by Emma East
She waited a moment, hoping her surprise didn’t show in the stiffness in her manner. Then, clearing her throat and trying to imitate the same casual tone he used, said, “I never expect idle chatter from you.”
“And I never know what to expect from you.”
She blushed, but didn’t know why it affected her so. It wasn’t exactly a compliment, was it? One could never anticipate the reactions of a wild animal, but one could reasonably predict the behavior of a neighbor. But his tone as he said it… that was the compliment. An awed tone, almost, like he couldn’t believe that she singled him out to receive her attention.
Elizabeth glanced up at him. “It’s a regret of mine too. That we didn’t learn more about each other. But it’s also strange…”
She hadn’t meant to say more and blushed. Darcy’s eyebrows rose. “What is strange?”
Elizabeth steeled herself. “It’s strange that another part of me feels like I know you almost as well as I know myself.”
Darcy’s gaze held a smile, one that she wished was on his lips. “Is it so strange, Elizabeth? Is it strange to… to know me so intimately when we have been wrapped up in each other from the moment we met? When I caught sight of you across that ballroom floor… and again in Meryton… I knew. I knew there was no untangling my fate from yours.”
Elizabeth tugged at the neck of her dress. The morning suddenly felt too warm, far too warm for comfort. How could he say such things so passionately when he could not speak a peep when she begged for something more from him? Was this an aberration of his character? Why did he have to speak such lovely sentiments after she had given up hope?
“Elizabeth?”
Oh, how she longed to hear him call her his kitten again.
She cleared her throat. “I… I don’t know how to respond.”
“Thankfully, I do not require a response. May I?” She jumped as his hand brushed the back of hers, and then lingered, and she stared up into his eyes to see that his gaze held only a gentle question. He would not be mad if she pulled away.
It was that, more than anything else, that made her accept. She watched as he entwined their hands, not quite believing it was her hand in his, like watching it happen to another woman. She waited, swallowing back a question, but he performed no other surprising, bewildering gestures.
She felt strangely detached from herself, there on the edge of the creek with Darcy loosely holding her hand. She wasn’t the Elizabeth cradling a broken heart. Now she was in a peaceful silence with a man she once hoped to love. It created a sense of openness within Elizabeth, and thus she felt more at ease to bring up the question that had been on her mind.
“I-I’ve been dwelling on something you said in London, and quite honestly I wonder whether I have made another erroneous assumption. What you said about Miss Honeyfield… Is she blackmailing you still?”
She had thought he fabricated the story to gain her sympathies and distract her from her justified anger. But it didn’t make sense, and the need for a rational explanation nagged at her. Why lie about such a thing? Who would create an elaborate fabrication and why?
Darcy’s brow furrowed and his gaze hardened as he looked out across the creek. “You need not be concerned. I will allow nothing to harm you.”
“I’m not concerned about that as much as you may imagine,” she said, squeezing his hand in a placating gesture. “But how long can you allow it to last? How long until it’s dangerous for you?”
“Until I can devise a way out of her clutches,” he said. “But I knew it might take time. It will be worth it.”
She hoped so, if only to remove the furrow from his brow. She hated to see him like this: stony and wooden, abused by a scheming blackmailer solely because of his good reputation. It didn’t seem fair when there were so many evil people in the world who did not receive what they deserved.
“I know you, Darcy. You’ll find a way around this—or through it.”
His stormy expression cleared when he looked down at her. “And how do you know that?”
“It’s obvious if you know how to look,” she said with a playful tap on his shoulder. Then she turned serious. “I know you’ll stop her even if you have to throw open the curtains on that whole enterprise.”
“You have a significant amount of faith in me.” He faced her and her chest grew tight at the look in his gaze. Not lust, nothing like it, but endearment and something else, something that made her feel like she was riding a runaway horse. His eyes, dark and unending, pulled her in and she had no hope of resisting. How quickly he could incite this need within her—this need to wrap her arms around him and breathe in his heady scent. They were so close, only inches from each other. The distance could easily be closed and they would again be wrapped up in one another, and it would only be natural to bridge that space. It would satisfy the part of her wishing to be in his arm’s again.
Darcy released her and pulled away.
“I must return to Rosings. I have dallied too long. Please give my regards to Mr. and Mrs. Collins.”
Her throat contracted as his expression closed off, wishing for just one more moment with that openness of expression in his manner. His posture as he walked away was stiff and poised. Poised, when she felt like he had just thrown her straight into a headwind. She wrapped her arms around her middle—a poor replacement for his arms—and watched until he disappeared from view.
What had that look in his eyes signified?
“Oh, he does this to test my composure!” she complained to the trees and the little creek. He would insist on disturbing her fragile equilibrium and make her, once again, dream of impossible things.
She sighed. And naturally, it worked.
Yet, he said earlier he meant to go to the village, and now he goes to Rosings. So perhaps the both of us are discombobulated by this chance meeting.
Chapter Twelve
A week.
Day after day did Darcy stand by and watch as Colonel Fitzwilliam escaped Lady Catherine’s iron stronghold to dash to the parsonage for Elizabeth’s company. When he returned, Darcy then had to listen to his cousin extol on the pleasantness of the company, the virtues of the lady in question, and absurd hopes. He hoped to head it off before Fitzwilliam could start tonight.
“You have often spoken about the joy you receive from her company,” Darcy said that night after dinner as they joined in drinks together, smoke curling in the air between them from his cousin’s cigar, “but you have yet to tell me about the joy she receives from your company.”
Fitzwilliam laughed. “Darcy, I hardly thought I would need to.”
Forcing a smile, he hid his revulsion in his drink. The thought of her smiling at him the way she smiled at Darcy, that light in her eye that gleamed when she caught sight of him across the room… the smile, the light, her laugh all dedicated to the wrong man.
Darcy lowered his glass and looked toward the great windows in the library. “I am teasing, Fitzwilliam. She would could do worse…” He considered his cousin. “Though not much worse.”
He barked out a laugh, setting his drink down on the table beside him with a clink of heavy crystal meeting wood. But his expression spoke of troubled thoughts.
“What is it?” Darcy asked. Despite himself, his body sat to attention at the sign that not everything was as idyllic as Fitzwilliam made it sound. He had hoped—no, he had worried that the infatuation was one-sided, but the time they spent together, taking walks every day and sitting, laughing together after every meal at Rosings she attended, told Darcy there was a mutual regard. He had spoken the truth to her at the creek. Elizabeth could not find a better, more honorable man than Fitzwilliam.
Fitzwilliam sighed and rubbed his hand over his mouth. Then, dropping it, he slumped backward on the settee. “She is very much so mum on the subject of the future. I fear there may be some competition.”
His hand tightened on his glass. “She told you this?”
“Not in so many words. But a man would have
to be blind to not notice when a potential love interest is, well, disinterested.” His head drooped toward his chest and he exhaled hard before lifting his chin. “It doesn’t give a man’s ego a boost, that is for sure.”
“She does not appear disinterested to me,” Darcy said, and flinched when he heard the sourness in his tone. He cleared his throat. “She never turns you away, for one.”
“Ah, she is polite,” he said with a shrug. “Ach, well. We shall see. Perhaps she is one of those delicate flowers who needs a little persuasion of a gentleman’s feelings before she will lower her guard. It is a smart tactic, in this day and age, when some men take advantage of those women who exhibit loose affections.”
“That is not Miss Bennet.”
Fitzwilliam blinked at Darcy’s sharp tone. Then, brow furrowed, he said, “I would never say so. She’s been the modest, sensible woman one could expect from a lady of her background.”
Darcy relaxed a fraction, though his tense shoulders stretched his jacket. He looked away, not wishing to reveal his thoughts.
“What about you, cousin?”
Darcy tensed anew. “What about me?”
Fitzwilliam pinned him with a look that said to not be foolish. “Where has your attention been of late? Your letters mentioned someone while you were in Hertfordshire, where Miss Bennet hails. Would this be regarding the eyelash fluttering, giggling Miss Bingley?” Darcy made a face and Fitzwilliam laughed. Then he waggled his brows. “Has your head been turned recently, cousin?”
“The letters I sent mentioned no one,” Darcy said with pursed lips. He would not have been careless, not when his entire life revolved around keeping his private life just that—private.
Fitzwilliam made a noise. “How I wish they had! I would like to see how you act when you meet the woman you decide to marry. I can’t even imagine how much you would struggle against it!”
Darcy frowned. “If I decide to marry someone, I assume there would be little internal struggle. After all, would she not be the one I decided on?”
Fitzwilliam waved him away. “Yes, but how much would you make everyone suffer before you decide? You have always been insufferable when it comes to decisions—land deals, investments, even where Georgiana spends her summers.”
“Insufferable? That’s hardly a recommendation for my decision-making skills.”
“Oh, you always make the right decision—”
“Nearly always,” Darcy said darkly. “My judgment has been less than stellar in some areas.”
His mind went back to the day he had walked in upon Georgiana and his old friend and near brother George Wickham. If he had been only an hour later… his sister’s life would have made a drastic turn. She would be shackled to a man who would abuse her naiveté all in the name of money. How he must have enjoyed spoiling her innocence, destroying all Darcy had taught her about the honor of society’s gentlemen.
No, his judgment was not perfect.
Fitzwilliam followed the current of his thoughts. The teasing expression faded from his eyes and he straightened. “Now, Darcy, no one who knew the situation would lay the blame at your feet. In fact, if they were, the responsibility would partially be mine. We both approved that charlatan to be her companion, and we both failed to see her for what she is.”
And I have acted as abominably as Wickham ever could—though at least my motive did not include monetary considerations.
Darcy wished he had poured a bigger drink. “We should return to the ladies.”
“As you wish,” Fitzwilliam said, sensing his cousin’s mood. He pushed off the settee at the same time as Darcy and then clapped Darcy on the shoulder. His gaze was calm, direct, and unavoidable. “But this bad mood of yours cannot only be because of the situation in London. That would never unsettle you as deeply as you are now.”
Darcy fumbled for a moment. “I don’t follow.”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “I’m only trying to convey my concerns, cousin. If you have need of me, to talk, to run an errand, to pass a love note to Miss Bennet—”
The blood rushed from his face. Darcy tore out of Fitzwilliam’s hold.
“A love note to—Fitzwilliam, I do not know what you are insinuating but—”
“I am insinuating nothing except the truth,” his cousin said, searching his face. Whatever he found there made his shoulders release a tension that Darcy hadn’t noticed. The corners of his lips turned up in the way they did when he caught onto a good joke, but his gaze lacked all humor. “It’s true, isn’t it? I wondered at your reaction when I first spoke about her, and again when she came to supper. I’ve been waiting for you to say something and yet you never would, you stubborn sod!”
Darcy jerked away and spun toward the window. He wouldn’t give Fitzwilliam the satisfaction of seeing his expression.
“There is nothing—nothing—between myself and Miss Bennet. She’s a relative of a friend and that is it.”
“Mm, I’m sure she doesn’t think of you as only an acquaintance,” Fitzwilliam said. “At least, it’s not what she told me when we had this same conversation yesterday.”
“What?” snapped Darcy, turning around.
Fitzwilliam shrugged. “I figured you would deflect—as you are now, I might point out. Miss Bennet was more accommodating when I spoke to her, though her protestations were not nearly as humorous as yours.”
Darcy stepped forward, crowding his cousin back toward the settee. Darcy’s voice was a low growl when he said, “And what did Elizabeth say when you accosted her with these silly ideas of yours?”
He smirked. “Elizabeth, is it?”
Darcy drew back, his mind reeling through the conversation. His eyes narrowed, but now he drew away, straightening. “A slip of the tongue. I knew her primarily as Miss Elizabeth while in Hertfordshire, when her sister was unmarried, if you recall.”
“If that is the story you wish to stick to,” he drawled.
Darcy wondered how he had never noticed just how irritating Fitzwilliam’s tone could be when he was in these supercilious moods. He scoffed and shook his head. “Whatever you may think, we are merely acquaintances. I doubt you even asked her about this ridiculous supposition you have.”
“Her reaction certainly wasn’t as entertaining as yours is.”
“I find it unlikely you would attempt to have such a conversation with her and I won’t bother with this foolishness anymore,” Darcy said. “It is obvious that you have made up your mind and will not be swayed.”
“Not when I’ve seen your face when I’ve spoken about wooing her,” Fitzwilliam called out to Darcy’s back. Darcy paused halfway to the door. “Not when I’ve seen her face when I speak about you. Maybe I haven’t spoken to her, but I’ve seen enough proof of her feelings for you. Feelings you must know about by now. But I wished to know if you returned them. For,” he continued, as Darcy slowly turned around, his cousin’s expression one of quiet determination, “if you do not wish to pursue her, then I have no qualms pursuing her myself. After selling my commission, my inheritance is more than enough to keep a woman of her background comfortable, and I do not take her as one to complain about the number of carriages she keeps.”
Darcy’s heart gave a hard thump in his chest. His ears filled with the sound of a howling wind, a wind created from his own heart’s fear. No, she wouldn’t care. Her family kept only the one carriage, and she seemed to hold no special regard for luxuries. Her favorite pastime was walking the fields and roads far and wide, and her figure bore the traces of that simple exercise.
Elizabeth would be happy with Fitzwilliam. She would be treasured and cared for with respect and kindness. He would not use her and abuse her good sense. Not like Darcy had.
“I…” Darcy began. The words stuck in his throat. He swallowed, but they stuck there, stabbing his throat painfully, like a fishbone swallowed accidentally. The howling wind was increasing in volume and he shook his head, trying to shake it away.
Fitzwilliam crossed the di
stance between them and grabbed his shoulders. “Do you love her, Darcy? And do not play me for a fool. We have known one another since we were babes.”
Darcy jerked out of his grip. “Do not presume to know the inner workings of my mind—”
Fitzwilliam’s expression hardened. “And what of your heart? What of your sympathy for the woman in the parsonage waiting for you to wise up and admit your feelings to her?”
Burning flames beat at Darcy’s chest. His lungs heaved, but he could not breathe past the fury and the heartache. The wind howled in his ears, howled for blood. He did not deserve this abuse. He had done everything he could, everything, and she had not believed him. She had said as much the other day by the creek. She hadn’t believed Darcy when he said he was being blackmailed, and yet he had done it all for her, so she would not become a pariah in the community.
The woman waiting in the parsonage for you to admit your feelings.
How had he not done so? He had practically shouted from the rooftops. He had been run off by his best friend because he couldn’t keep away from her. He had sacrificed his dignity and destroyed a damn axle so he could spend the night in her father’s home, just on the chance they could be together. He had herded his weak-willed acquaintances into Honeyfield’s clutches in order to ensure her safety. He had dreamed of her every night for months and months and now she was waiting?
Damn her, damn his cousin. They knew nothing of the strength of emotion he felt. His love for—
He had taken her hand beside the creek that day and since then had thought little of the pleasures she had brought him. Not in bed, not in the carriage that one afternoon, and not on a bench outside the mansion. He had thought only of how small her hand felt in his, how fragile, and how it felt to hold the hand belonging to the most attractive woman of his acquaintance.
He looked down now and watched his hand as he stretched out his fingers, remembering her tiny grip.
How would it feel to be free to reach for her hand at any time he wished?