Agreeing, Darcy turned towards his butler and dismissed him, relieved to note that when he told Elizabeth the letter was from Bingley, it could have easily looked as if he were speaking to his cousin who thankfully was the same direction behind her on the sofa.
Darcy nodded, and looking beyond her to his cousin said, “I am for bed, Richard.”
Richard fell back gratefully against the cushions, already half insensible again. “I say, good idea. We will ssshpeak of this . . . in the morn...” He ended with an inelegant snore to the empty room, Elizabeth and Darcy not having waited for the end of his speech to escape up the stairs.
Upon reaching his chambers, Darcy threw open the door and dismissed his valet who had entered when he heard Darcy come in. As soon as they were alone, Darcy broke the seal of the letter.
“Wait!” Elizabeth uttered, halting Darcy’s attempts to unfold the letter. When he met her eyes, she whispered, “I do not know what that letter will say, William. It may tell us what we fear most right now, and there is something I must tell you.”
The urgency of the matter faded away, and they were left with this feeling of being the only two in the world. Darcy allowed the hand holding the letter to fall to his side as his other came up to stroke across the space where Elizabeth’s cheek would be if he could feel it.
“Would that I could touch you!” he said with such anguish that Elizabeth closed her eyes in agreement, a single tear escaping and rolling down her cheek.
“William, no matter what that letter says, I would have you know that . . . that I love you.”
* * *
Mr. Bingley paced the length of his library at Netherfield, his features awash with worry and his amber hair disordered by the many times he pulled his fingers through it. He agonized for Darcy and worried for his friend’s reaction when he read the letter he had sent express post.
Sitting abruptly in the nearest chair, Bingley allowed his head to fall into his hands. He knew what it was to long for, desire, and love a lady he could not have. He knew what it was to anguish over her. He had only recently regained some hope for his own future with Miss Bennett. And now he was the one to break the news to his best friend. News that revealed, quite possibly, that Darcy might never see Elizabeth again in this life. Bingley had learned when he called upon Longbourn of the unfortunate accident that left Miss Elizabeth unconscious for almost a se’nnight now. Though her family were optimistic, he had questioned his housekeeper and learned the general belief in the neighborhood was that it was just a matter of time.
Chapter 14
“Dearest, loveliest Elizabeth,” Darcy breathed, amazed at what he had just heard her say. His eyes roamed her features again to look for confirmation there of the declaration. It felt as if he were dreaming to hear such words.
“When?” he asked in a state of happy incredulousness.
Blushing, she said, “I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation, though not too long ago; I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.”
“Can it be true?” Darcy brushed the back of his hand down her cheek, trying to imagine the softness he could not feel, but knew existed.
“It is true, whatever that letter says.”
Both looked down at the letter in his hands, fearful once again of its power over their futures. Darcy slowly lifted it again and with a silent agreement from Elizabeth, opened it.
After watching Darcy read for many minutes, and seeing his brows pulled together in what looked to Elizabeth to be confusion, she spoke. “What has Mr. Bingley to say?”
Darcy shook his head in a jerking motion, frustration affecting his voice as he groaned. “Never in my life have I wished more that Bingley would learn to write properly. He leaves out half his words and blots the rest! And now when I must know what he writes, I cannot make anything out of it.”
The strain of the moment caused Elizabeth to laugh eerily as she reached a hand out for the letter. “Allow me, if you please.”
As Elizabeth touched the edge of the parchment, thus releasing its contents to her awareness; the essential communication of the letter also became clear to Darcy. Both stilled as the intelligence dawned on them and flooded their thoughts. Meeting each other’s eyes, they held perfectly still for some time in contemplation of the letter.
“You really are Elizabeth — ”
“I am not dead — ”
Speaking at once together, they both looked at the news of Elizabeth’s accident in different manners. To say that Darcy was relieved to know that his Elizabeth had not died in a carriage accident, though lying insensible in a coma, would have been a colossal understatement. Still his concern was great to learn of her accident and injury. If strictly examined, he would have to say relief was most prominent, considering how he had agonized that she had died when first hearing her memories.
However calmed he was by that news, he could not be insensible to the undeniable proof that this visage, this wonderment before him that he had thought was only a figment of his imagination was in truth Miss Elizabeth Bennet, the lady to whom he had lost his heart and mind. Until even then, despite her returned memory in the study, he had held some belief there was some other explanation that allowed her not to be the real Elizabeth, thus making it permissible for him to justify any manner of impropriety in his actions. The implications of her actual presence with him over the past few days hit Darcy with a force strong enough to make him look about the room for a place to sit.
His thoughts raced through recent events, the words he had said, the indelicate conversations spoken and behaviors showed. The impropriety of it all wrapped Darcy in a gulf of great mortification. Though he could not regret the emotions or words he had expressed to Elizabeth, knowing that she was not simply a product of his imagination made those declarations unseemly under this new insight. His eyes grew wide as he contemplated that even now he occupied his bedchambers with the real Elizabeth Bennet. Groaning, Darcy covered his face. Why am I forever making a fool of myself around this woman?
Elizabeth was too elated with the intelligence the letter offered her to pay any heed to the alarm spreading across Darcy’s features. For her part, she was thrilled to know that everything she had felt had been real. She was correct in her convictions that she had not died and instead was only unconscious. Troubling as that fact was, she was utterly delighted with the knowledge that there was still hope for her. Hope for them.
“William! Is this not wonderful news? I am alive, and fate has somehow brought my spirit here while my body heals.”
Darcy did not react at first, his feelings too close to the surface to speak at first. Her use of his Christian name now filled him with guilt, knowing that, if he had just listened to her when she told him she was real, he might not feel this burden of knowing that he had acted with such indecorum. It also confirmed she had not yet realized the implication of their situation. At least in that he could be grateful because he thought that, once she considered their time together over the past couple of days — gah, the fencing! — she would scorn his ungentlemanlike behavior. Remembering his roguish words and looks caused Darcy to groan again as he fell back in the chair and stared at the ceiling.
Elizabeth paced the room with jubilant energy. Unlike Darcy, her thoughts were on the future, rushing to make a plan for getting her spirit back to Hertfordshire where she was sure she could somehow reunite with her body. She did not know the method, but she was certain that together they could discover how it was to be done.
“Of course, we must somehow get you close enough to where my body is for me to . . . ” Her jumbled words fading away as another thought took its place. “That will be tricky, especially if they have me in my chambers . . . ” She laughed with glee as the hope and excitement of resolving their current state of being surged through her. “I wonder if we might slip away at some point, perhaps when you take tea with the family . . . ”
Darcy slowly became aware of Elizabeth�
�s mumblings. He sat watching the fire in her eyes light up her face, adding radiance to the rest of her smile. It caused him to yearn for her in a way that caused his self-castigation to begin anew.
“Miss Bennet.” Elizabeth stopped and turned her bright eyes towards him, a bemused expression on her face for his formal address. The whole of her beauty caused him to swallow loudly. Suddenly the knowledge of her being the actual Miss Elizabeth Bennet in the flesh — well not exactly but metaphorically — seemed to catch Darcy’s tongue. He was amazed and startled to find his previous ease in speaking with her had left him. A touch of shyness consumed him as it had in Hertfordshire, and the words he had intended to speak were gone.
“Yes, William?” Elizabeth prompted.
Darcy cleared his throat, stood, and straightened his waistcoat. Suddenly, he was wishing for his tailcoat as his state of dress struck him as being highly improper. “I think I ought to retire for the evening. May I show you to your room?”
“Oh, of course. If we are to make an early start, you must rest,” she said compliantly, turning towards her chamber door but spinning once again to face him as another thought crossed her mind. “You called me Miss Bennet?”
Darcy halted only once he reached the door separating the two chambers. He closed his eyes, his hand resting on the doorknob and drew in a deep breath before answering. “Indeed, madam. With our most recent discovery, I thought it only proper.”
Elizabeth, much to Darcy’s concern, did not move through the threshold to her own chambers. Instead, she crossed her arms about her body and frowned at him, holding her ground.
“You thought it proper, did you?” She huffed, trying not to feel offended or hurt by his formality in address.
She had grown accustomed to informality and could not like the reversal. Her hope for their future tilted slightly with the evil idea that now weaved into her thoughts like a disease. Now that he knew she was the real Elizabeth, he might not care for her in the same manner or to the same degree as before. Perhaps his previous reservations would hold sway again with him. His immediate actions shown now sickened her with the dread of that possibility.
“Eliz . . . Miss Bennet. It has been a trying day for both of us, and I fear that the knowledge of my actions towards you this week has . . . well I am ashamed to think of them.”
“I see,” Elizabeth spat. Anger was easier to hold on to, helping her to keep her troubled feelings at bay.
Darcy could see that he had offended her and, though he did not wish to anger her, could think of no other way to explain his feelings.
Elizabeth now could not hide the hurt she felt and quickly walked towards the door he held for her. Her voice remained steady, for which she was grateful, as she said, “Then I suppose it is fortunate that tomorrow you shall be rid of me directly we reach Hertfordshire.”
Darcy startled at her words, confused by the vehemence with which she delivered them, and troubled at the idea that he might “be rid of” her. His heart softened, and before he could check himself, he spoke mellifluously to her retreating back.
“It is not my wish to be rid of you.”
Elizabeth paused, her back to him. Swallowing the emotion she felt choking her and blinking at the tears she felt burning her eyes, she whispered, “Then why do you speak as if you do, Mr. Darcy?”
Darcy was physically affected by her return to formally addressing him. He stood straighter, his head jutting back and his eyes blinking. It made him realize how much he disliked the sound of his name, his formal name, coming from her lips, especially after knowing the sweet pleasure it was to have her call him “William.” Dislike it as much as he did, that did not change that it was correct. He would just have to accept that. At least her back remained to him, making it easier for him to find the words.
“It is difficult, Miss Elizabeth, for me to assimilate the knowledge of your actual presence here with the memory of my actions toward you this week. Had I behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner . . . ” he allowed his voice to fade, hoping she understood now how heartily he wished he had acted with more decorum.
Elizabeth turned slowly towards him, her eyes stormy. “Do you regret spending this time together?”
“Not in the least, just the manner in which I acted towards you. I acted in ways, said things . . . ”
Elizabeth steeled herself, unconsciously wrapping her arms around herself as a protection, before speaking. “You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are no longer what they were earlier this evening, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged, but one word from you will silence me on this subject forever.”
Darcy’s eyes bulged with the realization of what she was saying and feeling. Stepping closer to her, he immediately uttered, “I still love you if that is what you are asking. That has not changed.”
“Then why are you so altered?”
Darcy sighed. “Miss Elizabeth, I had thought that you were part of my imagination. I did not withhold words I ought to have when there was no understanding between us. I have spoken of your beauty, of your charm, in an unguarded and improper manner. You are as yet standing in my bedchamber, while I am not formally attired. All of these things are not proper and it is my duty as a gentleman to do you the honor of behaving better than I have — than this.”
Elizabeth now understood his distress, though not agreeing entirely with his stubborn resolve to change that behavior. They had decided that theirs was a unique circumstance and thus required a unique distinction of what was considered proper. She was irritated with him and thus allowed him to see it as she stepped closer to him, following him again when he automatically stepped backwards to maintain a proper distance.
“You listen here, Mr. Darcy, I do not see the past few days the way you do. Had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner, I may not have seen the gentleman you are and might not have come to love you.”
The force of her words melted some of Darcy’s reserve, warming his heart again the way it had the first time he had heard her share her feelings for him. Still, the discovery of her true being was fresh in his mind and his indelicate behaviors ripe in his memory. It was a strange juxtaposition because it was his love and respect for her that caused him to wish to honor her by behaving more the gentleman now that he discerned she was real.
Elizabeth felt relief as she witnessed Darcy’s face soften before her. He looked at her now in the way to which she had grown accustomed over the past few days. She watched as he lifted his hands to run through his hair, drawing her eyes to the shape of his strong arms and shoulders. How she longed to care for this man in a way she was incapable of now.
“Miss Bennet.” He shrugged at her raised brow upon hearing his continued use of her formal name. “Let me be clear. I have cherished every moment of these days with you, and other than being rather embarrassed to have been so candid with you at times — a man must have some pride — I am pleased to have had you here.”
“I assure you that I understand your reasoning for acting so stupidly right now — ”
“Stupidly?”
“Yes, sir. Stupidly. We have declared ourselves in front of your relations and been found in a compromising position, sir! Are we not beyond certain rules of propriety?”
Darcy smirked at her words. “You know as well as I do, Miss Bennet, that Colonel Fitzwilliam could neither see nor hear you.”
Elizabeth returned his smirk. “Nevertheless, you seem to feel the need to act in a manner more suited to what society would demand of a gentleman towards a lady, despite the fact that society cannot, at present, see me either. I, however, being the only one who can witness your impropriety, do not protest it. Thus, sir, pray tell me, you are not acting stupidly.”
Darcy chuckled softly, more in love with her wit and humor than ever before. He bowed to show his acquiescence. “You are, as ever, right, madam.”
Elizabeth turned to walk towards her room, and shaking her hand, pointed a finger at him over her shou
lder. “Nay, sir. Right and beautiful.”
“Indeed, very much so.”
Darcy smiled broadly, pleased to see that, despite the past few days, he still had the ability to make her blush and surprised to find that he also had the desire.
“Get some rest, Mr. Darcy.” Elizabeth said his name cheekily. “We are for Hertfordshire in the morning.”
Darcy watched as she slipped through the threshold. He stepped forward and closed the door, lifting a hand to rest upon its surface. He turned around and leaned against the door, surveying his room, his eyes resting on the new location of his bed. He knew that it was proper and only right that he should adjust his behavior towards her now that they both knew the true state of their situation; however, he could not ignore her words. As a gentleman, he reasoned, I would need to respect the lady’s wishes.
Darcy grinned at the thought. Elizabeth certainly did not wish for him to act so properly around her, and frankly, he did not relish the distance such behavior necessitated between them, both physically and emotionally. He decided he could give up the liberty of calling her by her Christian name as a compromise towards propriety. Confirming his resolve, Darcy nodded to himself. Before retiring for the evening, he summoned his valet to instruct him to prepare his trunks for departure the next day. He had thought of censuring the man for disregarding his privacy earlier with Richard, but knowing his cousin’s talents with interrogation, the manservant may not have had much of a choice.
* * *
Elizabeth sat forward on her side of the carriage and eagerly looked out the window for the first recognizable signs of her beloved home county. Her excitement bubbled out to her companion who laughed frequently at her childlike glee.
“I am glad to see that you have come to your senses this morning, William. You are much more attractive when you smile and laugh than when you are so very serious.”
Darcy lifted a single brow at her words. His amusement, though, could not be hid. “I am glad to hear it, Miss Bennet.”
Haunting Mr. Darcy Page 19