Chapter Eight One Dusty Alcove at a Time #2
Wickham’s face flooded with anger. He raised a hand, as though he might attempt to shove Darcy out of the way.
Before Wickham could commit an act of public madness, a blur of pale silk swept past Darcy’s elbow.
“Miss Jenkins!” The bright, musical voice of Elizabeth Bennet sliced through the tension.
Darcy did not move his feet, but he turned his head. Miss Elizabeth had appeared from the throng, linking her arm firmly through the arm of the startled heiress. Miss Elizabeth was smiling, a smile Darcy had come to recognise. It was the one she wore when she was about to be brilliantly disarming.
“Miss Elizabeth?” Miss Jenkins blinked, slightly overwhelmed. “I... I was waiting for Lady Clement to procure the refreshments.”
“Lady Clement is about to beat the man pouring the wine with her cane,” Miss Elizabeth informed Miss Jenkins steering her away from the danger.
“I have been searching for you everywhere! You must come and settle a dispute. Mrs Forster insists that the tragic heroine’s gown in the first act was trimmed in Brussels lace, but I am absolutely certain it was common muslin.
Your eye for fashion is renowned. We need your immediate arbitration. Come, I shall guide you to her.”
Miss Jenkins, flattered by the appeal to her fashionable expertise, allowed herself to be drawn away without a single glance over her shoulder. “Well, I did notice the drape of the skirt was rather stiff for Brussels lace...”
Miss Elizabeth did not look back at Darcy and Wickham. She kept a steady pace away from them, vanishing as swiftly as she had arrived.
The wealthy prize was gone.
Darcy turned his attention back to the man before him. Wickham was staring at the space where Miss Jenkins had stood mere seconds prior, looking as though he had just witnessed a small fortune dissolve into the thin, perfume-laden air.
“It appears,” Darcy said, his tone dripping with lethal satisfaction, “that Miss Jenkins’s expertise is required elsewhere. A pity. I am certain whatever you intended to ask her was of the utmost importance. Lace, was it?”
Wickham raised his eyes to meet Darcy’s. The hatred coming from the man was almost physical, a palpable wave of venom that crashed uselessly against Darcy’s rigid composure. Wickham understood that he had been played, and that the sudden appearance of Miss Elizabeth was not a coincidence.
“You think you have won, Darcy,” Wickham snarled, his voice trembling with rage. “You think you can dictate my movements.”
“I can dictate your movements right here, right now, Wickham.” Darcy did not yield a single inch. “And I strongly suggest you abandon this place. The interval is nearly concluded, and I believe Ensigns Burton and Miller are searching for you. They seem eager to discuss your financial health.”
The mention of the ensigns shattered the last remnants of Wickham’s bravado, panic flaring in his eyes.
He cast a glance over his shoulder, seeking an escape route that did not involve crossing paths with his creditors.
Without another word, he spun on his heel and shoved his way into the crowd, retreating to the darkened staircase that led to the upper galleries.
Darcy allowed a slow breath to escape his lungs. He relaxed the tension in his shoulders, stepping away from the weeping willow pillar. The blockade had succeeded flawlessly.
A surge in the crowd, caused by the first bell ringing to announce the second act, pushed a group of laughing patrons directly into Darcy’s path. He was forced backward, retreating from the main thoroughfare to avoid being trampled by the sudden rush for the auditorium doors.
It took a while to escape them, and he found himself pressed into the shadowed recess of an alcove near an unoccupied private box.
The curtains provided a welcome barrier against the pandemonium, and he decided to wait there until most of the crowd returned to their seats before he found the way to his own box.
He leaned against the cool plaster wall, closing his eyes for a brief moment to collect his thoughts. The heat was oppressive, but the satisfaction of thwarting Wickham’s scheme was a cooling balm to his spirit.
“That was remarkably effective.”
The voice was soft, breathless, and located mere inches from his chest. Darcy’s eyes snapped open.
Miss Elizabeth was standing in the shadows, her back pressed against the opposite side of the wall.
The crush of the returning audience had trapped them together in the dimly lit alcove, hidden from the world by the velvet curtains.
She was looking up at him, her eyes wide, a flush of pink staining her cheeks.
“I escorted Miss Jenkins to Lady Clement, after her lively conversation with Mrs Forster, and I found myself in need of a reprieve. I believe you had the same thought, Mr Darcy?” she whispered.
Darcy attempted to execute a gallant bow in response to the question. It was a disastrous decision. The alcove was too narrow for such niceties. His shoulders connected with the curtain next to him, sending a shower of decades-old dust raining down on his coat.
He froze, his spine like a fishing rod, fervently praying he was not about to sneeze in the face of the woman he loved.
“I confess, Miss Elizabeth,” Darcy murmured, his voice sounding too deep in the confined space, “I have spent years perfecting the art of standing still at crowded assemblies, as you very well know. Clearly, I have failed.”
She pressed her gloved fingers against her lips, her shoulders shaking with silent laughter. The darkness obscured the sharpest details of her features, but the dim light caught the dancing spark of amusement in her eyes.
“You may have failed here, but you succeeded when it mattered. It was a masterpiece of immovable stubbornness,” she whispered back. “I was watching. I honestly believed Wickham was going to attempt to climb the pillar to escape you.”
“He was certainly agitated.” Darcy smiled, feeling a little smug. “However, my stubbornness would have been useless without your timely intervention. The debate regarding Brussels lace was an inspired stroke of genius. How did you know Miss Jenkins harboured such strong opinions on costumes?”
“I did not know,” Miss Elizabeth admitted, leaning slightly closer so that her voice would not carry beyond the curtain.
The movement brought the faint, clean scent of her lavender soap into his nostrils.
“I merely assumed that any young lady of consequence who wears a gown adorned with three dozen silk roses must possess a passing interest in textiles. It was a gamble, but she was quite eager to escape the crush.”
“You are an observant woman, Miss Elizabeth.”
“And you are a human barricade, Mr Darcy.”
The silence that followed was dense. The noise of the people preparing to watch the second act seemed to belong to a different world. In the shadowed alcove, there was only her, the shared secret of their success, and the unsteady cadence of Darcy’s own heart.
He looked down at her. She was so close he could see the rapid rise and fall of her chest beneath the pale silk of her gown.
He could reach out and trace the curve of her jaw without fully extending his arm.
The rules of society demanded that he step out of the alcove immediately.
To remain hidden in the shadows with an unmarried woman was a scandal of the highest order, exactly what he was fighting to prevent Wickham from doing.
He did not move. He did not have the willpower to step away.
“We have thwarted him tonight,” she said softly, her voice losing its amused edge, her expression turning earnest. “But he is desperate, Mr Darcy. You saw the ensigns. If he cannot secure an heiress, he will turn his attentions back to Lydia.”
“I shall not allow it,” Darcy replied. The words were not a polite assurance; they were a vow, spoken with a fierce intensity that seemed to startle her.
“I swear it to you. He shall not touch your family. I will stand between him and your sister if I must construct a physical wall around the entirety of Brighton.”
Miss Elizabeth stared at him, her eyes searching his. “Why are you doing this, Mr Darcy? Why?”
Darcy’s breath left his lungs. This was the moment. The opening he had agonised over for months. The opportunity to correct the catastrophic errors of his proposal in Kent. He did not need to speak of her inferior connections or his own family’s expectations. He only needed to speak of the truth.
He raised his hand. His fingers hovered, trembling slightly, before he gently brushed a stray curl away from her cheek. Miss Elizabeth’s breath hitched audibly, but she did not pull away. Instead, she leaned imperceptibly into his touch.
“I am doing this,” Darcy whispered, his voice thick with emotion, “because my feelings... my affections...”
He struggled to find the words. The grand, eloquent speeches he had rehearsed in the solitude of his chamber had evaporated under the intense scrutiny of her eyes.
“My feelings have not changed,” he finally managed, his voice dropping to a desperate, ragged whisper. “I am doing this because I—”
The curtain was wrenched open.
A blinding shaft of light flooded the alcove. Darcy blinked, dropping his hand and stepping back, his shoulders colliding painfully with the wall. Miss Elizabeth gasped, pressing herself flat against the other side of the wall.
Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam stood in the opening, holding two crystal glasses brimming with lemonade, looking exasperated.
“Good God, Fitzwilliam!” he hissed. “I have searched the entire ground floor for you! The bell has rung three times! The curtain is rising! Why are you lurking in a closet with Miss Elizabeth? If you are seen...”
The embarrassment of the moment was so complete that Darcy felt a wave of dizziness wash over him. He was a man of supreme consequence, caught hiding in the dark like a wayward schoolboy.
“We are not lurking, Richard,” Darcy stated, his voice a masterpiece of furious dignity.
He straightened his cravat, ignoring the fact that it was unnecessary.
“Miss Elizabeth required a moment to... to inspect the architectural foundation of the theatre. The floorboards here are of particular historical interest.”
The Colonel stared at Darcy. Then his gaze landed on Miss Elizabeth, who was pressing her hands over her face, her shoulders shaking with a fresh, uncontrollable bout of silent laughter.
“The floorboards,” Richard repeated slowly, not believing a single word.
“Indeed,” Darcy confirmed, stepping smoothly outside and offering his arm to Miss Elizabeth with a formal bow.
“And we have concluded our inspection. Shall I return you to your friends, Miss Elizabeth? I believe the second act involves a tragic misunderstanding and a great deal of shouting. We would not wish to miss the spectacle.”
She lowered her hands from her face. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were sparkling with unshed tears of mirth. She placed her gloved hand on his offered arm.
“I would not miss it for the world, Mr Darcy,” she replied. “Though I sincerely doubt the actors on the stage could possibly provide a more entertaining performance than the one I have just witnessed.”
Darcy led her back into the pit where Mrs Forster and Miss Lydia awaited, his face burning, his coat covered in dust, his cousin trailing behind them.
His confession had been postponed, yet, as he felt the light, reassuring pressure of Miss Elizabeth’s hand on his sleeve, Darcy found that he was not angry.
He was smiling. The siege of Elizabeth Bennet’s heart was not yet won, but the fortress was undoubtedly crumbling, one dusty alcove at a time.