Chapter 14

Sarah suddenly noticed the quiet. She had been strolling along with Georgiana, Jane, and Elizabeth when she had spotted a planting of a rare flower heretofore only seen sketched in scientific journals. Her friends pretended amazement and interest, she knew, but one of the gardeners, smiling at her curiosity, had told her of more beds to the west. Obligingly, they had walked with her and waited while she drew in her notebook. She had become absorbed in other plantings then, following the paths leading to ever more intriguing blooms.

Did I wave them off? I think I vaguely remember doing so. I must have waved off my friends. Oh, Sarah, you are becoming just as distractible as your father!

“And now I am talking aloud to myself,” she said to no one, but her pleasure with the peaceful prospect was stronger than any discouragement. “It is so beautiful! I daresay, I could remain here all day.”

“No!” came a voice from behind her, harsh with command.

She whirled, surprised to see a man standing within the shadows of the woods. But he did not look at her, facing away, as if he spoke to someone else. She glanced around, not seeing another soul.

He was dressed, she saw, in the clothing of a gentleman, finely garbed in a tweed that matched the surrounding forest. His jaw was firm, cleft, and unshaven, perhaps a day’s worth of growth upon it; his nose was patrician, his shoulders either broad or enhanced by buckram padding. He wore no hat; his hair was overlong, brushed back, falling past his collar. It was thick and wavy and looked…soft, unlike his profile.

“To whom do you speak?” she asked curiously, turning in the direction he faced.

“Are you daft?” he asked rudely. “There is no one else here but you.”

“I prefer to think of myself as absentminded,” she replied. “Perhaps easily diverted. Except not from something I am truly interested in, such as these plots of wild orchids. So many varieties, some I cannot even name! Oh look!” She bent to look more closely at a bloom near her feet. “Can it be? I can hardly believe it!”

Richard Fitzwilliam watchedwith some disbelief as the intruder bent over some flower or another, giving him a display of an astonishingly magnificent bosom. Then, heedless of her fine gown, she actually knelt upon the ground, withdrawing a small sketchbook and pencil from her pocket, continuing her chatter.

“It is remarkable that we should see a specimen of Ophrys apifera this far north. Nearly impossible, I should say. Especially when you consider that they can take as long as six years to bloom, and the weather has not cooperated.” She glanced up at him, plainly excited by this ‘discovery’, perhaps noting his confusion…although he was careful to avoid looking at her directly.

“It is a humble bee orchid, named thus because the flowers mimic a female bee, both in scent and appearance. Do you see its bee-like shape and colouring? The male bee is tricked into landing on the flower and attempting to mate with it. When the bee moves on to another plant, the pollen it has picked up from the first orchid is transferred to the next.”

She must be one of Darcy’s guests, although certainly not one he recognised. Worse still, she was beautiful—the sunlight and trees dappling her with greens and golds, the pale lavender of her gown blending, somehow, with the flowers she studied. The rim of her bonnet hid most of her face from his sight, but he could see the delicate tip of her nose above a wide smiling mouth. Plainly, and despite the bonnet, she spent more time in the sun than most young ladies were allowed to do, for her skin was almost golden toned, although the paler flesh of her exposed bosom taunted him, tempted him.

She was an idiot, that was what! Wearing such a gown and speaking of mating bees! The very thought of some churl such as Wickham coming upon her, alone like this, struck him in a lightning shaft of rage. Darcy had told him how the scoundrel had almost succeeded in eloping with Georgiana; guilt that it had taken place nearly beneath his nose still haunted him, adding to all the other guilt he carried. He patrolled the outer perimeter of the grounds regularly in daylight now, searching for any sign of the cad. He had found no one except this singular, reckless female.

Yet…inexplicably, he wanted her. Temptation, thick and viscous, nearly overwhelmed him. Since that final battle, since leading the forlorn hope that launched his troops into an impossible assault against an overwhelming force, since so many good men had died at his side, since his hideous injury, he had felt not a single spark of desire, not a dream, not a need, nothing at all. He had believed that part of him dead and buried. It was a shock, discovering it was not.

“Come look at this more closely,” she said contentedly, foolishly, pocketing her sketch. “You may never again see one here.” She looked up at him, that tempting, pretty, wholly innocent smile assaulting him like Marshal Ney’s enemy forces.

There was only one thing for it, to nip it in the bud, to serve as warning to her—and possibly a bit of fear to teach her a lesson about wandering off anywhere unattended. If he was being honest with himself, it was also punishment—for causing him to feel what he no longer had any right to feel. He turned so that he faced her, full on, shadowless, nothing hidden…and waited for her screams.

Sarah watchedas the handsome stranger turned her way at last. His reluctance to do so was quickly explained when she saw the scar running from the side of his brow to nearly his chin—obviously once poorly stitched, the skin was stretched so that half his eye was drooped downwards, the rest of it a testament to a horrific wound, healed but still red and blotched in places. Could he even see out of his right eye? She could not tell.

“Are you blinded from that side then? I am sorry. Still, you really ought to look at this from your good eye. It is not an opportunity to be missed.”

He almost reared back with seeming surprise, but it did not last; he sneered at her. “You are daft, I can see that. I could be any sort of villain! What is wrong with you, that you should take such risks, wandering about alone without even a maid?”

She rose, dusting off her skirt, only just noticing that she now had a muddy smear across the lavender cotton. Evans would pout. “If you will not look at a bloom years in the making, which will never likely grace Pemberley again, I cannot force you. Do not blame me when you have regrets. My maid is an expert with a needle and the only one I have ever met who could do something with my hair, but I assure you, she would not be the least use to me should I ever encounter an actual villain. I would only be required to defend her as well.”

He opened his mouth but snapped it shut again, glaring instead. His glares were nothing to Mrs Figg’s, however, and did little to restrain her sense of humour.

“I never had a villain tell me he was villainous and warn me of his villainy,” Sarah said, grinning up at him. “If you mean to hurt me, I think you ought to have done it quickly before calling attention to your presence, else tried to convince me first that you were harmless. Truly, if you are a scoundrel, you are an awfully poor one. Good day to you, sir. I suppose it is time I find my friends.” She gave him a little curtsey, and strode away without looking back—as difficult as it was, for really, it was impossible not to wonder his name and why he prowled Pemberley’s gardens.

Would it not be marvellous if he were an apparition, haunting the place and seldom seen? Of course, he was very handsome in spite of his scar, and his clothing was modern, even if his hair was longer than was fashionable, and he seemed entirely too vigorous and, well, real. Probably not a ghost, then.

“I doubt any spirit could possess such arms and shoulders,” she murmured to herself, and laughed aloud.