Chapter Fourteen

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

IT WAS ON the morrow, when Elizabeth was accompanying Jane for her first lesson on the piano-forte, that she became aware of Mr. Darcy's presence, for they walked up to the house, and his carriage was there and he was disembarking.

Charlotte had walked with them to Rosings. She knew how to play a bit better than Elizabeth, and it was determined that if anyone was to be a teacher of such things, it must be Charlotte, for Elizabeth would likely become easily frustrated trying to explain things, they thought. It was true that Elizabeth did not think she had much talent for teaching. She found that her own understanding of various processes tended to skip steps, thinking them obvious, but they were not obvious to other people.

So, it was her, Jane, and Charlotte who stopped to watch Mr. Darcy and his party disembark from the carriage. Mr. Darcy was accompanied by his cousin, the lieutenant or colonel, and his sister Miss Darcy. They all stopped when they saw Elizabeth and the others, though.

So, there they were, Mr. Darcy staring at her, and her staring back at Mr. Darcy.

Behind everyone, on the steps to the house, was what looked to be the entire household of Rosings—though Anne de Bourgh and Mrs. Jenkinson were noticeably lacking. Lady Catherine stood at the door, shoulders thrown back, waiting for her nephews to come and greet her .

But Mr. Darcy swerved and came straight for Elizabeth.

Elizabeth's heart beat faster and faster as he approached.

For his part, his expression seemed grim, almost miserable, as if he were in a great deal of pain. He stopped in front of her, hands clasped in front of him, and let out a labored breath.

She swallowed, looking him over, thinking about how much more enticing he was up close than he was far off. Thinking about—oh, awful things—Mr. Darcy reaching out and touching her face , of all things!

She was blushing. She knew it. She did nothing except lock her gaze with his.

The moment went on and on.

"Mr. Darcy," said Charlotte, finally. "We did not realize you were visiting Kent."

Mr. Darcy turned to Charlotte. "Miss Lucas—er, Mrs. Collins, actually, isn't it? I am sorry for the error."

"It's all right," said Charlotte. "We were not well acquainted in Hertfordshire, sir, but it is such a small world, is it not?"

"Yes," said Mr. Darcy and turned back to Elizabeth.

"So good to see you, sir," squeaked out Elizabeth.

"Yes," said Mr. Darcy.

A long, long silence.

In the distance, the sound of Lady Catherine's voice came through the air, but Elizabeth could not make out what she was saying.

Mr. Darcy turned his head. He turned back. "This is my cousin, Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam and my sister Miss Darcy." He gestured blindly behind himself. "It's quite good to see your sister again." He nodded at Jane. "Miss Bennet."

"Mr. Darcy, so good to see you," said Jane.

"Yes," said Mr. Darcy.

Another long silence.

"Well," said Mr. Darcy, clearing his throat. "Good morning."

"Good morning," echoed Elizabeth.

Another silence .

And then Mr. Darcy turned and walked back to the colonel and his sister. They all walked up the stairs where they engaged in conversation with Lady Catherine.

"Elizabeth," whispered Charlotte, "you did not tell me that Mr. Darcy is in love with you."

"Is that how men behave when they are in love?" Elizabeth whispered back.

All three of the women burst into giggles.

It must have been loud.

Everyone on the steps of Rosings turned to look at them.

"Oh," said Elizabeth, mortified, "let us go. Make haste. We shall all simply walk back to the parsonage."

"All right," agreed Charlotte, and they turned to walk back.

But Lady Catherine's voice carried behind them, shrill and loud, very understandable this time. "Miss Bennet, if you are come to play the piano-forte, you are most welcome!"

So, they felt as if they must go in after all that.

They approached and Lady Catherine praised Jane for her interest and commitment, and Mr. Darcy was looking at Elizabeth again, and so was the colonel, and Miss Darcy was, too, curiously, as if she could not quite understand what it was about Elizabeth, and Elizabeth agreed with her.

Finally, they were able to excuse themselves to go to the room with the piano.

They didn't get much playing done, for they were all breathless from laughing too hard. Had Mr. Darcy followed her there? Was he in love with her? Why did he stare in that fashion of his? If he were in love with her, why did he look as if it inconvenienced him so badly?

Eventually, they did get around to practicing some scales with Jane, who—it turned out—knew more of the basics than they might have suspected, having watched others play. She was quite aware of the names of the notes and their position on the keyboard, so it was only the matter of associating them with the notations on the musical staff, which simply took practice .

Elizabeth thought her sister would be playing better than any of them in no time.

MR. DARCY'S INTENTION had not been to bring his sister along to Rosings, for he and his cousin had planned a trip here before all of this had come to pass. It would have been later in March, and it would not have included Georgiana.

However, it now seemed that his sister was very likely in danger all the time, from the likes of Caroline Bingley. He perhaps couldn't protect her here from wagging tongues, but it felt safer to have her close.

What Caroline was up to these days, he did not know. He was not in contact with Bingley much at all anymore and he therefore didn't associate with Caroline either. He had run into Mr. Hurst at a dinner party a few weeks ago, but Hurst had only been interested in the whist tables and said that he did his best to ignore everything that was happening with his wife's family. That way, he said, lay madness.

Darcy could not help but agree.

Madness, indeed.

Richard, his cousin, had come straightaway when Darcy had indicated there was danger for Georgiana. He had a long leave, some months, and he was determined to have settled the matter before he left. All of his ideas for settling the matter, however, seemed to begin and end in violence.

He discussed threatening Caroline Bingley, and Mr. Darcy told him that was out of the question.

Richard demurred, saying he was obviously right, and that it was beneath him to have suggested it. But he had no other notions for how else it should be accomplished. He said he was not nearly as creative as he had been before the war. "Maybe I've become dulled by the sounds of cannon fire."

Anyway, at some point, he'd pointed out Elizabeth to Richard and explained the entire situation and Richard had gaped at her, gaped, and said, "Well, then, that's a girl to go to war over."

"Everything is war to you, isn't it?" said Darcy.

Richard had grimaced.

Darcy had repented of having said it.

"She's not pretty," said Richard. "When you first look at her, that's what you think. But then, you realize you have been staring at her for quite some time, that—in fact—you do not wish to stop staring at her."

"Exactly," said Darcy. "And you should speak to her. Speaking to her is even more like that. She's self-possessed and funny and full of a sparkling sort of wit. Nothing bothers her. She is unruffled and cheery. She's everything you could ever want in a woman and…"

"Oh," said his cousin. "I didn't realize you were in love with her."

"I am not," he said firmly.

Richard only laughed.

Anyway, they had not come to Rosings precisely because of Elizabeth.

Richard hadn't even made any teasing comments about Darcy and Elizabeth, either, which Darcy would have expected him to do. He would have expected Richard to mock him for chasing this girl across the country, this girl who was beneath him.

The fact that Richard didn't, well, that indicated to Darcy that there might be trouble.

He'd lost Bingley over this girl.

Was he going to lose his cousin as well?

Sometimes, Mr. Darcy was convinced that he hated Miss Elizabeth Bennet.

Why was she so very, very mesmerizing?

After the disaster of speaking to her upon arrival, he was ready to never see her ever again out of sheer embarrassment.

But Richard had other ideas.

He came to Darcy's room and poked his head inside. "You have been introduced to them? To the parson, too, yes?"

"Well, he spoke to me without an introduction on our first meeting," said Darcy. "But, yes, it's all very proper. You want to call on them, do you not?"

"Yes," said Richard with a grin.

Mr. Darcy did not have any desire to call upon them, not after everything. He also wasn't pleased that Richard was pushing this course of action, for it only meant that he'd been right about it all. Richard wanted her, too.

It was going to be Bingley all over again.

Bingley was smiling and loquacious. Richard was too. But more than that, Richard was charming and self-deprecating and capable of making all manner of jokes. He was witty. Elizabeth would like that.

Of course, Bingley had been more handsome than Richard. Upon first seeing Richard, one tended to dismiss his looks, but he was so charming that no one cared upon knowing him.

She is never going to choose me, he thought. Why have I come here?

On the other hand, Richard couldn't marry her. He wanted to marry money, and Elizabeth had none. Darcy found himself smiling. "Yes," he said, "yes, let us go and call on them now."

So, this was how they found themselves in the sitting room at the parsonage. The room was rather crowded, for everyone was there—Mr. Collins, Sir William Lucas, Miss Maria Lucas, both the Misses Bennets, and himself and Richard. There was barely enough room for everyone to sit down.

Richard started up some conversation or other. Richard could make anything exciting, even a conversation about the weather, and Darcy personally despised him for this.

But, to Mr. Darcy's great delight, Elizabeth paid Richard entirely no mind. Instead, she caught his gaze and held it. They looked at each other across the room, both silent, for the entirety of the visit.

A few times, someone spoke to her, and she had to be prompted to respond, but she always came right back to him, to looking at him, to smiling a little as she looked at him. He felt the way he always did, as if everything else went a bit muted, and she was the only thing in focus.

Usually, she disrupted his equilibrium badly, but today, for some reason, she steadied him. Looking at her made him feel better, all over better, just good.

Perhaps he conceived of the idea then. He was not certain. Perhaps it was later.

But he knew, at some point during the course of that first day at Rosings, that he was simply looking for his moment. He needed a time when he could reasonably expect to find her alone, and then he would come and speak to her, and he would ask for her hand.

He was going to marry her , damn everything.

ELIZABETH FOUND SHE had nothing to say when Jane spoke at length about Colonel Fitzwilliam. She realized she had been in the room with him and he had spoken a great deal, but that she had heard next to nothing that he had said. She had been entirely distracted by Mr. Darcy, though he had said nothing at all.

She supposed there was no way she could deceive herself about Mr. Darcy at this point.

Caroline Bingley said he was in love with her. Her brother had said it as well. Mr. Darcy did look at her in that way of his. And he'd possibly come to Rosings because of her.

It was true, then.

On the other hand, she didn't know if it meant anything. Mr. Bingley had told her that he did not think that Mr. Darcy would marry her, and she could not see a world in which he would either. From the first, she had thought that marriage between herself and Mr. Darcy would be viewed as a degradation to him. She didn't think he would stoop so low .

Furthermore, as fascinated as she must admit herself to be with Mr. Darcy, she was not entirely sure that she liked him.

If she hoped that she would have some chance to discover Mr. Darcy's character whilst they were both guests in Kent, she was disappointed in this manner.

For one thing, she and Mr. Darcy both seemed to be reliably tongue-tied whenever in each other's presence. For another, they were—of course—never alone, as it would not have been proper.

She took to walking with Jane over the grounds of Rosings in the mornings, and Mr. Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam began to appear with some regularity, joining them for their walks.

The colonel would speak to both of them, but Elizabeth would get her eyes full of Mr. Darcy's dark eyes and his mournful expression—because he always looked mournful, truthfully, always looked as if he had just suffered a terrible blow to his very soul—and she would get stuck on him, like always.

So, the colonel would speak and Jane would respond. At first, Jane would be quite soft and tentative, but the colonel had a way of teasing out Jane's voice, getting her to speak louder, getting her to laugh. Jane had a lovely laugh. It pealed over the grounds of Rosings in the early spring, and it made Elizabeth feel safe and pleased and excited about being alive.

Or maybe that was because she was so close to Mr. Darcy.

Sometimes, when they walked, their shoulders accidentally brushed. He would not jerk away when this happened. Their gazes would latch onto each other, and they would both draw in a breath, seemingly together. Then he would put some deliberate space between them. She knew he hadn't minded that they touched. He knew she hadn't minded.

Once, she was feeling daring and she brushed her hand into his. On purpose.

He sucked in a breath like a hiss, and she could swear he shuddered .

She bit down on her lower lip, meeting his gaze as she deliberately crossed her arms over her chest.

He started to reach for her. She swore it. But it was only the barest of movements, and he stifled it, shaking his head, just the barest of movements for that, too, as if he were scolding himself.

She dragged her upper teeth over her bottom lip and his gaze honed in on that part of her and then he looked into her eyes, and she felt as if she was falling apart, as if she were a flower, petals going everywhere because of a gust of wind, fluttering every which way.

Mr. Darcy undid her equilibrium.

She and Jane did go to Rosings to play the piano sometimes, too, but if she saw him, she practically ran away. A few times they did see each other and converse, but the conversations were awkward and stilted, punctuated by long silences.

So, there was no discussion between them. She was not able to ask him about the incident with Mr. Wickham, to ascertain exactly what had happened. She knew that Mr. Bingley had claimed that Mr. Darcy was innocent of wrongdoing, and she hoped, for her own sake, this was true, for she seemed to be badly enamored of this man, regardless of any practical elements of their possible pairing.

She thought about marrying him.

She didn't think he'd ask, but if he did, what should she say? She wished to accept him, obviously, if only because she wanted to get closer to him. Being close enough to brush shoulders was not nearly enough. When she thought of the idea of extreme physical closeness with this man, when she thought of shocking things like his being divested of his shirt or—heavens—his trousers, she felt tight and strange and eager. She wanted that. It was shameful, but there was some verse in the bible somewhere in Corinthians that said it was better to marry than burn. She didn't know if it meant burn in Hell or burn internally, but she was already burning internally for this man, so… better to marry, yes.

But it might be an altogether terrible idea, in the end. Why, say he was not innocent of wrongdoing with Mr. Wickham. Say he was, in fact, a jealous and petty sort of person who took revenge on people who were lower in status than him.

She would have liked to think that she wouldn't be so badly attracted to a person like that, but she barely knew Mr. Darcy, and here she was. She could not guarantee that she even had the presence of mind to evaluate his character.

Furthermore, what sort of wife would she be to him? Did she know anything about being part of his social strata? Could she host the sorts of dinner parties that he would wish a wife to host? Would she know how to buy the right sorts of clothes? Would she be hopelessly and wretchedly out of her depth if she married him?

Sometimes, and this happened often at night, she would be lying in her bed and staring at the ceiling and she would think about that awful thing that Mr. Bingley said, that word he'd used. Cuckold .

If she didn't have a husband, she couldn't cuckold him with anyone, of course, but what if Mr. Darcy only wanted her for… for that .

She was very frightened she would agree to it.

She wanted him.

She didn't even know what she wanted. She knew very little about any of it. But her body seemed to know, seemed to understand it all with a knowing sense of instinct that was steering her down a path toward this man. She was only frightened she was going to collide with him and they would both go up in flames.

He'd come out of it fine, of course. He was a wealthy man. She would not. And if he asked her, if he offered her, she'd not have the presence of mind to deny him. She was entirely dependent on his sense of honor, she was afraid. She could not speak in this man's presence. That was how badly he unsettled her.

One morning, Mr. Darcy did not appear on their walk, and it was only her and Jane with the colonel.

Except Jane's shoe got torn and she left them to go back to the parsonage. It was a long and involved argument, Jane insisting they walk on without her, and both of them loudly insisting that they must accompany her back to the parsonage, and it went on and on, but somehow, in the end, Jane prevailed.

Then, it was only Elizabeth and Colonel Fitzwilliam.

He smiled at her, his expression easy and relaxed. "I don't know that I've heard you say nearly so many words as you have this morning. So, it is my cousin who stills your tongue, is that it?"

She felt embarrassed and idiotic and settled on patently denying such a thing, even though it would ring falsely. "Certainly not!"

The colonel chuckled. "And your feelings toward my cousin? They are as fond as his are in regards to you?"

"I have no notion what your cousins feelings are in regards to me," she said. "If he has them, he has never said so. In fact, I should think he rather dislikes me. The faces he makes in my presence would seem to indicate it."

Now, the colonel laughed heartily. "Oh, dear, he was right about you, after all. I have been so flummoxed. ‘Her wit, her wit,' he said over and over. ‘To hear her speak, you will be dazzled.' And then, here you are, and no sign of this much-lauded wit anywhere."

"He said that about me?" She felt her heart squeeze painfully.

"Oh, dear, Miss Bennet, I rather begin to wonder if you even like my cousin."

She scoffed, unable to make an answer to that.

"Don't you, then?" The colonel leaned in, lowering his voice as if they were entering into a conspiracy together. "I shall tell you that I am most used to giving him his way. He always gets his way, you see, Miss Elizabeth, always. It is the way of rich men, after all."

" You are not a rich man?" she said, eyeing him.

"I'm a second son," he said. "I'm poor as a church mouse."

"Oh, yes, indeed, so very poor," she said. "Seriously, sir, what have you known of self-denial or true dependence?"

"Oh, home questions," he said, clutching his chest. "Well, it is not likely that I can marry where I choose, of course."

"No?" She raised her eyebrows.

"No, indeed. I have nothing myself to offer a lady."

"I suppose it would depend on what the lady considered nothing," she said.

"True," he said, and he looked away, smiling very widely.

She continued, in the same manner, "But I suppose it is not about the lady, really, it is about you needing her dowry to be kept in the manner you are accustomed. Pray, what is the going rate of the son of an earl these days, anyway? Fifty thousand pounds?"

"My, I'm expensive," he said, turning to look at her, his smile sliding away. "Do you like him, Miss Elizabeth, truthfully, do you?"

"I…" She was uncomfortable, now that there was no way to banter. "I don't know him. And I can't talk to him, so I don't see how I ever will know him." Someday soon, something wretched is going to happen between us, though, something frightfully improper.

"Marry me," he said.

She stopped walking, her body going cold.

He clapped a hand over his mouth, laughter leaking between his fingers. "Dash everything. I've said that aloud!"

She searched for words. Couldn't find them. Settled on shaking her head.

He dragged his fingers over his chin, still laughing. "All right, here we are, then. One word from you and I shall pretend that was a jest."

She couldn't say anything.

"Well, then." He reached out and took her hand. "It wouldn't be like with him. My family would think I had gone mad. That would be the same, actually, but, er, he would have things to console you from their frosty acceptance of you. Houses and servants and carriages and all manner of things. I'd have very little in the way of that. And I have to go back to France, but I swear they don't let me do anything dangerous, so I likely shall survive easily. But we probably shouldn't have very many children. Nothing to give them, nothing for them to inherit, you see. Maybe a girl, only a girl, just one? But you wouldn't mind, I don't think. Your situation, you would see it differently than a woman in my social circle. And you'd likely be quite good at being frugal, when necessary. And so, anyway, it might not be as mad as it seems, in the end."

She looked down at the place where their hands were joined. "Why?" was what she said.

"Why?" he repeated.

She furrowed her brow. "We don't know each other at all."

"Oh, well, he talks of you constantly," said the colonel. "So, I know you . I have been in love with you since that time we saw you in the park with Mr. Bingley. I thought then, ‘If that woman were mine, I would marry her already. Why is he dallying?' And we have been here weeks, Miss Elizabeth, and my cousin hasn't asked for your hand. What's he waiting for?"

"He won't marry me," she said. She licked her lips. "He hasn't… has he said that he would?"

"He…" The colonel pulled his hand back. "That blackguard. You don't think he's considering keeping you as a mistress or something?"

"I don't know him!" she cried out. She backed away, clutching at her own elbows, trying to fold in on herself. "I don't know what he would do."

"Marry me ," he said.

"I don't know you either," she whispered.

"You have the option of changing your mind, you know," he said. "Say yes, and we'll get to know each other, and if you don't like it, end it."

"Oh, that's… that's…" It seemed a dreadful thing to do, to lead a man on in such a manner. She backed away further. "You always talk to Jane ."

"Yes, your sister's very pretty and very pleasant," said the colonel. "No denying that. If I'd seen her first, maybe… but it was you, so… what do you say?"

She said nothing at all.

"Maybe think about it?" He grinned. "How long would you like? A day?"

She should simply say yes. Any other woman would say yes. The son of an earl, second-in-line, should anything happen to his brother he would have a title, and he was perfectly fine. There was nothing wrong with him at all. How could she turn down a man like that? "Indeed, let me think about it, please," she said instead, and fled.