Chapter 15 #2
He was glad to see her admired, but he regretted having to come out tonight and his departure tomorrow.
Elizabeth had kissed him today. It had put him into an absolute passion, but he had kissed her back with restraint.
There could be no mistaking her regard for him, but how deep did those sentiments go?
How soon could he taste those soft lips again?
“Everyone wants to dance with the new bride,” said Lady Summerlin, coming up to him and pushing away all thoughts of kissing or any other lasting embraces. A long-time friend of his departed mother, Darcy suspected her ladyship only invited people inclined to approve of anyone Darcy married.
“I am just as glad no one expects the new groom to dance, madam,” he replied.
Lady Summerlin laughed knowingly. “Your wife has a glow of complexion. She is not a great beauty, but a striking woman, quite lively,” she added with a perceptive look.
“Very unlike my own untoward gravity of deportment, you mean?”
“You are reserved, like your mother was; Mrs Darcy is animated, and draws people to her, like your father did. Mrs Darcy will counteract your gravity and cheer your spirits, and your seriousness and standing will steady her and raise her importance.”
They watched the dancing end and partners were exchanged, and people moved about and talked while they awaited the next.
Elizabeth spoke with a group of ladies, but Darcy could not discern their tone.
They might smile and say all the polite things on the surface, but perhaps their tone and hints were more cutting.
After what her father had hinted about her character, after Miss Bingley’s snide remarks, after Lady Catherine’s insolence, he did not want anyone to distress her.
“No one of consequence will care that her connexions and fortunes are not what most would have expected for me?” he cautiously asked his mother’s friend with a tilt of his head toward the group.
He knew the answer, so why did he ask it?
He did not ask for his own pride, but because he did not want another person to insult or discredit his wife. She deserved better than that.
“She can hold her own, Darcy,” Lady Summerlin assured him. “She looks and acts the part, and does nothing to offend. Her reputation of elegance and respectability matters as much as wealth and connexions to people of rank, and I would argue it is less easily attained.”
Their visit to town had done its intended purpose.
His sister’s consequence might have sunk, but at the least his had not fallen.
He should feel more relieved, more proud, but thoughts of his marriage were more pressing than thoughts of his standing.
Coming to London was the right choice, but now he wanted to hide away with his wife and see if she would kiss him again.
“Your wife wears a handsome aigrette,” said his mother’s friend. “I assume it was a gift from a doting husband?”
“Doting, madam?” Was he a fond, affectionate husband?
“He had better be a doting husband if he absconded with a young lady from a seaside resort,” Elizabeth said, coming up beside him and linking an arm through his as she greeted Lady Summerlin. He had such a sense of well-being with her on his arm, by his side.
Darcy looked down at Elizabeth and realised he wanted to be such a husband.
What he felt for her was not some partial sentiment to be lessened with the passing of time.
At that instant, she turned from Lady Summerlin and his eyes met hers.
Elizabeth’s sweet smile reached his soul at once and stirred him with an emotion beyond the power of language to express.
The qualities of her mind were equal to those of her heart and her person.
He respected her for her personal charms and for her cultivated understanding and refined taste and lively mind.
But those qualities and attractions had ascendency over his heart and went far deeper than respect and admiration.
Even if she never encouraged him further than the kiss she gave him earlier, he would love Elizabeth forever.
Somehow, while staring at Elizabeth, he had missed Lady Summerlin leave them. He started, and noticed Elizabeth watching him curiously, surely wondering what was the matter with him. This was neither the time nor the place to confess that he had fallen in love with her.
He had to say something since she caught him staring. “All went well with the preparations for the ball, I see,” he said, looking her up and down, admiring the diamonds in her hair. While not a vain woman, he could tell she did not dislike her own looks.
“Oh, no, I have been careless of my appearance, and equally indifferent whether I came to the ball or stayed home.”
“You prepared without one expression of pleasure?” he said, noting her arch manner.
“Precisely.”
“Then it would not interest you to know that your aigrette is quite pretty? The diamonds reflect the candlelight, and I have heard it complimented more than once this evening.”
“It should be admired. My husband has excellent taste. He chose well.”
He wished he could say he chose his wife well too.
But he had not chosen her, and only by great mischance had been forced to marry her.
He struggled with what to say, that he was more than content with how things had turned out, that he was glad that they would go through life together, but his thoughts went straight back to their kiss from a few hours ago.
His eyes lingered on hers for a little too long, and her arch smile faded into a softer one as a flush bloomed across her cheeks. She must be remembering the same thing. When he left for Derbyshire tomorrow, should he kiss her goodbye, or wait until she kissed him again?
“Mrs Darcy?” Sir Thomas Charlton approached and asked her to dance, and Elizabeth dropped her hand from his arm.
Darcy had always thought Sir Thomas an agreeable man and an influential friend to have on one’s side.
He could tolerate a card table better if someone like Sir Thomas was there.
But now Darcy hated him because he prevented Elizabeth and him from spending another moment together where they might have, at least with their eyes and behaviour, made their tender feelings for each other known.
Elizabeth parted from him with a playful look and then turned her attention to Sir Thomas, asking him for how long had he known Mr Darcy and if he knew any stories about him she may not have heard.
How nicely was her seriousness mixed with vivacity, her frankness with decorum? He was a fortunate man.
Knowing his wife would not be without partners, and having no inclination to be patient with any woman aside from her, Darcy went to the card tables to wait out the evening.
On his way, he noticed his acquaintance Mr Melrose catch his eye and gesture toward where he stood by the door.
Darcy joined him, wondering what Melrose wanted.
He was a barrister, a younger son of a baron, and he had not seen him since he returned to London.
“Congratulations on your joyous news,” Melrose said amiably. “I have sent round my card, but we still owe the new Mrs Darcy a visit.”
“The card tables can spare you for an hour, I am sure,” Darcy said good-naturedly. While neither a spendthrift nor a drunk, Melrose had, in his opinion, not quite grown up yet.
“Are you happy, then? Not regretting being taken in at a watering place by a pretty face looking to move up in the world?”
“If I was, you cannot think I would admit to it,” he said darkly.
Melrose flushed and stammered an apology.
“Of course, forgive me. I meant no disrespect. You seem content, and she seems good-humoured and is handsome. My wife noticed her hair ornament with an appreciative and envious eye. A wedding gift? You put me to shame,” he added with a laugh.
“Mrs Melrose will expect a token of my continuing esteem.”
He suspected Mrs Melrose would be happier if her husband came home not smelling of spirits, but he kept his silence. “It is from Rundell, Bridge, and Rundell in Ludgate Hill, but you did not call me over to ascertain my domestic happiness or for a recommendation for a jeweller.”
“No,” he agreed, and dropping his voice and moving closer to the wall, he said, “I wanted to ask about your sister.”
Darcy forced himself to stay calm. Melrose was a bit of a rattle, but not the sort to provoke a friend. “I have not seen her since she left Ramsgate with her lover. I do not accept her husband, and we do not correspond.”
“Quite right,” Melrose said approvingly. “I like a long evening out the same as the next man, but that Mr Wickham has no discretion, no comportment at all.” Melrose gave him a shrewd look. “You do know he is in town?”
He had not known, but it did not surprise him. “Have you seen him?”
“I saw him two nights ago, and not at the Inns of Court,” he said heavily. Wickham and Melrose must have been at the same gaming club. “I was at a new place with card tables near Cavendish Square spending too much money. Wickham was upstairs.”
He let out a slow exhale. Not a club then, but at a brothel with game tables downstairs. “What were you doing in such a place?”
Melrose held up both hands. “I was there for cards and to provoke my friends into setting aside their scruples. I remained downstairs.”
He was relieved to know Melrose had a few scruples of his own. “It must cost him several guineas to go upstairs in a place like that. I would have thought a shilling for a girl on the street would be all he could afford.”
“That is the thing, my friend. When he came down, he asked me for money. He wanted in on the game, and as you know, our set plays high for someone in his situation.”
“Did you give him any?”
“No, and neither would anyone at my table. Everyone now knows he never repays his debts of honour. And aside from him not being good for it, everyone also knows you have cut him—and anyone of sense knows whom to side with. He grew angry when someone suggested he go to Lisle Street or Covent Garden instead.” Such cheaper gaming places would be beneath the notice of a better sort of gentleman, beneath what Wickham thought he deserved.
“I cannot imagine he was in spirits after that.”
“Wickham…well, he grew indecorous,” Melrose said while avoiding his gaze. “Usually he is such a charmer, but whatever fine mood his company upstairs gave him did not last when he realised none of us would loan him any money, and that we would instantly take your side in any quarrel.”
His poor sister was tied for life to a selfish man.
But the story made him more adamant that he not support them.
Wickham had to reap what he had sown, and Georgiana would realise the mistake she had made and agree to live apart from her husband.
Yes, it would be a disgrace if she left him and if Darcy maintained her thereafter, but a life with a gamester with the pox would be worse.
If Wickham was spending the last of their money on expensive prostitutes rather than finding employment and supporting her, perhaps Georgiana would leave him before the end of the year.
“Thank you for telling me, Melrose. I doubt he will do me any harm beyond being an embarrassment.”
“He is broke, my friend. We all know he ran off with your sister in the hopes of her fortune, and now that you have withheld it—rightly so—he is desperate. And angry that he is not accepted in the circles he wanted to be.”
“Then he ought not to have spent five guineas in a brothel.”
“Well, that man is not known for his good principles or his good judgment,” Melrose said with a laugh. “I just thought you ought to know he is in town and he is resentful. Your sister’s marriage will become a matter of serious regret to you, I am afraid.”
“It already is,” he mumbled.
“At least your wife is respectful and respectable,” Melrose said brightly, trying to cheer him.
“It must be difficult, of course. The world was a little astonished at the union, as your alliance would have been accepted by the first families. There were many daughters of earls and barons who were disappointed.”
Darcy turned to watch the dancers, admiring Elizabeth as she smiled at her partner and moved gracefully down the line.
“I have reason to congratulate myself on my choice.” It may not have been much of a choice, but he had no cause to repine.
In the last month, he had come to admire and love her, and that was what mattered.
“But you are not congratulating yourself on your new brother-in-law.”
“Certainly not,” he agreed, his gaze still on his wife, “but for myself, I must admit that I am very glad with how things turned out.”