Someone caught Elizabeth by the arm, stopping her movement.
Elizabeth turned on the person. “So very sorry, but I’m in a hurry, you see—” She broke off. It was her sister Jane. “Oh. Hello.”
“Oh, Lizzy, are you still chasing her?” said Jane, looking sympathetic.
“Yes, she has disappeared again,” said Elizabeth. “I don’t know what the devil has gotten into the girl. It is frightfully taxing, being always engaged in hunting her down.”
“You must let me help you.”
“Oh, no, no. This is not your problem. Nancy is under my supervision tonight. You have spent all week busy with your children. Enjoy your time out. Relax. Dance with your husband. I shall find Nancy.”
“No, Lizzy, you must let me search with you.”
“Indeed not,” said Elizabeth and started to move again, not allowing her sister to argue any longer with her. Jane had her hands full, what with running the household here in London and seeing to her children. Elizabeth helped out as she could. It had been much easier before Nancy had come out in society. Now, it was not only the children, but a very capricious young woman to look after.
The situation was what it was, however. It wasn’t the life of Elizabeth’s dreams, but she knew that things could be worse. Besides, Jane was good to her. They had always been close, and Elizabeth felt more welcome in the Bingley household than in the houses of any of her other sisters. There was no time to ponder it, anyway. She had to find Nancy and stop the girl from whatever nonsense she’d gotten in her head to do.
Only last week, she had found Nancy outside with one of the men that she had danced with, admiring the horses on his coach. When Elizabeth had scolded Nancy about it, Nancy was quick to point out that the coachman had been present, so nothing untoward would have happened. Elizabeth informed her that the coachman was not an appropriate chaperone.
The week before, she’d had to inform Nancy that she shouldn’t be pressing the entire length of her body up against her dance partners. Nancy had feigned ignorance, claiming she wasn’t even aware she was doing it.
Elizabeth tried to explain to her that she was only watching out for her for her own safety. “Men do not feel the same way about these things as we do,” she had said. “You may feel as if there is some implicit promise in his actions, but I assure you, there is not. If you are not careful, you’ll end up with a broken heart and a lack of further prospects.”
“Oh, I don’t think there’s any kind of promise,” Nancy had said. She hadn’t wanted to marry either of those men, apparently. Nancy claimed that she didn’t even want to get married for at least three seasons, because she wanted more time to flirt with as many men as possible. “Just because you didn’t find a husband doesn’t mean I won’t,” the girl was fond of saying.
She gave Elizabeth a headache.
Elizabeth couldn’t even begin to imagine what sort of position she was going to find Nancy in tonight. She only hoped that the girl would keep her wits about her enough to keep from getting ruined. Not only because she didn’t want that for her niece, but because Bingley and Jane trusted her, and she couldn’t bear to let them down.
Elizabeth stepped into the next room and let her gaze sweep over the place, looking to see if she could see Nancy anywhere.
There were a gaggle of girls by the piano-forte, drinking lemonade and laughing. But Nancy probably would be with a man, not a bunch of other girls.
There were several groups of older party-goers, people Nancy wouldn’t be friendly with.
There were two men over in the corner of the room, each with a glass of brandy—
She stopped short, her entire body going freezing cold and then flushing white hot.
It was him. Mr. Darcy, the man who had taken her virtue and broken her heart and shipped her back to England five years ago. He was standing across the room from her.
He looked a bit pale and skinny, and he was older, of course. She was older too. But he was there. It was him. She would know him anywhere.
She swallowed hard, and then she started for him, all thoughts of Nancy forgotten.
She walked across the room until she stood directly in front of him.
He was looking into his brandy, nodding as his companion spoke to him, and he didn’t see her.
She cleared her throat. “Mr. Darcy, how are you this evening?”
His head snapped up at the sound of her voice. “Miss Bennet?” He took her in. “Or… I imagine you’ve married by now.”
She chuckled. “You always did think that was going to happen, but I had the right way of it in the end. I am still Miss Bennet.”
“How unfortunate,” he said, but he didn’t sound as if he was sorry to hear it. He was smiling at her. “You look… exactly the same.”
She blushed. “I don’t. I am much changed, I assure you. It has been nearly five years, and I am no longer a young woman.”
He tucked a strand of his hair behind his ear absently. “You are as fresh and young as spring rain.”
“And you seem to have acquired the tongue of a poet in our time apart.”
He chuckled. “I’m afraid that’s the best that I have to offer in the department of flowery speech. I shall say nothing of note for the rest of the evening. I’m quite tapped out.”
She smiled at him. “It is… so very good to see you.”
He held her gaze for several minutes, and she couldn’t help but drink him up, as if she were dying of thirst and the sight of him quenched whatever unspoken needs she had. Then, shaking himself, he turned. “I’m being frightfully rude. Miss Bennet, this is my cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam.”
Darcy’s companion gave her a perfunctory smile.
“Fitzwilliam, this is Miss Bennet, who I met quite some years ago.” Darcy was still grinning at her.
“Pleasure, madam,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam.
She bobbed. “The pleasure is mine, sir.” She turned her gaze back to Darcy. “How long have you been back in the country?”
“Not long,” said Darcy. “I am a guest of my cousin’s.” He looked around and gestured to the gaggle of girls at the piano. “Not Colonel Fitzwilliam, but my cousin Miss Anne de Bourgh, who is back there somewhere. I should be happy to introduce you, if you like.”
“Oh, that is…” Elizabeth could not stop staring at him. “It is rather good to see you.” She knew that Miss de Bourgh had recently inherited a fortune when her mother Lady Catherine de Bourgh had passed on. Miss de Bourgh was one of the most sought after women in all of London, with eligible bachelors competing for her hand in marriage.
“I am staying with Miss de Bourgh as well,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam. “We are both looking after her.”
Darcy smirked. “I shall leave the business of that to you, Fitzwilliam. I am not fit for such a task. Ask Miss Bennet here. I am rotten to the core.”
“Oh, yes,” said Elizabeth, smiling. “To the core.”
And then, suddenly, Anne de Bourgh was there, and there were introductions made. Anne eyed Elizabeth. “How did you meet my cousin?”
“Um…” Elizabeth tried to think of something.
“Oh, at some party of some sort, quite some time ago,” said Darcy.
“When?” said Anne. “During your gambling days?”
“It’s not important,” said Darcy.
“Well, the girls over there were saying that it was highly improper for Miss Bennet to come over and speak to the two of you. They’re convinced that you and she have never been introduced.”
“Well, they’re wrong,” said Darcy, looking annoyed.
“So, what shall I say to them? You seem so intimately acquainted, surely you remember when you met.”
“We met in India,” said Elizabeth, lifting her chin. “At the party of Mr. Renward, who works for the East India Company.”
“When were you in India, Darcy?” said Anne, looking confused.
“About five years ago,” said Darcy, who looked even more pleased that Elizabeth h
ad made up this story. “Tell me, Miss Bennet, have you heard from Mr. Renward or his wife recently?”
“Oh, no,” she said, giving him a tiny wink. “It’s horrible, but Mrs. Renward took ill and died, and Mr. Renward followed her scarcely a fortnight later. Died of a broken heart. Had given up the will to live.”
Darcy put a hand over his mouth, obviously trying to hide his smirk. “Indeed? Well, that is awful.”
“I think it’s rather romantic,” said Elizabeth.”
“Yes, quite,” said Darcy. “I am very sad to hear of it.”
Anne looked back and forth between the two of them, her brow furrowed.
Darcy patted her on the shoulder. “Oh, don’t take on so. Tell the girls whatever you like, whatever will sound the most proper. It isn’t my intention to make you look bad, and you know it. I’m only happy that you’re out and about and looking so well.”
“Oh, Darcy.” Anne rolled her eyes.
Darcy turned to Elizabeth. “Anne was always kept from society by her mother. She was dreadfully sickly much of the time. Miraculously, upon her mother’s death, she made quite a recovery.”
Anne drew herself up. “Oh, must you speak of such things? You know that my mother only said that I was ill, when truly I was perfectly fine. She was very controlling, Mama. She wanted things to be a certain way, and if they were not that way, she took pains to make them that way.” She turned to Elizabeth. “I would rather not speak of such things with strangers.”
“Miss Bennet is not a stranger,” said Darcy. “Not by half.”
Blushing, Elizabeth looked away. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Nancy was coming into the room holding tightly onto the arm of a young man, and one of her gloves was missing.
Elizabeth sighed. “That’s Nancy. She’s my charge, and I must go and see what’s become of her.”
“It was good to see you, Miss Bennet,” said Darcy.
“Yes,” she said, wanting to touch him, to kiss him, to run her hands through his hair.
Instead, she hurried over to Nancy. “Where is your glove?” she demanded.
“It fell into the wishing well,” said Nancy. “I didn’t mean for it to happen.”
“She almost fell in,” said the man whose arm she was clutching. “She was reaching for it, and she was toppling. Lucky I was there to catch her.”
Elizabeth sighed. “Nancy, you cannot go running off to wishing wells in the middle of the party, especially not all alone.”
“I wasn’t alone,” said Nancy. “I was with Mr. Martin, but he left when I told him I wasn’t the least bit interested in getting married this season, and that’s when I took my glove off to see how cold the water was, and then… well, you know the rest. I’m sorry if I scared you, Miss Bennet, but you worry too much.”
Elizabeth shut her eyes in fury. Sometimes, she thought she would strangle the girl. She really did.
* * *
“Well, I don’t think there’s any reason to talk about Nancy,” said Jane, “not when you were off speaking to a man with whom you’ve never even been introduced. Truly, what were you thinking?”
“I’ve been introduced to Darcy before,” Elizabeth said, folding her arms over her chest. They were in the drawing room of the Bingley townhouse in London. “Come, you remember him, don’t you? Back in Hertfordshire? The night you met Bingley?”
Jane furrowed her brow. “Wait, wait. Darcy. Yes, I remember him now. He is the one who went off to fight the duel, isn’t he? He and Bingley used to be close, but Bingley hasn’t heard from him in a decade.”
“Yes, that’s him,” said Elizabeth.
“But why didn’t you say that then? Everyone is saying that you met him in India. But everyone knows he’s never even been to India. He’s been off seeking his fortune in Camaland.”
“Camaland?” said Elizabeth. “Jane, dear, there’s no such place as Camaland.”
“There must be,” said Jane, “because that’s where he’s gotten his money. They say he has restored his estate and bought back one of his other houses in the north. He didn’t have money when he left, so he must have been in the Camaland place.”
“He made it up,” said Elizabeth. “He likes to do that. He thinks it’s funny.”
“Oh, so then where was he really? In India?”
“Yes,” said Elizabeth.
Bingley appeared in the door to the drawing room, yawning. “David is still awake, darling. Will you go up to kiss him goodnight? I don’t think he’ll sleep otherwise.”
“Still up?” said Jane, shaking her head. “I don’t believe that child. Yes, I’ll be up directly. Did you know that your friend Darcy was at the party this evening?”
“Darcy?” said Bingley, smiling. “Well, that’s a name I haven’t heard in some time.”
Elizabeth turned to him. “Mr. Bingley, have you ever heard of a place called Camaland?”
“I confess I have not,” he said.
“Thank you,” said Elizabeth.
“But,” said Bingley, “they are discovering new islands every day now, and there very well may be some place called Camaland, I cannot be sure.”
Jane got up, yawning herself. “Lizzy says that Mr. Darcy is a liar, that he likes to spin tall tales. Is that true?”
“Not when I knew him,” said Bingley. “But he changed a good deal after his sister died. Became a a shell of himself. All the drinking and gambling and bad behavior… I couldn’t say that he didn’t take up lying.”
“Why didn’t you ever say that you spoke to him in India, Lizzy?” said Jane. “Since he was such a dear friend of Bingley’s?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I saw so many people in India,” said Elizabeth. “I suppose it slipped my mind.”
“And what did you do with him when you were there?” said Jane. “You seem to have gotten to know him quite well.”
Elizabeth shrugged. “Nothing out of the ordinary. Dinner parties. Dancing. That sort of thing.”
Jane sighed. “Well…” She turned to her husband. “Dearest, we are going to have to do something about Nancy. Did you hear what happened?”
“Oh, Nancy is simply spirited,” said Bingley. “You worry too much.
“She was outside,” said Jane. “With not one man, but two. And she lost her glove.”
“Heavens,” said Bingley, chuckling. “A lost glove is a problem indeed.”
“It is improper, love,” said Jane. “And it’s not fair for poor Lizzy. She is being run ragged.”
“I will have a talk with Nancy,” said Bingley, giving Jane an indulgent smile.
“Oh, thank you,” said Jane.
Elizabeth didn’t think this talk would matter much to Nancy. Bingley had already given her several talks, but Nancy paid them no mind.
“Come now, dear, it’s late. Can we not all go to bed?”
“I should like that,” said Jane, going to him. She and her husband started out of the drawing room.
Elizabeth followed behind them.
They walked up a flight of stairs in this manner, but at the top, Bingley and Jane went off to the left, and Elizabeth went to the other side of the house, where her bedroom was.
Arriving there, Elizabeth sat down on her bed, her mind reeling.
Darcy.
He was back in England, and he had smiled at her and said that she was fresh as the spring air or something ridiculous. It made her feel strange. She wanted to be angry with him, because he had hurt her, and it seemed only natural to have a reaction of dislike toward someone who had made her life miserable.
But he was Darcy, and she found she couldn’t hate him. She was only stupidly grateful that he had spoken to her, that he had been kind to her, that he hadn’t been horrible the way he had been all those years ago.
When she looked back on it now, she wasn’t sure that he had been as horrible as she remembered. It seemed such a long time ago, now, and she remembered that he’d apologized a lot and seemed to have had a rather low opinion of himself, and maybe h
e hadn’t meant it to go as badly as it had.
At any rate, it was her fault that they’d been intimate the way that they had. She had initiated all of their encounter, and he had tried to stop her.
Maybe she didn’t blame him at all.
And she knew that too much time had passed for him to consider marrying her. She was not yet two and thirty, but that was coming soon, and she was an old maid by every reckoning she knew. Someone like Darcy, even though he was older than the typical bachelor, would still want a young woman to bear his heirs.
She didn’t mind that. She didn’t hope for marriage anymore. Too much time had passed for her to even think about it in regards to herself. No, she only wanted to be close to him in some way. She didn’t know how, and she was sure it wouldn’t be proper, but she didn’t care.
There had only been one period of time in her life when she’d felt truly alive and that was when she’d been on that ship with Darcy. She needed to be near him again.
Seeing him again had awakened her, lit up something inside her. She lay back on her bed, staring up at the ceiling, thinking about the way he had looked, thinking of the way he had smiled at her.
And then she called back the past, the way she did sometimes, remembering his fingers on her body.
She closed her eyes, her hands on her own thighs, remembering, imagining… him.
And she was lost in bliss.
* * *
“Is it your first Season too?” Nancy asked Miss Anne de Bourgh. “Because I would have thought that you…” She trailed off, realizing she was about to say something rather rude.
Elizabeth wanted to clobber Nancy over the head. She had packed up Nancy that afternoon and taken her to call on Anne, Darcy’s cousin. It had been a gamble of a move, considering she had no real friendship with Anne. When she had the butler take in Nancy’s and her calling cards, she fully expected him to return and say that Miss de Bourgh wasn’t in, which—as everyone knew—was code for saying that she simply didn’t want them to call on her.
But Anne had welcomed them into the house, and now they all sat in her parlor, eating bread and butter and cucumber sandwiches.
Mr. Darcy's Indiscretions Page 48