Chapter 13
Thirteen
Evening
Sometimes you see a handsome stranger from across a crowded room, you meet his dark, mysterious eyes, a rush of elation sweeps through you to your very bones, and you just know
. . . that this already terrible evening is about to get even worse because that handsome stranger is not actually a stranger at all but your husband and that rush you felt is not the thrill of illicit love but rather that sinking feeling best verbalized as—
"Oh, bloody hell."
My whispered curse earned me a scandalized glare from the lady next to me.
And by next to me I mean pressed right up against me because this party is an absolute crush which must make Mrs. Hamilton, the hostess, very pleased, but makes her guests feel like herring in a barrel and the resulting heat of all these tightly packed bodies makes said guests smell just as strongly odoriferous as said herring, though blessedly not as fishy.
The impermeable crowd dashed my hopes of escape from Darcy who was now approaching.
He would come to visit me now when everything has spun out of control.
A quarter of an hour prior everything was going splendidly.
Dora was seated next to me speaking to Mr. Farthingham (about beetles of course, but he did seem genuinely interested) and Jane was conversing pleasantly with Mr. Bingley.
And then suddenly everything inexplicably went very wrong. Mr. Bingley took his leave of Jane without asking her to dance, and worse still when I turned to speak to Dora she was no where to be found.
I have left Jane in the corner with Mrs. Rose (a highly respectable but somewhat senile nonagenarian who has no idea where she is but is pleased as anything to be here) while I search for Dora. The last thing I wanted was for Darcy to emerge from the card room just as things have gone to—
"Bloody hell," I said, this time quite audibly, as a portly gentleman trod on my toes. Portly and full of port if his stumbling gait is any indication. Mrs. Hamilton has seemingly tried to make up for her lack of sufficient floor space by the liberal distribution of her wine stores.
The gentleman was still shouting apologies at me when Darcy finally pushed his way through the mob, though he made a hasty retreat when he saw Darcy's glare.
He should not have worried. The glare was not for him.
It was for me. I know because it is the Lizzy Specific Glare.
This glare is thusly composed: one half exasperation, one quarter amusement, one third ire, two thirds resignation, and one eighth some inscrutable, smoldering emotion I cannot quite describe, but just the merest hint of it in his eyes makes my knees weak—which is unfortunate because it is hard enough to stay upright with my possibly broken toes.
I realize that all adds up to one and seven eighths, but it is a complicated glare.
And Darcy is a complicated man.
And my feelings for him are complicated . . . to say the least.
"Should we perhaps find someone to perform a formal introduction?" I asked after a long bout of silence.
The Lizzy Glare shifted to a look of bewilderment, another expression he wears so often in my presence I might as well call it his Look of BeLizzyment.
"We see so little of each other lately I thought perhaps you no longer recognized me and needed to be introduced," I explained.
"No matter how much you might endeavor to avoid me, do not think I will so easily forget you," Darcy said in a low, teasing tone. His eyes glittered with that alluring smolder, touched with an edge of warning.
"I am the one doing the avoiding?" I asked, lowering my own voice.
I should have been more careful. I had forgotten how very interesting we are.
All the conversation around us had taken on that distracted, stilted quality conversation so often does when its participates are just using it as a cover for their eavesdropping.
"Of late? Yes, I should say so."
Perhaps I had been the one doing the avoiding.
Lately. But it was not intentional. Fine, not completely intentional.
Not seeing much of Darcy was an unintended advantage of having so very much to do.
Not an advantage, I do not mean that. I want to spend time with Darcy.
I want to get to know him. Probably. . . .
I want to get to know him if he is the person I want him to be rather than the person I thought he was when I first met him.
Does that make sense? No, I know it does not, but it does not matter.
Between preparing for our Twelfth Night ball and chaperoning Dora and Jane to various events I have barely seen him much less spoken to him.
Which is good. Because we are at odds. As usual.
He is keeping Jane and Mr. Bingley apart. Not in the obvious, idiotic way he tried the evening of Jane's arrival. No, this time he has carried out some insidious plan and it has worked masterfully. Probably. . . .
I have no proof of any nefarious schemes on his part.
How could I have any such evidence? As I've said, I have barely seen him.
But I have observed Mr. Bingley quite closely and the change in him is undeniable.
He has grown colder and colder towards Jane throughout this past week and, though I know Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst would do anything to keep their brother from making an alliance with the Bennets, I do not think they have enough influence over him to have brought about such a dramatic alteration.
Darcy, however, could persuade Mr. Bingley so completely.
He told me as much when I was staying at Netherfield during Jane's illness.
Of course he was not speaking of his own influence in particular when he revealed how easily Mr. Bingley could lead by a friend, we were speaking hypothetically. Probably. . . .
I wish now I could better remember his exact words.
I know it was a silly conversation. Or rather, it was a silly argument, for we were always at odds even then.
But I wonder now if Darcy might have been trying to warn me.
Amiable as Mr. Bingley is, he is, like all of us, not without deficiencies of character.
And this malleability he has demonstrated is a dreadful deficiency.
At the time, I believe, I contended that to readily surrender to the persuasion of a friend was virtuous, displaying a deeper regard for the affection between friends than for the satisfaction having one's own way.
Now I feel Darcy might have had a point about the importance of well-reasoned arguments and adhering to one’s convictions no matter how minor.
I hate it when Darcy has a point. I also hate the way he is looking at me.
He isn't glaring anymore. His gaze has gone all soft and concerned .
. . and proprietary. From the look on his face one would think he took some sort of binding vow to be responsible for my health and happiness till the end of his days.
"Are you injured?" he asked with a glance to my foot, which I had quite forgotten until he mentioned it.
"I am fine," I replied. I may limp for the rest of my life, but I am fine.
"You appeared distressed."
"Not distressed. Only slightly pained."
"I meant earlier. You appeared to be in distress—searching for someone."
"I wasn't," I said perhaps too curtly.
"I thought perhaps you needed me."
"I didn't," I said most certainly too curtly.
"Of course not," Darcy said with equal curtness.
I should tell him what has happened. He could probably find her easily in the crowd. He is so tall, he has a much better view but. . . .
I don't want to fess up to my negligence. I should have kept my eye on her, I should have paid attention. Yet I never expected her to wander off. I am certain she could not have gone far. If I could just find her before Darcy notices—
"Where is Dora?"
Damn him. Damn him to the bloodiest circle of bloody hell.
"Who?" I asked with absolute innocence because it's always worth a try.
Darcy regarded me as a strict parent would regard a naughty child, or at least I assumed so. I cannot be sure, I never had a strict parent.
"I have misplaced her. Momentarily," I admitted.
Darcy's lips formed an indulgent sort of half-smile. Perhaps things are not so dire after all.
Teasingly he said, "It is becoming a habit with you, losing my cousins."
Ah, so he had heard about that.
"I did not really lose Belinda, whatever your aunt may say. We were playing a game. It is hardly my fault she found such an effective hiding spot and promptly fell asleep in it."
"Yes, but perhaps it was not necessary for you to tell my aunt you had sold her daughter to a chimney sweep," Darcy chided. He and I have very different definitions of 'necessary'.
"Belinda was not five minutes missing when Mrs. Vane fixed me with that lethal glare you Darcys are so adept at and said, 'If you have lost her my kindness to you is henceforth over.' She used henceforth in a sentence unironically whilst suggesting she has ever been kind to me—"
"Come now, she has smiled at you at least once," said Darcy.
"Oh yes, she has given me a Darcy smile. The sort of smile that makes you wonder if the smiler is only slightly nauseated by you or is possibly contemplating hunting you for your hide."
"We Darcys cannot be as bad as all that."
I raised my brow in a mocking portrayal of that supercilious thing he is always doing with his eyebrows. He seemed to find it amusing.
"So you see it was necessary," I said, returning to the original topic, "There could be no other response to such an over-dramatic threat."
"Yes, the obvious solution for overreaction is to create more drama."
"She deserved it, I had to bait her. She should know by now I am jesting. Besides, Belinda is far too large to climb all but the grandest of chimneys and in another year even those will be beyond her. No business minded sweep would make such a poor investment."
Darcy chuckled. I felt inordinately proud of myself for having elicited that chuckle. I felt prouder still when he said, "You are glorious."
I was stunned by his announcement and for a full half minute was not capable of speech at all. Then, not wanting to show how deeply his words had affected me, I said flippantly, "Finally you notice."
"I have noticed before now. Long have I realized that you are. . . ."
Brilliant?
Gorgeous?
Hilariously witty?
Seriously, Mr. Darcy what am I? I must know. But he trailed off frustratingly, clearly lost for what to say next.
Yet he had said glorious. I had never felt myself to be glorious before, but I would certainly take it. It was more than I had hoped for. The exhilaration that compliment had caused within me should shame me, however it just made me want more.
But I could not let it show.
"As much as I would love to wait here for you to extol my many virtues, perhaps it is time to find Dora?"
Darcy looked relived at my change of subject, as if he had said more than he had wished.
"Yes, we should find her."
"I will find her," I replied waspishly. Why had I spoken so sharply? What is wrong with me?
In a more regulated tone I added, "She is my responsibility."
"She is no more your responsibility than mine," Darcy said.
I fidgeted with the lace on my gown unwilling to meet his eye knowing that he must be regarding me with a look of confused amusement. I was acting strangely, first prickly and now suddenly as timid as Belinda and Henrietta's governess.
"I do not wish to trouble you." Now I even sounded like little Miss Hopkins.
"It is no trouble," Darcy said. And yes, there it was, that look of amused bemusement dancing in his eyes. I knew how he would react to things. The expressions he would make, the words he would speak. I was beginning to know him. It was terrible. I must make my escape.
"I will find her. On my own," I said in a tone that quelled all argument. And then I turned and flounced away in a haughty manner that would have been far more impressive if I had not needed to hobble slightly because of my injured foot.