Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
With a quick step and an eager heart, Darcy entered his house in Charles Street. Once the footman answered that Elizabeth was home, he ran up the stairs and threw open the drawing room door and saw her waiting for him on the sofa.
She looked less enthusiastic than he felt, but she came right to his side.
He was about to put an arm around her when she held out a hand, although he had closed the door behind him.
Darcy hesitated in surprise, but accepted it and kissed it.
He would have kissed her properly, or at least kissed her cheek in greeting, but perhaps it would take time to return to the sort of embrace they shared ten days ago.
As Elizabeth led him into the room and sat by the fire, he thought she looked rather less blooming than she had when he left, more out of spirits. “How have you been keeping?” he asked with some concern.
“Well,” she said quickly. “How did you find matters at home?”
He could not restrain a satisfied smile at hearing her call Pemberley “home.” “It did not feel as much like home with you absent. Your presence has already filled the place.” Her eyes softened, and she grinned at him.
“You were not sitting in my father’s old room with your journal; I felt as though you ought to have been there writing away every moment I wanted to talk to you. ”
Her smile faltered, but she said something about missing him too. Into the silence that stretched, he added, “And your improvements with the furnishings in the saloon have begun, and all the neighbours are ready to invite you this spring when we go back.”
“That would be lovely. I am glad your business is all satisfactory.”
They talked a little more about what they had both done while he was away, but every moment or so Elizabeth kept trying to be in a bustle without having anything to bustle about.
She offered him things or to do anything for him, but all he wanted was to talk with her and learn if she might love him.
“If you want something to eat, I can go to the housekeeper, or ask the footman to bring her.”
“I do not need dinner.”
“Surely you must want something,” she said in a hurry. “You must have hardly stopped to make it home by this hour. I am glad you did, of course. Do you want soup, at least?”
“I would rather wait for tea.”
“Well, I can hurry them along for that,” she said, striding to the door, although he told her it was unnecessary.
Tea was soon afterwards brought in, and Elizabeth was extraordinarily focused on preparing it how he liked and putting some snack on a plate he would like. He was not sure why he suddenly had a nervous wife, but perhaps she wanted to do what she thought was proper to welcome home a husband?
“It is my good fortune to find you at home,” he said when she finally returned to her seat. “You are so popular now I expected you to be out, perhaps with Mrs Ballston or Lady Summerlin.”
“I wanted to be here to greet you,” she insisted. Her assurance settled his heart a little. “I had a card party at Sir Thomas and Lady Charlton’s last Friday, and everyone missed you.”
Darcy reached for her hand. “I missed—”
“Oh! My aunt and uncle are also back and want to meet you,” she said with a smile that brightened her eyes. “I thought to invite them to dinner soon.”
Elizabeth insisted they were nothing like her parents and that he would really love them, but they were not the sort of people he was used to associating with.
Still, he wanted to treat those outside his circle with more care.
He had to show his wife that he would embrace anyone who mattered to her.
“Name the day. You are the one in charge of my evenings. When am I at liberty?”
“Tomorrow, for a family dinner?”
“Then can we also invite Colonel Fitzwilliam? He is eager to become better acquainted with you. He was hesitant to approve of you, but now he is your greatest champion. Your claims to reputation made you worthy of me in his eyes, he says, but now he wants to know you better for your own sake so you can be friends and conspire against me.”
He thought she might have made a playful comment, but she looked distressed.
“I will be happy to see him,” she said, sounding anything but happy, but she exhaled a long breath and settled her shoulders. “I will send my card in the morning. Did he mention your newfound fame?”
There was a hint of teasing, a return to her former good humour. “You mean the reference in the newspaper about my manner toward you? Fitzwilliam said he will address all his future correspondence to ‘lovestruck.’”
Elizabeth laughed. “I am sorry.”
She might have meant it, but she was surely amused. “It is mortifying. I hate to see any mention of us, spoken or in print. I always want to live above reproach, and be under no undue notice. Reputation is a fragile thing, and public opinion is fickle.”
Her eyes fell to the floor as though chastised. He thought she might have forced him into cheerfulness, or argued with him if she disagreed.
“Elizabeth, what is the—”
“I meant to ask you,” she blurted, “I will see my aunt often now, and we might go shopping, but I will not always want an account at every shop we go to, so could I not have some ready cash? And there are tips and vails and benefit concerts and small purchases and bets with friends at cards. So, so may I please have cash?”
This came out in a rambling rush, and then she clamped her lips together. She looked pale at such a reasonable request. Was this why she was unlike herself, because she had to ask him for money? “Yes, of course. I ought to have thought of it sooner. Five pounds will suffice for the present?”
“Perhaps twenty-five?” she rasped.
Darcy’s eyes widened. “That is half your money for the quarter.”
“Oh, well, it will last me months, likely until Lady Day, and I will need not to trouble you for a long while.”
“It is no trouble.” She must have needed coins to play cards the other night and not had any. “You can always take from the household account and settle later if need be, but I will give you a bank note in the morning.”
She closed her eyes and breathed, “Thank you.”
Darcy watched her relax with some confusion. “Did you think I would be miserly, or demand an accounting of how it would be spent before I gave it? It is your money to begin with.”
Elizabeth gave him a long look while deciding how to answer. “No, you have been nothing but generous, more generous than I deserve.”
“I cannot imagine why you would think you do not deserve it.” When she said nothing further he asked, in some concern, “Elizabeth, you hardly seem yourself. Have I made you nervous somehow?”
She was instantly on her feet and came to his side. “No, and I am extremely happy to see you. And now that you have been gone for ten days, I know how impossible it would have been for me to bear a lengthier absence.”
He felt more at ease to hear her say that. “I see no reason for us to endure another absence. We will go to Longbourn together and winter in town together and return home together. You will be tired of me by the time we will be married a year.”
“That is simply not possible, Darcy.”
Her words gave him courage, and he bent to kiss her.
Rather than lean in to meet him, she held herself still while he softly pressed her lips.
She did not pull away, but it was a far cry from how she had kissed him in the library before he left.
He never wanted to bestow attention that was unwanted, and her mind was clearly elsewhere.
Darcy cupped her cheek, stroking it with his thumb. “Dearest, what is the matter?”
“I am happy you are back,” she insisted, pressing her palm to cover his hand. “I admit to feeling a little poorly for the last few days.”
She looked unwell, with her pale face and dark circles beneath her eyes. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
“No. A good night’s sleep is all I need, and tomorrow will be a better day.” She turned her head to press a kiss into his palm and then left the room.
Darcy sat back with a sigh. Even if she was tired, he did not see the unalloyed enjoyment in his return from his wife that he had expected.
How could someone feel pleased and yet sick to her stomach at the same moment? Seeing Darcy last night brought an instant smile to Elizabeth’s lips, but every moment she was beside him reminded her of her folly and how it could ruin him.
She had been almost fluttered at the sight of her husband, but had to remember that Darcy could hate her if he knew what Wickham would do to his reputation.
The shame of what she had put herself, and his good name, into made it hard to even sit next to him.
When Darcy kissed her, the weight of her guilt made it impossible to return it with any ardour let alone equal ardour.
She had to manage this disaster before she could give Darcy the proper attention he deserved.
They had sat at breakfast together before he went out for the day. She could not say they ate together because she stared at her plate and pushed her food around. When Darcy noticed, she had gamely taken a large bite, but it tasted like dust and her stomach turned over.
“Are you certain you want your aunt and uncle with us tonight?” he had asked with concern, but she assured him she was well. And she would be once she paid Wickham, and she got her journal back.
Tonight, she would appear more like herself.
Her family would be with her, Darcy’s closest friend would join them, and they would all be happy and at ease.
And if her company left early enough, she would have the time to tell Darcy that when she had said she never wanted to yield her heart and body to a husband she never chose, she had been a complete fool.