Chapter Thirteen #2
“That is something I wish to learn as well,” Mr. Darcy nearly growled. “How did you manage to steal my private property, madam?”
“I did not,” Miss Bingley cried, placing one hand over her heart. “How dare you suggest such a thing?”
“Darcy,” Charles said as his eyes traced the writing on the page, “perhaps you and I should speak privately.”
Mr. Darcy pursed his lips. “Perhaps we should. For the words I must say in regard to Miss Bingley should not be uttered in mixed company.”
Miss Bingley wept silently as the men left the room and Elizabeth’s temper flared. These were crocodile tears, and Miss Bingley was a reptile. Mr. Darcy had broken propriety before—he had written to Elizabeth. But he would never write to Miss Bingley. Of that Elizabeth was entirely certain.
She clenched her hands into fists. “Do not worry, Miss Bingley. When this gambit fails, you will always have a career on the stage.”
“Poor Eliza,” Miss Bingley crooned. “Has he made promises to you, too? Never mind, I shall insist he apologise for raising your expectations.”
Elizabeth scoffed. “Do refrain from speaking my Christian name, Miss Bingley, for you have never been invited to use it. Unsurprising, I suppose, for you are a liar and a thief, and what do such women know of basic etiquette? You do not even have enough sense to entrap a man who might one day tolerate you.”
“Elizabeth,” Jane warned.
“He is having second thoughts, as men do,” Miss Bingley said with a dismissive wave of the handkerchief. “But he will remember how well he loves me, and we will be happy together.”
“Caroline,” Jane said softly, “Mr. Darcy is very angry with you. Would you put yourself into the care of a man whom you have forced to wed? Is it a victory to be tied for life to a man who may leave you in the country on your own and lead his own life in the ton?”
Miss Bingley withdrew a lace handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes. “He would care too much for the family’s reputation and my brother’s for that.”
Elizabeth’s blood froze to ice, and the room suddenly felt colder than the storm outside. Mr. Darcy was a man of duty. He might give up his own wishes to protect his family name. He might not feel he had a choice.
She could not allow that to happen. Elizabeth cast her thoughts back to the letter Mr. Darcy had delivered to her at Rosings, the one in her room upstairs.
Her letter. That was it. She, too, had a letter—one that had actually been written to her—and could produce it. But it was hidden. She thought to send a servant, but it would take longer to explain where it was than it would to retrieve it herself.
Jane knew of the letter’s existence, but she had not read it herself, and might believe that Elizabeth had destroyed it. Mr. Darcy had asked that she burn it, but she had not been able to do so, not when his gracious signature might be all she had left of him.
Jane took a step towards her, her expression concerned and sympathetic, and Elizabeth could not stand it. She whirled on her toes and fled while Jane called her name.
“Let her go,” she heard Miss Bingley say, miraculously recovered. “I daresay she should have her cry. She will feel better after.”
The words Elizabeth threw about in her head in response to Miss Bingley’s gloating would have had Mamma in a dead faint had she ever spoken them aloud.
She raced up the steps to her rooms, careful to avoid any of the servants, though she knew that word must be spreading even now that Miss Bingley had a letter written by Mr. Darcy.
From what she could see of Charles’s expression while he read it, she surmised it was a love letter.
A love letter. She hit her door with the flat of her hand and shoved it open. It swung back so hard it hit the wall with a bang.
Kerr jumped. “Miss Bennet,” she said. “I thought you would be downstairs for hours yet.”
“I am not here for long,” Elizabeth said, striding quickly to the wardrobe, opening one of the bottom drawers, and reaching all the way to the back of it to extract the wooden box where she kept her letters.
It had to be a love letter, but if it was, Mr. Darcy would not have written it for Miss Bingley. Had he written it for her? They had been unable to speak, and he preferred to write when his feelings were running high. This much she knew. Elizabeth’s heart soared with hope.
She cradled the box in her hands and hurried away, fearful that she would arrive only after Mr. Darcy had capitulated and made the hateful Miss Bingley an offer.
They would be miserable together.
Miss Bingley could be miserable the rest of her sorry life, and Elizabeth would not care. She had brought it on herself. But Mr. Darcy—it would kill him to have such a wife, and Elizabeth would not allow it. If Charles could not protect him, then Elizabeth would.
From halfway down the staircase, she saw the men returning to the parlour and closing the door behind them.
Elizabeth stumbled slightly and caught herself on the rail. She paused only a moment before continuing on and bursting into the parlour, making such an inelegant racket as she did that all four occupants turned to stare at her.
She must have been quite a sight, gasping for air, her hair mussed and her complexion bright from exertion and anger. But there was no time to be missish. She leaned back against the door until it clicked shut.
“Mr. Darcy wrote me a letter first.”
Mr. Darcy’s eyes widened in surprise.
“What?” Charles barked, facing his friend with a scowl. “Darcy!”
“And I wrote one back.” She had not delivered hers, but she did not say as much.
“Elizabeth!” Jane exclaimed.
“So you see,” Elizabeth rushed to finish, “if Mr. Darcy is to be forced to wed, he must wed me.”
Miss Bingley shook her head. “No, it is not possible. And even if he did write Eliza a letter, surely he has regretted it since. Why else would he write to me yesterday?”
Elizabeth was panting now. It was not the running up and down stairs that had done it. She was used to walking great distances. It was her fear making her weak. She set the little box down on the nearest table with a thud and used her key to open the lid, furious that her hands were shaking.
Mr. Darcy was watching her, an impossible tenderness in his expression. “Elizabeth,” he said softly, and she caught her breath at the sound of her name on his tongue.
She withdrew the letter, almost falling apart now. “Charles, it is a very private letter, but I shall allow you to see the date, its address to me, and the signature. I have had it since April.”
“It is the truth, Bingley,” Mr. Darcy said. “I did write a letter to Miss Bennet, and the letter in her hand is the one I referenced in this one.” He held it up. “I have never written one to Miss Bingley.”
Elizabeth watched Charles carefully, but he did not reach for the letter she held, merely shook his head. “I am shocked. I knew that Darcy had a tendre for you, Lizzy, though I admit his studied avoidance temporarily confused me until I realized it was Caroline from whom he was hiding and not you.”
Miss Bingley protested, but no one paid her any mind.
“Still, I had no idea you two were so far advanced in your courtship. Why did neither of you inform me?”
Elizabeth blinked.
Mr. Darcy’s brows pinched together.
“You knew?” they asked at the same time.
“Then why . . .”
“How . . .”
Charles sighed. He motioned at the letter that was now held by Mr. Darcy. “Caroline, this letter makes mention of the one in Lizzy’s possession. Unless you can produce another letter in Darcy’s hand, you must desist.”
“I would like to know how Miss Bingley came into possession of my property,” Mr. Darcy said in a low, menacing voice.
“Darcy recalled that his letter was in the pocket of his greatcoat,” Charles said.
“I know not how it came into your hands, Caroline, but it refers to things Lizzy has that you do not and conversations you have had no opportunity to be a part of.” He lifted his eyebrows.
“From what Darcy has only now told me of his meeting with Elizabeth in Kent, this letter only makes sense if it was written for her.”
“Charles,” Miss Bingley said, scandalized, “how could you possibly think that I would lie?”
“Sadly, sister, I find it is not at all difficult.”
Miss Bingley wept more noisily, as if an increase in sound could change her brother’s mind.
Jane placed both hands on her hips and glared, actually glared, at Miss Bingley.
Elizabeth had only seen that look once before, when she had taken two-year-old Kitty to the mews to see the horses though she had been warned it was dangerous.
Elizabeth had been extraordinarily careful to never be on the receiving end of that expression again.
She bit her bottom lip and took a silent step back.
“That letter was in the pocket of Mr. Darcy’s greatcoat?
The greatcoat that Mr. Carstairs was folding over his arm as we passed him in the hall yesterday?
” Jane drew closer to Miss Bingley. “Is that why you lagged behind us, Caroline? Did you see the letter fall from Mr. Darcy’s pocket and pick it up?
And once having retrieved it, rather than returning it to Mr. Carstairs so he could see it safely back to Mr. Darcy’s room, you kept it overnight and read it? ”
“She used it, too,” Charles added helpfully.
Jane’s gaze did not waver from Miss Bingley.
“I have made every attempt to accommodate you, Caroline,” she said evenly.
“I have not protested your presence here despite your disdain for your brother’s marriage and my sister’s presence, to say nothing of your general unpleasantness.
As I am a lady, I shall not have you tossed out, no matter how sorely I am tempted.
But you will steer clear of me while you remain in this house, and the instant the coaching inns are open again, you will be on your way. ”