“Wickham did not reappear for several days. It seems he got lost and sheltered at an inn, where he found some woman to his liking, and realising that he had already lost, he decided to weather there for some time before returning home to my gloating. So as to not be unseemly, I did not mention his involvement in the affair at all when I presented the document to my very surprised and confused father. I may have told Colonel Fitzwilliam at some point, but I do not remember. All I remember is spending nearly a month in bed with a terrible fever and terrible muscle pain. I did not mount a horse for another month beyond that.”
“I can imagine,” she said, giggling. “Or, I am creative enough to do so.”
“Yes, I imagine,” he said. “So last night’s exploits were really nothing in comparison. I am quite well.”
“So you have explained. But you still not have explained the reason for taking off and returning so hastily.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Do I need a reason? I have had much business in Town since our engagement was announced.”
“I will venture a guess and say this was not a business dealing.”
Darcy sighed and lay back on the pillow. “Clearly, I should not be marrying someone of such great intuition. I will never have a secret again.”
“Clearly.”
“But allow me a day’s respite. This was a matter of . . . research.”
“And then you will tell me?”
“No, Elizabeth,” he said. “Then I will show you.”
Chapter 5
The Dinner Party
Despite the intricacies of the planning, the pre-wedding dinner was somewhat delayed in starting, as the muddy roads prevented the best choice of meats from arriving on time. Despite Bingley’s mild worry over the inconvenience, his many, many guests seemed content to feast on hors d’oeuvres and a good amount of wine, and he could put himself at some ease. In fact, he had enough time to glance at poor Darcy, who despite his robust appearance was entrenched in endless inquiries about his health. Bingley smiled sympathetically at him, and Darcy only returned a pained grimace before turning his attentions back to a very insistent guest. It was that very decidedly stealthy Darcy glance that said, “I would give considerable thought to the notion of killing everyone in this room to escape.” Maybe Elizabeth would be the exception, but they were not yet married, and so, at least in such a social atmosphere, some distance was kept—consciously or unconsciously—between them. Perhaps when Elizabeth would properly dress his arm, the introverted Mr. Darcy would at least be able to manage company a bit more easily.
But Mr. Bingley’s concerns were not entirely focused on Darcy and Elizabeth. In fact, they were only peripheral. The same reason that kept Darcy and Elizabeth at opposite ends of the room also kept him from his beloved Jane. Perhaps he should have ridden miles in the rain, been stuck in bed, and skilfully forced Jane to attend to him. Alas, if it had all been a plot, he lamented that he were not as clever as Darcy by half. He barely got a glimpse of Jane, surrounded as she was by guests, and he had hosting duties that could not be ignored, especially with the minor disaster in the kitchen. Someone had to retrieve extra salad plates from the storeroom downstairs, and in a great desire to expel some nervous energy, Bingley decided to insist on doing it himself. Not that he had ever been to the storeroom, but it was his manor, and he figured he had best be acquainted with every nook and cranny, so he took directions from the flummoxed cook and headed down the stairs. Hopefully he would return quickly and not find too many dead bodies and Darcy arrested for manslaughter.
The dark humour of his grim thought was enough to keep him smiling and distracted, so much so that he almost dropped the box of plates right there on the stairway upon the sight of Jane at the top.
“Mr. Bingley!” she said, obviously surprised by his appearance. “I did not mean to—”
“You are not intruding. Just . . . allow me to put down this box or we will have no proper plates for the third course,” he stuttered, and put the box down, knowing there was no way he could concentrate on a container of porcelain with proper attention with his country beauty standing right there. He joined her on the landing, and it occurred to him that for the first time in many days they were quite, if briefly, alone—and very close. “How . . . how are you, Miss Bennet?”
“Very well,” she said, but her voice was full of mixed emotions, and he had enough sense in him to guess that she had the same feelings he did: love mixed with anticipation, nervousness, anxiety, and quite possibly absolute terror. “I should not keep you from your duties—”
“No, no,” he sputtered. “It can wait, of course. Anything can wait for . . . I mean, anything can wait . . . for you.” God, he would give anything for Darcy’s golden power of speech at this moment. “How are you?”
“You already asked that,” she said with an amused smile.
“I did? Yes, I suppose I did.” He allowed himself to laugh. “I am ridiculous, am I not?”
Jane merely answered, “In a very endearing sort of way, Mr. Bingley.”
He suddenly didn’t know what to do with his hands. He needed a hat to strangle the life out of. Instead, he was stuck rubbing the sides of his waistcoat. “This will not do. You must call me Charles. I cannot take being ‘Mr. Bingley’ to you any longer.”
“Then I will have to be Jane,” she said, “though I have not heard Lizzy call Darcy anything but his formal name. And, come to think of it, neither have I of you.”
“That’s because Darcy is Darcy, you know,” and he said in a very stentorian voice, like a servant announcing him, “‘Darcy of Pemberley and Derbyshire,’ and all that.” They shared a giggle at his friend’s expense.
“So you have never called him anything else?”
“Never!”
“And what does his sister call him?”
“‘Brother.’ I believe he is not much endeared to his baptismal name—besides, I suppose, the inconvenience of Colonel Fitzwilliam being his cousin, though . . . they do look quite different.”
“So you’ve never heard anyone call him Fitzwilliam?”
“I have heard someone call him ‘Fitzers,’ but that is not a story I can repeat, as it does not end well.” But when Bingley’s future wife looked at him, he felt even more compelled than usual to be obliging. “Oh please, do not look at me like that. I cannot betray his confidence.”
Her smile was so kind; it completely ruined the intended effect of her answer. “I would never ask you to betray Mr. Darcy’s confidence.”
She wasn’t really asking, and he knew it. He could easily sideswipe the issue entirely, but standing there next to her, quite alone and quite giddy, he felt in the mood to be light about it. “On the other hand, I have never had a chance to tell it, and I can think of no better person to ask for the strictest confidentiality than a wife.”
“Minus fifteen hours.”
“So we are both counting!” he said. “All right, I must oblige you on this, but privately.” He skipped up the steps and closed the door, then returned to the landing. “And you cannot tell your sister. No, I cannot ask that of you. That is too cruel. I suppose I will just have to suffer the indignity of being a gossip.”
“You do not have to, Charles.”
“But I will—for you,” he said, again keenly aware that they were alone—now in a closed, very small space. “You must understand that Cambridge is a place of much . . . well, to be blunt about the subject . . . drinking—and other behaviour that does not enter this conversation. But this is not to say Darcy was an alehouse regular, nor I. Quite the opposite, in fact. He was most studious because he is Darcy of Pemberley, and I was most honoured with being the first of my family to attend University, so I had better things to do than fail. But there was one night—,” he bit his lip. Thank heavens he wasn’t telling that story! “On this night, I was invited to a particular . . . tavern and hadn’t the faintest idea of where it was. At this point I had known Darcy for a few months and he was, I admit, being somewhat pr
otective of me. I did not realise it at the time, but it is something in his nature that he does with the people he cares about, so I suppose I should have been honoured but—I am prattling on.” He tried not to look at Jane—not because he didn’t want to, but because he couldn’t imagine what would happen if he did. “So . . . he knew the place and decided to accompany me. I must confess that I was terrible and became so involved in my conversation with a man in my logic lectures that I did not notice how uneasy Darcy was. Truly I am an awful friend.”
“Truly you are too hard on yourself.”
He did not want to contradict her. He never wanted to contradict her on anything, ever. “At some point, I do not recall exactly when, someone approached Darcy at the table, presumably someone he knew from fencing. Not to say there was discord between them, but this man thought himself a better friend to Darcy than Darcy thought of him. He proceeded to immediately engage him in a long conversation about local sport, to which Darcy said hardly anything. I did not even take much note of it until the man, when congratulating him on a recent match, quite liberally slapped him on the shoulder and called him ‘Fitzers,’ or some such nickname. In fact, he slapped him so hard and unexpectedly that Darcy sort of swooned and knocked over his wineglass—or, all three of them . . . and a mug of ale.”
“And Mr. Darcy’s reaction?” she asked, because now she was obviously too invested in the story not to know its conclusion, however unbecoming.
“He slammed a fist on the table and challenged the man to a duel. To first blood or what I do not know—I am not a fencer, and I have never been in a duel. Darcy did not explain himself at all, but he was incensed, and it took a minute for the man to even react to this. Now you must understand, Darcy was at this time second only to the captain of Cambridge’s fencing club.”
“So the man would have lost.”
“And he could not have been unknowing in that. But it was that intensity in Darcy’s eyes—everyone in the room was staring at him as he awaited the man’s reaction. His colleague merely said, ‘Are you serious?’ And all Darcy had to do was stand up, one hand still on the table, and stare him down.”
“And?”
“And he ran—the man, I mean—right out of the tavern. I never saw his face again.”
“Quite an accomplishment for Mr. Darcy!”
“More than that man knew, because Darcy was in no condition to duel, however talented he might have been,” Bingley said. “It turned out that only his hand on the table was keeping him upright. As soon as the man was soundly gone, he collapsed on the floor. It took me and the bartender to get him upright again.” He added quickly, “There is something to be said for not regularly partaking in vast quantities of spirits, but it does nothing to build up your resistance.”
“Are you saying Darcy is a lush?”
“Perhaps.” He giggled again. “Please, please, I beg of you, never tell him I told you this.”
“I would never do anything to insult the considerable Darcy pride,” she said semi-jokingly.
“Because it is considerable,” he said. “Oh dear, we are up here laughing at Darcy, and we have left him to the wolves downstairs.”
“Charles! Some of those wolves are my relatives! And some of my relatives are not even wolves!” They were roaring with laughter again, preventing any further conversation for some time. The dishes were now thoroughly forgotten.
“I am being a terrible host.”
“I forgive you of this great sin.”
He chuckled. “But I will gladly endure the same of being a notoriously bad master of Netherfield if it means I must instead spend my time alone with you.”
To this, Jane was silent. She was shy; he was shy; and they were both aware of it and of the irregularity of his outburst. Most of their moments of privacy—well, almost all of them—had been on walks outside, and more mundane topics were discussed. This moment was not so much the case, and there was much averting of the eyes.
“Jane,” he said, after gathering some courage. Imagine you’re Darcy, he thought. You can say whatever you please and somehow not only get away with it but secure the second-loveliest girl in England for your bride. “I am overwhelmingly grateful that we can laugh together now . . . when there has been so much between us.”
“Not so much.”
“Well, two days ago, you looked like I was going to eat you alive.”
Instead of shrinking back in horror, she actually giggled again, covering her mouth. “Oh, that was nothing to do with you—just some apprehension thanks to being assaulted with marital advice by my mother.”
Mrs. Bennet giving Jane marital advice of any kind—there was a most unpleasant image. He did not want to bring up his own travails, at least, not in detail. He had already shamed himself and Darcy enough in the last few minutes. “I admit to being somewhat nervous myself—not for any reason related to you, just . . . fear of the unknown, I suppose.” And you have completely bewitched me. Can I mention that? Would it be unbecoming? Would I terrify you? “But I suppose it is natural and ultimately irrelevant.”
“Yes, of course.”
It was not anything she said or the way she said it. It was that their gazes met for the first time in several minutes, and there was a meeting of not only the eyes but the minds. She was up against the wall and he was kissing her, trying to decide that if the act itself was as good as the simple sensation of having her arms around his neck.
Fear of the unknown was definitely a most illogical human emotion. The unknown was wonderful, especially when it was her fingers moving through his hair.
“Bingley!”
Damn that knocking, and damn that Darcy! Well, at least it was Darcy and not a servant—or, heaven forbid, one of his sisters. He loved his sisters dearly, but this was not the moment for brotherly affection. It was the moment for removing himself from Jane and taking a deep, well-needed breath. They looked at each other, as if expecting the other to invent a solution.
“Bingley, do you wish half the servants in this house looking for their master or not? And make no pretence of being elsewhere, because I’ve looked in half the rooms in this estate on your behalf already!”
“Coming, Darcy!” he said, as he straightened his waistcoat. “It seems I must return.”
“I think we must both return,” she whispered.
“Fifteen, then.”
“I believe it is more like fourteen, but yes.”
He smiled at her a very private smile before straightening himself one last time and opening the door to, fortunately, only Darcy. Seeing both of them, Darcy’s face registered no particular emotion and he bowed politely. “Miss Bennet.”
“Mr. Darcy,” she curtseyed and quickly slid past him and back upstairs.
Bingley stood there watching his best friend give him a once-over—with his head of mussed hair and reddened face. Darcy merely said in the most even voice possible, “It seems you are besting me at everything these days.”
“I did not know you were inclined to consider this a competition,” Bingley said, and could not account for his own shrewdness. Maybe it was something in Jane’s influence that brought it out of him. “But seriously, you have not—”
“We are not having this discussion.”
“So I can assume—”
“The longer you stay down here, the longer your guests will have to avail themselves of the liquor cabinet on empty stomachs, and if I must endure another impromptu drunken sermon by Mr. Collins, I will permanently hold it against your character. Now go.” He handed him the discarded box of plates and nearly dragged him up the stairs. “And if you can invent a proper reason, send Elizabeth down.”
To this, Bingley decided he did not have the wits to craft a response.
***
Darcy did not have to endure another impromptu drunken sermon by Mr. Collins, at least not at the dinner table. There were simply so many guests and so much chatter that one could be easily ignored, and since he was not able to mention Lady Cath
erine without provoking Darcy’s considerable anger, his conversational abilities were cut in half.
But Darcy was not inclined to be angry, at least from what Bingley could tell. If Darcy was not turned directly to his left, he could not tell anything because he could hardly hear anything or make out any conversation a few seats beyond them. Though he was not wont to say, it was fortunate that Lady Catherine had not attended, for she would have insisted on the traditional formalities that a twelve-course meal demanded, while Bingley was more inclined to let his guests revel in the pre-wedding festivities. For matters such as this, he usually referred to Darcy for his expertise, as it was only under Darcy’s subtle hand that he had been schooled in being master of Netherfield, but both men were busy with other things and content to let matters fall where they may.
Despite the variety of food, unusual even by his considerable standards, Bingley found himself eating little, his stomach not the least bit settled, he assumed out of nerves. He instead contented himself with partaking in the socialisation or merely observing it. There was a certain triangle among his adjacencies, as Miss Bingley put up a considerable show to appear to like her new sister a great deal, and Bingley was sure he could see Darcy occasionally smirking at the flagrancy of the act. It was some relief to Bingley that Darcy would no longer have to fend off Caroline, though he was unsure if the matter had ever truly vexed him. Certainly if it had, Darcy would have said something or made his feelings known by less readily spending time with the Bingleys, and yet he was Bingley’s closest companion.
There were toasts to the host and to the two couples, and the glasses were raised quite a few times before the dinner was over. Mr. Collins was about to stand up when his wife found herself overwhelmed by either the food or the atmosphere—that could not be determined properly—and insisted that he escort her outside for fresh air. Elizabeth whispered something in Darcy’s ear, and he waited until there was a moment when chatter had resumed before saying quietly to Bingley, “You owe a great favour to Mrs. Collins.”
The Darcys and the Bingleys Page 6