These Three Remain fdg-3

by Pamela Aidan

  The familiar sounds of Fletcher’s preparations in the adjoining dressing room gently distracted him into another line of thought. Soon his valet would be coming through to inform him that all was in readiness for his morning ablutions. Darcy turned his head, regarding the empty pillow beside him. Fletcher’s routine would certainly need to change when — No, he firmly took himself to task, he must not think of that now, for he could not allow such anticipation to color his thinking. First, he must put his hard-won decision into action, and to do that required that he take steps to be in Elizabeth’s company, not lie abed daydreaming. He must see Elizabeth! This morning! “And without Richard,” he firmly informed his heart. Flinging aside the bedclothes, he arose and opened the dressing room door, startling Fletcher with the information that he wished to begin the morning ritual immediately. Shaved and dressed in record time, he descended to a blessedly empty breakfast room, where he downed a cup of coffee between quick bites of coddled egg and toast. Now, finally, he was on his solitary way.

  By Heaven, the day was glorious! Darcy slowed his pace as he entered the grove, the trees having taken him out of view of any chance observer at Rosings’s windows. He left Fletcher with the information that he was going out on a walk should anyone inquire, but his destination he kept to himself. Now, under cover of the grove, he could strike off in any direction without being seen. The morning sun slanted through the branches above his head, gilding the motes of dust that filtered down before him as if offering him a faerie road to his heart’s desire. Faeries, indeed! Darcy snorted at the foolish turn his thoughts had taken and shook his head, but the thought would not be banished, nor would the image that followed on its heels. Lady Sylvanie. He had once likened her to a faerie princess, and she had proved as dangerous. Her midnight tresses and stormy gray eyes invaded his reverie in the tempting guise to which he had so nearly succumbed in Norwycke’s gallery. He shook his head again, this time to clear it. No, no faerie lay at the end of this path but a wonderfully real woman in whose heart lay no such darkness as had possessed the other.

  The more pleasing vision of Elizabeth from the evening before, her brow arched above teasing eyes, slowed him further, until he no longer moved down the way but stood in the middle of the path, seized by a sudden disquiet. Yes, the real, human, unpredictable Elizabeth lay at the end; the Elizabeth who never failed to draw swords when they spoke. And he was proposing to visit her alone — without Richard. Save for that agonizing hour in which they had silently shared Netherfield’s library, he had never been alone with her — without her family or friends present, without the support of his own friends or relatives. The uncommon usefulness of his cousin struck him forcefully. Perhaps he ought to go back, wait until Richard was up and about, and propose a visit to Hunsford. He almost turned when the import of his thoughts stopped him. She had challenged him to practice, had she not? Was he then to beg off at the first opportunity? Every emotion within him rose up in vociferous denial. Practice, then, he most certainly would! How better to further learn her mind and gauge the strength of his own feelings? Darcy started forward, his confidence increasing as he reminded himself that Mrs. Collins and her sister would be there. “And likely Collins as well. Depend upon it,” he told himself. “Three ladies to one gentleman are conversational odds exceedingly in your favor, man!”

  In short order, Darcy reached the end of the path and entered the main road of Hunsford village. The lane to the parsonage was hard by, and he turned into its narrow entrance, his boots brushing the closely bordered flowers as he walked in sure strides up to the door and rang the bell. The maidservant from his first visit opened the door. “Mr. Darcy, to see the ladies of the house,” he informed the girl, who ducked him a curtsy and stepped aside. Taking off his beaver, he waited for her to relatch the door and take him up. The house seemed very quiet.

  “This way, sir, if you please, sir,” the girl gulped out and led him to the stairs. The sound of his boots upon the steps emphasized again to him the quietness of the place. No voices, no rattle of china or sound of steps masked his advance up the stairs and down the short hall. The maidservant stopped before the parlor door and, opening it, curtsied to the occupants. “Mr. Darcy, miss.”

  “Thank you,” a hesitant voice from inside replied. Darcy stepped past the girl and into the room, upon which he immediately went cold. His heart’s lady stood there in perfect loveliness and, Heaven help him, perfectly alone! Surely the others were about — somewhere! Darcy swallowed hard and did his courtesy, his eyes darting to the corners of the room as he rose. No, no one! He looked back to Elizabeth, whose eyes seemed to reflect his own discomposure. Apologize, fool!

  “Miss Bennet,” he began stiffly, “I must beg your pardon for intruding upon you. I had understood that all the ladies were at home.”

  As the door to Hunsford cottage shut and the latch fell into place behind him, Darcy paused briefly to settle his beaver firmly upon his head and look about him before setting off down the lane and back in the direction of Rosings. The unfamiliar elation that had threatened to turn him giddy in Hunsford’s parlor was now somewhat abated, allowing him at last to think. He drew in a deep breath of the fragrant spring air and thanked Heaven for the renewed sense of control that his body, set in motion, bestowed. It was done, their first private interview! He had acted like a foolish schoolboy, of course, as unable to control his unruly emotions as the most callow youth suffering the pangs of a first love. To where did the man who had “lived in the world” disappear, he chided himself, leaving that curst fool behind to babble on, revealing every nook and cranny of his heart?

  What had he said? He struggled to remember how it had begun. His brain seemed to have gone to sleep, for he was able to think of nothing intelligible to say. He replied to her inquiries with little grace and no originality. They discussed the Collinses, he seemed to recall, then the cottage, and something concerning Lady Catherine’s efforts toward its improvement. Darcy fought a surprising rush of pleasure as he recalled sitting across from her, her eyes and attention on him alone. Elizabeth. So beautiful in her spring green gown, her distracting lips in a gentle curve that invited him to smile with her at her friend’s practicality in marriage. Her hair — what would it be to see it down about her? “Gad, you are the veriest fool!” He cursed himself again as he battled against dwelling on the image his thoughts so easily created. This would not do! Darcy hefted his malacca into his palm and slashed at the bemused figure of himself he saw before him. His future could not be based on her hair or lips, or every objection and sneer he would later face would be richly deserved! And, he brought his thoughts to heel, you must not forget what followed.

  He had meant it only as a passing observation, the business about fifty miles being “an easy distance” between Elizabeth’s friend and her family, but it had excited such a vehement reaction that some devil in him decided to tease her with it. “It is a proof of your own attachment to Hertfordshire.” He had smiled, prodding her. “Anything beyond the very neighborhood of Longbourn, I suppose, would appear far.” Oh, how becomingly she had blushed at his sally! Darcy slowed his ground-eating stride and then stopped altogether. He had arrived at the end of the path unless he meant to walk on in the other direction. The sheltering grove lay behind him and the path descended from this point into an open field, then the formal park, with Rosings lying beyond. He could be seen, and he was unwilling, as yet, to expose himself to the possibility of an encounter until he had it thought out.

  Stepping back into the shadows, he leaned against one of his aunt’s trees and stared into space, re-creating that moment. Could that blush, so enhancing the creamy loveliness of her face and sending her magnificent eyes into a sweet confusion, have been the reason he had blundered on so recklessly? Or had it been her admission that she did not mean to say that a woman may not be settled too near her family? She hinted at her own feelings, did she not? That she was not bound to Hertfordshire, especially if fortune made the distance inconsequential? H
ad she not couched her protest in terms of her friend’s attachment and not her own? The implications were obvious, even to such an addlepated idiot as he had been at the start of their interview. His delightful fencing partner was offering him her sword! Oh, not in every instance of their relationship, nor would he desire it; but in this, the most basic battle between the male and female of the race. Not only was she aware of his interest but she was signaling her anticipation of it!

  Darcy closed his eyes, remembering the intoxicating thrill that had raced through every fiber of his being. Whatever Wickham’s lies had encompassed, she was pleased with his attention. The blush had been wonderful to behold, but it had been her surrender that had taken hold of him and, yes, pushed his tongue past the careful guard his mind had always posted upon his emotions. He had said it then, had even drawn his chair closer to her to catch every word, every breath that would result. “You cannot have a right to such very strong local attachment. You cannot have been always at Longbourn.”

  As he pushed away from the tree, the alarm he had experienced at the import of his own words returned. He might as well have declared himself then and there; a more transparent intimation of a shared future was hardly possible! Darcy stalked back several yards down the path toward Hunsford and then returned, only to repeat the exercise. The look of surprise on her face had confirmed to him that she had, indeed, taken his meaning and that a retreat from the position his emotions had led him to was immediately necessary. It was too soon. He had not weighed things to his satisfaction as yet! At the same time, he dared not trifle with her feelings or expectations! So, what had he done to retrieve himself ? He had plucked up a newspaper to mask his confusion and then asked her about being pleased with Kent!

  Good Lord, what a blundering, caper-witted ass! Darcy stopped his pacing, a scowl upon his face, and rapped the malacca into his palm with stinging force. If the lady of the house and her sister had not returned soon after, there was no telling in what further ways he might have made a cake of himself! In self-disgust, he collapsed against a tree, but his gaze was drawn back down the path he had come. What, in the end, was the result of his morning’s foray? She is entirely receptive, open to your attentions. She may very well expect them to continue after your rash words! It remained only that he come to the point for her to be his, for the sweetness he longed for to become truth. But, for the life of him, he could not as yet follow through. The social impediments remained; and they were mountainous, the familial ones hardly less so. All their claims fell upon him, and he felt keenly the justice of their reproaches. For what did he not owe to his name, his relations, and his posterity? Such an unequal match contracted merely to satisfy his appetites! Could the happiness it held out to him survive the opprobrium he would face the rest of his days? “No more!” Darcy groaned. He knew himself to be incapable of bringing peace to the warring parties within him. Both reason and emotion had failed him; there was nothing for it but to let fate run its course. “No more,” he repeated, no longer a plea but this time a command. “Proceed as you have begun, and trust to God that fate will intervene, that something will happen to end this!”

  “Fitz! Fitz, is something the matter?” Richard’s voice echoed from among the trees in the direction opposite that which Darcy had taken to Hunsford. In moments Fitzwilliam was before him, his breath coming in puffs.

  Coloring briefly, Darcy hastened to assure him, “Richard! No, nothing is amiss!”

  “Then why the blazes were you yelling?” His cousin looked at him accusingly. “I thought you were being attacked or had fallen or something!” He looked to his coat and waistcoat, giving them a tug back into place.

  “Nothing of the sort,” Darcy answered, “but I thank you for the heroic charge to my defense. I fear that I was thinking aloud.”

  “Thinking! All that racket was thinking?”

  “Aloud, yes.”

  “Thinking.” Fitzwilliam’s dubious regard almost put him to the blush again, but he stood firm. “Fletcher told me that you had gone out for a walk and was mum as the dead on where this walk was to take you. Now I know it was not in that direction.” He pointed behind him. “For that is the way I took until it was obvious that you had not chosen it. Which leaves only that direction.” He pointed beyond Darcy. “Unless you went blazing a new path.” The Colonel eyed his cousin narrowly. “It appears to my admittedly simple military brain that you are dressed uncommonly fine to be cutting new paths through Her Ladyship’s grove, leaving me to conclude that you have been to Hunsford already this morning!”

  “Yes, that is true,” Darcy confessed but said no more.

  “And the ladies were at home and in good health this fine morning, Cuz?” Richard cocked a brow at him.

  “Yes, all are in perfect health, I can assure you.” Darcy smiled back innocently.

  “Which prompted you to thinking — aloud, as it were?”

  Darcy returned his cousin’s questioning stare with a calmness of mind that he knew would infuriate him as little else could do.

  “My dear Cuz,” Fitzwilliam drawled, “it would give me no end of pleasure to plant you a facer for depriving me of a most agreeable visit this morning, and I would gladly do it if I did not fear spilling your blood over this new frockcoat of mine!” He tugged again at the front corners of the garment but then paused, a wicked smile slowly lighting up his face. “But I shall have my revenge for your taking leave this morning to visit without me! I have here” — Fitzwilliam patted his chest, surprising a rustling sound from underneath his coat — “a packet of letters that arrived express after you left. From London.”

  “Georgiana!” Darcy immediately regretted his teasing. “Here, Richard, you must give it me at once!”

  “Oh, must I?” Fitzwilliam laughed, placing his hand protectively over the place where it lay.

  “Richard!” Darcy breathed his name menacingly, then all of a moment threw down the malacca, sent his hat after it, and unbuttoned the first button of his frock coat. Suddenly, the idea of a brawl with his cousin was very appealing. It answered more than one sort of agitation he had suffered this morning.

  “Fitz, what are you doing?” Fitzwilliam took a step backward.

  “Obliging you, if you can get over my guard.” The second button was undone as he spoke, and Darcy started on the third. “But I suggest that you follow my lead if you are concerned about blood!”

  Darcy refolded the letters carefully and, without thinking, reached for the delicate ivory knob of the desk drawer before being brought up short by the sudden pain. Grimacing, he drew back slowly, a low groan whistling through his clenched teeth. Richard had a damned punishing right! The purplish bruise on his midsection would be a week in healing, but he discounted the annoyance as well worth the satisfaction of not only denying Fitzwilliam his “facer” but also prevailing so thoroughly in their contest that he had forced the surrender of the letters under the most favorable of terms. Darcy smiled at the memory of Richard’s protests and petulant agreement to those terms, but it faded as his regard returned to the letters still in his hand. One, indeed, was from Georgiana. Her precise script had arrived once more wrapped in a letter from Dy Brougham, sent express by His Lordship. Although it was wise to open Dy’s letter first, he had set it aside immediately, broken the seal on that of his sister, and settled in as comfortably as he might to give it his full attention. It opened with her best wishes for his health and that of their cousins and aunt, and continued on with an account of the extension of her studies beyond music.

  My Lord Brougham has been so kind to suggest other books worthy of my perusal and has undertaken to better my understanding of art as well. To that end, we read together often and attend exhibitions and lectures of both historical and artistic subjects. You will also be happy to know, dear Brother, My Lord is not satisfied until I am able to ask intelligent questions of the subject at hand or I can answer his.

  “I am to be happy to know, am I?” Darcy frowned down into the delicate paper ba
lanced between his fingers. “The deuced hedge-bird!” What was Dy up to? This was doing it far too brown. He’d asked him to watch over her, not live in her pocket! Darcy had almost decided to send off a pointed note to his overly conscientious friend when a name farther down Georgiana’s letter caught his eye and sent a chill up his back.

  Her Ladyship begged an introduction of D’Arcy, who obliged her and presented her to me as the new wife of a friend of yours from Cambridge, Viscount Monmouth. Lady Sylvanie Monmouth was most attentive, asking about my music and other interests. She particularly asked after you, Fitzwilliam, and was desirous of knowing when you would be returning to London. I was about to inform her when Lord Brougham, who had gone to procure some punch, came upon us and had the misfortune of spilling one of the glasses on Her Ladyship’s gown, quite ruining it, I fear. Needless to say, Lady Monmouth was forced to retired to her carriage but promised to call upon me later this week.

  “Sylvanie!” Darcy closed his eyes. “Good God!” He had hoped rather than believed that Tris would keep her at one of his estates for at least a half year before daring the gossips of London. Nothing of the events at Norwycke Castle had reached those itching ears, but the Viscount’s hasty marriage was enough to set the London cats among the pigeons. More to the point, what did Sylvanie want with Georgiana? Why concern herself with an introduction to a girl who had not yet come out? That there was a purpose behind this contrived introduction, he had not a shred of doubt. Might she see Georgiana as a potential vehicle for her revenge for the death of her mother Lady Sayre? “Thank God, Dy was there!” Darcy blessed his friend, knowing better than to suppose the punch an accident, and reached for his letter.