Chapter 26 #2
“A penance,” he said. “I insist you walk with me. With your charming aunt as our chaperon of course.”
Miss Goddard heaved an enormous sigh, while her aunt accepted the invitation for them both. The countess’s attention then moved to a conversation on her other side, and Miss Goddard leant in to speak quietly to him.
“You are wasting your time with me, you know. I do not intend to marry, so I scarcely give two figs whether you have a title or two or six.”
“Not marry?” Saye tilted his head. “Why ever not?”
“Because I want to do things that no man would likely wish his wife to do,” she replied earnestly.
“Do you mean sexually?” Saye asked, matching her whisper. “Because I must tell you, I am up for nearly anything—you need have no fears there.”
This made her laugh, and Saye found he was uncommonly pleased with himself. To see her pink-cheeked and smiling added to her beauty.
“No, and I shall thank you not to try your sort of shocking charm with me. It will not do, sir. I have fortune enough to do as I like.”
“And what exactly is it that you like?”
She considered him for a moment, seeming unwilling to give up her secret.
“Come now, you must tell me, or I shall be forced to tell everyone you were giving undue notice to my breeches.”
She rolled her eyes before admitting, “I like to draw. I do the illustrations for Ackermann’s and La Belle Assembleé. They scarcely pay me a thing, but I like it very well, much more than endless landscapes anyway. I do not wish to give it up.”
“Oh the scandal,” he said.
She nodded. “I am afraid so.”
“Well, you are correct. The future Lady Matlock can hardly be some magazine artist.”
“Would not do at all,” she agreed.
“Best that it ends here, then.”
“Absolutely. So our outing…”
He gave her a charming grin. “We cannot disappoint the countess. I daresay she was looking at my breeches too.”
This made Miss Goddard smile. “Oh, she did not. She is forty-six, well past the age to be examining young men’s breeches.”
“Horrid speech!” Saye exclaimed. “I shall have you know that among the licentious widows in town, the ones in their forties and fifties are the worst! It is the ennui, you know; they have nothing else to think of.”
Miss Goddard laughed again. “Dreadful thought!”
“So Tuesday next? I find Tuesdays to be the days I am most agreeable to wasting my own time.”
“Tuesday it is.”
Darcy had come to be very fond of Miss Lydia Bennet, fond enough that seeing her married—albeit to one of his oldest and dearest friends—made him a bit sentimental.
Jolly would soon get a child on her, they would retire to the country, and the mad giggling and running about his houses shrieking about bonnets would be no more.
He could not help but worry a little. Miss Lydia Bennet, at only eighteen, sometimes seemed so very young to him! Then again, so did Georgiana, who having just turned twenty, was the age Elizabeth had been when he married her.
It struck him suddenly how full of optimism this business of marrying was.
Young ladies yearned for it, did all they could to secure a man, but was a man ever really worthy of such trust?
He looked at Jolly, better known for his ability to drink ale than anything else—would he be a dependable husband?
Then again, who was Darcy to ask?
It struck him suddenly how much he had asked from Elizabeth.
She had placed an enormous trust in him, and he had failed her.
He recalled her words to him when they were first reunited: ‘How could you possibly know what it is to be a female, alone and with child, cast off to a poisoned wilderness, afraid, unsure, despised, fearing for your life…? Tell me Fitzwilliam, what about that can you possibly comprehend?’
Grief pricked at him and drew forth an onslaught of more memories, playing in his mind just as fresh as if they were new.
The yellow gown…how did he forget that night?
She had been so lovely, and he had wished for a moment to toss aside his hurt and his absurd jealousy and take her to the ball, just as she had wanted.
Then the idiotic part of him had grown angry, imagining she had dressed to enchant other men—and how coldly he had treated her then!
How humiliated she must have felt, yet she bore it with such dignity.
The memories began to flow fast and hard, his heart breaking with them.
He found himself imagining her thoughts and fears that surely accompanied his heartless actions.
Her taking his hand, beseeching him to talk to her, and his cold refusal.
His anger and petulance as she tried vainly to please him, in society as well as in their home.
Her crying, which he had heard clearly, when he stopped coming to her bed.
How torn he had been then, desperately wishing to go to her, but too stupidly angry, too idiotically convinced that she had tried to deceive him.
Her fear—yes, he had to admit to the fear in her eyes, fear he had caused, even as he said he wanted her to leave.
He had known for some months now what he truly had done, but he had nevertheless persisted selfishly, wanting her love, wanting her trust, always wanting her to give him something, when he should have been thinking of her. He should have considered what she wanted from all of this.
Perhaps nothing. Perhaps she wants to go back to the sea. Perhaps she wants to send me off to Yorkshire.
One thing was certain. He had to ask.