness.”
He turned away and left her blinking, in the center of the dance floor. Her new partner, Mr. Clarence, was forced to guide her strongly through the next figure and around the assembled dancers. She craned her neck to catch sight of Mr. Darcy, who was now turning Miss Whiting in the same way, his face a mask of solemnity despite the smiles worn by the other dancers.
A few moments later, they were rejoined. She stared at him, breathing hard. He stared right back. At last she said, “Perhaps we should have held to our earlier conclusion of speaking little when dancing. I am afraid it does not reflect well on either of us.”
He appeared to consider this. “One might argue then that we have had too little practice. Our prior attempt began poorly, and only grew worse from there. I think I’d rather take the advice that another has given me,” he said. “We ought to dance more, until that last occasion is just a distant and unremarkable memory.”
Dancing with Mr. Darcy could never be considered unremarkable. It hadn’t been so, even at Netherfield. “One might argue that it is impossible to remember anything from that night which might bring pleasure.” That was the crux of it. Even if she were an heiress, even the daughter of a duke, she could not make Mr. Darcy happy. Not when every time he looked at her, he saw Mr. Wickham die.
They drew close once more, arm to arm and face to face. The dance was nearly done.
“I was given every occasion to remember our dance when I was alone in Switzerland,” he said now. “It was the only golden memory of that night.”
How could that be? “I did not give you a moment’s peace on that occasion,” she confessed. She had been so angry at him, so certain he was to blame for every ounce of Mr. Wickham’s unhappiness.
“As I said in the forest, Miss Bennet, you have never given me peace. Not when you are real, at any rate.”
She blinked at him in confusion. “‘When I am real,’ sir?”
His eyes widened and his mouth clamped shut.
The music drew to a close. Around them, the dancers began to clap for the musician at the pianoforte and then wander off or regroup as impulse led them. But Elizabeth did not move, and neither did her mortified partner.
At last Mr. Darcy seemed to catch hold of his senses and offered her his arm to escort her from the dance floor, as if they were at a ball, and not in Georgiana’s music room, where his friends and neighbors milled about, enjoying coffee and port wine and the new duet that Miss Whiting and Mr. Clarence were sitting down at the piano forte to play. She looked at his arm as if it were on fire.
“What can be your meaning? When am I not real?” she asked again.
“Nothing,” he replied. “I spoke out of turn.”
“You are a rare specimen yourself, Mr. Darcy. I have been trying to make out your character since the last time we danced. I do not know if I ever shall.”
But with that, he only bowed, and turned away.
After the festivities were over, and every last carriage and horse had rolled away into the night, and Georgiana, exhausted, had been persuaded to go to bed by Elizabeth, and even Colonel Fitzwilliam had bid him good night and gone upstairs, Darcy stood for long minutes in his study, staring into the fire.
For the past week, he had done everything expected of him. Had dressed the part, had acted the role, had placated his sister and his cousin and written letters to his aunt and uncle, ensuring them that he was home and ready to take charge of his affairs and his estate and all the rest. He met with his steward and his tenants and his neighbors and the men of the church under his purview. He’d avoided Elizabeth Bennet at every possible moment.
He could not be trusted around her. Not be trusted to blurt out whatever fool thought came into his head. To remind her of times she would clearly rather forget, or even worse, to hint that he had memories of her that she did not share at all. Memories that had never happened outside the confines of his own wretched head, when he was half out of his senses on brandy or thin mountain air.
He crossed to his desk and removed the leather portfolio he’d kept with him from his time in Switzerland. He knew which letter he searched for this time.
Oh, that these pages could touch your hands. I touched your hands, once. Once, in the ballroom of Netherfield. It was all I thought in that moment that I wanted and yet it was nothing near to enough.
Tonight, he bore no such delusions. He knew he wanted more, and knew moreover that was the very reason why he could not speak to her, let alone ask her to dance. And yet, he’d allowed Georgiana to draw him in, pretended as if he did not know her schemes, or her collusion with their cousin.
It would suit you to dance more often.
No, it most certainly wouldn’t. And not with Elizabeth Bennet.
We shall not often meet, I imagine.
She was clearly counting the days until Georgiana and Fitzwilliam released her from this place. Freed her from his presence. She did not relish the thought of dancing with Darcy. She was not the Elizabeth of his dreams, the one who cherished every word he’d written to her. He looked at the page again.
Would you read my words? Would you hide these pages away in the folds of your skirt until you found a private place to read them?
The Elizabeth of his dreams would do such a thing. But the one in his house would find him shocking, as she was shocked each time he let unfiltered thoughts pass his lips in her presence.
He should burn them all. He’d been savoring them, night by night, reliving each moment in which he could imagine the false Elizabeth who awaited every word. It was his reward, for a day spent being a gentleman, to have a night spent pretending his dreams were real.
Darcy sat down in the chair closest to the fire and loosened his cravat. His coat and gloves he’d long ago discarded at the door. He could still feel her touch, though. The press of her palms to his, the weight of her arm as they danced, the tiny shivers beneath her skin as the movements of the dance required him to place his hands upon her back.
What folly it had been, to dance with her. Had he no control? He’d been wise enough to avoid her this week, but a single set of reels tonight, and he found himself as intoxicated as ever. He would rather, he thought, argue with Elizabeth Bennet on the dance floor than have a perfectly pleasant—and utterly boring—evening with any other woman in England.
He looked down at the letter again. He would give all of Pemberley if the woman he’d written these letters to were real.
His own Elizabeth. Who loved him, as he loved her. He ran his hands through his hair in frustration, and stared into the flames, picturing all the things that could never be.
He
should burn them. He should burn them all. Be rid of the memories forever.
But he did not.
Chapter 29
Elizabeth could not sleep. Every part of her hands and arms seemed to hold the memory of Mr. Darcy’s touch. His words to her ricocheted through the corridors of her mind. She could not shut her eyes but hear him call their last dance his only golden memory, or his claim that the solution to their problem was to dance with each other more.
He could not know how those words would torture her!
The hours passed slowly, or maybe they were not hours at all. Just long, lingering minutes where she turned every word they’d spoken over in her mind, like a scavenger picking meat from a bone. He was so very vexing! She did not understand him at all. Everything he said seemed designed to provoke her. To anger her. To shock her.
She threw back the covers and began pacing the floor. It was not enough.
And what could he possibly have meant about her being real? What was the alternative? If she were a figment of his imagination, then what possible use would there have been in helping her on the night of the Netherfield ball?
She needed to be direct with Georgiana. She must leave Pemberley, or risk utter misery. Elizabeth had never been one for sustained unhappiness. It was her temper to be happy, to find humor or at least lightness in all the struggles that life brought. But perhaps that was only because she had never experienced true pain and suffering in her life. She was surrounded by her intact family—her flawed but affectionate father, her silly but good-hearted mother, her beloved sisters—and though their fortune was not lavish, they were more comfortable than most people in England. She had never wanted for anything.
Now she did. She wanted Mr. Darcy.
She was not suited to be broken-hearted, and yet the fate seemed inescapable, so long as she stayed here, where Mr. Darcy’s presence would constantly remind her of all that could not be. Their sad history, every moment in his presence, and all the weeks in his home, worked to convince her that he was exactly the man who, in disposition and talents, would most suit her. His understanding and temper, though unlike her own, would have answered all her wishes.
In Darcy's Dreams Page 20