Chapter 3

3

H e had been walking only a few minutes when she spoke. “You have made an enemy of me, Mr. Darcy.”

He felt her words whispering against his neck. How lucky his cravat was stuffed in his pocket.

“I suppose so.” He wanted to smile, and this time, he did not hold back. Although he felt terrible that his movements caused her misery, his admiration for her was higher than it had ever been for a lady.

“Does the thought of having me at enmity with you bring you joy?” she asked.

“That it does.”

“You are a strange sort of man, sir.”

“You think so?” His smile grew. “I believe I have in my arms a strange sort of woman.”

“Whatever do you mean, Mr. Darcy?”

He discerned her incredulity as he felt her brow furrow against the side of his face. Only then did he realize she would have felt his cheek move with his earlier change of expression. She did not need the light of day to know he had been happy at her words.

He shifted her weight as they cleared the lake trail and started up the long incline to the house. Involuntarily, or so he assured himself, he pulled her even closer. Darcy forced his mind back to their conversation.

She felt wonderful in his embrace. He sighed, determined again to strive to regain control.

“It is a simple matter of reviewing the facts, Miss Elizabeth.” Again, he felt her brow move and imagined her lifting the right one as high as possible. At her groan, he asked, “Are you well?”

“You do realize that if my stomach erupts like Vesuvius, you will have a front-row seat to my humiliation, sir. My head is pounding, and I long to be stationary. The trees above us are spinning in circles. Other than those particular maladies, sir, I am well.” She gasped as he stepped into a low area hidden in the shadows of the fading light, the movement jarring her against him. She whimpered. “However, you must know that the memory of our acquaintance is becoming clearer with each passing second. Our past has been turbulent. Would you not agree? However, your good deed in rescuing me is saving you. You were saying?”

A fleeting thought crossed his mind of how most females of his acquaintance would have reacted to being jostled with a knot almost the size of a large hen’s egg on the back of their head. He shuddered at the thought.

“I apologize for my misstep just now and for my poor conduct in the past.” He felt more than heard her soft voice whisper for him to continue. He understood how distraction could temper the pain. “When we were at the lake, I apologized for my comments at the assembly, and I explained why I should not have been in company on that particular evening.”

“I clearly remember the insult. Your explanation I do not recall, sir.”

He heard the regret in her voice.

She continued. “I would have appreciated hearing your attempts at an adequate explanation.”

“Well, Miss Elizabeth, whether I was thorough in repenting of my sins, I know not as you were not conscious. Had you been, I have no doubt you would have expressed your studied opinion on the matter with vigor.”

“Sir, you should be thoroughly repentant of your sins whether I heard you or not.”

“I will not deny that you speak the truth.” He stepped around a narrow ditch. “You claim to be set against me. Nevertheless, what I do know for certain is that you have not been able to ignore me the whole of the time you have been at Netherfield. Your attempts to unsettle me by engaging in debates indicate more than words that you are not averse to me. Yet you hereby proclaim yourself my enemy. Do you not find that strange?”

“Averse? You believe that my arguing my opinion indicates that I do not strongly oppose you? You are the strange one, sir.”

He felt her stiffen. She inhaled swiftly as he began the long, arduous climb to the house. The uneven ground would cause her to suffer unduly if she was not preoccupied. A fine rage towards him would accomplish the task.

“I called you intolerable at the assembly. You heard my insult.”

“Mr. Darcy! I cannot believe you would bring this up after you claimed to have made an adequate apology.”

“Does it count if I claimed it when you did not hear it?”

“Mr. Darcy,” she hissed. He hoped it was from irritation rather than agony.

“Fitzwilliam.”

“Sir?”

“My given name is Fitzwilliam George Alexander Darcy.” His heart ached with her pain, but his mind rejoiced to have this private time together. “When my cousin or my sister long to vent their frustration against me, they use my full name. You have my permission to do so as well.”

She huffed, and feeling her smile, he marveled at her unexpected good humor.

“I would imagine it would be a regular occurrence. Was it something you heard from your parents as well?” she asked.

“For a certainty. From my father far more than my mother. Though only when I was young.”

There was silence as she likely pondered his disclosure. He felt her sigh.

“I am Elizabeth Rose Bennet when my mother is vexed. My father rarely refers to me as anything other than Lizzy. With that said, I believe that under normal circumstances, I would not hesitate to vent my anger against you, Mr. Fitzwilliam George Alexander Darcy. However, there is a blacksmith with a large hammer and an inferno burning between my eyes along with a butter churn in my stomach, which should give me leave to postpone my castigation against you for a more favorable time.” He felt her nostrils flare against the side of his cheek. Then he felt the dampness of her tears on his neck. “You have the looks of a gentleman, though your speech at the assembly declared you to be anything but. Nevertheless, your actions today reveal to me a different man than the one I assumed I knew prior to arriving at Netherfield Park. Something I also must consider is that I claim to be a lady even though my hems were six inches deep in mud, and I dare to refuse to defer to you solely because of your position in society. While I have castigated you to my family and friends, what does that say about me?”

“Do not dare try to remove the weight of error from my shoulders and attempt to transfer it to your own, Elizabeth Rose Bennet. Doing so is wrong on every level. The guilt is my own.

Once she was safe and settled and after she recovered and returned to Longbourn, he would move heaven and earth to learn from his mistakes, to be the gentleman he was supposed to be.

“Oh, Jane. Prepare yourself for something dreadful. I cannot know what you will think of me once I tell my tale.” Sitting on the bed next to her sister, she wove her hand through the crook of Jane’s arm. “Yesterday afternoon, I went for a brisk walk around the lake. Unfortunately, in my haste to get through the mud, my feet slipped out from underneath me. I hit my head on a rock, rendering me unconscious. Mr. Darcy found me. We were too far from Netherfield Park for him to yell for help. After carrying me to the house, he requested that Papa come quickly. Of course, since you were already ill, Papa feared the news that your condition had worsened. You can imagine how shocked he was to find me in bed with a large lump at the back of my head. Mr. Darcy was pacing in the corridor. Within my hearing, Mr. Darcy requested to speak with Papa in private. I suspected that he would sacrifice his happiness by offering for me out of duty. You know that I will never marry without love and respect. Neither should he. Because of this, I begged Papa to allow Mr. Darcy to be in my presence so I could listen to his demands.”

“You did not.”

“Yes, dear Jane. I was frustrated with Mr. Darcy’s need to make things right in his own way without asking for my preferences.” Standing, she moved to the window seat. “As I expected, he insisted that I was compromised and that, since he was a man of honor, we would wed.”

Jane leaned closer. “What happened then?”

“I reminded him that Caroline Bingley would take every precaution to stop any gossip spreading about a possible compromise since it would ruin her own goals to become Mrs. Darcy. Her family, including Mr. Bingley and his servants, would support her. Thus, we should be able to escape the repercussions of our being alone together and his rescuing me. As well, I might have mentioned that he was the last man on earth that I could be prevailed upon to marry.”

“No, you did not!”

“I did.” Elizabeth picked at the fabric of her skirt. “Jane, I was in pain. I was frightened for my future. It was only later that I realized how kindly he treated me after my injury. The fact that his honor required him to offer for me despite how low my situation was compared to his, engendered respect, something I never thought I would feel for him.”

“Do you love him?”

Elizabeth did not hesitate to reply. “I cannot say that I hate him anymore. At least not as much as I once did. He…he is the sort of man that…well, I cannot seem to find the words to say how I feel. As you are aware, respect is important to me. Where I will confess that there are a few things about Mr. Darcy that I like, I can say with absolute truth that I do not love him.”

Jane grinned. “It must have been divine to be carried in his strong arms around the lake. Even with your figure being light, the task was arduous, something only a well-muscled man could have achieved.”

“Jane Anne Bennet!”

“Lizzy Bennet, do not be shocked. I have imagined being swept off my feet after I marry. What if the gentleman was not physically strong enough to lift me? I would die of embarrassment, and he would be ashamed. You know, there is something to be said about a handsome face, strong arms, long legs, and broad shoulders. Mr. Darcy is a handsome man, who is all man from his wavy dark hair to his Hessians.”

Elizabeth’s blush warmed her skin. “I do not want to think of him that way, and you should not think of him that way either. After all, you are interested in Mr. Bingley, are you not?”

Jane nodded. “I understand. I will leave off complimenting Mr. Darcy’s form. Especially since I already experienced how powerful Mr. Bingley’s arms were when he helped me from the drawing room to this chamber.”

“Jane! You said nothing to me about this.”

“I know. And I should have, but it is the sort of thing I will forever hold dear in my heart. Lizzy, you cannot say that Mr. Darcy’s strength did not make you feel cherished. Unless he was rough about carrying you, there is something very special about being cosseted and protected by a kind man’s arms being about you. Did you not feel the same?”

Admitting her feelings to Jane was difficult, a new feeling for Elizabeth. Typically, they shared everything. “I did.”

“Lizzy, you should know that you were correct about there not being any talk since I heard none of this. Not even a whisper, and you know how much our mother loves to gossip. Since yesterday, I have had an abundance of visitors besides Mama, Mary, Kitty, and Lydia. This morning, Charlotte, Maria, and Lady Lucas came to Netherfield Park to inquire about my health. Additionally, Mr. Bingley’s sisters spent considerable time with me, asking many questions about your character. Of course, I gave them a glowing report.”

“I thank you for your reassurance, dear sister.” Elizabeth climbed back on the bed to sit next to Jane. “My head is throbbing. My vision is better today than it was yesterday. But I feel somehow…I do not know…bereft?”

“Do you love Mr. Darcy, Lizzy? Do not overthink the question nor prevaricate. Do you love him?” Jane rarely pressed Elizabeth for anything, yet this time, she was insistent.

“I no longer hate him,” was her most honest reply.

“Well, that is a good start, I think.” Jane mused, “I wonder how he feels about you?”

“He has to hate me for refusing his offer, I suppose. But Jane, I just could not accept him. I have nothing to give him that he does not already have in abundance. I certainly respect him, as I already mentioned. Nonetheless, our acquaintance has had so many low moments that this one event might be the anomaly. I simply do not know him well enough to give him my affection. Mama told me that Mr. Bingley plans to hold a ball in two weeks. Papa insisted that I would not be healthy enough to attend.”

“Never give up hope, Lizzy.”

She wished she could be more like Jane, but to Elizabeth, hope never came easily. In their small circle in Hertfordshire, disappointment was far too common. She doubted she would ever see Mr. Darcy again.