“What?” he said. “No, that’s ludicrous. You are…”
“Your mistress?” She raised her eyebrows. “Are you going to change your mind and bed me, Mr. Darcy?”
Darcy cleared his throat. “You know that I cannot do such a thing, not with a clear conscience.”
“Then I suppose our business will be concluded,” she said softly.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Elizabeth could not make Mr. Darcy accept the idea that their arrangement would be severed. She did not truly wish to accept the idea either. But she could see no other way around it. Things could not go on the way that they were. Mr. Darcy would not attend balls if he did not have Georgiana’s future to secure. So, she did not see how anything could be formed between them. Would he simply crawl into her bed after she was asleep now and again? Would he keep her in that house for such a purpose?
She thought he might, at least for a while. But then he would likely come less and less, and they would drift apart, and then he would eventually meet some other woman, a respectable woman with whom he could marry and start a life. Elizabeth didn’t want to watch all that. It would be easier if there was a break now. It would hurt, but she was sure that if she did not sever the connection, it would all hurt much, much worse in the future.
It was decided that Georgiana would remain behind here at this estate, where she would be happy to continue her music. She would come to visit Mr. Darcy at Pemberley for holidays. Darcy was even going to look into bequeathing this estate to Georgiana, so that she might have even more income than her inheritance. He was not sure if the property was part of the entailment or not, but if it were not, it would be his to do with as he pleased.
They stayed another week with Georgiana, making sure she was settled, and the girl seemed to blossom. Elizabeth had never seen her so happy and relaxed. She didn’t even seem to mind carrying on conversations about something other than music, as long as it wasn’t for too long, that was. Georgiana spent most of her hours at the piano, and she was quite happy.
Eventually, they went back to London.
Elizabeth resolved that on the carriage ride back, she would end things with Mr. Darcy, a clean break, so that he would understand that there was nothing left between them at all.
But she kept putting it off, knowing that after the conversation, they would have hours of traveling together, and those hours would be dreadfully awkward. She waited and waited, but then, just as they were getting close to London, she seemed to lose her nerve. She could not will her lips to form the words.
Back in her house, alone, she resolved to do it by letter.
She sat down to write, but she couldn’t find the words.
After several botched attempts, she decided that she needed some time to think on it, to compose the letter in her mind before she sat down to write. Instead, she began sorting through her belongings, trying to decide what she might keep and what she would sell. She planned to sell the bulk of it all, but she found herself having trouble parting with the dresses.
Each one seemed stitched full of memories. The time that Mr. Darcy had danced a reel with her and he had looked into her eyes with such intensity that she had felt flushed and almost faint. The time that Mr. Darcy had suggested she arrive in the carriage with himself and his sister, as if she was part of the family. The time that Mr. Darcy had said that she was part of the family. Oh, and he had kissed her in the dress, and he had touched her shoulder when she was wearing this one.
It was too difficult. She left the dresses lying hanging on the outside of the wardrobe and half-stuffed into her trunk and went back to writing the letter.
It was growing dark outside.
Dinner was soon, and she had Meggy dress her for dinner, even though no one was there except her. It would not do to let propriety slide, she decided.
But then, she didn’t seem to have much of an appetite. She picked at her food and pushed it around her plate with her fork.
Finally, frustrated, she retired to bed early. But sleep evaded her, of course, as she imagined a life without Mr. Darcy. She did not want to lose him.
* * *
“What is this?” came a male voice, rousing her from slumber.
Elizabeth sat up straight in bed to see that Mr. Darcy was standing at the end of her bed, looking at the disarray of all her clothing. He was holding a lamp and he wasn’t wearing his jacket or vest. His cravat hung untied around his neck. His shirt was unbuttoned. She had seen him thus many times. They always slept together in a state of undress, but the fact she had seen it before didn’t mean it didn’t still affect her. Her body began to feel warm.
“What is what?” said Elizabeth.
He gestured to her dresses. “Are you packing? Why are these in a trunk?”
“Well, I am not to be living here for much longer,” she said. “It is as I told you. The arrangement between us is concluded.”
“What?” He marched over and began picking up the dresses and trying to put them back in her wardrobe. “I do not agree. I do not want the arrangement to be concluded.”
“I think it best,” she said softly. “There is no future in it, sir. We cannot continue this way forever.”
“Why not?” Frustrated with the dress, he flung it over her writing desk.
She got out of bed and picked it up, worried it had been stained by the inkwell. But it was safe. “Please, I may need to sell these—”
“You will not sell any dress that I have paid for,” he said. “If you need money, I will give it to you.”
“No,” she said. “I have told you that I don’t want to be given money.” Of course, hadn’t she also realized that this was only her dreadful pride, and that she needed to set it aside for her own good?
“I don’t care,” he said. “You will take what I give you, because you are mine, and I am not letting you go.”
“Well, someday you will have to marry someone else,” said Elizabeth. “I don’t know if I could bear that.”
“I don’t have to do any such thing.”
“You must have an heir. You must have someone to pass it all down to.”
“Oh, who cares?” He threw up his hands. “Is it worth risking a woman’s life for such a thing, for carrying on a name?”
“There’s that word again,” she said. “Risk. Some things must be risked, sir. It is simply the way of things.”
He sighed heavily. “All right, all right. I suppose you’re right. I will have to take risks.” He crossed the distance between them and grasped both of her hands. “So, then, you marry me.”
“Marry you?” She tugged her hands away from. She was so stunned, she could only make strange noises with her mouth. Why had he said such a thing? What could possibly possess him to propose?
“Yes,” he said. “Don’t you see, it’s the solution to everything. We can be together. I will not feel as though I am taking advantage of you if I give you the position of being by my side, my wife.”
“By be together, you mean…” She looked at the bed behind her.
He snatched up her hands again. “I mean together in every way. I mean that we can share a bed and a home and a future. You are the only woman I’ve ever wanted. I know it, and you must see that it’s true.”
“But… you can’t marry me. My reputation—”
“Hang your reputation. I don’t care.”
“It will have a bad effect on you, on your family—”
“What family? You think Georgiana will mind? She doesn’t give a fig about anything except what piece she is mastering on the pianoforte. And I don’t care. I will take that risk, Miss Bennet. It is a risk worth taking.”
Her breath caught in her throat. Say yes, said a voice in the back of her head, and it sounded remarkably like the voice she’d used to scold Jane for refusing Mr. Bingley. But, well, she realized now that such a thing was complicated, more complicated than she might wish it to be. And Elizabeth did not want this. When she had admitted to Georgiana that she did not w
ant to get married, she had meant it.
“I know,” Mr. Darcy was talking again, “I should not have put on this travesty of taking you as my mistress. I should have had the bravery to ask for your hand the first time that I came to visit you. Forgive me for being such an awful coward, Miss Bennet. Elizabeth. Forgive me. I don’t deserve it, but I cannot live without you. Marry me.”
She put her fingers to her lips. “I…”
He waited, gazing at her earnestly.
She was going to cry. “I don’t think I can.”
“Of course you can. What do you mean that you—”
“When I think of being your wife, being the mistress of Pemberley and being noticed and written about in the papers and gossiped about for every little thing that I do, from what dress I wear to who I invite to my home, I…”
“Elizabeth, you said that you were not afraid of risks.”
“It will be worse,” she said, “because I shall be this ruined woman and there is the matter of explaining Mrs. Fieldstone, and… oh, they will never cease to wag their tongues about me.”
“I will protect you. I will help you through it.”
“It is one thing to take a risk, it is another to enter into assured destruction,” she said. “That period of time of my life, when all those women were talking about me, it was the worst period I can remember.”
“But you were also grieving for your father,” said Darcy. “And you made it to the other side of it. You are strong, Elizabeth. Together, we can get through anything.”
“No,” she said, and she shook her head.
“Please.”
“No,” she said. “But the fact you have asked me, it means so much to me. You can’t understand just how much. And I think… I want…” She pressed her body against his, and she sought his lips with her own. She had never initiated a kiss with him, but just now, she felt such a surge of feeling toward him—
He pushed her away. “Stop that.”
“Why can’t we be together the way that we had planned?” she said. “Why can’t you lie with me now? I have never wanted you the way that I want you in this moment.”
He took a step back, and he looked stunned and also hurt.
“The arrangement doesn’t have to end. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“You would rather be my mistress than my wife?”
She licked her lips. She looked at him, at his broad shoulders and his thick fingers and his trim waist. “Yes,” she choked out.
He flinched as if she’d slapped him. He bowed his head. Then he slunk out of the room without another word.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Are you visiting?” said Jane at the door of their house.
“No, I am back to stay,” said Elizabeth.
Jane peered around her. “You haven’t brought a trunk with you.”
“I will be selling all my possessions,” said Elizabeth. “We shall make use of the money. Mama’s debts are all settled, and with the money from the sales of the dresses, I shall be able to make things better for us. That is, if you will accept my money.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Jane.
“May I come in?” said Elizabeth.
Jane moved out of the doorway.
Elizabeth stepped inside.
“It is quite a thing to take money that was earned in sin,” said Jane.
“If you must know,” said Elizabeth, “I am as intact as I was the day I was born.”
“What?” said Jane.
“Mr. Darcy refused to bed me,” said Elizabeth, stripping off her gloves. She had the feeling of having come home after a long journey. Jane was home, and she was happy to be back in her sister’s company. She wanted to sink into a chair by the fire and perhaps even take off her shoes and warm her toes. She wanted to let all the strangeness of her recent past melt away. She was done with it all.
“Oh, well, I knew he couldn’t be such a villain as all that,” said Jane.
“It hardly matters,” said Elizabeth. “I am ruined anyway. It is the appearance of a thing that matters to society, not the truth of it.”
“Well, yes, I suppose,” said Jane. “Sadly, that is true. But I am glad he did not take advantage of you in that way.”
“I am not,” said Elizabeth, brushing past Jane to go into the sitting room.
“Oh, no?” Jane tittered as she followed her.
“I don’t suppose it will ever happen now,” said Elizabeth. “I shall probably die without ever doing it.”
“Doing what?” said Mary, who was sitting by the fire with some embroidery.
“Lizzy!” said Kitty, getting to her feet and coming to hug her sister.
Elizabeth embraced her. “Good to see you, Kitty dear.”
Kitty pulled back. “If you have come for dinner, you are too late. We have already eaten.”
“No, I have not come for dinner,” said Elizabeth. “I have come home to stay. My engagement is over now.”
“Oh, is it?” Mary eyed her darkly.
“Yes,” said Elizabeth. She shot Jane a look. What did Mary know?
Jane only shrugged. “Are you hungry, Lizzy? I do think there is a bit of meat—”
“We are saving that for luncheon tomorrow,” said Mary, who had turned back to her embroidery.
“Oh, Mary,” said Kitty. “If Lizzy is hungry—”
“I am not,” said Elizabeth, “but you are sweet to offer. You are all so very good and considerate sisters. I have missed you.” She found a chair and sank down into it.
“You seem tired,” said Kitty, sounding disappointed.
“Indeed,” said Elizabeth.
“Too tired to tell us all about your engagement and what it was like? Were you in a very grand house?”
Elizabeth laughed, scooting down in her chair. “The grandest,” she said. And she began to spin a yarn of her mythic post as a chaperone for a very rich lady and her daughter. But now, the daughter was married. Elizabeth’s job was done. She told them of the massive country estate she had visited with Mr. Darcy, only changing the names of the place, but telling them about the beautiful rooms and furniture.
Kitty sighed, enraptured. Jane seemed enchanted by the tale as well. Only Mary was not impressed. She snorted throughout and never looked up from her embroidery.
Eventually, Mary excused herself to bed. She snapped that Kitty must come along or the bed would be abominably cold. “I am not going to warm it for you on my lonesome.”
Kitty left, but only after Elizabeth assured her she was on her way to bed soon. She was not lying. Soon, it was her and Jane tucked into bed together in their own room.
They spoke in whispers, lying side by side on their pillows.
“It was dreadful sleeping alone, Lizzy,” said Jane. “I am happy you’re back.”
“I was not fond of an empty bed either,” said Elizabeth. Should she tell Jane that Mr. Darcy had shared her bed on several occasions? Or should she keep that memory for herself, to treasure the way he had felt curled around her—his warmth and strength. And his scent. His deeply masculine scent. Oh, she did not want to share that at all. It was hers, her own lovely private series of moments. She would keep them close, take the memories out sometimes when she was sad and turn them over like a worn keepsake. Mr. Darcy had been hers, if only for a short time.
“I have thought on what you said to me about Mr. Bingley.”
“Oh, has he been back?”
“Oh, yes, indeed. He calls with some regularity.”
“And has he renewed his proposal?”
“No,” said Jane. “But I think you are right that he will, and I think I shall accept him. I am only worried that it will be a dreadful union, and that he will always look down on me because of the inferiority of my station in life.”
“When I spoke to you of it before, I’m afraid I did not understand.”
“And you do now?”
Elizabeth sighed in the darkness. No, she would never tell Jane that she had refused
Mr. Darcy’s proposal. Jane would not understand. Elizabeth wasn’t even sure that she understood herself. She only knew that the thought of being Mrs. Darcy filled her with a creeping dread, and that she could not do it.
“Do you think it’s worth the risk, Lizzy?” said Jane.
“Oh, Jane,” said Elizabeth. “You are the only one who can decide that for yourself.”
* * *
Dear Miss Bennet,
I demand to know why you are firing the servants at the house where you reside. They are not your servants to fire, as they are under my employ. You must cease and desist from such a practice. It is most irregular.
Yours sincerely,
Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy
The letter arrived the next morning, hand delivered by a servant, not through the regular post, because of course it would be scandalous for Mr. Darcy to be writing her letters. Elizabeth told the servant to stay, and she dashed out a reply.
Mr. Darcy,
If you knew enough to have your letter delivered to this address, then you must realize that I, in fact, no longer reside at the house you are referring to. I had thought, since I was the only one to occupy the address, that I might dismiss servants whose services were no longer necessary. But you are right. They are in your employ, and you may see to the matter at your own discretion. Accept my apologies.
Respectfully,
Miss Elizabeth Bennet
The following day, she received another letter.
Dearest Elizabeth,
If you have quit the house that I keep for you, does this mean that you have rescinded the offer you put to me on the last occasion we were in each other’s presence? If so, I am rather surprised, as you seemed eager at the time to cement our arrangement in a final and physical manner. It is unlike you to go back on your word.
Tenderly,
Fitzwilliam
She was aghast. When had they gone to using first names? How dare he write about physicality and then give the letter to the servant? Why the boy must be thinking all manner of scandalous things when he looked at her. He might be spreading rumors about her all over London. This was not to be borne.
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