23. Home

CHAPTER 23

Home

E lizabeth and Will took a great deal more time returning to the lodge than distance would suggest. Their path first took them past the village, long before the wagons and carts arrived along the laneway that curved around the rocky hillsides. But this was no time for a pint of ale at the tavern. They looked at each other with smiling eyes, and in unstated agreement, disappeared back into the forest whence they had come.

When, at long last, they did stumble, laughing, to the great front door of Coed-y-Glyn, Elizabeth had been quite thoroughly kissed, and had begun to expand her knowledge of matters between men and women. She was certain she would very much enjoy the rest of her education.

"Aha! The lovers have returned at last." Richard's voice emerged from the back parlour, followed in short order by the man himself. "We thought you had decided to walk back to England. Wherever have you been? No, no, do not answer that. It is nothing fit for my delicate ears. I suppose I ought to ask Mrs Lloyd for some tea and cakes. You will not have had your breakfast, and it is nigh on three o'clock! Mrs Lloyd," he called, "tea and cakes for the newlywed pair!"

He bestowed them with a cheeky grin and gathered Elizabeth into a brotherly hug. All traces of the soldier, serious and commanding, had vanished with the morning dew, to be replaced once more by the playful gentleman Elizabeth had first met.

"Tease me at your peril, cousin," Will growled, but his smile belied his words. "We have merely been taking the air in peace, a pleasant diversion after so many days looking over our shoulders or trapped within these fine walls."

"Indeed. I see by Mrs Darcy's high colour that your walk must have been invigorating. You must forgive me, Elizabeth. I am most pleased to call you cousin. Ah, and here is Bingley as well, awake and with us again at last. Well met, sir. Do you need assistance? You look rather like you have been through the wars."

Indeed, Mr Bingley appeared behind them, shuffling along from the direction of his chamber. He looked rather hard done-by; his eye was now an alarming mixture of blue and purple which would surely darken over the next few days, and he walked as if he were a hundred years old. He still wore the bandage around his head, although there was no trace of ice.

"No, indeed. I need no help from you," he replied in as cold a manner as Elizabeth had ever heard from him. "Blast, but my head throbs."

Will scowled at his cousin, but Richard was already leading them through the doorway into the large room. Jane was sitting on a low sofa, her fingers fussing at some piece of needlework Elizabeth did not recognise, her father at her side with a book in his hands. At their entry, she looked up and broke into a great smile as she met her sister's eyes.

"Lizzy!" she cried out, and leapt up to embrace her sister.

"Oh, Jane! My poor Jane! I am pleased to see you so well recovered from your ordeal. You look a great deal better than when we parted ways this morning."

"I am much recovered. I am quite back to myself." Jane now looked beyond Elizabeth to where Mr Bingley stood stiffly by the door, rather supported by Major Hawarden, who accompanied him. She greeted both men and bobbed a curtsey. Elizabeth thought she was about to say more, but Jane's eyes widened and she closed her mouth without a sound.

The major's glance was, once more, inscrutable, but Bingley looked completely miserable.

"Miss Bennet," the young man winced. "I believe… I believe I am to wish you joy."

"Sir?" Jane's lovely brow wrinkled in confusion.

"You and the colonel. I know what I saw. Or, I think I do. It is all a bit muddled. I am not quite certain how I got there, or how I got back, but I saw you… I saw you in his arms. He has been pressing his attentions on you this entire time, and I know when I am defeated. I shall return to Hertfordshire at once. Oh, that I had never left London!" He threw himself onto a chair in a black cloud of despondency, and then winced at the motion.

Richard looked like the puppet master who had set up the melodrama, ready to burst with suppressed laughter.

"I do not perfectly understand you, Mr Bingley," Jane replied. She had regained her outward composure, but Elizabeth knew her well enough to know she was most distressed. "We have known each other but a week; how can you imagine me to be engaged to the colonel?"

"Your sister and my friend are wed, and they have known each other for only a day or two longer."

"It is hardly the same—" Jane began, but she was interrupted by the colonel's laugh.

"Cousin," Will sighed. "It is time to end this game of yours. Enough of this nonsense. Bingley, whatever makes you think Miss Bennet is marrying my reprobate of a cousin?"

"He was embracing her. Or kissing her. Or… I am not entirely certain what, but it was more than just friendly. I bow before the better man."

At that moment, Mrs Lloyd entered with the tea trolley. Richard thanked her and sent her away with a gesture before moving to the centre of the room. He stood tall, an orator about to pronounce words of wisdom. And, perhaps, chastisement.

"In a moment, we shall toast the couple with tea, and perhaps brandy or wine for those who wish. But my cousin has it right. No more games. Bingley, whatever you think you saw, you were entirely mistaken. Miss Bennet had, only seconds before, been released by Wickham, who had been holding her at knifepoint. She was terrified and distraught, and I was there to offer immediate security. I also had something I needed to say to her, which saved our friend Darcy here. My affection for Miss Bennet is entirely platonic, for she is my new cousin's sister. I have no romantic intentions towards her whatsoever. I might be one for a bit of teasing, but I am not a man to toy with a lady's affections. My own heart has long been engaged elsewhere."

"What?" Bingley cried out before wincing again. Then, "Why did you make such a show of vying for her? That was most cruel. What if the lady had developed affections for you?"

"Ah, but you did not, did you Miss Bennet?"

Jane's eyes flickered down to her hands that lay demurely in her lap.

"I thought not," the colonel replied. "It was never my aim, and I had no thought of stirring your envy. My cousin has taken me to task for this already. I have often been accused of excessive gallantry, a habit I developed as a young man for… various reasons. It has become so natural, I do not think of it. Nor is it insincere; my aim is to please. That my intentions are, at times, taken amiss is unintentional."

He turned towards Mr Bingley, still ash-faced and squinting, a rag doll collapsed into his chair.

"I do apologise to you, sir. But when you bristled so at my every genuine entreaty as to Miss Bennet's wellbeing, how could I do anything but rise to the occasion? You offered me sport during a most tedious journey, and I, the scoundrel that I am, accepted. Mother warned me about this. Had you been more temperate in your responses, I should not have had so much incentive to play the cad. Forgive me, Miss Bennet."

Jane glared at him, an expression most unusual for Elizabeth's serene sister.

"That was poorly played, sir. My heart was not touched by your attentions, but you had no way to know that. Another might be truly injured by such actions. And I had wondered as to your motivation, for I knew it was a game of sorts."

"Let us say, Madam, that it is a habit I have developed as a form of armour to protect myself. Will that suffice? Will that be enough to claim your forgiveness?"

Jane's fixed stare did not waver. "I shall consider it."

"Who, may I ask," Elizabeth's father spoke up for the first time, "is this paragon for whom you would forsake even my beautiful Jane?"

His quip broke the tension in the room, and even Mr Bingley smiled.

Richard uttered a wry laugh. "Somebody of whom my family would disapprove in the most vehement of manners, leaving me—us—with nothing to live on besides my meagre soldier's portion. I beg you not to speak of it."

"She must be quite a woman," Elizabeth said. Will just shook his head with a deep sigh before exchanging an odd look with Richard.

"Then… then you are not engaged?" Mr Bingley's eyes all but bulged from his head. Or, rather, his good eye did. His purple eye remained mostly closed.

"We are not." Jane's voice was firm, but almost at once her entire demeanour softened. "You, Mr Bingley, were the hero. I saw you, in the church, fighting so valiantly against a much larger foe, one accustomed to brawling and heavy with his fists. But you fought so courageously, and you felled him." She rose and moved towards him, hands held out before her.

Mr Bingley opened his mouth to say something, but Jane spoke on.

"Even before I learned that thanks to you, he was captured and offered information that saved us all," she said, "I thought you were the bravest and most valiant man that ever I had met. You are my white knight."

Mr Bingley's face turned a shade of red that strove to match the violet of his bruised eye. "Oh, dearest Jane!" he burst out before clamping his jaw shut.

"Is there something you wish to discuss with me, young man?" Mr Bennet asked his new neighbour, a twist of a chuckle on his lips.

The afternoon was drawing to a close. Elizabeth's father had taken himself off to the library to write home with the news of the day, and Jane and Mr Bingley were walking through the gardens. Or, rather, Jane was walking. Poor Mr Bingley was shuffling beside her, a painful sight to see even through the windows that opened upon the scene.

Only Elizabeth, Will, and the two officers remained in the room. Major Hawarden seemed as easy in this reduced company as ever Elizabeth had seen him, and she wondered, not for the first time, if he was uncomfortable amongst those with whom he was not well acquainted. Much like her Will, she imagined. He, too, improved greatly with more familiarity.

The colonel, likewise, was well at his ease. It seemed that after his apology and rather incomplete explanation to Mr Bingley, he was able to let go of some artifice that had, until now, clouded his manner. Nobody else seemed dissatisfied with the colonel's excuse of a previous attachment, but Elizabeth could not quiet the questions that flooded her thoughts.

At last, she could temper her curiosity no more and had to ask.

"Colonel, if I may, I should like to know more of this paragon who has kept your heart from being touched by my sister's beauty." Her words were teasing, but she knew the colonel understood her meaning. "What sort of person is this, whom you would keep such a secret from all who know you, that you must flirt with unsuspecting women as a disguise?"

"And you know," Will joked, "disguise of any sort is an abhorrence to me. Although, here I must state I understand your choice."

Elizabeth eyed her husband sidelong. He knew!

"What sort of lady is she, sir? An actress? A foreigner? Surely not somebody French!"

A strange air settled in the room, and Elizabeth was puzzled by a series of glances between Will, the colonel, and even Major Hawarden. Of course, the major must be in on the secret. He seemed more than intimate with Colonel Fitzwilliam, and would know all there was to know about the man. But…

"Shall I, Will?" Colonel Fitzwilliam asked his cousin.

"Matthew?" He turned the question to his assistant.

Or was he? A glimmer began to form in Elizabeth's mind.

"This paragon, my dear Elizabeth, is such that no woman can turn my head."

"But shall I ever meet her? We are cousins now, and I would be pleased to welcome anyone beloved by you into my circle. Will I ever know this person?"

The colonel cleared his throat. "You already do."

Elizabeth blinked at him. Beside her, Will's face was a mask. Across the room…

"It is no woman, after all." It came out as a statement, not a question. "Am I to believe…? I shall not think poorly of anybody who can love under such strictures that make an announcement all but impossible. Indeed, while the notion is rather strange to me, it is not unknown. If you love this person, then I shall love him too."

Major Hawarden's stern face broke into a large grin, revealing a rather handsome man beneath the stiff exterior.

"Mrs Darcy, please call me Matthew."

Will turned the key in the lock and held open the door to allow Elizabeth to enter. "We do not need to return with your sister and father," he suggested as he then locked the door behind him and set the key down on a small table. "We managed the journey here very well by ourselves, and I daresay we can equally manage the one back. This time I can promise a comfortable carriage and good inns, rather than ruined churches and cave walls. Well, do you like it?"

He gestured around the room. It was not large; in fact, it was absolutely cosy. The small wooden table and chairs, two large, overstuffed armchairs, and a rather ugly sofa that looked like it had been there for fifty years, all but filled the room. A fire crackled in the grate, its flames warding off the evening chill, and the scent of rich red wine and spiced biscuits perfumed the air. Through a set of draperies uglier still than the sofa, and quite mismatched from them, the vista quite outshone anything a house decorator could manage.

"When one sees that panorama, one does not notice the furniture at all," Elizabeth joked, echoing his thoughts. "It is beautiful."

"Then it meets with your approval?"

"Indeed, how could it not? How strange, that after being forced into each other's sole company for a week and more, all I crave now is to be alone with you. It was generous of Richard to offer us this space."

"Generous, and wise. I rather demanded it from him, in the most ungentlemanlike terms." Will laughed, and Elizabeth's answering tones, rich and warm, filled the space with joy.

This small cottage, part of the estate, was where Will and Richard and their other cousins had come as children to escape the demands of their parents. Far enough from the main house to be quite removed from it, but close enough to have everything necessary readily at hand, it was exactly what Will had wanted for this night, the first of his married life. Mrs Lloyd had supplied the place on extremely short notice with warm food and drink, and the linens in the equally cosy bedroom had been freshened and aired. He felt like a child again, carefree and at peace with the world.

Elizabeth had ceased a slow turn as she took in the ambiance, and now stood in the centre of the tiny space, gazing at him.

"Are you happy?" he asked.

"Mmmm." It was not a word, but it was the answer to his question.

"May I pour you some wine, Mrs Darcy?"

"It is rather unfair, do you not think, that I should be known to all as a married woman by the alteration in my name, but yours remains quite unchanged? We must think of something to make it known that you, too, are now married."

"I believe the smile on my face will be sufficient to announce that to the world. It is, I am led to believe, an uncommon expression for me."

Elizabeth laughed again. "If I am the cause of that smile, I shall be most delighted."

The sun was setting in a blaze of red and orange glory. "Come, sit by me, my love. This sofa is not beautiful, yet it is comfortable. I can think of nothing I would like more right now than to have you at my side."

"Nothing?" One eyebrow floated upwards, an expression he found quite intoxicating. "I am disappointed in you. But I shall gladly sit beside you for now."

Minx.

She curled into his side with her head resting on his shoulder.

"This is rather more pleasant than that cave in the woods," she murmured after a minute.

"Or the wagon in the old ruined church, or the loft above the stables."

"And yet, all of those places are quite special to me now, for they brought me to you."

He nuzzled her hair with his nose, and pressed a chaste kiss to the top of her head.

"Mr Darcy!" Elizabeth gasped, quite incensed. "Did you dare to kiss my head?" Then she broke into another peal of laughter. "Let us see what else you can do. You are quite the seasoned criminal, sir. First you steal my father's carriage, then you steal me, and now you have quite stolen my heart."

"Ah, but that, my love, is entirely fair, since in return, you have quite stolen mine."

The End